Poor Glenn Beck   is in hot water again and it is really Beck and not that frog he didn’t really boil a few weeks ago.

This time the Fox News commentator who, as great a conservative/libertarian/anti-progressive as he is, once again ran his mouth before fully engaging his brain on the issue of social justice and churches.

Beck touched on the problem of social justice which is not an issue involving justice for everyone in society.  Beck viewed the term as a buzzword for priests, ministers, rabbis who want to effect a Communist or Nazi version of social justice.

That’s way over the top but, in Beck’s defense, it really involves misinterpreted definitions.

Take the words separately. 

“Social” refers to society and everyone in that society.  That would include the rich, poor, and everyone in between.  “Justice” refers to fairmindedness, equity. 

Combined, however, the term “social justice” takes on a whole new meaning in contemporary jargon, a meaning many on the Left interpret as sharing the wealth, as Obama said during the campaign, or wholesale re-distribution of America’s wealth, taking from the rich to share with the poor.

Obama’s favorite community activist organization, the almost-defunct ACORN, was a prime proponent of social justice which to them meant taking from anyone who worked for a living and giving to ACORN-types.

That scheme was fine for Robin Hood who never came close to impoverishing the nobility from whom he stole.  The ACORNers plan was not as much to raise up the poor as it was to bring down people of means. 

The distorted Leftist view is that whoever has money acquired it by force, deceit, cheating, or other nefarious deeds and thus are not entitled to their ill-gotten gains.  

So too is another relatively small group unentitled, those who inherited their money.  Think Rockefellers and Kennedys, unentitled since their inherited wealth was derived from forebears who used force, deceit, cheating to originally get rich.

There’s something to be said for seizing and re-distributing all that wealth, not much but something.  The same people who buy into the idea also allege that White Europeans stole America from the indigenous populations whereas this land of ours was acquired through a time-honored method: war and conquest.

In short, we won, they lost.  ‘Twas ever thus.  Case closed.

Likewise with wealth acquired through less than admirable ways, as in rum-running by Papa Joe Kennedy or being a thieving oil baron like John D. Rockefeller.  It may not be especially palatable to most people who didn’t come up with the idea first but the alternative of social justice through income re-distribution is even less palatable under the American system.

Who would get what and how much would they get?  What criteria would be established to determine the most needy?  If the most needy get the bulk of other’s wealth, would the less needy but still needy be content?  If it’s fairly distributed, who’s to define what’s fair?  The government?  And who is to pass judgment on any government’s sense of equity?

Personally, I’d almost trust the Kennedys and Rockefellers before any government entity. 

All those questions are moot, anyway, in our constitutional, democratic republic and if that re-distribution of wealth in the name of social justice were ever to become the law of the land, my guess is that within a generation or so those who started out poor will be poor once again and those who began rich would be rich again.

Jesus Christ may have preached social justice and I’m personally in favor of it.  That is, as long as the financial aspect of that justice is predicated on voluntary giving through charity.  If not, I vote for Glenn Beck and advise that anyone who is advised by a priest or church to share the wealth insist that the priest and church share their wealth and perks first.

If they agree, tell them you’ll think about it, then switch churches.

So, since they seem to want us to believe that they hate “astroturf,” will the left-wing press get all upset that this “coffee party” effort really IS Astroturf? Will the Old Media explode in calls of “astroturf” as it did during the early phases of the tea party movement? Or will they pretend that this coffee party business is real grass roots and report on the effort based on that false assumption. Already it seems as though the coffee party effort is not meeting any real scrutiny and I just got an email that proves the essential “top-down” style upon which this effort is built.

Of course, we know the charge that the tea party movement is astroturf is untrue. While groups like Dick Armey’s Freedom Works, Americans for Prosperity, and a few others did rush to add their voices to the tea party events held all across the county last year (and continue to today) they neither originated the movement, nor did they invent the scope of events, nor did they control the message in any way. In fact they had to scramble to have any part in it at all. Even the big group’s efforts were ad hoc early on.

I know this because I was there in Chicago as the whole thing began and I saw when, where and how the larger national organizations arrived on the scene and it was later not earlier that it happened. I have, for instance, known Eric Odom, one of the early organizers of a large Chicago tea party event, since 2006. I watched as he staged the first big Chicago tea party and helped him build the effort in my own small way. (Odom now runs American Liberty Alliance.) I also have ties to AFP and Americans for Tax Reform and others and watched as they all began to line up behind the tea party movement. The big groups were late comers, for sure.

But all that aside, we can also discount this “astroturf” accusation by looking at the tea party groups today. Even still there is no national tea party group and the various local tea parties are not united as one. Each group across the land is autonomous and operate at various levels of effectiveness and organization. Some are deeply involved in their local politics, others are barely hanging together as a web-based communication tool.

Now comes this coffee party USA group claiming to be non-partisan. Frank Ross of BigGovernment.com did a great job proving that the creator of this “coffee party” business was really a big Obama operative. No thanks to the Old Media we quickly found out that Annabel Park, the coffee party originator, is an Obama operative and works for The New York Times as a “strategy analyst.” So, it was created by an Obama operative and member of the Old Media, but this was conveniently absent from early reporting on the coffee party phenomenon.

And now comes the first nationwide effort of this coffee party thingamajig and, surprise, surprise, it is also run by perpetual out-of-towners. Here in Chicago the coffee party is not being run by anyone here meaning it is being floated by outsiders, astroturfers, not grass roots locals like the tea party groups are.

Today I received this email alerting me to a “coffee party” kick-off event being held in Chicago where a local Chicagoan that stumbled upon the thing even admits openly that it isn’t being run by anyone local. In his personal email meant to drum up local support for this astroturf effort, the emailer (whose name I will not release) says, “Clearly, this organization is not led by someone from Chicago.” Why? Because the first event was planned to be held during the Chicago St. Patrick’s Day Parade one of City’s biggest local party days. As the emailer scoffs, “Otherwise they would know that we’d all be at a huge parade on this day and instead of drinking coffee we’d be drinking green beer.”

As the emailer says, it is plain that no one from Chicago is actually part of this faux grass roots “coffee party” business or they’d have chosen a different day to try to kick-off their thingamajig. Chicago’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade is one of the biggest city wide party days of the year and no one will be much interested in politics that day, for sure!

In all this is a classic example of outsiders, a perfect example of astroturf. Will the Old Media take notice?

Text of the email:

From: XXX XXX
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2010 01:43 PM
To: ‘XXX XXX’
Subject: Coffee Party USA Kick-Off – Saturday, March 13

Friends and Colleagues (some of you may receive this email twice – my apologies),

I hope you all can join me at the Coffee Party USA kick-off on Saturday, March 13 at Charmers Cafe, 1500 W. Jarvis in Rogers Park – 10:30 AM. Clearly, this organization is not led by someone from Chicago. Otherwise they would know that we’d all be at a huge parade on this day and instead of drinking coffee we’d be drinking green beer.

So, let’s compromise… after a cup of coffee and civil dialogue on the important political issues in our communities we will go next door for one of those beers at the Poitin Stil – a quaint Irish Bar.

If you can’t make the coffee party at Charmers Cafe, join us for beers at xxxxxxxx.(ed: I excise this bit so as not to help them advertise their coffee party event)

The Mission of Coffee Party USA is to give voice to Americans who want cooperation in government and bring civility and open discussion to the national political debates that are dividing our communities and our country.

I have attached the press release and poster for this event. Below is an excerpt from the press release:

The Coffee Party movement gives voice to Americans who want to see cooperation in government, and welcomes everyone to the table. “We are purely grassroots movement, independent of any party, corporation, or lobbying organization. That is our strength and we plan to use it to facilitate a collaborative process that would encourage people to come together as a community, checking party affiliation at the door,” said Annabel Park, the founder of Coffee Party USA.

Call if you have questions:
(xxx) xxx.xxx

Yep, classic astroturf.

(H/T Chicago News Bench)

On March 3, Barack Obama announced, with obvious frustration, that the health care debate was over. Everything to say has been said, and every argument has been made. No doubt the public agrees with those comments. After a year and a half, they’ve heard and seen it all. They’re growing weary of the orchestrated photo ops that exploit doctors, technicians, researchers, and sundry white-suited medical professionals in a clumsy effort to sway the American people. They’re tired of watching the impassioned speeches before hand-picked audiences, reinforced by the obligatory nodding of on-stage supporters. And though they are sympathetic to the plight of those who have fallen through the cracks in our health care system, they’ve had enough of the countless heart-breaking anecdotes suggesting mass victimization by ruthless health insurance companies. While the theatrics worked fairly well during his campaign, most Americans have since caught on to Barack Obarnum, the showman.

But he’s right about one thing. The debate is over. The public has decided. Beginning early last year Americans in town meetings across the country were already speaking out passionately against more government expansion, our exploding national debt, and a hastily-written health care bill that legislators hadn’t even read. It was the grass-root movement that Nancy Pelosi off-handedly dismissed as “astroturf.”

Then came the elections in Virginia, New Jersey, and, most notably Massachusetts, where voters chose a Republican, Scott Brown, the candidate who campaigned on the promise to derail the looming health care bill. At the time, Obama seemed to accept Brown’s victory graciously, announcing that the bill was dead. He even proclaimed that there should be no votes in the senate until its newest member was seated. Yet when he made that seemingly magnanimous gesture, he was already considering an alternate and more devious means of passing the legislation.

And the people have spoken in others ways. The Pew Research Center released a survey in January asking participants to rank their top priorities for the president and congress. Health care ranked number eight behind issues like the economy, jobs, and deficit reduction. In an NBC/Wall Street Journal survey conducted in January, only 33% of respondents indicated Obama’s health reform effort was a good idea, while 46% considered it a bad idea. And respondents to a Rasmussen poll released on the first of this month rejected Obama’s plan by a 52% – 44% margin. In poll after poll, in town hall meetings, and at the polling booths, the American people overwhelmingly reject the plan they see as costly, corrupt, and confusing. Some provisions may even be unconstitutional, like the requirement that all citizens purchase health insurance. Ultimately, most believe, the plan will result in a cavernous national debt, higher taxes, increased insurance premiums, and health care rationing.

Yet Obama and the Democratic leadership are more determined than ever to get this bill passed, and are willing to use any means necessary to do so, including reconciliation, the same process that Obama and congressional Democrats have, themselves, strenuously condemned, the process that Senator Harry Reid and then-Senator Joe Biden called an “arrogance of power,” the same process that Reid indignantly proclaimed was not even under consideration at the health care summit last month.

So the public has weighed all the arguments, and concluded that this bill is a bad idea. Yet congress continues the debate in a desperate effort to thrust it upon the American people.

And though they believe they are working out a health care bill, this debate is about something else. It is a contest between political ideology and the democratic process. It is about what right congress has to circumvent the will of the people. It is about the blind determination and boundless hypocrisy of a president and a congress poised to use the very same tactics that they unanimously denounced five years ago.

There has been a lot of talk about the near certain losses the Democrats face later this year if they defy the voters and pass this bill. Nancy Pelosi is telling fellow Democrats to show courage, to ignore the polls and put aside their own political futures. Yes, it will take courage to put aside their careers, but it will take far greater courage to stand up to the likes of Pelosi and fulfill their obligations to their constituents. In considering this bill, those who distinguish themselves as leaders will focus, not on the upcoming election, but on their oath of office, their commitment to the Constitution, and their responsibility to the American people. If they forge ahead in defiance of the people’s will, it is not democracy in action, it is nothing but unbridled arrogance and abuse of power.

The writer is a former Senior Special Agent of the U.S. Secret Service and holds a BA degree in psychology. He welcomes comments at plemis2@hotmail.com

But those? Well, those are all low class affairs done without an entire orchestra to back them up.

Now we have the brilliance of School children in Illinois, Comrade Obama’s home turf, to add to the din of young musicians enslaved to efforts to exalt Dear Leader. And this tops them all in production values — or at least in scope — for the Midwest Young Artists organization, a group dedicated to “inspiration through music,” has taken upon itself to give the Obammessiah the full orchestral treatment along with a choir and a spoken word segment to round out the production. Uncle Joe couldn’t have created a better display of fealty to Dear Leader. Kim Jong Il is likely red with envy.

Like a good little soldier for the cause Gary Fry, the Choral Program Director and Voices Rising Director for MYA, sat himself down to try his hand at composing a Wagnerian masterpiece, one of which any dictator would be proud. And boy does he deliver. (The original source may be found at the WMYA.fm page) After he was done with his Wagnerian moment, Mr. Fry had his piece performed on February 21, 2010 at Pick-Staiger Auditorium in Evanston, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago. And he enlisted the service of an entire auditorium of Chicago area school children for his paean to Dear Leader.

Now if you can excuse the miscues of these young artists, after all they are only in middle school, if you can set aside your need for technical perfection from the performers for just a minute, if you can look past the occasionally off-key squawk of a horn here, or a missed cue there, you really should watch this thing. Watch this video and listen to the grand scope of what Gary “Nietzsche cum Wagner” Fry was aiming for and it is sure to send a thrill down your leg and satisfy your need to stand up and salute your glorious leader in the White House. Long live Obama, long live Obama…

Perhaps you are as disgusted by this as I am? These orgiastic examples of propaganda for Obama are sickening we all know. In fact, not only are they sickening, entirely un-American, and even dangerous, they are hypocritical. After all, the same drooling, Obamagobsmacked pseudo intellectuals that created these bits of PR puffery would have been apoplectic if so many schools would have sang songs extolling the virtues of George W. Bush… or any other Republican for that matter. Call it a brainwashing tool, call it agitprop, indoctrination, or what ever you like. But at least when we’ve had celebrations of president in schools in the past the president in question at least had the decency to have already left office or even died — or at the very least was in attendance at the performance to politely applaud the little kiddie’s efforts.

These various efforts at Obamaganda were un-burdened by any rationale but to inculcate praises for dear leader in the young, impressionable minds of our school children.

Yep, it’s pretty disgusting, alright.

Well, it’s nice we can sing praises to something in our schools now, I suppose. After all, the ACLU and the Democrats have summarily eliminated anything that might be reasonably construed as a reference to Christianity. So, Dear Leader has replaced all that “God” stuff with himself in our schools. All praise Obama. He’s The One. May he reign as our ruler forever. So says, Gary “Nietzsche cum Wagner” Fry, so say we all.

Descriptions of the four clips linked above:

#1- A fascist-styled paramilitary youth corps video made by a teacher at the Urban Community Leadership Academy in Kansas City, Mo.

#2- The parents of a private school in Venice, California forced their kids to sing praises to Dear Leader while their Hollyweird pals made a nice, slick production out of the affair.

#3- This video was made by “Mr. B” and the kids from “room 8″ in what I think is a public grade school in Georgia.

#4- Of course, we all remember this clip whose tag line is “Barack Hussein Obama, mmm, mmm, mmm,” made famous by the kiddies from B. Bernice Young Elementary School in Burlington Township, NJ. The songs were written by Ms. Charisse Carney-Nunes, a children’s author.

Progressive Policies at Walt Disney Risk Damage to its Brand Image, says Free Enterprise Project

Shareholders Urged to Challenge CEO Bob Iger at Disney’s Annual Meeting

At 2:54 PM on Wednesday Ms. Conyers got her 37 month sentence handed down although she does not have to report until July 1st reports wxyz.com. She has 10 days to appeal and, if you ask me, failing to do that she should be in jail immediately.

The soap opera that is this case was not without its moments as Ms. Conyers tried to withdraw her guilty plea now saying that she did not do the deed she was accused of. Only a dunce, I suppose, would think it reasonable to plead guilty to a crime they did not commit. Come on Monica, just suck it up. Its not like you are going to be doing hard time or anything, even though you should be. Get your pretty orange jumper and go to your cell and enjoy the creature comforts you shouldn’t be afforded.

Corrupt politicians are right up there with child molesters and rapists if you ask me.

You know, if we would stop setting up the system so that it rewards corruption then we wouldn’t have this sort of monkey business going on in our governments.

In a story about Representative Sue Myrick (R, NC) and her association with The National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools as juxtaposed with her condemnation of radical Islam, Wardle sees no difference between a radical Islamist that might blow himself up with a suicide vest or cut off the head of a helpless captive and a Christian American that wants to use properly constituted law to have the Holy Bible used in the classroom.

Certainly you can disagree with having the Bible used as a text in the classroom, but to say that a person that does want the Bible in the classroom is no better than a terrorist is, well, just plain stupid. It is also intellectually vapid. Unfortunately, Mr. Wardle is all too representative of the vapidity of the left that so often comes to this intellectually dishonest conclusion.

Wardle reveals his hatred of all things Christian in his IndyWeek piece titled, “For Rep. Sue Myrick, Islamic moderates are extreme, Christian extremists are moderate,” wherein he equates Rep. Myrick to a religious extremist.

Wardle start his piece straight on with an attack on Rep. Myrick:

Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) is one of North Carolina’s staunchest defenders from Islamic extremism. When it comes to Christian extremism, though, the record is more mixed.

Wardle says that Myrick’s “defense against Islamic extremism” itself borders on the extreme.

Those are pretty serious charges, of course. So what does Wardle show as his proof to bear out the finger wagging at Myrick? One of the first of Wardle’s accusations would take an Olympic gymnast’s back-bending performance to agree with. In short it is weak as heck.

However, Myrick’s concern over religious extremism seems relegated to practitioners of one religion. At the forum, she pointedly avoided applying the label of “terrorist” to Joseph Stack, the 53-year-old Texan who flew his airplane into an IRS building in Austin in February.

Whether Stack should have been termed a terrorist by Myrick or not is one question, but what it has to do with the subject of religion is anyone’s guess. Austin IRS building attacker Joe Stack had no connection to any religion whatever. He did not perpetrate his act of terror in the name of religion so Wardle’s usage of Stack as his religious foil for Myrick is insensible. But such is Wardle’s hatred for both Myrick and Christianity that any stretch is excused, apparently.

Then Wardle goes on the attack against The NCBCPS, a “right-wing evangelical group” in Wardle’s terminology. Wardle reports that the NCBCPS’ goal is to “bring a state certified (sic) Bible course (elective) into the public high schools nationwide.” He says that the group claims that it has gotten its curriculum in 532 schools in 38 states.

Wardle counters that success by revealing that this group’s school texts have been criticized as containing “shoddy research, factual errors and plagiarism.” Wardle also lays out all the other groups and Media outlets that have attacked the veracity of the NCBCPS’ offerings.

But one thing is completely missing from Wardle’s piece. Any actual “extremism.” Apparently just the fact that the NCBCPS wants to get its curriculum in a school is enough to be classified just as extreme as al Qaieda to one such as Wardle

But implicit in the whole discussion (but only implied because Wardle does not say it) is the fact that if the NCBCPS did get its curriculum in schools in 38 states it must have done so through the legitimate process of appealing to school boards and having those schools agree to accept the program. In other words, the NCBCPS followed the same legal procedure that every other education advocate has followed.

Notice how the NCBCPS didn’t win over those schools by cutting off administrator’s heads, bombing public buildings, or killing students thereby using intimidation and violence to get its way. So, while this Christian group is certainly seriously active, to act as if they are somehow just as extreme as Islamic Radicals is idiotic.

But this is the empty logic that befalls the far left in this country. Any religion, all religion is classified as “extreme” to these people. No logic need apply.

FYI, that is pretty low.

This of course is very surprising since we have the messiah sitting in the oval office.  You know, the great leader and unifier that was supposed to point us out of the wilderness?  Remember him?   Gee, guess spending hundreds of billions of dollars, selling our great, great grandchildren into crushing debt and watching the economy sputter along thanks to decades of laws passed by liberals (both Republicans and Democrats) which are dragging us under the waves will wake people up pretty fast huh?

Yeah, yeah, I know. It is all George Bush’s fault.