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Nov. 27, 2004 Perhaps the worst fraud ever to be perpetrated on the American public is, as Professor Thomas Sowell said in his November 5,2004, column, that Democrats are “for” the poor in America and the world. “The belief that liberal, left-wing or extremist movements are for the poor may or may not be the biggest fraud but it is certainly the oldest.” Once again, Democrats have nominated (and seen defeated) an East Coast, wealthy elitist who ran on the platform that he wanted to “help” the poor. That liberalism is ANYTHING but “helpful” goes without saying. It’s a demonstrably false premise to begin with. What the left wants to “help” the poor do is elect members of the left to positions of power in government and elsewhere. As Dr. Sowell further says, “there were limousine liberals before there were limousines.” Let’s examine for a moment just WHO are the power-brokers in the liberal community in the United States. (1) The Hollywood Left – Fabulously wealthy men and women who, while undeniably talented, became fabulously wealthy with little or no real physical effort, much luck and typically little education. (Julia Roberts and Alec Baldwin, for example, are reputed to not even have graduated from High School.) Their brand of liberalism may stem from simple guilt about having so much while seeing others with comparatively little. They spend their working hours pretending to be someone else and very effectively simulating emotions that they don’t really feel. Their non- working hours are spent with others of similar experience and philosophy and are generally totally unconnected to mainstream Americans. These people do SOME good works in that they help raise money for some good charities and causes, but mostly they live what has been characterized as “lives of quiet desperation.” That may be one reason a disproportionate number of the Hollywood elites fall into drug use, alcoholism and aimlessness. (2) The media elites – Wealthy men and women who gained their positions of prominence by expressing their left-wing credentials publicly and often on the television networks. Despite claims to the contrary, the national media are NOT run by “right-wing corporate big-wigs.” Every single big-media CEO supports the Democrat Party financially—with the notable exception of Rupert Murdoch. That fact alone should disabuse anyone of the notion that all corporations are run by Republican fat-cats, but the PR departments of these “news” outlets have been pretty effective in convincing the general public that they are “unbiased” or even right- wing in orientation. Another indicator of how wrong that perception is is the constant vilification of President Bush for over a year by the national broadcast stations. Media Watch, a watchdog group who pays close attention to such things, has reported almost NO positive stories about President Bush since January of 2003—an obvious effort begun with his ouster in mind—futilely as it turns out. (3) The Union Bosses – Again, very wealthy people who earn incomes in the six- and even seven-figures who unstintingly support Democrat political candidates almost exclusively—even though the unions’ rank and file membership is divided about 60-40 between Democrats and Republicans. They pour millions of members’ dollars into campaigns to elect Democrats—often to the dismay of their GOP members—including hundreds of thousands of “in-kind” donations that the Federal Election Commission never even knows about. This is particularly true of the AFL-CIO and the Public Employees Unions and the National Education Association--the latter two whose members are dependent upon taxes remaining high and growing so their own salaries and benefits will grow proportionately. Since Democrats are dedicated to the growth of big government, one supposes that public employee unions are a natural match to support them. (4) The Aimless, Idle Rich on BOTH Coasts – In many cases, people with inherited wealth, who have ‘way too much time on their hands and who are secretly a little bit guilty about having so much for so little real effort on their parts. These are typified by the John F. Kerry’s (who MARRIED wealth), the Teddy Kennedy’s (who inherited it and whose source was activity a bit on the shady side [Joe Kennedy got rich bootlegging]), and the descendents of the Astors, the Carnagies and the Rockefellers— “robber barons” all—who adopt left-wing causes as their own out of simple ennui, guilt and aimlessness—understanding that such “causes” won’t have much effect on THEM in the long run since they can afford the necessary shelters and people to avoid being impacted too seriously by the policies they espouse. (5) The Ethnic Minorities-Especially African Americans and Native Americans—Let’s examine these seri atim. (a) African Americans – The race-baiters in their own ranks have convinced substantial majorities of these people that, because many of their ancestors came to these shores unwillingly and in chains via the abomination of slavery, that somehow American “owes” them something today and that ONLY the Democrat Party really “cares” about their needs and wants. Oddly, as more and more Americans of African descent move up in financial caste, they turn towards the GOP. This is also true of those black Americans who take the GOP-suggested route to financial success by becoming well educated. The left, of course, has done whatever it can to keep this group UNeducated, since they lose them forever when they achieve financial and social success by their own efforts. (b) Native Americans – Many still harbor deep-seated resentment about being defeated militarily and technologically in years past and long for the lost culture of “naturalism” that their ancestors enjoyed. It is a myth, however, encouraged by many on the left, that Native Americans once lived “in harmony” with nature and that’s a goal to be sought today. Most Native Americans were constantly in conflict with their neighbors and with nature itself. The average life-span of Native Americans prior to the coming of modern medicines was (and, in some cases, remains) considerably below that of the rest of the nation. They’ve been convinced that only Democrats will “give” them what they need to survive today, forgetting that they were once proud, self-reliant people who depended upon no one for survival. These two groups of people have been convinced by decades of charity from the left that their survival is dependent upon the subsistence provided by that same left. It is a belief that is MOST debilitating to their own self-esteem and engenders a degree of hopelessness among those who are recipients of the left’s largesse— naturally from the federal coffers and not very often from the pocketbooks of those on the left themselves. (6) The Non-Black poor and undereducated – This is, perhaps, the largest group that tends to support Democrats and Democrat “causes.” Since the Great Depression of the 1930’s, when unemployment was massive and people were losing their homes to repossession, and Franklin D. Roosevelt came riding in on his white horse to “save” them, many poor, uneducated people of ALL colors and creeds came to associate FDR’s National Recovery Act with mere survival. In historical reality, little of the federal programs passed under the NRA umbrella had much real effect in easing the effects of the Depression, but they represented to many poor and uneducated people, “free” stuff from the government which allowed them to survive. In reality, WW II ended the Great Depression by putting millions to work in the defense industry and in actually fighting the war, but since FDR “oversaw” even THAT, he’s credited with “saving” the nation from the ravages of the Depression. The intellectual classes—those who were firmly ensconced in academia, in particular— began to realize that the left COULD succeed in changing America if they could only indoctrinate our children in leftist dogma and ideology. The academics began on a long, protracted effort to “dumb down” as many people as possible by using the schools—which required compulsory attendance. Of course, this same “intellectual” class realized that THEIR kids, in order to prosper, had to avoid public schools like the plague and they began an unobtrusive migration of their own children OUT of public schools and into private—often parochial systems. Even so, this “dumbing down” effort moved at a snail’s pace until the early and mid-1960’s when the preposterous theory was propounded that minority kids should ONLY be taught by minority teachers. In its rush to populate inner-city schools with minority teachers, they made teachers out of any minority man or woman willing to take the job—regardless of qualifications. Since public school systems operate on a “tenure” system, by the time it was discovered that many of these “new” teachers were unqualified AND ineffective, they were “protected” by tenure and school systems were unable (even if they’d been willing) to replace them. The result was two generations of kids who suffered under ineffective, unqualified teachers, promoted “socially,” and graduated unable to even read their own high school diplomas. In addition, in these systems, kids were often indoctrinated into left-liberal ideology, as well—thus virtually guaranteeing the continuation of the political clout of the left for years, as evidenced by the leftist Democrats dominating Congress for nearly 45 years before being replaced during the 1994 “GOP Revolution.” These, then, are those who make up the majority of the Democrat Party these days. The only ones we’ll be likely to affect are, of course the latter two groups—ethnic minorities and poor non- minorities. The so-called “intellectual class” simply has little more than disdain for the common people of this country and are not very amenable to changing their politics or even political persuasion. We MUST begin the long process of changing schools so we can get away from indoctrination and back to schools’ original purpose—educating our kids for an increasingly complicated world and work force. A good first step would be the total elimination of “Colleges of Education” in our university systems. Back in the 1940’s, some wise man once said that, “Colleges of Education are like small kittens. They should be drowned immediately, before they can mature and cause untold mischief.” It may be too late to “drown” them, but they CAN be eliminated—or, at the very least, phased out gradually. We shouldn’t be teaching teachers how to indoctrinate our kids in political correctness. We should be teaching them how to teach our kids how to read, write, cipher and about geography, REAL science and true history—not that revisionist nonsense in the name of PC. Hopefully, we’ll get back to the principles in education that made this the most productive, innovative society in the world’s history. If we fail to do that, the leftists will win and we’ll degenerate into just another third-world socialist State wherein most people believe that the government will “give” them something for nothing. Right!….nothing but our souls. ------------ About the author: David A. Jared is a news junkie, semi-retired and an avid golfer who's been writing his first book, "4000 years of chopsticks" for the last 20 years. Email: Pappadave@sbcglobal.net ------------- All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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