Obama Offers Payoff for Votes; MSNBC Announcer Defends Split Speeches

Newsbusters and legendary blogger Doug Ross report that MSNBC announcer Jay Barbree was visibly upset when he learned that Barack Obama has staged an audience on a NASA base. Obama did give a speech to NASA employees, but none of the NASA employees were allowed to attend an official speech.  Off camera, Obama told the employees that if they voted for him they could keep their jobs.  Only academics and government officials, Obama's lackeys, were allowed to attend the longer speech. 

Newsbusters reports that another MS-NBC announcer, Alex Witt, justified the direct quid pro quo and split speeches that in effect differentiate Americans into two of the three classes that Obama is establishing, the upper, academic-Wall Street class; the vulnerable and dependent middle class of state employees, not permitted freedom of speech and expression because of their dependence on the socialist state; and the lumpenproletariat, loyal to their Fuhrer and to the socialism that keeps them in their place with a crust of bread and an apartment in a city project.

BARBREE: ...I'm a little disturbed right now, Alex. I just found out some very disturbing news. The President came down here in his campaign and told these 15,000 workers here at the Space Center that if they would vote for him, that he would protect their jobs. 9,000 of them are about to lose their jobs. He is speaking before 200, extra hundred people here today only. It's invitation only. He has not invited a single space worker from this space port to attend. It's only academics and other high officials from outside of the country. Not one of them is invited to hear the President of the United States, on their own space port, speak today. Back to you Alex.

WITT: Alright Jay I can understand why that would certainly get you a bit upset. I will say, on behalf of the Obama administration, they contend that 2500 new jobs will be created, even more, they say, than the 2012 Constellation would have created, that program. So I know all this remains to be seen, but understandably we get why you're upset, right now. Along with many others down there. Let's see if the President clears that up later today. Jay thanks so much.

Doug Ross's Comics

Legendary blogger Doug Ross has drawn some excellent comics about the incoming administration and Charlie Rangel (h/t Larwyn). Check them out here.

Doug Ross's Bumper Stickers

Legendary blogger Doug Ross (h/t Larwyn) has posted the following bumper stickers.

Obama Agrees to Bail Out New York Times

Legenday blogger Doug Ross carries this breaking story.

>Breaking: Obama Agrees to a bailout of The New York Times

>Only hours after Mediapost reported that The New York Times had a negative net worth, President-Elect Barack Obama announced a $5 billion bailout rescue package for the media concern. In a hastily arranged press conference at the newly constructed Office of the President-Elect, Obama noted the importance of the Times' ability to influence public opinion.

Read the whole thing here.

Given that the government has gotten into the business of bailing out bankers who can't run banks and auto companies that can't sell cars, it is only logical that it is now bailing out pissants who can't write a fair newspaper. Keep up the good work, Doug!

Larwyn Is Still Alive

Larwyn and Doug Ross asked me to post this:

Larwyn is not dead yet!
If you haven't been receiving the "Best, Larwyn" collections for the past 3 days, please check that she's not being rejected as spam.

FYI: At approx 6 PM I sent out the collection, subject:
What would 'Will Bill' Donovan do w/ Eclipse & Sat Shoot Down?/ Princeton & Harvard grad take 2 days to spin Speech given TWICE!/If anything ALARMS YOU - Do Not Mention it/.."be very kind to Uncle Castro"/ Beating Obama-Beating Hill


My "collections" are normally sent to my three main lists which I follow up with a confirming "Yr Posts" email letting the bloggers know I've appreciated their posts included in the collection.

Suddenly beginning on Valentine's Day, all collections sent to AOL email addressees were returned to me.

So I pulled the AOL addressees out of all 3 lists and put in segregated group* to make it easier to track returns. Had one brief respite on the 18th. By the 19th Yahoo, HotMail, Cox and other network addresses began being returned to me.

I have the lists broken down as follows
1. 33 contacts
2. 33 contacts
3. 39 contacts in MILBLOG/INTL
*4. 1O AOL addressee contacts (temp list pulled from first three)

Last night subject collection: Email Proves CNN's Sick Bias For Marxist Thugs /OBAMA's GLOBAL POVERTY ACT HR3605 -Biden TRIES RUSH/Kosovo & Denmark/Galen brings tears using Lee Greenwood Lyrics in ALWAYS PROUD/ No one expects to leave the Canadian Inquisition!
was returned as follows:
1. (25) of the 33 sent via Gmail
2. (28) of the 33 sent via Gmail
3 (12) of the 39 sent via Comcast
4 (10) of the 10 sent via Gmail
and 4 of the 16 addressees for the "Yr Posts" confirmation were returned also sent via Gmail.

John "Zippy" Callister, Doug Ross and the MSM's Three Biggest Lies

Doug Ross has an interesting blog about John "Zippy" Callister's letter to the Wall Street Journal (courtesy of Larwyn). Mr. Callister had written to the Wall Street Journal complaining that while his portfolio went up during the eight Clinton years, the S&P 500 has done little during the Bush years (actually it has done alot if, as Howard Katz and I have done, you bought in 2002 and sold last year). Mr. Callister, publicly-spirited as he is, complains that he does not care about terrorism, overseas wars, social security or income tax:

"...But, a 100 point gain in the S&P 500 means about $50,000 in my pocket... It is odd that so many people forget the stock market boom of the late 1990s."

Doug is annoyed at Zippy, and rightly so, although Zippy's argument is more revealing about the Democrats and the mainstream media than Doug suggests.

According to my broker at Smith Barney, the S&P 500 is currently at 1409. If 100 points (7% x 1409) means $50,000 to Zippy, that means his portfolio is roughly $50,000/ .07 = $714,000.

Zippy suggests that his portfolio hasn't increased since 2000, so I assume it was $714,000 in 2000. In contrast, the Census Bureau says that the median household net worth in 2000 was $55,000. The median household net worth for households in the highest income quintile was $185,000. In 2000, only 27.1% of households owned stocks and mutual fund shares at all, and these had an average value of $19,268. 29.9% of households had 401k plans with average assets of $29,900. Thus, Zippy's household wealth of $714,000 put him well above the median for the highest quintile in 2000. That Zippy favors the Democrats is revealing of the the MSM's three biggest lies:

Lie Number One: The Democrats are for wage earners, not the wealthy.
Lie Number Two: Corporate interests reflect the public interest.
Lie Number Three: The stock market goes up because of general prosperity.

MSM Lie Number One: The Democrats Favor Wage Earners, Not The Wealthy

Conservatives and libertarians often wonder why the wealthy, such as George Soros, Warren Buffett, Nancy Pelosi and Zippy, tend to prefer progressive-liberals and Democrats. The "Red" states, it has been noticed, are concentrated where there are many trust fund babies and millionaires, while the "Blue" states tend to be poorer. This is chalked up to left-wing education. But progressive-liberal dogma is consistent with the economic interests of the wealthy. The reason is that the Democrats tend to be even more inflationary than the Republicans, who are also inflationary, just not so much.

Yet, the MSM repeats the claim that inflationary, high-tax, high-regulation policies favor the average American rather than the wealthy, "Red State" trust fund babies whom such policies do favor. Zippy is merely the bull in the china shop who reveals to us that selfish impulses do matter. The Republicans' policies help the average working man while the Democrats, who claim to be for the poor, help Zippy.

MSM Lie Number Two: The Stock Market Reflects The General Prosperity

Advocates of mainstream finance theories argue that markets are rational. This has a clinical sound to it. However, even if true, rational markets do not require rationally run corporations. In fact, most big businesses aren't run rationally. They require subsidies at public expense. Even if large businesses were run efficiently without the need for government welfare, their interests would not coincide with the general public's for several reasons. Laws that protect business from competition serve corporate interests but do not serve the public interest. Since the 1850s, business has lobbied, often effectively, for protectionism, regulation to rationalize markets, easy credit, lucrative government contracts and the like. Public waste is private profit. Stockholders of firms that benefit from wasteful government contracts, protectionism, regulation and subsidies become wealthier as the public becomes poorer. Joint gains are only possible in a market economy. Yet, the MSM repeatedly claims that stock market increases are good for the general public. This is not the case in a mixed economy where government subsidies are common. They are certainly good for Zippy, who is wealthier than average and who benefits from secular stock market increases. They are also good for government contractors. But they are not good for the average person.

MSM Lie Number Three: The Stock Market Goes Up Because of General Prosperity

This is perhaps the most pernicious lie because it encourages the public to harm itself. The chief driver of the stock market is interest rates. Interest rates are chiefly influenced by the Federal Reserve Bank. The Federal Reserve Bank can raise interest rates by contracting the money supply and can reduce interest rates by increasing the money supply, i.e., printing money. The advocates of printing money were known as Populists in the 19th century. In the twentieth century they realized that if they pretended to be scientists their self-serving claims would be more convincing. Thus, they packaged their argument for increasing the money supply in the garb of "science", calling themselves "macro-economists". The "macro-economics" that they advocate is in substance the same as the arguments of the 19th century Populists, who advocated greenbacks and free silver. The macro-economists claim that they can adjust the money supply at different stages of the economic cycle, but the Fed doesn't do this. Although the Fed has never done this, the "scientists" do not revise their opinions, and when they gain power they do the same thing that the Fed has always done, namely, they support the stock and real estate markets at the expense of the general public. The money supply has gone in one consistent direction since the Fed was founded--UP. The US money supply is 16 times greater today than when the Fed was founded in 1913.

Stock and real estate markets inflate along with the money supply because of low interest rates. But increasing the money supply has another effect, namely, because the number of dollars in circulation is increased at a faster rate than the value of output increases (a painfully difficult fact for progressive-liberal advocates of the large-corporations-are-rational philosophy) there are general price increases, i.e., inflation in food, energy, labor and other prices. Prices have indeed gone up by 3.5% on average since 1979. A dollar in 1979 is worth 38 cents today. The mother of three must pay more for milk and her children might be hungry, but Zippy and his fellow Democrats gets to pocket the increase, and he is happy.

In the past six years the price of gold has gone from $250/oz. to nearly $900/oz. Thus, although the Republicans may not have been as good at inflating the stock market as the Democrats, they have been much better at inflating commodity prices. Of course, neither party is different from the other because they are both following the same inflationary policy. They are the ReInflateoCrat Party (the In stands for Bloomberg Independent). Howard S. Katz argues that there is a commodity "pendulum" which causes first declines in commodity prices and increasing stock market prices then increases in commodity prices. Katz argues that we are only at the beginning of the pendulum swing favoring commodity prices and that we still have a decade or even two to go. This will be true whether Democrats or Republicans win.

In other words, the stock market increases of the Clinton years are desirable only to trust fund babies, the wealthy, Democrats and Zippy. They are not beneficial to the average American.

What is perhaps most telling about Zippy's letter is his simple-minded selfishness, a characteristic of today's wealthy that did not characterize the wealthy of the late 19th century. I attribute this to progressive-liberal education and the general triumph of progressive-liberalism, which is a philosophy of pretended altruism coupled with the devastation of the average American through taxation and other violent state policies that progressive-liberals gleefully depict as altruistic when they are mostly self-serving.

Madmen, Hillary and the Wizard of Oz

American Movie Classics'(AMC's) Madmen is great television. Madmen's quality equals HBO's and Showtime's, which puts it a cut above today's Hollywood movies.

Madmen stars Jon Hamm as Don Draper. It is about an advertising agency in the golden age of television, the late 1950s and early 1960s. The name "Draper" alludes to draping or deceiving, and we are reminded of the Wizard in the Wizard of Oz, whom Dorothy exposes behind the drapes of the control room. Like the Wizard, Draper's job is to create illusion. One of the story lines is that Draper's firm represents the Nixon campaign pro bono in the 1960 election, the first that television influenced.

Before watching Madmen it would be useful to read a history of consumerism. One is William Leach'sLand of Desire: Merchants, Power and the Rise of a New American Culture and another is Gary Cross's All Consuming Century. Both books provide rich perspective on the dynamic of consumerism and its implications for culture. Leach goes into an extended analysis of the Wizard of Oz.

Following amusement parks, Wannamaker's department store decorations, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and L. Frank Baum's ideas (Baum, besides being an author, was an early expert about window displays), advertising has been the basis of consumerism. That is, one of the characteristics of consumerism is the creation of imaginative imagery about consumption. Thus, New York and several other large cities became the centers not only of art, culture, theater and television, but more importantly of imagery about consumption that created today's global culture. Such imagery would be unnecessary or unimportant were it truthful. The association of consumerism and advertising suggests that deception is at consumerism's root.

There is an inherent conflict. To be possible, consumerism requires advances in technology. In turn, technology depends on uncovering of the truth, discovery of fundamental principles and a relentless willingness to let old modes, business methods and social constructs die. Schumpeter called this creative destruction. But stimulation of consumption relies on creating an image, one that is often false, romantic or misleading.

At the same time the left is a romantic movement that itself is a reflection of consumer society and advertising. The left manufactures political ideas that are romantic but have as little truth or reality as the mountain stream in a Newport cigarettes ad. The left claims to oppose the deception inherent in commercialization, but does so through "draping" and deception that parallel commercialization. To the left, ideology plays the role that advertising plays to consumerism. The left substitutes lies about a romanticized past and a fictional claim to ethical belief. It deceptively claims that the past is the future.

Thus, the left claims that centralized economic planning (monarchy) is economically superior to markets, a lie. The left claims that government power and regulation, much like the power of kings, is more humane than limited government and private enterprise, which is a lie. The left claims that monetary expansion, which favors the wealthy over the poor, is necessary to help the poor, which is also a lie.

Hence, the dialogue of twentieth century America* was largely between a conservative, market-based view which depends on the truth and technology for its foundations, but furthers its ends through lies and mass media; and a left-wing view whose ideology is itself a lie. Both modern conservatism and left/liberal ideology depend on groupthink. Both rely on the mass media. Both focus on the trivial. Both advocate policies whose effects are the reverse of what they claim. It may be said that in the twentieth century the Sophists triumphed and that the Sophists now dominate our most retrograde institutions, such as universities.

The Republicans claim to be for less government, then when elected expand government. The Democrats claim to be for the poor, but create massive inner city slums, urban ghettos that isolate racial minorities and the poor. As well, the Democrats' educational policies, via left-wing institutions like NCATE, cripple the poor by enfeebling them educationally; and they and the left attack private institutions such as Wal-Mart that benefit the poor economically.

Were it not for the left, the role of intellectual would in part be the one that L. Frank Baum assigned to Dorothy: lifting the drapes from the Wizard's control room, and exposing him for the fraud that he is. That is the tradition of Thorstein Veblen as well as the Austrian economists. But the academy fell prey to ideology, and has adopted rigid, ideological deception, commitment to elitism and attacks on the poor, for instance, through attacking Wal-Mart and through favoring the Federal Reserve Bank, low interest rates and inflation. Universties themselves are a state supported system that encourages class stratification, alienation of the average person and economic isolation of the talented poor. Universities are institutions who demonize the average person, humanity, in the name of an inept elite that produces nothing and whose main purpose is to institutionalize itself.

Doug Ross @ Journal lists "Hillary's Top Ten Fabrications". These include her claim that she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary although she was born five years before he climbed Mt. Everest; her failure to disclose profits from Whitewater; and her description of abortion as a "tragic choice".**

It is not surprising that Hillary is a liar. Nor would it be surprising that the Republicans are equally liars. The groupthink; lack of vision; fixation on trivia; emotional outrage about superficial issues and ignoring the fundamental issues such as special interest group influence; corruption of the democratic process through gerrymandering and related processes; misleading disclosure in areas like government operations and inflation; monetary expansion and the corruption of the dollar; claiming to be for less government when you are for more government (such is the history of Rudy Giuliani) all suggest that Republicans and Democrats have similar stakes in equivalent forms of corruption. Both are parties of liars.

It is increasingly important that competition be introduced into the political system. "Voters for None of the Above" offers a mainstream alternative. I discuss NOTA here.

*In Europe, with the exception of Britain, the chief ideologies of the twentieth century were mainly variants of the left, to include fascism, Nazism, communism and today's dirigisme.

**Concerning the abortion issue, William Saletan of Slate writes:

"...against the ugliness of state control, she wants to raise the banner of morality as well as freedom...'There is no reason why government cannot do more to educate and inform and provide assistance so that the choice guaranteed under our constitution either does not ever have to be exercised or only in very rare circumstances.'...Once you embrace that truth—that the ideal number of abortions is zero—voters open their ears...Admit the goal is zero, and people will rethink birth control. 'Seven percent of American women who do not use contraception account for 53 percent of all unintended pregnancies'..."

But Clinton's argument, which transfers the moral concern about abortion into a discussion of abortion as a quality process, a quality target that needs to be minimized, is itself a form of draping.