People often raise the question as to why progressives support failed ideas. As well, many conservative non-Jews are aghast that left-wing Jews continue to support progressives like Barack Obama, who has been threatening the Jewish state.
The answer is that progressives are neither Jew nor Christian nor any other religion save one. They are Progressives. In his tour de force Between Literature and Science: The Rise of Sociology* Wolf Lepenies outlines the rise of sociology as an attack on literature, but from the beginning sociology was posited not just as a science, but as a religion. Progressivism perpetuates the sociological tradition.
Central to Lepenies's thesis are the sociologies of Auguste Comte and Beatrice Webb. Comte was the author of the terms sociology and positivism. His early work was an attempt to locate a social physics or sociology at the apex of the sciences. To do so Comte traces the development and relationships among the sciences. In his later work Comte attempts to structure a religion based on science. In the case of Comte the aim is explicit: science not only displaces religion but becomes the basis for a new religion.
Lepenies argues that a parallel development occurs in the work of the Fabian socialist Beatrice Webb. Sidney and Beatrice Webb began as advocates of a gradually evolving socialism. But they discarded their Fabian approach with the advent of Soviet communism. Toward the end of their lives in the 1930s the Webbs became advocates of Soviet communism just as Stalin was butchering millions.The reason the Webbs adopted communism is clear from an excerpt from Beatrice Webb's diary that Lepenies quotes (p. 136):
In the Soviet Union the Communist Party had become a religious order:
It has its Holy Writ, its prophets and its canonized saints; it has its Pope, yesterday Lenin and today Stalin; it has its code of conduct and its discipline; it has its creed and its inquisition. As yet it has no rites or modes of worship. Will it develop ritual as did the followers of Auguste Comte?
The same may be asked of American progressivism. It too has its saints, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, its pope, Barack Obama, its prophets and its bible, The New York Times. Despite progressivism's failure, its adherents remain committed as would the faithful of any religion.
*Wolf Lepenies, Between Literature and Science: The Rise of Sociology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Environmental Initiatives Immiserate Town of Olive, Ulster County, USA
The Town of Olive and Ulster County are abuzz about new local environmental regulations that are being pushed by the Obama administration, local Democrats and Republicrats. The environmental push is coordinated by environmental extremists who have been influencing policy prescriptions since 2008, using as a guide a 1993 book that resulted from a 1992 UN conference called Agenda 21. The Agenda 21 conference proceedings are obtainable on disk in some university research libraries. The version of Agenda 21 currently on the UN website differs from the Agenda 21 conference proceedings and the original publications. I have yet to do my homework on the details of the 1992 conference (which requires a trip to the City College of New York), so I am discussing this second and third hand.
Rumors on the Internet claim that Agenda 21 proposed to influence local government through building codes and difficult-to-understand standards that would be pushed through local governments. The explicit aim is intensive control of society to preserve the natural environment in its current form, including depopulation of rural areas and concentration of population in urban developments. The recent LEED presentation at the Birchez development is the kind of development that Agenda 21 proposes on a much larger scale, so the radical environmentalist agenda has already made initial inroads. There is no reason to think that the radical environmentalists who advocate these steps, including Congressman Maurice Hinchey, intend to move all at once. Rather, the implementation of codes and increasing control and elimination of population can proceed over decades.
Both local Republicans and Democrats were present at the Birchez presentation, and we can expect that neither party has your personal or property rights in mind. The Birchez presentation was disrupted by two protestors, including myself, whereupon four armed police officers outside their jurisdiction escorted us to our car and took down my friend's license plate. We had done nothing wrong and when a plain clothes police officer (Town of Ulster Supervisor Jim Quigley informs me that the officer was NOT from the Town of Ulster) pushed me I said to her, "Please do not touch me or I will call the police." She responded "I am the police." "Are you the police, or are you one of Hinchey's paid racketeers?" I asked. Thereupon, an attorney and four police officers followed my associate and me to the car, taking down the license plate. All the while the attorney peppered us with personal questions, trying to determine who we were. So much for freedom of speech in green-shirted Ulster County. One question: why do the Town of Ulster Police serve as Congressman private interests' muscle men and women?
This week, the Town of Olive announced a meeting on August 8 concerning a bogus strategic plan that claims to have relied on the input of citizens from the August 8 meeting but which I received on July 30. If you read it in the link below you will notice reference to input from the August 8 meeting even though August 8 is a week away. So much for the integrity of the people presenting the plan. I assure you that they did not get any input from anyone who disagrees with radical environmentalism or UN Agenda 21.
LEED, which sponsored the Birchez meeting from which I was evicted, is currently being touted by the Ulster County Democrats, who have overseen a dismal, declining local economy for the past two decades. Now, however, the county and localities have the opportunity to implement jobs-and-freedom-destroying regulations that are being proposed locally based on junk, pseudo-scientific environmental nostrums. County Executive Mike Hein was present at the Birchez meeting, but he blames Ulster County's dismal economy on state regulation like SEQRA. But why would anyone locate a plant to a county that buys into the kind of environmental extremism represented by LEED and by the Town of Olive's recent report? Ulster County has voted an extremist crank like Maurice Hinchey into office for two decades. Why would any businessman in his right mind want to locate plant here?
I received this e-mail from a concerned citizen:
Rumors on the Internet claim that Agenda 21 proposed to influence local government through building codes and difficult-to-understand standards that would be pushed through local governments. The explicit aim is intensive control of society to preserve the natural environment in its current form, including depopulation of rural areas and concentration of population in urban developments. The recent LEED presentation at the Birchez development is the kind of development that Agenda 21 proposes on a much larger scale, so the radical environmentalist agenda has already made initial inroads. There is no reason to think that the radical environmentalists who advocate these steps, including Congressman Maurice Hinchey, intend to move all at once. Rather, the implementation of codes and increasing control and elimination of population can proceed over decades.
Both local Republicans and Democrats were present at the Birchez presentation, and we can expect that neither party has your personal or property rights in mind. The Birchez presentation was disrupted by two protestors, including myself, whereupon four armed police officers outside their jurisdiction escorted us to our car and took down my friend's license plate. We had done nothing wrong and when a plain clothes police officer (Town of Ulster Supervisor Jim Quigley informs me that the officer was NOT from the Town of Ulster) pushed me I said to her, "Please do not touch me or I will call the police." She responded "I am the police." "Are you the police, or are you one of Hinchey's paid racketeers?" I asked. Thereupon, an attorney and four police officers followed my associate and me to the car, taking down the license plate. All the while the attorney peppered us with personal questions, trying to determine who we were. So much for freedom of speech in green-shirted Ulster County. One question: why do the Town of Ulster Police serve as Congressman private interests' muscle men and women?
This week, the Town of Olive announced a meeting on August 8 concerning a bogus strategic plan that claims to have relied on the input of citizens from the August 8 meeting but which I received on July 30. If you read it in the link below you will notice reference to input from the August 8 meeting even though August 8 is a week away. So much for the integrity of the people presenting the plan. I assure you that they did not get any input from anyone who disagrees with radical environmentalism or UN Agenda 21.
LEED, which sponsored the Birchez meeting from which I was evicted, is currently being touted by the Ulster County Democrats, who have overseen a dismal, declining local economy for the past two decades. Now, however, the county and localities have the opportunity to implement jobs-and-freedom-destroying regulations that are being proposed locally based on junk, pseudo-scientific environmental nostrums. County Executive Mike Hein was present at the Birchez meeting, but he blames Ulster County's dismal economy on state regulation like SEQRA. But why would anyone locate a plant to a county that buys into the kind of environmental extremism represented by LEED and by the Town of Olive's recent report? Ulster County has voted an extremist crank like Maurice Hinchey into office for two decades. Why would any businessman in his right mind want to locate plant here?
I received this e-mail from a concerned citizen:
I know you're up on this, so I thought I'd share some info with you. UN agenda 21 is coming to the Town of Olive in the form of the town's new comprehensive plan. The plan is not yet passed, and the town dems don't even want to vote on it until after the fall election. This plan was done by an outside firm using a $50,000 grant, (30 pieces of silver), from the CWC. So far, this process has been intentionally done under the radar as these wackos don't really want any input, let alone any opposition. We in Olive are planning quite a surprise for them.
The plan can be read here http://www.town.olive.ny.us/govtadm/Olive_DraftCompPlan_DRAFT_PH_Version.pdf
It was prepared by this group www.rudikoff.com
Scary reading.
People from other towns need to be able to spot how and when this process may be taking place in their own towns. Some may want to attend out public meeting on Aug 8 and get a closer look.
I'll keep you posted.
Another local correspondent adds:
A third correspondent informs me that
That is, I assume in the Olive Town Hall in Shokan. That is true. If you do not protest you have no one to blame but yourself.
Another local correspondent adds:
International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives) - which is working under UNAgenda21 which is spreading through local governments all across the U.S.. Here in Red Hook we are being offered a pilot program by Central Hudson to install devices in our house so they can moniitor our energy and control it. They have sent us notices, did follow-up calls and are having an informtional meeting on Tuesday. I really don't think people in the Town know what is happening but our freedoms are being taken little by little.
See the article from the Blaze http://www.theblaze.com/stories/is-the-soros-sponsored-agenda-21-a-hidden-plan-for-world-government-yes-only-it-is-not-hidden/ and listen to the video of the woman Rosa Koire speaking to a Tea Party about Agenda 21. She explains it very well.
Also see the one page description at http://americanpolicy.org/sustainable-development/agenda-21-in-one-easy-lesson.html/
A third correspondent informs me that
Public Hearing is 7 PM on August 8 - if you are not heard, you have no one to blame but yourself...
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Obama's Impeachable Social Security Threat
For the past two weeks President Obama's veiled threat to withhold social security checks on August 3 has influenced the debt ceiling debate. On July 12 CBS quoted the President as saying, "I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it." In fact, there are many alternatives to withholding Social Security such as furloughing employees in non-essential bureaucracies, such as the Departments of Labor, Education and Energy. Obama's use of Social Security for partisan purposes is fraudulent.
Social Security involved fraud from day one. In the 1930s, in order to convince Americans to accept it, the Democrats made two mutually contradictory claims, expressed by Professor J. Douglas Brown of Princeton University. The first claim was that Social Security is an insurance plan, secured through a trust fund, that will return a fair benefit to participants. The second claim was that Social Security was a welfare benefit that subsidizes lower-wage Americans. It did this by using a formula that provided proportionately higher benefits to the lowest salary levels. It established pay bands, and the highest percentages were paid to the lowest salary bands. Unless participants took the time to review the benefit structure, they could be easily defrauded into believing that Social Security was not a welfare plan but rather an insurance plan. Fraud was the Democrats' marketing strategy.
The public was told that there is a trust fund. In fact, Social Security was designed as a pay-as-you-go plan, essentially a pyramid scheme that depended on consistent demographic growth. But there was a depression followed by a baby boom that was followed by a baby bust. Rather than hold good on its claim that there was a trust fund, Congress proceeded to steal the funds in the Social Security trust and used them for other purposes, chiefly to win votes. Moreover, despite the lack of actuarial soundness, Congress raised benefits in the 1970s but could not fund the increased benefits. Then, it decreased benefits in 1983 for people in their twenties and younger who were scrambling to make ends meet in a permanently declining and increasingly socialist economy.
In other words, Social Security was a fraud from day one; Congress has acted in ways that would put private sector benefit sponsors into prison; indeed, it has stolen the already insufficient funds about which it has consistently lied to the public.
Now President Obama commits an additional fraud. Having scammed the American public into establishing a fraudulent program, having lied about the program's nature, having promised benefits it could not pay, having stolen the money that was put into the fund, Obama now threatens to openly breach the most elementary standard of fiduciary and moral duty to trust beneficiaries. He aims to use the fund as a partisan football. If Obama were a private pension fund manager even threatening to use pension money for purposes other than designated by the trust would be a breach of fiduciary duty.
Obama's threat to use Social Security as a partisan football is a criminal act and an impeachable one.
Social Security involved fraud from day one. In the 1930s, in order to convince Americans to accept it, the Democrats made two mutually contradictory claims, expressed by Professor J. Douglas Brown of Princeton University. The first claim was that Social Security is an insurance plan, secured through a trust fund, that will return a fair benefit to participants. The second claim was that Social Security was a welfare benefit that subsidizes lower-wage Americans. It did this by using a formula that provided proportionately higher benefits to the lowest salary levels. It established pay bands, and the highest percentages were paid to the lowest salary bands. Unless participants took the time to review the benefit structure, they could be easily defrauded into believing that Social Security was not a welfare plan but rather an insurance plan. Fraud was the Democrats' marketing strategy.
The public was told that there is a trust fund. In fact, Social Security was designed as a pay-as-you-go plan, essentially a pyramid scheme that depended on consistent demographic growth. But there was a depression followed by a baby boom that was followed by a baby bust. Rather than hold good on its claim that there was a trust fund, Congress proceeded to steal the funds in the Social Security trust and used them for other purposes, chiefly to win votes. Moreover, despite the lack of actuarial soundness, Congress raised benefits in the 1970s but could not fund the increased benefits. Then, it decreased benefits in 1983 for people in their twenties and younger who were scrambling to make ends meet in a permanently declining and increasingly socialist economy.
In other words, Social Security was a fraud from day one; Congress has acted in ways that would put private sector benefit sponsors into prison; indeed, it has stolen the already insufficient funds about which it has consistently lied to the public.
Now President Obama commits an additional fraud. Having scammed the American public into establishing a fraudulent program, having lied about the program's nature, having promised benefits it could not pay, having stolen the money that was put into the fund, Obama now threatens to openly breach the most elementary standard of fiduciary and moral duty to trust beneficiaries. He aims to use the fund as a partisan football. If Obama were a private pension fund manager even threatening to use pension money for purposes other than designated by the trust would be a breach of fiduciary duty.
Obama's threat to use Social Security as a partisan football is a criminal act and an impeachable one.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Obama Displays Poor Leadership in Threatening Social Security Payments
I received this e-mail from Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice. President Obama displays a shocking lack of leadership and irresponsibility in using social security, which should be secured with a designated trust, as a loaded partisan pistol.
President Obama could not be more clear, saying in his television address: “If … we default, we would not have enough money to pay all of our bills — bills that include monthly Social Security checks [and] veterans’ benefits ….”
This is not only a moral outrage; it’s just not true.
Our legal analysis has concluded that there is nothing in the Constitution or federal law that would prevent the President from ensuring that seniors and our military heroes get the benefits they are due.If President Obama will not make it a priority to honor our commitments to those who have paid into the system their whole lives and those who have put their lives on the line for their country, we must urge Congress to take action. Please sign our Petition to Protect Seniors and Our Troops.
Reports have shown that if we default, not only would there be money enough to pay Social Security, Medicare, active duty military pay, and veterans’ affairs programs, there would still be $39 billion remaining each month for other essential services.
Let me be clear. President Obama has both the legal authority and the financial resources to ensure that our seniors and our military heroes receive the benefits they are owed, yet he continues to use scare tactics, threatening those we cherish and respect.
As our nation is faced with this impending debt crisis, our leaders in Washington still have an opportunity to cut the debt and prioritize our spending. We could save billions of dollars just by cutting funding for Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry, the terrorist-led Palestinian Authority and other despotic governments that oppose us at every turn, and pro-abortion ObamaCare.
Yet, President Obama and the liberals in Congress insist that the most important cuts we could make are ending tax breaks for corporate jet owners, while abortions remain a tax-deductible medical expense.
There is still time to prioritize our spending and solve our debt crisis, but we must send a message to Congressional leaders today. Tell Congress to support legislation that prioritizes spending, eliminates tax increases, and protects seniors and our military heroes. Sign the Petition to Protect Seniors and Our Troops.
Thank you for standing with the ACLJ and taking action to protect our seniors, troops, veterans, and values. This is a critical time for the direction our nation is taking, and your voice is vital in reminding Congress of America’s priorities.
Sincerely,
Jay Sekulow
ACLJ Chief Counsel
ACLJ Chief Counsel
P.S. In his address to the nation, President Obama urged all Americans to “let your Member of Congress know” how you feel about the debt crisis. It is time to do just that. Forward this email to anyone you know who wants to cut our debt, not our seniors and military heroes benefits, and post our petition on Facebook and Twitter.
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