The Barrel’s Bottom
After weeks of covering the Wisconsin protests (touched on here), Ann Althouse and Meade now poke through the dregs.
“The planned economy… it works throughout Europe.”
And no, the barrel’s bottom hasn’t quite been reached.
“So what was undemocratic about the election back in November?” “Nothing.”
“Hi, everybody. Fuck you.”
It’s like a parade.
Of stupidity. How do these people remember to keep breathing in and out?
How do these people remember to keep breathing in and out?
No need. The state will do it for them.
Here’s a fun game. Watch all three clips in the order above and then re-watch the first one. The chap with the beard comes across as quite intelligent.
My favourite one, though, is the lady with the sign. Her friend’s friend made the sign, it seems. “She spends a lot of time making signs”, she informs us. Oh good.
Camera man: “So is this your message?”
Sign lady: “I don’t have a message…”, adjusts sunglasses causing a small cluster of neurons somewhere on her cerebral cortex to fizzle briefly into life, looks at sign. “Oh yeah. Right. This is my message”.
Beyond rubies…
“Here’s a fun game…”
Yes, it’s something when the idiot socialist seems the least contemptible specimen.
Re the mainstream media’s coverage of Wisconsin…
http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/2011/03/wisconsin.html
What doesn’t get reported…
http://biggovernment.com/jjmnolte/2011/03/17/20-days-of-left-wing-thuggery-in-wisconsin-when-will-obama-democrats-and-msm-call-for-civility/
“What doesn’t get reported…”
Ah, but these details are overlooked for the greater good.
And the BBC already knows what good-hearted people should think. It’s just making sure they do.
Beard-boy reminds me of the more religious types I went to parochial school with. You replace “socialism” with “Jesus” and “Christianity” and it’s clear to me that his brother-from-another-mother signed my 8th grade yearbook.
“The planned economy… it works throughout Europe.”
Err, what planned economy? And when we did (sorta) have one, it didn’t work: which is why we got rid of it.
I think I hear the 1970s calling asking for their red-flag-draped idiot back.
Fred,
“I think I hear the 1970s calling…”
While watching hours of video from the protests, I kept thinking of Saul Alinsky’s 1971 book Rules for Radicals. It seemed to have been brought to life, with all of the adolescent idiocy and inversion that entails. Crowds chanted “This is what democracy looks like,” while their political representatives obstructed the democratic process and union “activists” physically intimidated their opponents, banging on the windows of family homes, ripping up rival petitions and threatening Walker-supporting businesses, all in the name of “equality and fairness.” Some made personal threats against bloggers who filmed these things taking place. Meanwhile other “activists” made noises about “social justice” and “public service” while writing fake sick notes for absentee teachers, thus leaving the taxpayer with a multimillion-dollar bill for work not done.
Given its cult status among some sections of the left – Sunny Hundal describes himself as an Alinsky “disciple” – it’s likely that quite a few of the protestors have read Alinsky’s juvenile little book. Which is interesting because Alinsky wasn’t really interested in democracy, principle or moral coherence. He was interested in strategy and power – and in winning despite democracy.
David,
“…because Alinsky wasn’t really interested in democracy, principle or moral coherence. He was interested in strategy and power – and in winning despite democracy”
the left in general are not interested in democracy, except in so far as it serves their goals of being in power. This applies equally to the soft, squishy left as it does to the Stalinist left: it is just a question of degree.
To whit: Obama and/or his minions pre-November 2010 saying “elections have consequences”, and “we won”, and “Republicans can come along for the ride, but they have to sit in the back seat”. Compare and contrast with what has been going on recently.
It equally applies to Labour and the left’s response to the election of the coalition in the UK, and exactly the same thing happened in the Netherlands: the first protest was pre-organised at the Dutch parliament for day one of the inauguration of the current right-of-centre coalition.
Further comment related to “The planned economy… it works throughout Europe.”
I just finished last night Claire Berlinski’s book, “Why Thatcher Matters”. She makes, amongst others, the very interesting point that an important part of the Thatcher legacy is that no mainstream party of the left takes Clause 4-type socialism seriously any more, not just in the UK but also in mainland Europe.
However, people like the beard in the top video are clearly under the delusion that all of Europe is run under Clause 4 lines. The following quote from her book in response to Neil Kinnock bringing up Sweden as an example to be followed applies here to the idea that the American left has about Europe:
Socialists love analogies to Sweden. But they are always unconvincing because they are based on some fantasy Sweden, rather than on an actual Nordic country bordered by Norway and Finland. In the Sweden of lore, every single woman is also 18 years old, blonde, busty, lonely, naked and waiting for you in the sauna. hat tip Samizdata
Fred,
Yes, Berlinksi’s book is an amusing read. I quoted a couple of extracts and linked to an interview here.
Incidentally, dicentra wrote a lengthy fisking of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals over at Protein Wisdom.
And speaking of residue, a defaced monument inspires discussion…
Then things get confused and tumble downhill.
“We need better teachers.”
“What’s wrong with a pure, theoretical communism?”
Irony overload.
“Irony overload.”
It does have an allegorical quality. Someone felt entitled to deface a civic monument with a signature line from The Communist Manifesto, a blueprint for tyranny and destitution, and then left their vandalism for someone else to clean up.
The dynamic is telling.
Did anyone ever call Lenin a buffoon?
Calling these a-hem, er, “teachers” names like buffon or stupid reminds me of reading of the pre-Nazi period. How HItler couldn’t win ’cause he was a buffon. That people would wake up to the danger he represented.
There has as yet been no real consequences to the fascist march on Madison; no real punishment The dynamic may be telling, but who is listening?. I’d expect jail time for the protesters. I’l settle for their unemployment. But nothing will happen. If we’re lucky videos few watch will assure the people will reject these “teachers.”
Even the Social Democrats in Berlin in 1930 had their own street gangs.
David: Amazon (US) “Education Out of Bounds” by Lewis & Kahn (via William Briggs). Worse postmodernism than I could imagine. I suspect it’s a hoax–and that you helped.
http://hansenreport.wordpress.com/2011/03/01/noodles-guy/
in the althouse comments section the other day, I saw this video about the Noodles dictatorship and “That’s how it works” : a willing buyer and a willing seller.
Col. Milquetoast,
“…the Noodles dictatorship…”
Wow. There’s a kind of obstinate, prideful stupidity only found among “radicals” such as Mr Lewis, our would-be revolutionary and bringer of wisdom. The ideological chutzpah is a thing to behold. Mr Lewis’ employer would “have to abdicate his position as the owner” or be deemed a class enemy. Because, hey, Mr Lewis and his fellow socialists are entitled to confiscate someone else’s business and then, presumably, drive it into the ground.
the Noodles dictatorship
He’s got to be a student. That kind of stupid has to be taught.
Planned economies are out of vogue even among socialists these days. Perhaps they have realized that a well-functioning economy requires a billion rational decisions a day, often in areas requiring extraordinary expertise, and that no government organization can direct such a beast without screwing up big time.
Although Chavez might not have received the memo.
“He’s got to be a student. That kind of stupid has to be taught.”
It’s easy – and important – to laugh at people like Mr Lewis – and there are plenty of people just like him, to the point of eeriness.
But there are also people with similar views whose ambitions aren’t so funny:
“We need to have a very simple strategy. How do we bring down the stock markets?”
“I think I hear the 1970s calling…”
oh.good.god.no.
I lived through it once and somewhere Jimmy Carter is smiling that President Present is actually making Carter’s look good.
Rabbit,
“Planned economies are out of vogue even among socialists these days”
Quite… in the Netherlands, even the SP (originally a Maoist split-off from the Moscow-line CPN) now restricts itself to whining about the supposed iniquities of “neo-liberalism”, and they are a bunch of unwashed hippy squatter-types.
With the exception of the BNP, no vaguely-mainstream party advocates renationalisation any more.
For a scary view back at what could have been, have a read of the desperately earnest and desperately wrong-headed 1983 Labour Party manifesto. In summary, it is “back to 1979, and then some”.
“I think I hear the 1970s calling…”
Len McCluskey, Labour’s new union paymaster, pines for the 70s too. He also claims, “There is no such thing as an irresponsible strike.”
One wonders what the union leaders would think if the taxpayers went on strike and refused to pay taxes to Big Government.
And now we have this from Hugo…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/22/us-venezuela-chavez-mars-idUSTRE72L61D20110322
I’d say it’s high time that reality put its foot down and say “Enough Already!”
“I have always said, heard, that it would not be strange that there had been civilization on Mars, but maybe capitalism arrived there, imperialism arrived and finished off the planet.”
So Mars wasn’t red enough? Hugo’s “adoring audience of British left-wingers” will, I’m sure, concur.
“He added that the West’s attacks on Libya were about water and oil reserves.”
Why did you come to Tripoli, Hugo?
I came to Tripoli for the waters.
But Tripoli is in the desert.
I was misinformed.
Incidentally, more on the Wisconsin protest dregs here.
Lots of pot banging and chants of “this is what democracy looks like.” But if, like Meade, you video this display of vibrant and righteous democracy, you’ll be encouraged to leave.
I don’t know how the topic of Chavez came up — oh wait, I did that — but here’s further news on his relentless drive to engineer famine in Venezuela:
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6080
Cause nothing says “socialism” like massive body counts.
Lots of pot banging and chants of “this is what democracy looks like.” But if, like Meade, you video this display of vibrant and righteous democracy, you’ll be encouraged to leave.
Some people just cope with cognitive dissonance really, really well.
“Some people just cope with cognitive dissonance really, really well.”
Heh.
In the second video Amish Beard Guy tells us about freedom of speech and assembly. (Or rather, about his freedom of speech and assembly – a different standard would seem to apply to people who disagree with him.) He and his associates apparently feel entitled to impose their “speech” on others with forceful “occupations,” mass drumming, vandalism and round-the-clock chanting. Amish Beard Guy doesn’t seem concerned by the effects of this “speech” on others, or by the cost to others of cleaning up afterwards – several hundred thousand dollars – or by the possibility that the drumming and round-the-clock chanting might be a nuisance to local residents.
It’s strange to see a grown man trying to rationalise an attitude more commonly found in chronically spoiled children.