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AP Slips in ‘Poverty’ as Reason For Nigerian Massacres

-By Warner Todd Huston

True to its fealty to left-wing, western pop psychology, the Associated Press thinks it knows one of the principle reasons why roving gangs of Muslims are hacking Christians to death and burning their villages to the ground in Nigeria: It’s “poverty.”

Liberals that struggle to understand why man is often so cruel to his fellows seem always to have assumed that poverty is a key factor in violence and crime, but rarely it is the factor that liberals assume it to be. Poverty is no picnic, but it is not the cause of crime and violence. It is more likely a symptom itself rather than a catalyst.

It’s a chicken and egg question, of course. What came first, the poverty or the crime? But the simple fact of the matter is that poverty is seen in every corner of the Earth, yet crime rates vary wildly from area to area and era to era. So, if poverty is constant and is the catalyst for crime, why doesn’t crime hold at a fairly constant rate? It seems pretty obvious that crime is not directly caused by poverty.

Poverty is caused by a myriad of factors. A lack of education, racism, government oppression, social factors and the like all create poverty. But these same factors also mitigate crime in some parts of the world.

Typically, however, the AP has decided that “poverty” has caused the religious-based violence in Nigeria. While poverty most certainly is a problem in Nigeria, it has changed so little for generations that I find it hard to believe that it could be a cause of this newest wave of violence.

The real cause is both religious and cultural. That poverty abounds in the region is of little difference to the cause of the violence. The clash is between Muslims from the north and Christians in the south. It’s a fight for cultural supremacy. Poverty doesn’t figure into it very much, when all is said and done.

Yet here is the AP presenting “poverty” as a “cause” of the violence as if it is fact. The truth is that “poverty” being a catalyst for crime is a pop psychology trope, not a fact.

It is not fact.

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Coffee Party Astroturf

-By Warner Todd Huston

What is it that the left and the Old Media said about the Tea Party movement? Didn’t they say it was not really filled with regular folks and didn’t they say it was not really a grass roots level effort because some nefarious “top-down” Republican groups were secretly behind the whole thing? That’s what Paul Krugman said in The New York Times. So did Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi — after someone taught her was “astroturf” even was, that is. In fact, the whole left-wing Old Media establishment attacked the tea party movement as some fake, manufactured thing and claimed that it wasn’t peopled by regular folks like you and me. All you need do is put “astroturf” and “tea party” in a search engine and you’ll get thousands of hits revealing the left’s unhinged response to the tea parties.

So, since they seem to want us to believe that they hate “astroturf,” will the left-wing press get all upset that this “coffee party” effort really IS Astroturf? Will the Old Media explode in calls of “astroturf” as it did during the early phases of the tea party movement? Or will they pretend that this coffee party business is real grass roots and report on the effort based on that false assumption. Already it seems as though the coffee party effort is not meeting any real scrutiny and I just got an email that proves the essential “top-down” style upon which this effort is built.

Of course, we know the charge that the tea party movement is astroturf is untrue. While groups like Dick Armey’s Freedom Works, Americans for Prosperity, and a few others did rush to add their voices to the tea party events held all across the country last year (and continue to today) they neither originated the movement, nor did they invent the scope of events, nor did they control the message in any way. In fact they had to scramble to have any part in it at all. Even the big group’s efforts were ad hoc early on.

I know this because I was there in Chicago as the whole thing began and I saw when, where and how the larger national organizations arrived on the scene and it was later not earlier that it happened. I have, for instance, known Eric Odom, one of the early organizers of a large Chicago tea party event, since 2006. I watched as he staged the first big Chicago tea party and helped him build the effort in my own small way. (Odom now runs American Liberty Alliance.) I also have ties to AFP and Americans for Tax Reform and others and watched as they all began to line up behind the tea party movement. The big groups were late comers, for sure.

But all that aside, we can also discount this “astroturf” accusation by looking at the tea party groups today. Even still, there is no national tea party group and the various local tea parties are not united as one. Each group across the land is autonomous and operate at various levels of effectiveness and organization. Some are deeply involved in their local politics, others are barely hanging together as a web-based communication tool.

Now comes this coffee party USA group claiming to be non-partisan. Frank Ross of BigGovernment.com did a great job proving that the creator of this “coffee party” business was really a big Obama operative. No thanks to the Old Media we quickly found out that Annabel Park, the coffee party originator, is an Obama operative and works for The New York Times as a “strategy analyst.” So, it was created by an Obama operative and member of the Old Media, but this was conveniently absent from early reporting on the coffee party phenomenon.

And now comes the first nationwide effort of this coffee party thingamajig and, surprise, surprise, it is also run by perpetual out-of-towners. Here in Chicago the coffee party is not being run by anyone here meaning it is being floated by outsiders, astroturfers, not grass roots locals like the tea party groups are.

Today I received this email alerting me to a “coffee party” kick-off event being held in Chicago where a local Chicagoan that stumbled upon the thing even admits openly that it isn’t being run by anyone local. In his personal email meant to drum up local support for this astroturf effort, the emailer (whose name I will not release) says, “Clearly, this organization is not led by someone from Chicago.” Why? Because the first event was planned to be held during the Chicago St. Patrick’s Day Parade one of City’s biggest local party days. As the emailer scoffs, “Otherwise they would know that we’d all be at a huge parade on this day and instead of drinking coffee we’d be drinking green beer.”

As the emailer says, it is plain that no one from Chicago is actually part of this faux grass roots “coffee party” business or they’d have chosen a different day to try to kick-off their thingamajig. Chicago’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade is one of the biggest city wide party days of the year and no one will be much interested in politics that day, for sure!

In all, this is a classic example of outsiders, a perfect example of astroturf. Will the Old Media take notice?

Text of the email:

From: XXX XXX
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2010 01:43 PM
To: ‘XXX XXX’
Subject: Coffee Party USA Kick-Off – Saturday, March 13

Friends and Colleagues (some of you may receive this email twice – my apologies),

I hope you all can join me at the Coffee Party USA kick-off on Saturday, March 13 at Charmers Cafe, 1500 W. Jarvis in Rogers Park – 10:30 AM. Clearly, this organization is not led by someone from Chicago. Otherwise they would know that we’d all be at a huge parade on this day and instead of drinking coffee we’d be drinking green beer.

So, let’s compromise… after a cup of coffee and civil dialogue on the important political issues in our communities we will go next door for one of those beers at the Poitin Stil – a quaint Irish Bar.

If you can’t make the coffee party at Charmers Cafe, join us for beers at xxxxxxxx.(ed: I excise this bit so as to not help them advertise their coffee party event)

The Mission of Coffee Party USA is to give voice to Americans who want cooperation in government and bring civility and open discussion to the national political debates that are dividing our communities and our country.

I have attached the press release and poster for this event. Below is an excerpt from the press release:

The Coffee Party movement gives voice to Americans who want to see cooperation in government, and welcomes everyone to the table. “We are purely grassroots movement, independent of any party, corporation, or lobbying organization. That is our strength and we plan to use it to facilitate a collaborative process that would encourage people to come together as a community, checking party affiliation at the door,” said Annabel Park, the founder of Coffee Party USA.

Call if you have questions:
(xxx) xxx.xxx

Yep, classic astroturf.

(H/T ">Chicago News Bench)

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Obamaganda: Another School Sings Praises to Dear Leader

-By Warner Todd Huston

It’s a veritable cornucopia of Obamagandistic musical agitprop. You’ll recall the militaristic, fascist-styled Obama youth corps from 2008 where a line of inner city youth stamped out their obeisance militia-like to The One like good little automatons? Perhaps the slickly produced exploitation of sweet faced children from Hollywood that same year will ring a bell? Or maybe your favorite is this misuse of class time in Georgia? Or per chance you’ll recall “Barack Hussein Obama, mmm, mmm, mmm“? These are excellent examples of the Obama version of Leni Riefenstahl’s art.

But those? Well, those are all low class affairs done without an entire orchestra to back them up.

Now we have the brilliance of School children in Illinois, Comrade Obama’s home turf, to add to the din of young musicians enslaved to efforts to exalt Dear Leader. And this tops them all in production values — or at least in scope — for the Midwest Young Artists organization, a group dedicated to “inspiration through music,” has taken upon itself to give the Obammessiah the full orchestral treatment along with a choir and a spoken word segment to round out the production. Uncle Joe couldn’t have created a better display of fealty to Dear Leader. Kim Jong Il is likely red with envy.

Like a good little soldier for the cause Gary Fry, the Choral Program Director and Voices Rising Director for MYA, sat himself down to try his hand at composing a Wagnerian masterpiece, one of which any dictator would be proud. And boy does he deliver. (The original source may be found at the WMYA.fm page) After he was done with his Wagnerian moment, Mr. Fry had his piece performed on February 21, 2010 at Pick-Staiger Auditorium in Evanston, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago. And he enlisted the service of an entire auditorium of Chicago area school children for his paean to Dear Leader.

Now if you can excuse the miscues of these young artists, after all they are only in middle school, if you can set aside your need for technical perfection from the performers for just a minute, if you can look past the occasionally off-key squawk of a horn here, or a missed cue there, you really should watch this thing. Watch this video and listen to the grand scope of what Gary “Nietzsche cum Wagner” Fry was aiming for and it is sure to send a thrill down your leg and satisfy your need to stand up and salute your glorious leader in the White House. Long live Obama, long live Obama…

Perhaps you are as disgusted by this as I am? These orgiastic examples of propaganda for Obama are sickening we all know. In fact, not only are they sickening, entirely un-American, and even dangerous, they are hypocritical. After all, the same drooling, Obamagobsmacked pseudo intellectuals that created these bits of PR puffery would have been apoplectic if so many schools would have sang songs extolling the virtues of George W. Bush… or any other Republican for that matter. Call it a brainwashing tool, call it agitprop, indoctrination, or what ever you like. But at least when we’ve had celebrations of president in schools in the past the president in question at least had the decency to have already left office or even died — or at the very least was in attendance at the performance to politely applaud the little kiddie’s efforts.

These various efforts at Obamaganda were un-burdened by any rationale but to inculcate praises for dear leader in the young, impressionable minds of our school children.

Yep, it’s pretty disgusting, alright.

Well, it’s nice we can sing praises to something in our schools now, I suppose. After all, the ACLU and the Democrats have summarily eliminated anything that might be reasonably construed as a reference to Christianity. So, Dear Leader has replaced all that “God” stuff with himself in our schools. All praise Obama. He’s The One. May he reign as our ruler forever. So says, Gary “Nietzsche cum Wagner” Fry, so say we all.

Descriptions of the four clips linked above:

#1- A fascist-styled paramilitary youth corps video made by a teacher at the Urban Community Leadership Academy in Kansas City, Mo.

#2- The parents of a private school in Venice, California forced their kids to sing praises to Dear Leader while their Hollyweird pals made a nice, slick production out of the affair.

#3- This video was made by “Mr. B” and the kids from “room 8″ in what I think is a public grade school in Georgia.

#4- Of course, we all remember this clip whose tag line is “Barack Hussein Obama, mmm, mmm, mmm,” made famous by the kiddies from B. Bernice Young Elementary School in Burlington Township, NJ. The songs were written by Ms. Charisse Carney-Nunes, a children’s author.

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Unions Top the $1 Billion Club in California Political Spending

-By Warner Todd Huston

The California Teachers Association spent $211,849,298 on lobbying and political spending to get its way in California in 2009. Along with the CTA, the Calif. State Council of Service Employees and 13 other organizations spent a total of one billion dollars on political lobbying of the State House at Sacramento. All of these special interests have helped push California to the brink of insolvency.

But, according to the California Fair Political Practices Commission, the two unions mentioned above far and away top the spending of the other top lobbying spenders in California. The next closest in spending was the Big Pharma clocking in at $104,912,997 on its political spending with various and sundry Indian casino groups whose spending was in the less than $85,000,000 range.

Commission Chairman Ross Johnson said in a press release, “This tsunami of special interest spending drowns out the voices of average voters and intimidates political opponents and elected officials alike.”

The FPPC fully details the spending of these special interests and unions evoking outrage and proving why voter’s will is meaningless to politicians, not just in California, but across the country.

Here, for instance, is how the FPPC breaks down the teachers union spending:

• Ballot Measures: $144,116,835
• Candidates: $16,716,386
• Political Parties: $6,613,834
• Other Campaign Committees: $5,885,936
• TOTAL SPENT INFLUENCE VOTERS: $173,332,991
• TOTAL SPENT LOBBYING OFFICIALS: $38,516,307
• GRAND TOTAL SPENT: $211,849,298

On one level, one might ask why such spending is so wrong? After all, even The Federalist Papers spoke of “factions,” “interests,” and associations of voters getting together to influence their representatives in Congress. Why should a real American be all upset over such spending meant to influence Congress? Shouldn’t lobbying be considered a quintessentially American political convention?

There is one reason and one reason only that this situation is detrimental to our Republic and it isn’t that lobbying exists. It is because government is too powerful and has been allowed to take on too much authority. Lobbying wouldn’t be the problem it is if government didn’t have the power it has to warp and destroy our lives, the power that these lobbying groups court.

Of course, where it specifically relates to the teachers and the service employees unions we are talking about organizations that shouldn’t even be allowed to exist at all. There should be no such thing as a public employees union as the existence of these entities is wholly against the health of our Republic. Still, that aside, if government didn’t have so much power, even these illicit public employees unions wouldn’t be as destructive as they are.

Of course, California, as always, is just the worst, most obscene example of this outrage of Big Government. The truth is that every state in the union is drowning in this sort of morass to one degree or another.

The solution to all of this is to take power away from government.

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