Saturday, May 14, 2011

From Brooklyn to Kingston and Back: Welcome to The Lincoln Eagle

I ran into Bob Marnell at Steve Marnell's Woodstock Music Trade Show at the Holiday Inn in Kingston, NY.  Bob, an IBM employee who moved to South Carolina from Kingston, told me that he is hard at work creating the online version of his brother's, Mike Marnell's, Lincoln Eagle.  A beta site is up at: http://thelincolneagle.com/.

The story that the Marnell brothers chose to put up as the first article is the history of their ancestors' founding of The Brooklyn Eagle in the 1840s, its rise into becoming the largest newspaper in the world, its decline, and its closing in the 1950s.  A big part of the article is about the links between Brooklyn and Kingston. What a coincidence: I teach at Brooklyn College and am heading there tomorrow am!

Lei Isaacs writes in The Lincoln Eagle:

There are many links connecting Brooklyn and The Brooklyn Eagle to Kingston. Perhaps the most visible is an enormous, quirky house with a blue awning located at 58 St. James Street. Isaac Van Anden had a sister, who had two sons, William and Charles Hester, who eventually took the paper over from Isaac Van Anden, who died on August 4, 1875.

Around 1884, Charles Hester was one of the many tourists who have been drawn to the Kingston area over the decades by the combination of fresh air, access to transportation, and proximity to The City which, in 1884, was not New York City but Brooklyn. Brooklyn had become a city in 1834, and had annexed the surrounding five towns of New Amersfoort, Midwout, New Utrecht, Boswisk and Gravesend. Referring to itself as “The city of homes and churches,” Brooklyn contrasted itself to New York City, “the home of Crime Government.”

There had been several Hester families in what is now uptown Kingston for many decades, including several on Fair Street. In 1883 the Kingston City Directory listed the establishment of the domicile of Charles W. Hester at “58 St. James Street at the corner of Clinton. “ (The building that now stands between 58 St. James Street and the corner of Clinton was an outbuilding for the original grand house.) Marnell recalls that Charles Hester “Built the house for his wife and never worked another day in his life.” The building is still a quirky monument to the best in the excesses of Victorian architecture, embellished with dormers, balconies, lacework and the exquisite wrap-around porch, now enhanced with the modern blue awning.

According to available records, Charles W. Hester retired to 58 St. James Street in about 1896. It was a pivotal time for Brooklyn and for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. In 1890 the cornerstone for the new Brooklyn Daily Eagle building was laid at the corner of Johnson and Washington Avenues across the street form Borough Hall. Until then, the paper had been published on Fulton Street.
The Brooklyn Eagle The Brooklyn Eagle Then: Now, it's the Brooklyn Supreme Court.

The Eagle moved into its new building in 1892. In 1894, a popular vote was cast to consolidate Brooklyn with the City of New York. The Brooklyn Eagle passionately and vociferously opposed the annexation. In 1897, when Charles Hester was enjoying the view of St. James Street from one of his balconies, Brooklyn was the fourth largest city in the United States. In spite of the warnings in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle that annexation would cause real estate values to plummet and would have a disastrous effect on the quality of life, Brooklyn became a borough of New York City in early 1898. Neither Brooklyn nor its daily newspaper would ever be quite as grand again.

Sometime in 1903, Charles V. Hester died, having not lived to enjoy retirement to his mansion for even a decade. His widow, Mary F. Hester, and children Natalie and Arthur, continued to live in the mansion briefly, but they had moved out by 1906. Later, the splendid house became the home of Reverend Hillman, and for decades it has been a quiet apartment house, its exciting history largely unknown by its residents.

Agenda 21: If You Haven't Read It, then You Are Part of the Problem

UN Agenda 21 was signed by the Bush administration in the early 1990s. It is a plan to turn a large share of the earth's surface into parkland.  Few people believe that the US has associated itself with a treaty that would forcibly evacuate a large share of the nation's population. I have purchased a copy at:

https://unp.un.org/Browse.aspx?subject=29

Message to Ulster County GOP Re Yess Resignation

Speaking as an outsider and someone with a long history of pro-freedom activism, I would like to ask everyone on the executive committee, what does the GOP in Ulster County now have to offer people who believe in limited government and individual liberty?  By failing to oppose the Golden Hill home, is the GOP here in Ulster County the Democrats’ servile “me too” party? Has the current county legislature reduced spending and taxes-- or is it in the Progressive-Party-pretending-to-be-a-limited-government-party excuse-invention business?  Is there a reason why I should spend my time raising money or collecting signatures for a party whose majority cannot refrain from spending $80 million on a boondoggle like Golden Hill?  What is the GOP doing to actualize the ideas of Thomas Jefferson rather than Progressive-cum-socialist Theodore Roosevelt? Can someone clue me in?  

Mitchell Langbert    

Robin Yess Resigns as Ulster County GOP Chair

I just received Robin Yess's resignation as chair of the Ulster County Republican Committee.  With Robin gone, the Ulster County Republican Committee is a force for bigger government.  Yess writes that five GOP legislators plan to support the Golden Hill nursing home, a boondoggle that will cost Ulster County taxpayers $80 million.  Yess's argument is that the GOP is really the GOB--the Good 'Ol Boys Party.  It seems to me that what has happened in the Ulster County GOP is very much what is going to be happening all over the country.  As insurgents like Yess start to realize the impossibility of reforming the GOP, increasing numbers of Republicans will disassociate themselves from it.  Tea Party activists who believe that the GOP is less socialistic than the Dems are delusional.  The next presidential election year is going to see a boom in third parties, especially if a big government advocate wins the GOP's presidential nod. 

To: All Town Chairs

Please share with your committees, but in the event you don’t, a hard copy is going to the entire County Committee in tomorrow’s mail along with some other documents of interest.

Since the Fall of 2007, I have been actively involved in the County Committee and obviously the Republican Party in Ulster County. Since being elected as Chair last September, I have continued to work hard and have tried to move things forward in a positive direction. At every turn there are those who work against my efforts or do nothing but complain. It’s not everyone, but it’s enough.

There are a lot of problems with politics and political parties, but the ‘GOB’ is the biggest problem for the GOP. The GOB being the ‘Good Old Boys’. Since my election as Chair I have witnessed some outrageous things and heard some shocking things, but I guess it’s expected. What isn’t expected is Elected Republican Officials who don’t stand up for Republican Party platform and principles. What I am talking about is, of course, Golden Hill Health Care Center. In my opinion, there shouldn’t be any discussion or consideration amongst Republican Legislators as to our stance on this issue. My position – and I believe the position of most true Republicans – is that government has no business being in a business that can be run by the private sector. Period. However, we have some Legislators (I now refer to them as “The Golden Hill Five”) who believe that the County should not only continue to run a nursing home, but that we should spend and borrow upwards of $80 to $100 million to make that happen. All for 280 beds. There is no way that taking on this kind of debt or even half that amount will not increase our taxes. And anyone who believes that we will receive an influx of cash from the State to help fund this project, given the financial times we’re in, is a fool.

I am a Republican because I support limited and smaller government, and certainly less and fewer taxes. It seems that the GOB are always fighting me, working behind the scenes going out of their way to make me look bad, diminish my authority or make my efforts fail. When five out of eighteen Republican legislators support continuing a County Run nursing home, more debt and more spending, we, as a Party, have a serious problem. The Golden Hill dilemma is a serious issue for me. I suppose I have come to realize that I am wasting my time working to support a Party that clearly does not share the same principles and values as I do. When a former County Republican Chairman speaks at the Republican Caucus on 4/12/11 and promotes the idea of continuing a county run nursing home, we have a problem. When five of our Republican legislators want to vote in favor of building a new nursing home, spending money we don’t have and imminently raising taxes, we have a problem. I have worked very hard to support Republican Party principles, which is what I thought we were all working toward, but clearly that’s not the case...

....I am resigning as Chairman of the Ulster County Republican Committee effective immediately, and no, I am not interested in assuming any other role. My four years of volunteer service conclude today. As First Vice Chair, David Van Benschoten will conduct the nominating convention on June 2nd unless he declines to do so. This evening I returned all documents in my possession to Republican Headquarters. Over the weekend, I will deliver an envelope to Secretary Jacobsen that will include some important information, passwords and my keys, and the checkbooks will be delivered to Treasurer Berenda. I will submit all ads for the dinner journal to PDQ Printing tomorrow so they can get ready for printing and will leave all dinner related documents with Patty Jacobsen.

I suggest that the ousters get to work right away to show how they can make things happen so that when Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb shows up to speak at the dinner, he’s got a good crowd to address. Good luck and to those of you who have supported my efforts, I thank you with all my heart. I will always be available to help true Republicans and you know who you are.

The Lincoln Eagle to Go Online

I am delighted to announce that Mike Marnell, owner of The Lincoln Eagle, will take his Kingston, NY monthly paper online within the next few weeks. The Lincoln Eagle is written by its readers; he dispenses with America's failed journalism profession.  All a reader needs to do is submit a photo and write what he thinks. Who needs stuffed shirt elitists who know less than their readers?

The Lincoln Eagle is written by the people, of the people, and for the people. It is a credit to Marnell that he has made a success of a small scale print newspaper at a time when most newspapers are having problems at best. Mike's approach fits the Internet beautifully. His aim is have a Lincoln Eagle in every American city.

It is not a question whether The Lincoln Eagle will be a success. Rather, the question is how quickly Mike will succeed.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

UN Agenda 21: How the Bush and Obama Administrations Planned to Wreck Your Future

I spent the afternoon with a friend planning work on UN Agenda 21.  UNESCO already has management power over a number of US federal parks.  Watch Mr. Lamb's video below. The recent cap and trade law is very much a reflection of the Agenda 21 policy, adopted during George H. Bush's presidency. The parks policies that Mr. Lamb describes echo the Rockefellers' Adirondack Park in northern New York.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Far Left Attacks Trustee Wiesenfeld

Phyllis Chesler posts a blog about the faculty behind Tony Kushner's nomination for a CUNY honorary degree. She writes:

When I first described the City University of New York as the Communist University of New York, I had no idea how right I was.

It seems that Dr. Michael Meeropol, the son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, is one of two professors at John Jay College who nominated Tony Kushner for this honorary degree. Meeropol is a professor of economics...

...Right now, the left-wing CUNY faculty are exulting in their spurious “win.” They expect a huge media turnout on June 3, graduation day, to further magnify and glorify their demonization of Israel.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Not a Wonderful Life: Today's Democrats and Republicans Are Yesterday's Brown Shirts

Both Democrats and Republicans harass me when I question either. Obama's brown shirted followers have repeatedly called me names such as "racist." As The New York Sun reported in 2008, several of Obama's followers maliciously reported my blog as spam, causing Google to shut it down for a number of days.In a parallel display of rigid intolerance, today a GOP supporter called me names for writing earlier that, absent a Paul, Johnson or other small government 2012 presidential nominee, I would vote Libertarian in the hopes of a split government.  The Republican response is as authoritarian as the Democratic one. 

To quote History Learning.com, one week before the 1932 election Hitler burned down the Reichstag, the German parliament. He convinced President Hindenburg to give him an emergency powers law more extreme than those that the Patriot Act grants the American president: the Law for the Protection of the People and the State. Hitler had claimed that communists had burned down the Reichstag, and he blamed Marianus van der Lubbe for doing so.   The law banned the Communists and Socialists from taking part in the 1932 election, ensuring a Nazi election victory.  The storm troopers (Sturmabteilung, SA, or brown shirts) beat up Hitler's opponents.  Because a majority, of Germans had voted against Hitler (which was his reason for forestalling an open election in 1932), Hitler had to use intimidation to maintain power.

The Democrats and Republicans do not need to burn down Congress because there is already a one party system in the United States.  The Stalinist mass media has done Obama's and Romney's brown shirting for them.   As Georg Lukacs has pointed out, Stalinist Russia, Nazi Germany and today's America share similarities. Their governments reflect national socialist forms.  Due to the propaganda of The New York Times and left wing academics, students are taught that Hitler's system was fascism rather than National Socialism.  In fact, today's Sweden has a nationalist socialist system, as does the US to a lesser degree.  Hitler's National Socialism was conceptually similar to Stalin's socialism in one country, and both were similar to Theodore Roosevelt's Progressivism.  Both Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt aimed to cartelize American industry; the American system under Roosevelt's National Recovery Act, had the Supreme Court not declared it unconstitutional, would have been more like Mussolini's fascism than Hitler's or Stalin's system, but it would have hastened the long term trend toward centralization of power.

The centralization of the monetary system and Wall Street's control of the legacy media have shored up America's socialism in one country.  Today, an elite led by George Soros and Barack Obama increasingly favor an internationalist socialism to a nationalist one. Obama and his backers at The New York Times may be more like Trotsky than Stalin, to the distaste of Stalinists like Donald Trump. The system has guaranteed the transfer of wealth from  productive and innovative Americans to Wall Street and government, accelerating the 19th century's gradual trend toward centralization.  The 19th century trend would not have occurred to the same degree without the Civil War and state subsidies to the railroads.  Centralization permitted economic gains for less than a century, but did so by quelling twin innovative engines: laissez faire capitalism and decentralized government. 

Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, which I showed to my senior seminar class yesterday,  implies that concentrated wealth is potentially totalitarian. As Uncle Billy says to Mr. Potter before he hands him the $8,000 meant for deposit in Mr. Potter's bank, "Not every heel was in Japan and Germany." 

What is remarkable about the American descent into national socialism is not that The New York Times supports it.  Wall Street, starting with the Ochs Sulzbergers and Rupert Murdoch, owns the media, and its writers and reporters are the products of America's elite socialist-in-one-country cum internationalist socialist education system.  What is remarkable is that apparently a majority of Americans support a system that has harmed them economically, and that has reduced the growth in their standard of living so that they are earning less than one half of what they would have earned under laisser faire.

Obama's Popularity Sign of American Voter Derangement

Rasmussen reports that Obama's popularity has been higher this month than last.  Whereas 42% had strongly disapproved of Obama's performance on March 31, and 24% had strongly approved of him, as of May 9, 34% strongly disapproved, while  26% strongly approved. Rasmussen's total approval score for Obama is now at 51%, while his total disapproval score is at 48%.  In contrast, on March 31, his total approval score was at 44% and his total disapproval score was at 55%. However, Rasmussen's "presidential approval index," the percentage that strongly approves less the percentage that strongly disapproves, remains in negative territory at -8%. Lots of racists out there who dislike seeing American contribute $12.8 trillion to commercial banks and Wall Street.

The reason for the shift is likely the belief that Obama killed Osama. Of course, the military  had been seeking Osama for ten years, so it is difficult to grasp why anyone would imagine that Obama had much to do with killing Osama other than getting out of the way of the inevitable.  Concurrently, rumors are circulating that the military and the president knew about Osama's whereabouts for four or more years. 

My prediction is that Obama's popularity blip will fade. Elections are 18 months away, and the economy's state, thanks in large part to the Fed's and Obama's policies, is parlous.  I am getting back into silver and and buying some extra gold today.  The recent correction in silver may not be over, but it is not a permanent shift. The Fed and the Republicrats have been playing a game of chicken with worldwide dollar holders.  The dollar will continue to decline, and thanks to Obama, Bush and America's deranged democracy, Americans continue to see their representatives support policies that are gradually impoverishing them and supporting (a) Wall Street, (b) commercial banking, (c) government employees, and (d) stockholders. 

Rasmussen also reports that 57% of Americans support repeal of the national health care and only 36% oppose repeal.  44% strongly favor repeal and 26% oppose. 50% believe that the health care law will be bad for the country.  I guess most Americans don't look forward to seeing the reductions in their quality of health care that Obama, the Democrats and the Wall Street-owned media aim to induce.

I would not be adverse to Obama's reelection if the choice is between a big government Republican, such as Romney or Trump, and Obama. In that case I will certainly be voting for the Libertarian Party, hoping for a Republican Senate and House, and a Democratic presidency.

Students Rave about My Senior Seminar

Hello Prof Langbert,
 
Many thanks for your course. I didn't have a chance to breathe during the semester. However, the time went very fast and now, by the end of the semester, I realized how much I've learned in your class. Honestly, your class made me think about a lot of things.  It made me look at my life from a different angle. Thanks for making me wiser.
 
Sincerely,
 
NK