Her?
Who knew. You can't tell these days with Liberals what gender they are by their names.
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Study: Obama Skipping Red States in Favor of Dem Strongholds, Foreign Countries
Quote:
March 30, 2010
President Obama's spending a lot of time flying over "flyover country."
According to a study from the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute, the president has spoken to audiences in just seven of the 22 states he lost in the 2008 election.
In fact, he's visited more foreign countries than he has "red states" -- and he's delivered eight times the number of speeches in states he won than in states John McCain won.
"He's made it to Hawaii. He's made it to California several times," said Eric Ostermeir, the research associate who conducted the study. "There's just a lot of states he's missing in between."
Ostermeier got to looking at the state-by-state breakdown while he was in the middle of a separate review of Obama's speeches.
For the latest report, he broke down the locations of the 531 "verbal statements" the president has made since his inauguration 14 months ago. They include all addresses, speeches and remarks over the course of his presidency.
As is common with most presidents, the bulk of those remarks were delivered in Washington, D.C. But whenever the president traveled outside the Beltway, he typically made a beeline to the blue states.
According to the study:
-- Obama delivered 116 statements in states he won in 2008.
-- He delivered 63 statements in foreign countries.
-- He delivered 15 statements in states he lost in 2008.
Ostermeier said the fact that Washington is surrounded by states the president won can account for part of the disparity, as can the fact that the states Obama won have twice as many people in them.
But he said those factors don't tell the whole story. Upon closer inspection, Ostermeier found swing states -- most of which Obama won -- got a "disproportionate" amount of the president's attention.
"It's holding on to those purple states that he could lose," Ostermeier said.
The study showed Obama has spoken to audiences in 80 percent of the 28 states he won. The latest such visit was Tuesday in Virginia, where Obama signed a package of changes to the health care reform law signed earlier this month. The president visited Iowa, another state he turned blue in 2008, last week to tout the health care law.
The McCain states Obama has visited are: Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana and Texas.
He has not spoken in: Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.
The Coming Civil War In America
Quote:
January 5, 2009
America has evolved into two broad cultures. This was observed in the 1950s by sociologists like C. Wright Mills and David Riesman. In recent years the gap between the two cultures has intensified. The two cultures might be called traditional and other-directed. I included in traditional the intermediate type that Riesman discusses, inner-directed, in part because it is difficult to distinguish between other-directed people with goals or achievement orientation that David McClelland discusses in his book, written in the 1960s, the Achieving Society, and people for whom inner-direction and achievement orientation predominate. It may be impossible to distinguish the types with sufficient specificity. Also, the discussion has been muddled by the eschatological or teleological character of much twentieth century social science. Marx reinvented messianism for the other-directed mass, and social scientists have been prone to inject a degree of Marxist mysticism into almost all of their work. That is, they assume that other-direction involves evolution or "progress" beyond inner direction or tradition or that the propagandistic term "progressive" is more than vacuous of meaning.
The reassertion of religious values in America, particularly in the states that were christened "red" in the millennial election, is evidence of a serious breach in the values of the two Americas. This was not new in 2000, because by the 1950s Riesman had already noted that urban, higher income Americans had devolved from the inner direction or goal orient of the nineteenth century into a group-concerned "other direction" that in many ways was similar to the tribal traditionalism of primitive cultures but in other ways was different. It was different because it was dependent upon mass media and culture to define its values. However, both Riesman and Mills fixated on urban mass culture and did not explore the differences between rural Americans and the urban ones whom they emphasized.
It took Americans about two generations, between 1932 when Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected and 1980 when Ronald Reagan was elected to reject the New Deal policies that were associated with the mass media and other-directed trends. However, this rejection was far from consistent. In the "blue states" most people disliked Reagan, and disliked the Republican ascendancy between 1980 and 2006. The balance was almost equal, with the margin of difference depending on the ebb and flow of the economy and incumbents' corruption.
The differences between the two cultures, the inner and other directed intensified because the other-directed resented their displacement. The other-directed never resolved the key social problems that their experts claimed qualified to resolve. Issues concerning poverty, the economy, international relations, urban planning, even warfare (as represented by the tragi-comic Robert McNamara) were hardly resolved by the other-directed or "liberal" media-based elites. Indeed, the more they tried, the worse the problems seemed to become. It is even arguable that the Great Depression, the bugaboo of the other-directed "liberal" culture, was in fact a product of that culture's inability to grasp fundamental monetary issues and its groupthink-based emphasis on governmental solutions and high taxes (during the FDR administration and later) that blocked normal economic recovery.
In short, the other-directed culture has been short-sighted, narrow minded and arrogant. At the same time, many Americans have rejected this other-directed culture in favor of a rediscovery of traditional and religious values. This rediscovery is resented by the other-directed, who sense that it represents a rejection of the fundamental structure of their culture. They should not be surprised, however, because their culture has not proven to produce results. Nor should they be surprised that many Americans continue to have faith.
C. Wright Mills, a left-wing sociologist, identified the role of media in the inculcation of mass psychology in what is now called the blue states back in 1956 in his book The Power Elite. Mills identifies mass communication as the source of elite power. Therefore, the evolution of evangelical television broadcasts, cable television, the Internet, and other alternative communication methods would seem to have presented the other-directed power elite with a threat to its control. These technological changes had the unpredictable effect of enhancing traditional values and culture in the red states and among those who are still inner-directed or traditional in value orientation and so able to think for themselves.
Mills writes of a modern mass media, which is now a thing of the past. Media is no longer centrally controlled, and it is becoming less so. The newspapers and broadcast television stations of the 1950s are now being replaced by Internet bloggers, cable and Internet-based television stations that are not centrally controlled and so facilitate a sharing or equalization of culture. Thus, the modern tendency toward other-direction is thwarted by the sheer number of choices of information outlets. This in turn facilitates reliance on traditional values rather than the babel of alternative information sources as a basis. Information overload permits tradition to reassert itself, and the Godly values of traditional America have benefited.
There is a reversal of the trend that Mills described in 1956:
"there is a movement from widely scattered little powers to concentrated powers and the attempt at monopoly control from the powerful centers, which, being partially hidden, are centers of manipulation as well as authority. The small shop serving the neighborhood is replaced by the anonymity of the national corporation; mas advertisement replaces the personal influence of opinion between merchant and customer. The political leader hooks up his speech to a national network...in the mass society of media markets, competition if any goes on between the manipulators with their mass media on the one hand, and the people receiving their propaganda on the other. Under such conditions, it is not surprising that there should arise a conception of public opinion as a mere reaction--we cannot say 'response' to the content of mass media. In this view, the public is merely the collectivity of individuals each rather passively exposed to the mass media and rather helplessly opened up to the suggestions and manipulations that flow from these media. The fact of manipulation from centralized points of control constitutes, as it were, an expropriation of the old multitude of little opinion producers and consumers operating in a free and balanced market."
Riesman emphasizes that other-directedness, which he considers to be characteristic of the modern world, is predominantly associated with urban professionals.
Neither Mills nor Riesman (nor anyone else of the 1950s) could have anticipated the evolution of telecommunication methods that dissolve central dominance of the power elite, i.e., the marketers of other-directedness and "liberal" ideology. This has led to the unthinkable: a reassertion of individualism and traditional belief in the heartland of America.
This is not to say that the urban, other-directed culture has disappeared. Rather, that it no longer predominates to the degree it once did, even with the aid of left-dominated universities and an education system that sees its role as the inculcation of ideology in the form of "social justice learning" and political correctness. Not only are many Americans beginning to question the value of public education and to engage in home schooling, but also are questioning the cultural hegemony of universities and supposed experts: cancer experts who cannot cure cancer; economics experts who bungle the economy; psychological experts who cannot cure mental illness or who define it and redefine it in absurd ways; and sociological experts who claim to cure poverty but whose cures precede massive drug addiction, intensification of segregated northern cities and entrenched poverty.
The reaction of the "liberal" other-directed culture has been to intensify its ideological and cultural commitment to "liberal" solutions and other-directedness. The hostitility toward George W. Bush and Sarah Palin exemplify the intensification of anger and hostility toward those who look to tradition, to inner direction and specifically American values. This hostility is likely to increase as information sources continue to fragment. America is becoming a multi-cultural nation, and the cultures are at loggerheads. The conflict will become more overt.
TOTALLY untrue.Quote:
Neither Mills nor Riesman (nor anyone else of the 1950s) could have anticipated the evolution of telecommunication methods that dissolve central dominance of the power elite, i.e., the marketers of other-directedness and "liberal" ideology. This has led to the unthinkable: a reassertion of individualism and traditional belief in the heartland of America.
A LOT of people foresaw the changes in telecommunications coming. Science fiction people for one. DARPA saw it. Many of us expected it.
Oh... about that Civil War thing. Yeah, maybe.
FRAC 'EM ALL!
I've been.... umm... speculating lately on some things.
The civil war thing is included in that, and I probably haven't been very clear, but I'm gonig to say it now.
The Socialists who live in America WANT it to happen, they are TRYING to foment it and force the hand of the Right and continue to demonize the Right Wing in an effort to just piss them off even more.
The current administration is NOT helping, and whether they are complicit or not remains to be seen. I think Obama is a DUPE for these people and there are indeed people in his administration that wants it to occur.
If it happens, it simply puts us in a final, weakened position for an invasion or limited nuclear attack.
The US IS in trouble and it's because people can't take a breath and back up a second and look what is going on and who is doing it.
Remove the offenders from office and things will settle.
Russia will have to back off. China will. Amadamnnutjob and Hugoblowhard will STFU finally...
However, if not and these leftist continue pushing American's buttons... we will fall apart rapidly in an attempt to reform our government.
I think you misunderstood the thrust of my assessment.
They want America to become extinct. Period. Regardless of what happens to the land mass (which the Chinese want badly) - the Russians could care less on in that respect.
The Russians and Chinese (among others) have a converging want, and even perhaps a NEED to see this country fall.
Capitalism has been the greatest, most successful method of economics ever conceived and that can even be proven that the Communists in both those countries have embraced capitalism even while throwing their own people into political prisons.
Communism can't exist in an atmosphere beneficial to Capitalism.
Further, the Freedoms Americans enjoy are hated by those in power in other countries because it obviously makes the dictators there look bad. Even hated.
I just can not imagine the collapse of our government, and being replaced with a full blown Communist one.
:(
Sad times indeed.
I can't imagine that either, not without a fight Backstop. Not without a fight.
Many of them won't be put against the wall, useful idiots will be moved into power.
I can see that from watching the way things work even now.
How would it be easier to kill Americans? Who would be killing us?
Without an all out attack on this country, that isn't going to happen. Even the Leftists who would love to see the demise of the Right won't raise their hands to us.
I just listened to some of the calls that are left for some of the Tea Party groups (it was on tv a few minutes ago). They want us to "Shut up because we're in the minority". (Freedomworks)
And many other things. They want to shut us up, and if they try to kill us we fight back.
An outside country would have to attack us and kill as many as possible, meaning nuclear weapons. Nukes wouldn't leave them the freedom to move in and takeover easily.
On the other hand, I suspect that's precisely where they want to go, which is why I believe China will be the perps.
I suggest that this is already in the works, but the time isn't yet ready.
But, the country is ripe for this type of attack.
America is deeply divided among traditionalist American idealism and Socialism.
When the internal strife becomes so great, the stresses are causing people to start real fighting (which I believe is not far down the road) a foreign government with the wherewithal will do just what you've suggested above.
Companion Thread: Russian analyst predicts decline and breakup of U.S.
Breakup Of U.S. Is Inevitable
Posted on May 19, 2010
People all over America are discussing freedom’s future. In short, they are worried. In fact, many are actually talking about State secession.
In coffee shops and cafes, and around dining room tables, millions of people are speaking favorably of states breaking away from the union.
Not since the turn of the twentieth century have this many people thought (and spoken) this favorably about the prospect of a State (or group of states) exiting the union. In my mind, this is a good thing.
Even many of those who oppose the prospect of secession understand the increasing tyrannical nature of the current central government in Washington, D.C., and that something must be done about it.
The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines tyranny as
“1: oppressive power . . .
2: a government in which absolute power is vested in a single ruler . . .
3: a rigorous condition imposed by some outside agency or force . . .
4: a tyrannical act.”
Even a casual observer would have to conclude that most of the actions proceeding forth from DC today match at least Webster’s 1st and 3rd definitions of tyranny.
Besides, who would argue the advantage of the tyranny of an oligarchy over the tyranny of a monarchy?
A tyranny of many cannot be distinguished from a tyranny of one in most cases–especially not by those poor souls who are at the point of the spear of Government’s cruelties.
The fact is, there is collusion between Big Government and Big Business (as each feeds and profits off the other) to strip the American people of their God-given liberties. Without a shadow of a doubt, had America’s Founding Fathers not sagaciously cemented the Second Amendment into the US Constitution, the Jackboots would have marched over us years ago.
That freedom-loving people are reaching a point of frustration–and even fury–is quite understandable. And State secession is, very properly, the last best option for freedomists to maintain fidelity to the principles of liberty. All of America’s founders understood this–all of them! And millions of modern-day American patriots are just now beginning to become reacquainted with this great, historic doctrine.
However, whether one subscribes to the doctrine of secession or not is quite immaterial. The breakup of the US is inevitable! Short of another Great Awakening, nothing can stop it. And given the spiritual deadness of most American churches these days, the prospect of a modern-day national revival seems remote at best.
It is a historical fact that no empire can sustain itself. And America is more and more becoming a global empire. For the sake of simplicity, I ask readers to ponder this question: How can one sustain a global economy without global government to manage and control it? Answer: One can’t.
This is why elitists in politics, economics, and the military have been calling for global government for decades.
People such as
George H.W. Bush,
Bill Clinton,
George W. Bush,
Tony Blair,
Walter Cronkite,
Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali,
David Rockefeller,
Henry Kissinger,
Gideon Rachman,
Warren Christopher,
Walt Rostow,
Richard Gardner,
Zbigniew Brzezinski,
Robert Pastor, et al.
Furthermore, organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Bilderbergers, and the Trilateral Commission are constantly promoting regional or global unification.
Moreover, institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the World Trade Organization (WTO), and, of course, the United Nations (UN) all contribute to the escalation of globalism.
I have written two previous columns outlining much relevant information on this very real promotion of globalism. See them at:
http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/?p=84
http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/?p=86
Therefore, it is safe to say that, for the most part, America’s foreign policy is (and has been) controlled and manipulated by globalists.
Accordingly, America’s armed forces are used more and more as international policemen to patrol the streets of the world on behalf of this international cabal of merchants and politicians. The cover for this is the mantra of fighting an international “war on terrorism.”
But the real agenda is, keeping our troops fighting in perpetual war so that they might be available to the globalists at the UN and US State Department (not to mention countless “off the books” operations being run by the CIA and a host of other agencies) for the purpose of maintaining the “global economy” (and only God knows how many illegal enterprises).
Perpetual war also allows the Machiavellians who desire to turn America into a police state to increasingly encroach upon constitutionally protected liberties by keeping the populace in a perpetual state of fear.
After all, as long as our troops are “over there” fighting (and making) enemies, we will always need Big Brother to keep us safe “over here.”
And the only way he can do that is by putting us all in cages; but hey, it’s for our own good, right?
And, of course, this new “global force for good” must itself be reshaped into an image compatible with the political correctness of the New World Order. Hence, more and more women are being placed in combat units.
In fact, females are now the fastest growing group of enlistees within the US armed forces. And for the first time in US history, women are now approved to serve aboard submarines. (I am sure submariners’ wives are thrilled about this!)
“How does flooding the US military with women fit into the scheme of the globalists?” you ask. Simple. By reducing the overall efficiency and effectiveness of our military forces, it requires them to be part of a “coalition” force. Come on, folks, figure it out: our troops are always part of some sort of global “coalition” army. They always serve in concert with NATO, or the UN, or at the behest of some other global entity.
And please, I don’t need readers to write me with great indignation, calling me “sexist.”
Get real!
If women can serve in combat equally with men, why not have an all-female combat infantry division? How about an all-female tank division?
Let’s have an all-female Navy warship!
What about an all-female Navy SEAL team or Army Special Forces team?
If, then, women are inefficient in combat as a unit, they are equally inefficient in combat individually.
Wise up, people!
It is critical to the globalists controlling Washington politics that our military be integrated with foreign entities. Allowing the weaker vessels to dilute the warrior-strength of our combat units helps to accomplish this in spades!
Folks, this new American empire is not sustainable. Mark it down: the American empire will follow every other notable empire of antiquity and collapse under its own weight. The signs are already ubiquitous.
In its attempt to entice illegal aliens (a necessary component to the globalization of America) by providing them with almost complete and universal welfare benefits, the Empire has saddled the states with a monstrous debt and has planted the seeds for its own fragmentation.
The American Southwest is a boiling caldron. Revolutionaries, violent criminal gangs, agitators, drug runners, human traffickers, and agent provocateurs–all loyal to Mexico–have been allowed to freely unleash their anti-American vitriol to the point that, in desperation, the State of Arizona is now trying to fight back. It is probably too little too late, however.
Both the central government in Washington, D.C., and the national news media are sympathetic to the cause of La Raza. Look at how those brave legislators and governor in Arizona have been lampooned by the national press corps.
The call for the “reconquista” of America’s great Southwest will continue to escalate. It is all part of the globalists’ plan to regionalize the United States. The template is already in place.
CFR’s Robert Pastor has already done the legwork. The North American Community (or Union) is past the drawing table stage; it is now being implemented. The NAFTA superhighway is being built and La Raza has been unleashed on the frontier. It’s only a matter of time.
Furthermore, take a look at the staggering debt that this government in Washington, D.C., has burdened the American people with. To talk numbers is meaningless: they total more than we can possibly begin to fathom.
These numbers shock sensibilities and strain comprehension. In this regard, toss away all notions of partisan politics. Both major parties in DC have forever plunged our children and grandchildren’s future into a chasm of indebtedness so deep that it can never be recovered. Never!
Yet again, perpetual war has accomplished its purpose: unmitigated debt has allowed international bankers to print and loan vast sums of paper money that can be used to further their dreams of a global economy, complete with a mutually palatable system of burgeoning global governance.
I say again, the American empire is not sustainable; the breakup of the United States is inevitable. It is only a matter of time. The real question is not IF the US will breakup, but WHEN and HOW?
Globalists are already planning America’s breakup. Indeed, their plans for the future global economy DEMAND that America fracture. So, all of those who want to parade around and pontificate about the “unconstitutionality” and “impracticality” of secession can do so to their hearts’ content. It changes nothing.
The breakup is coming.
What is yet to be seen, of course, is if there will be enough states (the last vanguards of liberty) with the foresight to recognize the rise of tyranny and globalism as it approaches, and muster the courage and fortitude to do what principled patriots and lovers of liberty have always done: draw their line in the sand for freedom.
Call it what you will; debate the definitions and language all you like; it all comes down to the same thing: either men fight for freedom and independence or they allow themselves and their children to be sold into slavery.
At some point in the future (how far in the future, no one knows), we Americans will, once again, have to face that decision.
In the meantime, keep talking about freedom around your coffee tables; keep writing about freedom in your books and columns; keep praying about freedom in your churches and closets; keep dreaming about freedom in your hearts and minds.
Real freedom–where a man can be left alone; where a man can keep what he earns; where a man can make his own choices; where a man’s property is his own; where harassing agents of an oppressive central government are nowhere to be found; where a man doesn’t have to sell his soul in order to sell his wares; where a man’s worship of God is not subject to political correctness (or the IRS); and where a man can actually exchange commerce and correspondence without the prying eyes of Big Brother–is worth any price. ANY PRICE!
As Barry Goldwater said, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” Amen! And if the pursuit of freedom requires the extremism of secession, I say, LET IT COME!