All Politics Is Local

On Friday, The Patriotic News posted an article about the recent elections in Green Charter Township in Michigan. The voters there were not happy with the actions of their governing board, so they voted ALL of them out of office.

The article reports:

The good people of Green Charter Township, a small rural community north of Grand Rapids, ousted all five of the board members in a special election held Tuesday. They swapped the five, all Republicans, for candidates who ran without party affiliation. To show they meant business, the townspeople immediately called in locksmiths to change the locks on the main government building. 

The residents took such drastic action in opposition to the construction in their town of a $2.3 billion EV plant by a company, Gotion, that has links to China

Voters were angered that the now-ousted board moved forward with the project despite severe backlash from the community. At a hearing last year, one resident remarked, “My family members fought communism, and you’re bringing it right here.”

Another resident, Harry King, said, “Right now, we are not on friendly terms with China. They are threatening us. I consider them the enemy. I don’t want them here, either.”

The plan for the Michigan plant, and another targeted for Illinois, has reportedly caught the attention of congressional Republicans, who have called on the Treasury Department to investigate Gotion. In response, the company remarked, “We are a multinational company and don’t believe in political posturing and are still committed to bringing thousands of jobs to the state of Michigan.”

The residents realize that their fight is not yet over, but they are prepared to continue their opposition to the plant.

The article concludes:

Political newcomer Corri Riebow, who ran for the clerk position in the special election and won, said of the town’s brand new government, “We just plan on making it as difficult as possible for them to continue their process. They don’t even have a sight planned, they don’t have permits yet, so, we’re not their friend.”

This is what can happen when voters understand the issues and get involved.

Praise From An Unexpected Source

Yesterday The New York Post posted an article about a recent statement by former Obama White House advisor Van Jones.

The article reports:

“Donald Trump — and I get beat up by liberals every time I say this, but I’m gonna keep saying it — he has done good stuff for the black community,” Jones said on CNN, where he is a frequent contributor. “Opportunity zone stuff, black college stuff. I worked with him on criminal justice stuff. I saw Donald Trump have African American people, formerly incarcerated, in the White House — embraced them, treated them well. There’s a side to Donald Trump that I think he does not get enough credit for.”

Jones said part of the reason Trump’s accomplishments didn’t break through were because of the “incendiary stuff” the president said. He also accused Trump of violating “the No. 1 rule of blackness, which is, ‘I don’t mess with people who mess with people I don’t mess with,’”

I totally don’t understand that last statement, but that might be because I am unfamiliar with the ‘rules of blackness.’

Van Jones is an interesting gentleman. In September 2009, a website called Political Pistachio posted the following:

In 2001, Jones was the leader and founder of a radical anti-American group, the communist revolutionary organization “Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement,” or STORM. This is the same group that Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck showed America, via a section of STORM’s manual (called “Reclaiming Revolution” – what kind of revolution? Something in line with Cuba’s? Russia’s? China’s?), that describes Van Jones’ radical organization as having a “commitment to the fundamental ideas of Marxism-Leninism.”

Mr. Jones is entitled to hold any political view he chooses, but I do think it is interesting that after serving in the Obama administration, he is a frequent contributor to CNN. The statement that President Trump has done positive things for the black community has already resulted in requests to have him fired. So much for free speech.

 

It Begins Again

Hot Air posted an article yesterday about what is currently happening in Hong Kong.

The article reports:

When we were discussing China’s new “national security” law for Hong Kong yesterday, it was noted that pro-democracy advocates were already railing against the betrayal of the promises China made when taking over control of the city from Great Britain. Protests were planned, but pro-Beijing lawmakers were warning that any sort of public demonstrations could be dealt with harshly. Well, that took all of one day to come to pass. Despite concerns about a new wave of coronavirus infections, demonstrators took to the streets and were quickly met by police forces firing tear gas canisters indiscriminately into the crowds at a large shopping center. And then the arrests began.

…Tam Tak-chi, one of the city’s most well-known democracy advocates, was arrested shortly after the protests began. He had previously predicted that he would be detained if China moved forward with its new legislation and it turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophesy. He was charged with holding “an unauthorized assembly.”

The article concludes:

In that sense, much of the “freedom” enjoyed by Hong Kong since 1997 has largely been illusory anyway. China regularly intervenes in local elections if the residents begin electing too many people with crazy ideas about freedom and democracy. The top leadership positions, currently exemplified by Carrie Lam, are always held by pro-Beijing politicians who take their marching orders from the CCP. People have regularly been arrested in Hong Kong for demonstrating, giving speeches or contacting foreign media outlets, things that people in free nations simply take for granted.

Up until now, a certain amount of demonstrating and chatter about democracy has been allowed, apparently just to humor the locals. But now it appears that China isn’t going to even bother providing a fig leaf to the 1997 agreement they entered into. They’re probably sure that they can get away with it because nobody is going to risk going to war with them or attempt any sort of direct military intervention right on China’s doorstep to free Hong Kong’s citizens. And while it’s sad to say, they’re probably right.

This was predictable. I don’t know if the outcome would have been any different had the British not signed the treaty with China. However, we need to learn from what we are watching–China is not a reliable partner in any treaty. On May 5th, I posted an article citing a provision in the recent trade agreement (signed before the coronavirus outbreak in America) that says if there is a natural occurring disaster, the two parties will renegotiate. This is another example of the fact that China, under communism, is not willing to play fair on the international stage. Best wishes to the people of Hong Kong. I am not optimistic about your future.

About That Climate Change Thing

When did we ever get so arrogant that we thought we could control the climate? Do you really believe that Republicans oppose clean air and clean water? If that were true, why has the United States reduced its carbon emissions under President Trump? So what is this really about?

Townhall posted an article today that explains a lot of the thinking behind the politicians who are pushing drastic economic changes in the name of climate change.

The article reports:

Many of my friends have long referred to environmentalists as “watermelons” — green on the outside, red on the inside. The idea being, because communism and socialism (interchangeable political/economic systems in practice) have failed everywhere they’ve been imposed, doctrinaire socialist zealots have embraced environmental causes as a Trojan horse. Their goal is simple: use environmental policies as a backdoor way to implement socialist policies in the Western democracies. After all, who doesn’t care about the environment?

A recent admission by Saikat Chakrabarti, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) chief of staff, about the much-hyped Green New Deal (GND) reinforces the view socialists are using the environment to replace private property and free exchange in the market with state control of the economy.

In a meeting with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, Chakrabarti said addressing climate change was not Ocasio-Cortez’s reason for proposing the GND, according to a report by The Washington Post.

“The interesting thing about the Green New Deal, is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all,” Chakrabarti told Inslee’s climate director, Sam Ricketts, The Post reported. “Do you guys think of it as a climate thing? Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”

This is not really a new idea. The article reports:

For instance, at a press conference in Brussels in early February 2015, in the run-up to negotiations culminating in the Paris climate agreement, Christiana Figueres, then executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, stated the global warming scaremongering going on for more than 25 years at the UN was about controlling peoples’ lives by controlling the economy, not fighting climate change.

“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” Figueres said. “This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history,” she continued.

If we are stupid enough to fall for the lies some of our politicians are telling us, we deserve the mess that will ensue. God help our children and grandchildren.

This Lady Needs To Read American History

The Herald Mail Media reported yesterday that Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, speaking at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, stated the following:

“Capitalism is an ideology of capital — the most important thing is the concentration of capital and to seek and maximize profit,” Ocasio-Cortez said. And that comes at any cost to people and to the environment, she said, “so to me capitalism is irredeemable.”

Although she said she doesn’t think all parts of capitalism should be abandoned, “we’re reckoning with the consequences of putting profit above everything else in society. And what that means is people can’t afford to live. For me, it’s a question of priorities and right now I don’t think our model is sustainable.”

…While America is wealthier than ever, wealth is enjoyed “by fewer than ever,” she said.

“It doesn’t feel good to live in an unequal society,” she said, citing an increase in homelessness in New York City among veterans and the elderly while penthouses sit empty. “It doesn’t feel good to live in a society like that.”

Let’s look at those statements through the lens of American history. In November 2005, the Heritage Foundation published an article about communism in America.

The article included the following notes on American history:

Recalling the story of the Pilgrims is a Thanksgiving tradition, but do you know the real story behind their triumph over hunger and poverty at Plymouth Colony nearly four centuries ago? Their salvation stemmed not so much from the charitable gestures of local Indians, but from their courageous decision to embrace the free-market principle of private property ownership a century and a half before Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations.

Writing in his diary of the dire economic straits and self-destructive behavior that consumed his fellow Puritans shortly after their arrival, Governor William Bradford painted a picture of destitute settlers selling their clothes and bed coverings for food while others “became servants to the Indians,” cutting wood and fetching water in exchange for “a capful of corn.” The most desperate among them starved, with Bradford recounting how one settler, in gathering shellfish along the shore, “was so weak … he stuck fast in the mud and was found dead in the place.”

The colony’s leaders identified the source of their problem as a particularly vile form of what Bradford called “communism.” Property in Plymouth Colony, he observed, was communally owned and cultivated. This system (“taking away of property and bringing [it] into a commonwealth”) bred “confusion and discontent” and “retarded much employment that would have been to [the settlers’] benefit and comfort.”

The most able and fit young men in Plymouth thought it an “injustice” that they were paid the same as those “not able to do a quarter the other could.” Women, meanwhile, viewed the communal chores they were required to perform for others as a form of “slavery.”

On the brink of extermination, the Colony’s leaders changed course and allotted a parcel of land to each settler, hoping the private ownership of farmland would encourage self-sufficiency and lead to the cultivation of more corn and other foodstuffs.

As Adam Smith would have predicted, this new system worked famously. “This had very good success,” Bradford reported, “for it made all hands very industrious.” In fact, “much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been” and productivity increased. “Women,” for example, “went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn.”

The famine that nearly wiped out the Pilgrims in 1623 gave way to a period of agricultural abundance that enabled the Massachusetts settlers to set down permanent roots in the New World, prosper, and play an indispensable role in the ultimate success of the American experiment.

A profoundly religious man, Bradford saw the hand of God in the Pilgrims’ economic recovery. Their success, he observed, “may well evince the vanity of that conceit…that the taking away of property… would make [men] happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God.” Bradford surmised, “God in his wisdom saw another course fitter for them.”

There will always be inequities in wealth. A person who works 12-hour days will generally earn more than a person who works a 6-hour day. People who invent things or have new ideas generally do very well financially. Rewarding innovation provides an incentive for progress. Capitalism (or the free market economy) is not perfect, but it creates fewer problems than any other economic system. Those touting the wonders of socialism need only look at the economic history of Venezuela during the past ten years. Once the wealthiest country in South America, now a place of unspeakable poverty. That is the fruit of socialism or communism.

Representative Ocasio-Cortez, please learn your history.

Asking The Right Question

First of all, The Gateway Pundit posted an article today that points out that the migrant caravan is not walking to America–they are arriving on flatbed trucks.

That actually makes sense. Who is paying for the trucks and the gasoline?

That article explains:

The migrants ‘walking’ through Mexico to reach the US appears to be more of a production than reality.

It’s clearly impossible for an individual or a group to cross the southern Mexican border and then walk all the way to the northern Mexican border in a matter of a couple of days. It is simply not possible.

Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article that I believes sums up the problem with the immigrant caravan headed this way.

The article at The Daily Caller reports:

Things got awkward fast after Fox News host Tucker Carlson asked Univision anchor Jorge Ramos to state exactly how many caravan members HE planned to personally take in.

Ramos, an outspoken immigration advocate, spoke with Carlson remotely on Tuesday from the caravan in southern Mexico. The Fox News host’s question came after the Univision host made several comments defending its members, including insisting unequivocally that none of them were from the Middle East.

“How many of these migrants are you taking in personally into your home and are supporting once they get into the United States?” Carlson asked.

“I think that’s a great question and that’s precisely the kind of question that people like you ask when you don’t want to understand that this has nothing to do with individuals,” responded Ramos. “It has to do with nations. And what we have to understand is that these refugees are not a threat to the United States. I know that in Fox News …”

“Before you attack Fox, this is a simple question,” Carlson interrupted. “How many are you taking in?”

After a back and forth that included Ramos stating that immigrants’ desire to come is “really a love letter to the United States,” the Fox News host pressed again: “I’m asking you a very simple question – How many of these migrants are you personally taking responsibility for? How many are going home to Jorge’s place in Miami at the end of the day? And please be specific.”

“I think that again this has nothing to do with individuals. I wish I could help all of them,” responded Ramos.

The problem is that we all want to help them, but we are not able to help all of them without overwhelming ourselves. Those who are saying we need to let in these thousands of people and feed and clothe them need to remember that we have homeless Americans (many of whom are veterans) that we need to help first. I am sorry that they have been misled to make the trip north by empty promises, but notice that the countries that they passed through on their way here have not provided them with asylum (as required by international law). The only way to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into America is to send them home.

In looking at the potention damage letting this caravan of people into the country could do, we need to remember the Cloward-Piven Strategy. The Cloward-Piven strategy is a political strategy outlined in 1966 by American sociologists and political activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven that called for overloading the U.S. public welfare system in order to precipitate a crisis that would lead to a replacement of the welfare system with a national system of “a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty”. That is the promise of communism. We see how well that has worked in the past.

Looking At The People Behind The Action

On Monday night, a group of people tore down a Confederate monument in Durham, North Carolina. The police stood by and watched as it happened. My first question is, “When vandalism is taking place, do the police normally stand back and watch?” The events were videotaped, and the police have since arrested those involved in the destruction. It is noteworthy that many of those arrested were associated with the communist group, World Workers party. The purpose of that group is to create enough chaos to cause a revolution in America that will usher in communism here. They are definitely on the fringes of American politics, but they are well-funded and have recently become very active.

On Wednesday, American Lens posted an article about the arrests.

So far four people have been charged with the following misdemeanor and felony charges according to the Durham Sheriff’s office:

  • 14-132 Disorderly conduct by injury to a statue (Class II Misdemeanor)
  • 14-127 Damage to real property (statue as a fixture (Class I Misdemeanor)
  • 14-288.2(c) Participation in a riot with property damage in excess of $1,500 (Class H Felony)
  • 14-288.2(e) inciting others to riot where there is property damage in excess of $1,500 (Class F Felony)

The article includes the following statement from one of the people arrested:

Loan Tran, after being released, gave a statement to the Durham Sun:

“The charges are outrageous. The charges are unnecessary,” said Tran.

“But we know that the charges reflect a deeply racist and white supremacist system that is more interested in preserving its relics of white supremacy than actually taking on the issues that so many people in our community are concerned about when it comes to policing or um incarceration or um… education justice or any of the other issues that are impacting our people every single day,” Tran stated.

Wait a minute. We have a video of your actions. You did tear down a statue (property damage). You were disorderly. You did participate in a riot. The damage exceeded $1,500. What does race have to do with these charges? The charges were brought as a result of your destructive actions.

The article concludes:

Tran took aim at the Governor, who has so far refused to condemn the vandalism or name the responsible parties.

“I think clearly in Durham we showed Gov. Roy Cooper that if he didn’t take action, then we would. So to Roy Cooper, we say you’re welcome, because it wasn’t his original idea.”

According to WNCN, Strobino claimed they are all innocent.

“We’re innocent. We demand the charges be dropped. The county and the district attorney should do the right thing and drop the charges,” said Strobino.

 WNCN also reported that Thompson said the movement to tear down all such statutes will keep going. Thompson called these actions “revolutions.”

“There’s revolutions taking place all throughout the country right now and the revolution won’t be stopped,” said Thompson.

The only part of that I agree with is that the actions taken by this group of people were revolting. If being revolting means being part of a revolution, then he is correct. I believe in free speech, but I do not believe in the destruction of property. These people deserve to sit in jail until they learn respect for other peoples’ property and respect for the law.

Who Does This Man Represent?

America is a Representative Republic. Americans vote for people to go to Washington, D.C., to represent them. Lately it seems as if we might not be doing a really good job of that. Generally speaking, I am not sure who most of the people in Washington represent. However, a recent speech by President Obama really makes me wonder.

Paul Mirengoff posted an article at Power Line today about President Obama’s speech in Argentina to a Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative meeting.  During the speech, President Obama explained the choice between communism and capitalism.

The article reports:

Obama instructed his young listeners that the question isn’t this system vs. that system, but rather “what works.” In Cuba, he claimed (falsely), communism is working great when it comes to health care. On the other hand, he acknowledged, the country looks like it’s stuck in the 1950s.

The lesson, said Obama, is that markets tend to generate wealth. Thus, they meet his “does it work” test, though they must be heavily regulated. Such is the wisdom imparted by this (once-thought-by many-to-be) towering intellect.

Scandalously, the only argument Obama was willing to make in favor of freedom is its tendency to generate wealth. If communism produced just as much, apparently it would be just as good or better, given the more even distribution of the wealth it purports to produce.

To argue in favor of freedom as a good in itself would, in Obama’s thinking, mean succumbing to ideology. He is much too cool for that.

I infer that during the heyday of the Soviet Union, Obama might well have been a communist. Then it was thought, based on successful propaganda of the kind some now accept when it comes to health care in Cuba, that communism was working fine.

I also infer that Obama may well be a fan of the current Chinese regime. Until recently, many thought it was working quite well.

Below is the video of the speech, as posted on YouTube:

The article at Power Line points out:

Obama’s entire speech is below. His remarks regarding capitalism vs. communism begin at around the 41:00 minute mark.

The difference between communism and capitalism is important to America. We need a President who understands that.