Maggie's Farm

Class Warfare

Gwynnie recalls that since the major Republican wins in November a number of Liberal politicians have expressed disappointment in their constituents not voting in accordance with the priorities attributed to their perceived “class” by liberal theoreticians. Indeed, blue collar employees are expressing resentment at being described as “working class” by ivory-tower liberals. Class warfare, an invention of Karl Marx, has just about disappeared in the United States, and with it, the block which the Democrat Party is accustomed to assembling, leading, instructing and patronizing.

This week, Gwynnie, while using the New York Times for her normal doggie purposes, noticed the three-part series on Class differences and is highly entertained. The articles were entitled:

• Class in America: Shadowy Lines That Still Divide

• Up From the Holler: Living in Two Worlds, at Home in Neither

• When Richer Weds Poorer, Money Isn't the Only Difference - Marriage between people of different classes often means moving outside comfort zones

The Times’ message was that class is really important, even if Americans don’t think so.  To prove its theory, The Times took a poll: “To discover how Americans regard social class and where they place themselves, The Times conducted a nationwide survey in March. The poll uncovered optimism about a financial future, opportunities and the reward of hard work. While there are differences in the views of rich and poor and some respondents have a sense of tension and inequality, there remains strong faith in the American Dream, however defined. ” [emphasis added]  Gwynnie was curious about the concluding spin concerning “some respondents” so she looked at the data. As usual, the quote was negative spin very much in line with The Times’ usual editorial tactics. [Although Mr. Bush was elected, some people (reporters?) think he should have lost in Ohio. Although there are no more public hangings of women in the soccer stadium in Kabul, some Afghanis {Talibani?) find the occupation repressive.]

Here are their data:

• Is it possible to start out poor, work hard and become rich?  80% said Yes, 19% said no, vs. 57% yes and 38% no in 1983. [The number of respondents having “a sense of tension and inequality” is not revealed]

• Current class vs. when growing up: 45% said higher, 16% said lower

• Likelihood of upward movement vs. 30 years ago: 40% said easier, 23% said harder

• Upward mobility vs. in the EU: 46% said easier, 13% said harder.

“Where,” says Gwynnie, “are the ‘shadowy lines’? Although The Times is trying hard to make class important and thus reopen class resentment (and benefit old-line Democrat tactics), their data disclose just the opposite. The Times says, “The movement of families up and down the economic ladder is the promise that lies at the heart of the American dream. But it does not seem to be happening quite as often as it used to.” Gwynnie suggests that maybe that’s because so many are now in the middle, but not “happening quite as often as it used to” could refer to 1946, 1935, 1920 or even 1815. Here are The Times’ statistics for the period 1988-1998:

Another side of the Gary Keillor issue: Gwynnie thinks he's a sanctimonious twit:

Gwynnie Responds to The Barrister

with the following lyrics from God Shaped Hole, by Plumb

Filibuster

Thanks to Michelle Malkin and Powerline, Gwynnie would like us to reflect upon the following official quotes, all by Democrat leaders deploring the filibuster in judicial nominations.  Gwynnie would also like us to reflect upon the fact that they are completely consistent with the positions of the speakers today:

"It is not the role of the Senate to obstruct the process and prevent numbers of highly qualified nominees from even being given the opportunity for a vote on the Senate floor." Sen. Barbara Boxer, Congressional Record, May 14, 1997

"I find it simply baffling that a senator would vote against even voting on a judicial nomination." Sen. Tom Daschle, Congressional Record, October 5, 1999

"Let's bring their nominations up, debate them if necessary, and vote them up or down." Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Congressional Record, September 11, 1997

"I respectfully suggest that everyone who is nominated is entitled to have a shot, to have a hearing and to have a shot to be heard on the floor and have a vote on the floor. . . .It is not appropriate not to have hearings on them, not bring them to the floor and not to allow a vote." Sen. Joe Biden, Congressional Record, March 19, 1997

“If, after 150 days languishing on the Executive Calendar that name has not been called for a vote, it should be. Vote the person up or down.” Sen. Dick Durbin, Congressional Record, September 28, 1998

“I do not believe that I as a member of the minority ought to have the right to absolutely stop something because I think it is wrong, that that is rule by minority.” Sen. Tom Harkin, Congressional Record, January 5, 1995

"The Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court said: 'Some current nominees have been waiting a considerable time for a Senate Judiciary Committee vote or a final floor vote ... The Senate is surely under no obligation to confirm any particular nominee, but after the necessary time for inquiry, it should vote him up or vote him down.' Which is exactly what I would like.” Sen. Pat Leahy, Congressional Record, March 7, 2000

"The U.S. Senate likes to call itself the world's greatest deliberative body. The greatest obstructive body is more like it. In the last session of Congress, the Republican minority invoked an endless string of filibusters to frustrate the will of the majority. This relentless abuse of a time-honored Senate tradition so disgusted Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, that he is now willing to forgo easy retribution and drastically limit the filibuster. Hooray for him." New York Times editorial, "Time to Retire the Filibuster," January 1, 1995

Question: Why are these statements consistent with the apparent opposite statements being made by the same persons today?

Answer: Because they are Liberals. Liberalism is at its very core a sincere desire to get into a position of power to do good things for people who are unable accomplish (or even attempt to accomplish) those good things for themselves. That nice statement contains four underlying assumptions

1. Liberals know what “good things” are;

2. Liberals know what other people (loosely referred to as “masses”) really need;

3. Resistance by the masses to those ideas is based on ignorance; and

4. It is in the best interests of the masses to impose “good things” on them, even if they are do not agree (presumably, they will understand later).

Any questions so far?  Remember; it’s superior knowledge or understanding vs. ignorance or apathy.  When these concepts are put into practice, what one principle must necessarily fall by the wayside? Well, it’s democracy, of course. The power of the Liberal to do good things must be maintained – at all costs.  If the masses can be persuaded, so much the better, but if not, they must be overruled. Gwynnie remembers a law professor at a highly regarded university who was utterly horrified at a student’s impertinent suggestion that the state legislatures convene a Constitutional Convention as they have a right to do under Article V.  He said, “can you imagine what the PEOPLE might DO to the decades of protections added to the Constitution by the courts?”

No, the American people clearly cannot by trusted to act in the manner the elite want them to, which is why Liberals are passionate about power, not democracy.  All the statements made above by Boxer, Daschle, Feinstein, Biden, Durbin, Harkin, Leahy, and the New York Times , although couched in democratic terms, have nothing to do with any notion of moral or ethical principle, or democracy; the statements are about their own personal power and control.  In that light, saying that a Democrat filibuster is good and a Republican filibuster is bad are completely consistent.  It’s not about principle; it’s about WINNING!

How easy it is to forget that the heart of democracy is a willingness to lose, to accept the control of the majority, and to come back fighting in the next election. The Democrats are attacking the very foundation of democracy.

Arafat

DEBKAfile, which may have sources deep in Isreali intelligence, has a fascinating article on the wealth shipped to Palestine by naive western countries and kept by Arafat.  Gwynnie thinks it explains more about what is happening in Palestine today than anything else she has read.

Americans Recover Arafat’s plundered hoard

"A part of Yasser Arafat’s secret hoard - $4 bn - has been documented and accounted for in a painstaking project undertaken by Nigel Roberts, the World Bank’s country director for the West Bank, and Palestinian finance minister Salam Fayyad. They have obtained partial information about another $1-2bn and found a further three to four billion invested on Arafat’s behalf by two individuals, his chief financial adviser Mohammed Rashid, and Palestinian-born international tycoon Samer Khoury.

This was reported exclusively by DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s exclusive sources for the first time in DNW Issue 197 on March 11.

”You can stop going around with your hat in your hand,” a stern US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice told Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) at the London conference on Palestinian reforms earlier this month. “You have all the money you need to transform the economic situation in the Palestinian Authority.”

She told Abbas to go back to Ramallah and assume immediate control of the Palestinian Investment Fund (PIF) where the bulk of Arafat’s money was stashed, or forget about receiving a single aid dollar from international donors.

. . . .

     Abu Mazen was sent off from London to start selling off these assets to finance urgent projects for his impoverished people. He was warned that the $350 million pledged the Palestinians would be transferred only when it was matched by income from the sale of PIF properties – a dollar-for-dollar deal. The World Bank has projects ready to go. Roberts cited a $1bn plan to create 50,000 jobs in the Gaza Strip.

     Back in Ramallah, Abu Mazen ran into his first major obstruction to divestment: Prime minister Ahmed Quriea (Abu Ala), who by withholding his signature has the power to block any Palestinian Authority measure, accused Abbas of surrendering to US-British dictates and opening the door for them to take over Palestinian funds. Then, most of the 11 PIF board members resigned or are about to do so, further disabling the fund’s operations.

. . . .

     Abu Mazen’s close allies warn him, according to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Palestinian sources, that without control of the PIF, he will never be more than a figurehead.

     His rivals have come to the same conclusion and are all now chasing after the billion-dollar fund hoping to lay hands on the wherewithal for buying a following. They are racing all the harder with the approach of the next Palestinian ballots – the April 28 municipal election and the July 17 parliamentary vote. A hefty cash campaign chest can promise victory. It can also buy the undying loyalty of all or some of the endemically corrupt Palestinian security and intelligence services. Conversely, candidates strapped for funds may as well give up.

     Control of the PIF will also buy political control within Abu Mazen’s unruly and divided Fatah party. At the same time, some central party figures warn that the gold rush could destroy the Fatah from within."

To read the whole piece, click here: http://www.debka.org/article.php?aid=1002