How hope and change will come to you. After the Read More.
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Glenn Reynolds remembers how Chas Freeman was yet another Obama appointee who had connections to stuff that nobody noticed. He quotes Mark Hemingway as saying that the “NYT didn’t write a single word about the controversy until after the fact.” Some commentators have expressed surprise at all the attention being given to Van Jones, who they describe as a low-level appointee. But the Politico notes that “Jones has deep ties to the current liberal elite: He was a top aide to Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington’s 2003 campaign for governor of California, and Sunday won praise from, among others, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean.” Glenn says, “it makes sense they’d keep mum. Some news isn’t fit to print.” It does make sense, but only from a cynical and partisan point of view.
Howard Dean makes it plain that all who stand in the way of progress will either come quietly or wish they had.
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And it just might work because while we’re reading the comments on this blog, each one of Dr. Dean’s troops is emailing 170,000 of his friends.
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Howard Dean another mean spirited political hack and a totalitarian leftist.
I don’t know what the “DFA” organization stands for as concerns Dr. Dean or Governor or whatever, but in a video game I used to play with my son, it meant “Death From Above.”
How Quaint…How appropriate.
Howard Dean: the Baghdad Bob of the Obama Administration.
L3
You can kill information through silence if you have the monopoly of the news. Both Van Jones’ and Freeman’s case are important because they prove that the MSM cannot keep things out of the news anymore. Maybe the election of Obama will, in the near future, be seen as the MSM’s high-watermark and their last concerted show of strenght in a fast changing information universe.
It’s time for Obama to begin asking himself: “Can we?” And: “How much? For how long?” But I’m not sure he has the mindset to actually understand what hit him?
Are we seeing the beginning of the end of the Obama Bubble?
I sense the urgency of the final paragraph. Are the Tea Parties sustainable or are they an illusion of resistance that will fade with the turning of the leaves in the fall?
So far we still have the scattered folks who have the energy to dig up information and a few vehicles for distributing it. How long either will last shall determine our future.
Referring back to an earlier BC post, the issue will be how long the public stays in love. Facts never made people fall out of love, especially when they are studiously avoided or never spoken of in politically correct circles.
How much staying power do we have? And how effective will it be for the rest of the country still in love?
My feeble comment on BC versus Dean’s 170,000 emails? The 50 or so folks on my email list tell me I send them too many things that get them upset. They want me to send no more than one per week. No one wants to know about the icebergs ahead; the food and the music on the Titanic are far more entertaining.
There is a well-known organizational phenomenon called “the competency trap.” Basically, the idea is that organizations become successful because they’re really good at doing a particular thing (their “competency”) that happens to work in a given context.
However, when the context changes, the very fact that they’ve been successful makes it less likely that they’ll be able to react to the change. This makes long-term organizational survival unlikely, since changes are always occurring in the environment and eventually those changes will render that competency a liability.
For instance, for decades domestic steel producers were great at vertical integration; they were able to tie up all of the domestic sources of iron ore, which prevented new entrants to the market – hard to make steel without a reliable source of iron ore, right? They became very, very good at finding any new ore source, and tying it up. They could afford to pay a lot more for the marginal mine than a new player, so new new player emerged. The result was an oligopoly, and the resultant big profits.
Their cozy situation ended, however, with the development of a new technology: mini-mills that were able to make steel from recycled materials like old car bodies. Nucor is the most famous such company. This new technology essentially meant there was another feedstock for a steel production process, and that process was much more cost-effective.
The steel companies, however, were so good at vertical integration that they were unable to see the threat that was emerging from mini-mills. Their competence blinded them to the new threat. They were caught in a competency trap.
It looks like the President may have a similar vulnerability. He has been so competent at controlling the MSM – a huge factor in his election – that he may be unable to adjust to the reality that the MSM is in a death spiral. On the internet, no one can control the emergence of a meme, and as the internet continues to grow in impact, his ability to control the message will necessarily wane.
Add to that an inner circle that is an echo chamber comprised of a generally inexperienced group of ideologues and you have all the makings of a massive blind spot in his government.
What he has on his side the same thing Clinton had: a tremendous desire to stay in power. Whether his instinct for self-preservation will trump his ambition to remake the nation is the question that will be answered in the next 6 months.
President Obama: is he a man of steel?
L3
I talk to ordinary Democratic voters daily (though not much about politics). During last year’s campaign I commented here that they showed an extraordinary determination to support the Democrats. It was like they were returning to the Democratic Party of their grandparents and they did not want to listen when I explained that that party no longer exists.
I won’t say they are now sympathetic to Republicans because they are not. But they are not real enthused about the direction the Democrats in Washington are headed. What is telling is how little effort they put forth in defending what Washington is doing. They might accept the MSM line but with zero commitment — a few words is enough to get them thinking another way. When I tell them that the Democrats are creating Washington Controlled Cartels in finance, energy and health care — cartels which will exploit the American people, they willingly admit the danger.
If Politician Dean wants to be on the side of the Fat Cat Bureaucrats in Washington, and turn the health care of the American People over to the tender mercies of the DC Political Bosses and their thousands of cronies, all to turn the Medical System into a source of political spoils and corruption, well, let him be warned: Many of the non-activist base of his own party are quite skeptical. And when I put it to them that way, they admit I might be right.
Another warning — they are starting to listen to Rush. I’ve had more people talk to me about what they heard on Rush in the last month then all of last year. He is becoming an acceptable source for Doc Dean’s voters.
Now, these voters do have concerns (legitimate concerns, in my view). For instance, a friend has a daughter — also a friend — who has Crohns disease and worries about keeping her coverage since she recently lost her job. I mentioned such reform options as insurance pools for high risk patients and those with on going conditions, with the government paying part of the cost. The pools can contract with providers and hospitals for the care. In other words, there are other choices (that she is not told about) besides letting Washington screw up the entire health care system. Once that vast, impersonal machine starts moving, you can only hope you are one of the few lucky ones to benefit, since there will be no going back and you will need to get yours before the whole system begins to collapse (or implode, as they say in Canada about their system).
Isn’t that 170,000 emails a self-fulfilling prophecy? An inward directed loop that just goes round and round and round to the same fewer and fewer and fewer accolytes who still believe in Daily Kos, who still post on Puffington Host, and who are still waiting for Obama to buy them free gas and pay their mortgages?
I’ve been noticing for several weeks now a growing dearth of trolls. Where have all the trolls gone? You very rarely read any of the sort of all-praise-Obama posts here on BC that we used to get with some regularity before and after last November. I’m assuming that Wretchard isn’t editing them out, so where went those posters? I’m absolutely positive they didn’t get wonderful new jobs and don’t have time to cruise the internet any more looking for people to call idiots. Neither do I think they’ve all joined the Army and are gearing up to fight for their country.
Is it possible that they’re giving up on Obama and his socialist promises to take from the rich (anyone with a job) and give to the dumb unemployed (most Obama supporters)? Or all they all in Mexico learning how to goosestep in sync in a Soros-funded neo-brown shirt organization?
I’m also noticing that Wretchard seems to be considerably more pessimistic about what’s going on in America than the Americans who post here. I’m sensing a vitality in the air and an energy that the SOBs may have won that one little election, but they sure as hell haven’t won the war, and that the tide is turning. Maybe that vibe doesn’t carry clear across the ocean to Australia where an on-looker could sense it, but really — just look at the increasing numbers of participants in the Tea Party and anti-Obama / healthcare rallies from hundreds in April to thousands and tens of thousands now, and then have a little giggle at the insanity that we’re supposed to cower about a few e-mails in response to all those actual warm breathing bodies who are going to the trouble to stand up and make themselves heard in person.
The fall of Green, one of the Obama Czars may well be the first of many causualties that we may start seeing from within this administration. The liberal attacks on conservative talk shows, the threats of the “Fairness Doctrine” resurfacing, or something like it, the attempts and moves to
consider smothering the internet from anyone or site that criticizes Obama, his friends are all attempts to seize complete control over media sources. The left has opened several hornet nests and they are desperate to regain control. How desperate, and to what levels they will stoop to pass their plans and push their agendas remains to be seen.
Howard Dean and his stooges can send out those 170,000 emails but there is so much negative news about Obama, health care, Crap and Tax, the two wars, it may well be spiraling out his and the liberals control.
I have had many of my friends ask me for my sources that I use for news and information
of late I cannot keep track of them.
Batman, your feeble comments have much more power than you realize. To sit still and or to remain silent is the worst thing we can do. At times I feel the same way but for the sake of my two children I will never again sit still or be silent. There is too much at stake and if I wanted to live under demosocialism I would move to Europistan. No
thanks, I will stick to my guns and religion and stake my rights at the well of our foundations, the Constitution.
#2 RCM – that wouldn’t have been Mechwarrior would it? Awesome game.
@NahnCee: Bingo! I’ve been wondering about the trolls, too. In general, they seem to have been reduced in numbers, vituperance, and staying power. A comment that might have heralded a flame war is swatted aside with a singe off-hand reply. A post that might have invited multiple, harshly ridiculing comments now attracts a few polite points of contention.
I don’t claim to understand, but I have noticed.
Deleted, double post.
By the way, 170,000 emails? What, is that supposed to be impressive? Yawn.
How about 285,081 followers of this Twitter?
Now that’s impressive.
L3
Norman Mailer’s Armies of the Night is an interesting reference here. That book uses the 1968 viet nam demonstrations around the pentagon as background for Mailer’s ruminations.
My dad was in the pentagon in 1968 when viet name protestors gathered around the pentagon. Their object was to levitate the pentagon. Soldiers lined up in a circle around the pentagon. Protestors put flowers in their gun barrels.
My dad was a WWII vet he went through new guinnea and the phillipines and then to japan after the war. He went to Korea during that war. He was one of the last guys out of Pyongyang as the troops came south from the Yalu.
He stayed over a couple nights in the Pentagon that weekend in 1968. He worked in the Pentagon clinic. The clinic’s job was to chat with the men, give them cigarettes and generally do whatever was called for when the officers decided someone needed to be pulled out of the line.
I recall the look in his face the Monday morning he returned home. America was taking a different direction than one he knew or recognized. You could say he looked like he had seen a ghost.
I was in high school at the time. Two years later I started attending viet nam demonstrations downtown against the war.
I read Mailer’s book Armies of the night in about 1975 in New York City. I thought it was cool and interesting.
I looked at that book again about 1995. I recall thinking then that the book was total gibberish.
Mailer got his start with the book Naked and the Dead. He went to the pacific during WWII. But he already had a template of war in his mind from the book All Quiet on the Western Front. So he didn’t really let events tell him how to react. Rather he imposed his own predetermined ideas on the action. You can see something similar in Stanley Kubric’s work. Kubric ideas were organized. Mailers ideas however, in Armies of the Night were just a jumble of noise.
But now that gibberish haunts the white house and the halls of congress.
Regarding Screaming Dr Dean, what he is practicing is the Leninist theory of Democratic Centralism. The Leader sets the agenda for the Political Bureau then the Politburo sets the agenda for the Central Committee and then the Central Committee sets the agenda for the Party Congress which sets the agenda for the public legislature. In theory everyone gets to debate until that is they receive a directive from above. Of course if you babble a viewpoint contrary to what is later set as the agenda determined by higher authority then there will be consequences.
On two occasions Dean delivered veiled threats. Once by saying he was not criticizing Senators but only their policies, because it was expedient to do so. His phrasing made it clear that he had no problem with personally attacking politicians he disagreed with if they did not prove cooperative. The second time at the end when he said “We can be polite” he again implied that was a choice and that he could direct his army to go knock on doors and be impolite.
Charles,
Great post. Welcome home. Reminded me of Mark Twain discovering how much smarter his father became over time.
Nahncee,
You are correct in that the people in that hall will send each other most of those emails. We face the same problem. Much as we want to reach out our efforts must be tempered or they end up in the spam folder.
Leo Linbeck III,
The phenomenon has a biological analogue. The more specialized a species is to exploit a niche the more fragile is its position. Change is a natural process. Either you adapt or perish.
Dean makes me want to puke. The sheer, visceral hatred that man inspires in me makes me think it would be a very bad idea to ever be in the same room with him. He’s the guy who said, “We’re in a war between good and evil. And we’re the good.”
What a lying, terminally corrupt piece of human filth he is!
Good thing it is a holiday today. Take a rest. Howard Dean’s 170,000 strong Urukhai calling shots. Another war of words are looming.
LLIII/6–maybe you know but your last line has a sort of double meaning. The Bolshevik leaders all took revolutionary names–”Lenin”, for example, was not the man’s true name.
“Stalin” in Russian means “man of steel”.
Ed Driscoll was kind enough to link to my post, The Media’s Collapsing Advertising Rates (Everywhere but the Internet). Bottom line, internet revenue may indeed cross that of Newspapers, and perhaps eventually threaten TV.
The parent company of the Orange County Register, Freedom Communications, filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Leo Linebeck III is quite correct, the media is dying.
Everyone could click on Drudge or Instapundit, and see Van Jones in his own words on YouTube. Meanwhile the media said nothing. There is a general crisis of legitimacy. The Media, Obama (and before him Bush, and before him Clinton, and before him George Herbert Walker Bush), Congress, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, all lack any legitimacy or trust. People don’t believe them.
Obama promised to fix the economy … and he’s tacking health care and “green jobs” and apologizing for America. The Media reports on nothing.
whiskey@19
Congratulations on your post being linked. A recurring theme on Belmont Club is,’How can we help in the fight?’. One of the the greatly overlooked virtues of BC is the honing of writing and argumentation skills that proceeds apace. In my humble opinion, you have found your voice and each link by other blogs multiplies your influence. Our humble host (and his many contributors/commenters) may someday be viewed as the incubator(s) of a powerful conservative influence on the internet. May I then say, in the words of the great Thomas Jackson, ‘Press On’.
Nahncee, Neil, LOTM: I attribute the lack of trolls to the lines hardening. In order for negotiation there has to be chance that the other can be swayed. Pretty sure I read that first here. It could be that they figure they’ve got all the numbers they need now, too, or that the wheel is turning against them so it’s wasted energy.
Nahncee, your point about a training camp in Mexico reminds me of one of my favorite movies as a teen, Chuck Norris in The Octagon. If I had to pick a locale for the camp though, I’d put my money on the triangle down near Venezuela. The host is already bought and paid for there and there have been plenty of arms from Russia shipping in.
LFMayor: Maybe the trolls have to start worrying about their rent?
I do think you are open to something. However, if we are talking about the trolls on BC, excluding obvious paid, foreign agent provocateurs who crop up, say as around issues of Georgia or Russia, I think that we have managed to to raise the discourse here such that drive-by trolling, of the usual sort must give little satisfaction. It must be humiliating to even the duller eyed of the LEftist trolls.
I do think that in general people are starting to talk back out there, and the trolls lives are not so easy becuase of it. When i see posts on Politico, or follow some big twitter stream, such as the ones that came up over Iran, I do note that the non-left hold their own.
These responses also set fire to the lie that the Left is somehow more, intelligent, articulate or educated then the left. IT exposes them for what they are: dimwitted demagogues and bullies. Like most blowhards and bullies, they are not accustom to this sort of business.
In our case here, while the commenters and the writing here as always been at a high level, the intesity and the quality of it the last year or two militates against the standard troll tactics. As far as general forums go, BC is a rather demanding one. The sort of troll that haunt other sites, even other PJM blogs, forexample still get plenty of the usual troll of lower quality. I do note, however, that patience has worn thin there as well.
It’s much like the disappearing OBAMA/BIDEN bumper stickers.
looks like some folks realize they been snookered and don’t want to advertise just how snookered they were.
programmer@20: persistence
”Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent
will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with
talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan
‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the
human race.” – Calvin Coolidge
tomw
NahnCee @ 8:
The big dogs here wore out all of the Lefty chew toys! So they have gone home to mend.
Gordon @18:
L3
May I offer a thought on the dearth of quality trolls? During the campaign, the trolls were part of the paid effort of the Obama campaign. On some sites, we were able to track their shifts and days off, and who was working relief for those with days off.
The paid effort has slacked off since November, because the campaign is over. The bulk of the trolls have been laid off. I do wonder if they get Unemployment Insurance? After all, the SIEU Official/minister/NAACP Executive/Thug who beat up Kenneth Gladney at the Congressional Town Hall in St. Louis filed for workman’s comp. for injuries suffered when he gave Gladney the concussion. I’m sure that our DemStreamMedia with their “layers of fact-checking” will manage to overlook the question of who hired him, and what job he was supposed to be doing when he was “injured”.
As far as Wretchard being more pessimistic than the rest of us; I view him as being more realistic than most of us. If we survive, if we prevail; it is going to be a much smaller group of us than went in. And neither surviving or prevailing is guaranteed. Wretchard knows this from his past involvements in what we are facing. The only thing is, that those of us here [trolls and foreign agents excepted] probably are hard wired not to give up [Hier stehe Ich, Ich kann nicht Anders, Gott helfe mir, Amen.] and in any case by speaking out here we are probably on DHS’s terrorist list anyway. So we write. And our words go out and influence others who we never hear of.
I have been known to Google myself, to see where my scribblings have turned up. I am frequently surprised. Do not lose heart, just face the future openly and be ready for it.
Subotai Bahadur
Speaking of words conveying ideas, I heard a term recently (Either Wilkow or Church on Sirius) about the Democratic approach to Healthcare: He called it Date Rape- You are going to get it whether you want it or not. That to me is an effective, and very accurate, term for this and one that draws negative connotations. Using it widely could help kill this ugly monster.
Howard Dean, the Date Rapist of Healthcare Reform.
L3 @13:
That’s some funny stuff. I hope I’m as spry at 73.
Boraqh Hussaigne O’Bama – Man of Steal
“The paid effort has slacked off since November, because the campaign is over. The bulk of the trolls have been laid off.”
I’m thinking about this and it does not compute. It’s my understanding that ACORN *has* received already Federal funding as part of the various and assorted bailouts. And if ACORN has received funding, then does that not also mean that other groups of Obama accolytes (like the various auto worker’s unions) have also received some sort of funding to stay in business and keep up the campaign to support Obama?
So if these groups are still alive and kicking and hiring SEIU thugs to bus into demonstrations, then where have the on-line trolls gone? Are we saying that ACORN and SEIU aren’t computer literate enough to post on-line in support of Obama, or that there’s a war room in the White House that’s solely in charge of on-line Obama praise now, or that they’ve starved to death in their parents’ basement … or that the trolls have been siphoned off like the missing Somali’s in Minnesota and are now engaged in training for further mischief some place away from prying eyes?
Unemployed trolls reduced to offering their services as lawn ornaments. Oh the humanity. Err, or do I mean Oh the Trollility?
#31 Nahn Cee,
I think you misunderstand my view. It is not that they are out of money. The Democrats, and every group to the Left of them [a surprisingly small segment of the political spectrum, anymore, due to the fact that the Democratic Party would fit quite well into the old COMINTERN] now has a direct tap into the taxpayers’ wallets]. I was thinking more that they switched tactics when they took office, viewing trolling as something of a campaign tactic. They were taken totally by surprise by the appearance of an “Army of Davids” style resistance to them tied to the Internet. They are reacting like any other totalitarian group that has seized power, and believe that their control of the government and media will ensure eternal power. We are inside their OODA loop. This, by the way, is not a permanent condition; as they will a) react to our actions, and b) conditions will change by means other than what we are doing now, that neither side will anticipate.
As an example, what if this coming weekend there is a replay of the events of March 5, 1770? Or of St. Petersburg in either 1905 or 1917?
We do not know what tactics will serve, as this is ALL trial and error.
Subotai Bahadur
#7 hdgreene:
One point to drive home with traditional Democratic voters is that their party has become almost everything that the party claimed to be against. They have become the new main home of the moneyed interests and big corporations.
As to Van Jones: he is a genuine street thug. He was imprisoned for participating in the ’93 Rodney King riots, and formed close friendships with career criminals while in jail (he refers to them as “revolutionaries,” a code word for those who have total contempt for ordered, decent society). A violent ex-con is all he is, underneath it all.