Building trust: The high road for America

Once again in the news there’s another “peaceful protest” organized by various black activist organizations that’s turned violent.  This time it’s Baltimore, MD.  The Last Refuge blog extensively chronicles what they term the “black grievance industry” and noted the alarming ISIS hand signs being flashed by some protestors at the latest rally.  To really understand the spreading mayhem, I recommend reading:  STORM Handbook: “Reclaiming The Revolution (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement)”  – Published in Spring 2004.   Van Jones, one time Obama nominee to be the Special Advisor on green jobs and avowed Marxist, was one of the key architects of this STORM movement.    Valerie Jarrett, sitting right in the White House, has been a long-time Van Jones supporter.

With escalating racial tensions and ramped up attacks against the police and white people in general, don’t believe that the protests are in reaction to specific incidents.  In my opinion, what’s going on is black activist organizations, quite effectively, are using the STORM playbook to fundamentally transform America.  Along the road, many less radical groups and Americans will be duped into believing the rhetoric, but these will be just more useful idiots, who will be discarded when the “resistance” boils over to the “revolution” stage .  The press will be fed a diet of misinformation to keep them in line too.

To me, the most heartbreaking sight in this ongoing attempt to overthrow the system was seeing a photo of a little girl holding a sign: “Police, Public Enemy #1”  Rest assured, fomenting distrust and racial hatred are, part and parcel, at the heart of the Van Jones and his Marxist friends’ plan.  Most of America will be on the sidelines, because they are deliberately instigating their revolution within America’s failed inner-cities. This general plan of destroying America by creating a race war isn’t anything new, it’s been around decades and used by both white supremacist groups and black activists, using the same old divide and conquer strategy, that’s been around for millennia.  Spreading hate and distrust is the name of the game.  Sadly, we don’t see many Americans trying to bridge the racial divides by doing what it takes to defeat hate.  You’ve got to reach out a hand, refuse to hate and talk to each other.   Yep, we need leaders who will rise above the political posturing and work to build trust between all Americans.

I suggest reading the entire STORM handbook, but here’s where I think they’re at in their plan (pages 53-54):

Moving from Resistance to Revolution

Our commitment to communist politics didn’t give us any easy answers
about what we should be doing to advance a revolutionary movement
in this country. Other organizations with a Marxist analysis seemed to lack a practical program for building the kind of power needed to win
our people’s liberation.

Several of these communist groups emphasized the immediate building of the revolutionary vanguard party. They thought the party should
prepare to seize power when the people “spontaneously” rise up
during imperialism’s inevitable crises. We believed that these groups
had badly misassessed the real state of imperialism and of social
movements. They prematurely anticipated a peoples’ uprising (which
we didn’t see on the immediate horizon) while underestimating the
importance and difficulty of building power in oppressed communities
to lay the groundwork for future uprisings.

Other communist organizations – and many individual activists – were
questioning the possibility of a revolutionary movement ever succeed
-ing. They emphasized immersion in unions and mass struggles to the
exclusion of intentional work to develop a revolutionary movement.

We wanted an approach that resolved the contradiction between the
need for building immediate (and inevitably reform-based) power in
disorganized oppressed communities on the one hand and the need to
lay the ground work for the long-term development of a revolutionary
movement on the other.

To resolve this tension, STORM developed an innovative analysis about
the role of revolutionaries in a non-revolutionary historical period. We
called it “Moving from Resistance to Revolution.”

We concluded that the current period is one of “resistance,” not one
of “revolution.” We thought that the main work of revolutionaries at
such times should be to build resistance fights. These fights would build
power and consciousness in oppressed communities. But revolutionar
-ies must design and craft this “resistance work” so as to help lay the
foundation for the long-term development of a revolutionary move
-ment. As “conscious forces,” we thought that revolutionaries should
work intentionally to help the resistance movement mature into a
revolutionary one.

This “Moving from Resistance to Revolution” framework was STORM’s
attempt to negotiate the contradiction between reformism and ultra-

STORM’s Points of Unity
STORM’s primary unity was around the need for the “liberation and
solidarity for all oppressed people.” For us, this meant that our vision
had to draw on different progressive and revolutionary traditions in
order to address the different forms of oppression facing our people.
As we crafted our second Points of Unity document, six ideas formed
the core of a new, more robust political unity in the group:

  • Revolutionary Democracy:
    the belief that our movement
    will have to replace the falsely-democratic capitalist state with
    a truly democratic people’s government.
  • Revolutionary Feminism:
    the belief that women’s oppression is fundamental to this society and that we have to place
    “Sisters at the Center” of our struggle.
  • Revolutionary Internationalism:
    “the belief that white supremacy is a critical force impacting world politics, and tha
    Third World communities – inside and outside of the United
    States – along with white anti-racist allies need to work in
    solidarity build the power we need to overthrow the global
    system of white supremacy.
  • Central Role of the Working Class:
    the belief that, in order to defeat capitalism and other forms of oppression, the
    working class will have to play the central role in the revolutionary struggle.
  • Urban Marxism:
    the belief that the urban space was now
    the central site of revolutionary struggle, just as the factory
    and the point of production were in the days of Karl Marx.
  • Third World Communism:drawing on the revolutionary communist traditions from Asia, Africa and Latin America, including the recognition of the need for a disciplined revolutionary party rooted among oppressed people.

STORM believed that there were three main strategic tasks facing
revolutionaries in this non-revolutionary period: building an advance-
guard organization, promoting revolutionary ideas and building revolutionary people’s power.

We believed that we needed to help lay the groundwork for an
advance-guard organization to emerge as a future, more powerful form
of revolutionary political organization. Such an organization could help
promising militants to develop as revolutionaries. It could help mass
organizations develop practically and ideologically. And it could develop
and promote lessons and theories from the movement’s experience.

We also believed that it was the task of revolutionaries to promote
revolutionary ideas among oppressed and exploited people. As we did
this, we thought four methods of work would provide the best results:
“observation and participation” (gleaned from our study of the Black
Panther Party for Self-Defense); “the mass line” (as described by Mao
Tse-tung); structured “political education”; and consistent “criticism/
self criticism” to help us constructively evaluate our individual and
group work (this we drew from both Mao and Amilcar Cabral).

Finally, we believed that revolutionaries had to build revolutionary people’s
power. We saw “mass organizations” – fighting organizations made
up of members of the oppressed and exploited sectors of society – as
the key to building this power. We believed that these organizations
would be the main instruments of change in the survival struggles of
this reform period. And, if revolutionaries could successfully use and
develop a revolutionary organizing model, these organizations would
become the main engines of the revolutionary peoples’ struggle.

We believed that these three areas of work would lay the foundation
for a transition from the current reform period into a more intense
stage of the revolutionary struggle

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To snark or not to snark?

Advice, advice, well, here’s a National Review piece by Larry Kudlow:

“Snarking Hillary Is Not the Way to the White House”

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417482/snarking-hillary-not-way-white-house-larry-kudlow

I guess it’s safe to say, I am not on the way to the White House, rofl.  Larry Kudlow warns GOP candidates:
“Snarking your way to the presidency is not likely to happen. And if you go that route, slamming Hillary at every turn, you’re going to lose female voters, minority voters, and young voters — constituencies that the GOP desperately needs to win. It might even help Hillary.”

Of course, Kudlow goes on to warn GOP candidates to present a positive message with details of plans to promote economic growth and positive foreign relations, which sounds good, but in the meantime the Clinton machine will work to caricature all the GOP candidates – using all the snarky attacks they can muster.  Admittedly, it’s a tricky one-way street for male candidates to travel when competing against a female opponent, where the most innocuous gesture can be turned into shrill cries of “sexism”or “ageism”, neatly allowing the smartest woman in the world (who utters more “ums” than any meaningful policy ideas) to opine she’s a “victim” of that omnipresent vast right-wing conspiracy….. again.    Perhaps, Kudlow is right, but for the rest of us not running for President, why pass up on snarking, after all, look how quickly a full-throated snark attack turned Sarah Palin into a synonym for “bimbo”….  Ahhh yes, you’ve got to love the enlightened political left and how they rise above anything as low as outright “sexism”…..

For the rest of us, not in the race, Twitter and blogs most assuredly will snark away, as one good snark inspires another:

Guy Benson
‏@guypbenson

Queen Pro Quo #ReadyForHillary

I like that better than having to call her Broomstick One.

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Q: Hillary involved in “racketeering”? A: Shut-up you haters

Andrew McCarthy mentions the word that the press avoids when discussing the smartest woman in the world……..um…… oh yes, the word is RICO:

The Emerging Clinton Foundation Scandal

What has Hillary Clinton ever run that did not turn into a debacle?

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Suggested Reading

Here’s a timely, helpful short primer on your road to strategic-thinking :

“Thucydides Was Right: Defining the Future Threat” by Dr. Colin S. Gray

Another LB post from September 2014:

“Let’s not keep shooting elephants to avoid looking a fool”

Here’s an excellent read (it’s a book available for purchase) on America’s role in the world from the late General William E. Odom, which offers some wise counsel on our present convoluted foreign policy:

“America’s Inadvertent Empire”

Here’s a short thought-provoking piece from Cora Sol Goldstein that appeared in the 2012 Autumn Strategic Studies Institute edition:

“The Afghanistan Experience: Democratization By Force”

What you might ask am I going to read to be prepared – well, I’m going to get back to finishing reading General John J. Pershing’s two-volume, Pulitzer-prize winning,  autobiography on his experiences in World War I – like building a modern fighting force from pretty much the bottom up (might be timely as our military is being dismantled by social engineering from President Obama, feckless leadership at the top, and over a decade of futile missions in the ME):

“My Experiences in the World War”

Of course, Dr. Gray recommends reading Thucydides, so I’ve bookmarked that too:

“The History of the Peloponnesian War”

For a daily rundown and analysis of the world’s hotspots, I recommend John McCreary:

“Nightwatch”

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Calling for a time-out to regroup

You want to see revisionist history, just watch this 5:43 minute FOX News video of Senator John McCain bloviating on what we should do to “defeat” ISIS.  For every foreign crisis, McCain’s answer is to send arms or American troops/trainers.  McCain bashed the Obama administration for walking away from Libya after Qaddafi was executed, leaving a gaping power vacuum.  But the “coalition” air campaign in Libya was sold by McCain and Madame Secretary Clinton based on a pack of lies and half-truths – there was no imminent humanitarian crisis.  There also was no democratic political opposition waiting in the wings to turn Libya into some oasis of democracy.  What was in Libya were violent Al Qaeda affiliates, many of whom traveled to Iraq to fight Americans and whom Qaddafi was cooperating with America on fighting.  McCain met with Gadaffi ,a partner in the war on terror in 2009, but as soon as Secretary Clinton beat the war drums in 2011, he did an about face.

In Libya, as in every other American intervention since 9/11, we didn’t have any real follow-on plan, so John McCain is right there, but he skips the part that he was part and parcel of selling the air campaign to oust Gadaffi, which allowed these jihadists to capitalize on the power vacuum we  helped create.  He did not have any plan to offer for the aftermath – he never does!  He can be counted on to get on TV and do this saber-rattling routine, “arm them, send trainers,  we need boots on the ground, blah, blah, blah…”  You can expect Lindsey Graham to follow-up the charges of  President Obama doing nothing to defeat ISIS and angrily demand “action”.

Frankly, I’m sick of the misguided, reckless, foreign policy pontifications  coming from top leadership in both parties.  Secretary Clinton ratcheted up the Libya campaign based on a bunch of fear-mongering claptrap – not solid intelligence on the ground.  Senator McCain hired the lying piece of O’Bagy- age after she got sacked from the Institute for the Study of War.  Just who is Ms O’Bagy, former captain of the Egyptian women’s soccer team, self-professed Syrian expert, fake doctorate degree holder?  We don’t know her background, just like we don’t know the background of Clinton sidekick, Huma Abedin.  We now know Secretary Clinton had Sid Bluementhal providing her intelligence on her private email server, which raises question about the source of his intelligence, the vetting of that information and what role her private sources of intelligence played in her decisions.  Senator McCain has Elizabeth O’Bagy to decipher the forces on the ground in Syria for him (Lord, help us all).  In the White House, the President appears to have handed over the reins of power and the adult responsibility of making the tough decisions to Valerie Jarrett, while Ben Rhodes gets tossed talking points from which to concoct soap operatic “narratives”, which serve in the place of facts.

In Syria, Assad went from Hillary’s “reformer” and John Kerry’s  “friend” to some madman butcher in Damascus.  We’ve been regaled with demands to arm the “moderates” – ahem, in this brutal civil war, we’ve still got “experts” on that hunt for illusive moderates…  That said, shut-up already about sending more troops, training Iraqi troops (who would suggest this crap after we dismantled Saddam’s army and spent years unsuccessfully training Iraqi  security forces???), arming more rebel bands of who-the-hell knows whom they really are (let’s agree, it’s doubtful they’re moderates).

First let’s talk about what are the US interests in the region – make a list and explain why it’s a US interest – convince me, an average American citizen.  Next tell me who are America’s allies and adversaries in the region and then break down the remaining factions and players into some groups and define who they are.  Then give me a real intelligence assessment of the refugee crisis and how that will complicate security across the region for decades and be a destabilizing factor for the foreseeable future.  Tell me about the multitude of factions and who their enemies and allies are (be careful here, sides switch frequently, so by the time we arm and train a group, they might have switched sides, carting our weapons with them and willing to use those weapons against us).

What happens if we defeat ISIS – we’re back to the same thing – another power vacuum.  We need some end game plans before we aid, arm, bomb, “defeat” anymore “evil-doers” to help “freedom-fighters” .  A strategy based on reality, not pipe dreams and wishful thinking would be nice.

Senator McCain is right about President Obama “leading from behind”, but to lead from the front requires us to first define our American interests and our long term goals in the region.  To reach some consensus on our American interests, it would behoove our political leaders to pick up some books on the history of the region and get to understand the complex political dynamics there.  Then, America, as a wanna-be world leader, if I were in charge, well, I’d put on my big girl panties, and open direct, frank talks with the leaders in the region and with other world leaders – heck pick the 4 other permanent members of the UN security council for starters.  To date, we’ve seen John Kerry choking in his own swirling Syrian sandspout of overblown rhetoric and the Russians rescued him by intervening with Assad.  Lately Kerry’s been bowing to the mullahs in Iran so much he’ll need a top-notch chiropractor to straighten his spine, but perhaps growing some backbone is a futile effort.

What we have not seen is America offer anything in the region that has improved regional stability since 9/11.   Our policies (well-meaning in intent) have resulted in catastrophic regional instability and everywhere we’ve added more fuel (military aid, both weapons and/or troops) is more unstable, more factionalized  than before we got involved.   Perhaps it’s time to take a deep breath and do some deep soul-searching on what it is we are really trying to do in this region, define what our American interests are, what we can feasibly do to help stabilize the region, and find ways to put a damper on this raging inferno rather than tossing more fuel onto it.

Here are some of my ideas on the big picture strategic objectives for America, maybe, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and other American leaders could start explaining how they see America’s role in the world:

https://libertybellediaries.com/2013/06/18/global-zero-another-nothing-burger-plan/

https://libertybellediaries.com/2013/05/29/the-mom-world-peace-solution/

https://libertybellediaries.com/2013/06/20/paving-the-path-to-peace/

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2016 Snarky Update

I plan to write something serious soon (maybe even later today), but first the twitter generation brings out some of the best in the snarky folks.  There’s a tweet of Hillary on the campaign trail in NH, walking around with a baby in her arms (oh, how grandmotherly that looks, *barf).  So, here’s the link to a tweet about this.  Now, the funniest comment so far is from TugboatPhil:

She usually has to lure them close to the oven with Gingerbread.

Speaking of the smartest woman in the world, here’s a Kevin Williamson piece at National Review Online from yesterday worth a look, The Age of Minions”:

“Begala is of course the exemplar of the minion type, the tireless monkey-butler of the Clinton crime syndicate, bowing and scraping as members of the imperial family come and go, garnishing their altars between coronations. Begala has minion in his DNA, though he did once seek power for himself, running for student-body president at my alma mater, the University of Texas. He was defeated by an imaginary write-in candidate, Hank the Hallucination, but rather than concede defeat, Begala had Hank the Hallucination ruled ineligible on the grounds that he was not registered as a student.”

“Begala has been triumphing over imaginary foes ever since.”

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417122/age-minions-kevin-d-williamson

All I can say is, “OUCH!”

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A real discussion on ISIS

JK sent me a link to a War On The Rocks podcast, that’s worth listening to:

PODCAST: The Islamic State’s War in Iraq and Syria

It’s a round table kind of discussion on the debacle that is Iraq and Syria between a group of experts, who really offer a lot of interesting insights into the factions, politics, religious strife, policy approaches, history and also some opinions on ways forward at untangling this Gordian knot.  It’s a breath of fresh air to hear differing opinions and some discussion that is calm and filled with more than propaganda promoting an agenda.

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Hail to the chief….

More “hope and change” news:   “Army morale low despite 6-year, $287M optimism program”

About the optimism program:  Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness

Not enough cheery news,  how about  “Amid chaos, Al-Qaida consolidates hold of Yemen province” and “Dempsey: US Focusing Airstrikes to Protect Beiji Refinery”]

You can place about as much faith in the Obama not-quite-a-strategy as you did in his 2011 statement:

” Referring to the threat from al-Qaeda operatives, he said: “We have cut off their head and we will ultimately defeat them.””

or how about:

Sadly, some say, while others do and the JV team keeps demonstrating that when they say, “heads will roll”, ahem, they do….

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Minding Your Manners

Wow, it took a major psychological study to conclude that what used to be considered a parental duty, to teach your child how to behave, really is the most important “skill” you can teach your child according to this article in the British Daily Mail:

“Self control is the most important lesson a parent can teach their child: Study says skill has a major influence on children’s lives

Really, here it is:

“The new research in published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

The researchers who led the study found that children with high self-control – who are typically better able to pay attention, persist with difficult tasks, and suppress inappropriate or impulsive behaviours – are much more likely to find and retain employment as adults, spending 40% less time unemployed than those who had a lower capacity for self-control as children.”

The article mentions yoga and martial arts and naturally nanny state “preschool interventions”, but it doesn’t mention good parenting at home.  Take it from me, a stay at home mother who raised four children, or watch that Duggar family on TV with their 19 kids – it’s all about setting a routine, setting rules (expectations of behavior) for your home, and daily reinforcement.  And most of all being a good example, but hey, “preschool interventions” neatly takes the parents out of the self-control training equation….

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Anticipation

Anticipation for her delayed “big announcement” has sent Twitchy a flutter with #WhyHillaryIsLate.  My favorite so far:

Fun fact: Google reminders don’t work if you erase your entire server.

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