The so-called CNN/YouTube Republican candidate "debate" on Wednesday night devolved into another Democrat dirty campaign opportunity.
We really can't expect any better from the likes of Anderson Cooper and CNN. (No wonder so many people call it the Clinton News Network.)
For those of you unfamiliar with the supposed format; questions were to be submitted in the YouTube Format then CNN was Supposed to pick relevant questions for the candidates from "real people". People who were impartial questioners or analysts about substantive issues.
Of those "impartial" people and analysts who represented themselves as "undecided independents":
Brig. Gen. Keith Kerr is a member of Hillary Clinton's steering committee and a gay rights activist and was flown into the "debate" at the behest of CNN.
A young woman named “Journey” questioned the candidates on abortion. On her blog ,she declares herself a John Edwards supporter. Post debate, she immediately posted a video wearing her John Edwards ‘08 T-shirt.
David Cercone of Florida asked a question seemingly on behalf of the Log Cabin Republicans. He had declared his support for Obama on an Obama ‘08 campaign blog back in July.
LeeAnn Anderson asked about lead in toys from China, (with her kids in her lap.) She is a staffer and prominent Pittsburgh union activist for the United Steelworkers, which has endorsed Edwards and is certainly no friend of the Republican Party.
Ted Faturos, who asked about ethanol subsidies, had served as an intern for Rep. Jane Harman D-Calif.
Adam Florzak, who asked about Social Security, quit his job as a welder and is working with Sen. Dick Durbin’s (D-Ill.) staff on the issue.
Mark Strauss, who urged Ron Paul to run as an independent, had publicly supported Gov. Bill Richardson in July.
I've noticed many Democrats see nothing wrong with this, (why am I not surprised.) But this got me to thinking.
If its OK for Democrats and CNN to make a farce of this debate, why can't we ask a few questions of the Democrat candidates?
Peggy Noonan would like to see this question asked:
(Holding up a picture), this is a human fetus. Given a few more months, it will be a baby you could hold in your arms. You all say you're 'for the children.' I would ask you to look America in the eye and tell us how you can support laws to end this life. Thank you."
I would like to ask this question:
As you know, a former President was a serial adulterer and lied under oath. He also sought to destroy the reputations of the women he abused under the cover of office and his wife was was instrumental in covering up his misdeeds, indeed had been doing so for years!
What assurances can you give me that this kind of thing will not happen, in your administration, if you are elected president?
Your turn... What question would you like to ask?
Friday, November 30, 2007
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Notes from the Silent Surrender
Notes from the Silent Surrender
By Evan Coyne Maloney
26 November 2007 @ 11:21PM
In a piece entitled “The silence of the artistic lambs,” Mark Steyn writes, “Most writers and filmmakers ignore today’s epic cross-cultural war. It’s safer that way.”
[A] recent panel convened at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London [discussed] the topic “Is All Modern Art Left Wing?” The formal discussion was dreary and predictable but things turned livelier when it was opened to the floor, and the question of double standards was raised: “Courageous” artists seemed happy to mock Christianity but curiously reluctant to hurl equivalent jibes at Islam. Grayson Perry, the Turner Prize-winning transvestite artist who looks very fetching in his little Disney-princess frocks, reveals that he self-censors when it comes to Muslims because “I don’t want my throat cut.”
But that doesn’t entirely explain it, does it? Earlier this year, Channel 4 in London broadcast a documentary called Undercover Mosque in which various imams up and down the land were caught on tape urging men to beat their wives and toss homosexuals off cliffs. Viewers reported some of the statements to the local constabulary. The West Midlands police then decided to investigate not the fire-breathing clerics but the TV producers. As the coppers saw it, insofar as any “hate crime” had been perpetrated, it lay not in the urgings and injunctions of the imams but in a TV production so culturally insensitive as to reveal the imams’ views to the general public. As The Spectator’s James Forsyth put it, “The reaction of West Midlands police revealed a mindset that views the exposure of a problem as more of a problem than the problem itself.”
Exactly. Did you see the latest remake of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers? It sank without trace a couple of months back and not just because it had Nicole Kidman in the lead. The new version relocates the story from small-town America to Washington, and sees it as a metaphor for power: cue endless references to Iraq and glimpses of Bush on the TV screens. Yet Bodysnatchers isn’t about power so much as a seductive conformity. That’s what the West Midlands police were attempting to enforce with Channel 4, and what the Rotterdam police managed to enforce rather more successfully when they destroyed a mural created to express disgust at van Gogh’s murder. Chris Ripke’s painting showed an angel and bore the words “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” But his studio is next to a mosque, and the imam complained that the mural was “racist,” so the cops showed up, destroyed it, arrested the TV crew filming it, and wiped their tape. A “tolerant” society cannot tolerate any assaults on its most cherished myths.
The dogma of multiculturalism holds that all cultures are equal, except Western culture, which (unlike every other society on the planet) has a history of oppression and war is therefore worse. All religions are equal, except Christianity, which informed the beliefs of the capitalist bloodsuckers who founded America and is therefore worse. All races are equal, except Caucasians, who long ago went into business with black slave traders in Africa, and therefore they are worse. The genders, too, are equal, except for those paternalistic males, who with their testosterone and aggression have made this planet a polluted living hell, and therefore they are worse.
Once you understand this, the Multicultural Pyramid of Oppression, you can begin to understand how to turn to your advantage certain circumstances that are beyond your control: such as where you were born, the type of genitalia you were born with, into what race you were born, and the religion of your parents. You see, the fewer things you have in common with The Oppressors, the more you can cast yourself as The Victim. And as The Victim, you are virtuous, so there are certain things you can get away with that others can’t: like actually oppressing people.
According to the rules of Multicultural Hierarchy, oppression can be excused if the oppressor comes from a more exotic group—to Western eyes—than the oppressed. If a documentary filmmaker were slaughtered in broad daylight for making a film about domestic violence among, say, Christian evangelists in the American south, an outcry would rightfully ring out from Hollywood denouncing the violence that’s intended to silence legitimate social commentary. But a documentary filmmaker killed for making a film about violence against women perpetrated in the name of Islam isn’t worth any comment at all from those same folks who are so rarely silent with the rest of their opinions. Identical crimes would have to be interpreted two different ways, because the only variable that matters is the corpse’s placement on the Multicultural Hierarchy relative to that of the murderer.
Consider what happens when you apply this thinking on a societal level: if we convince ourselves that all of the blame for the current state of the world should be placed at the feet of Western civilization, then why would any Westerner think that our civilization is worth fighting for? Or even worth saving? The rules of Multicultural Hierarchy require us to preemptively surrender, because any crime committed against us by a more worthy Victim is somehow deserved. And if we deserve it, then fighting against what we deserve amounts to fighting the administration of justice.
Many times in the years following the September 11th attacks, I’ve heard earnest-sounding commentators and social critics bring up “root causes” of September 11th—we are invariably the root of all causes, it would seem—and suggest that somehow, “we deserved it.”
Well, if we deserved it then—and still do now—then what business do we have defending ourselves? Who are we to stand in the way of justice?
People will rarely admit they favor surrender. But if we buy in to the politically correct thinking of multiculturalism, that’s exactly where we’ll end up.
Evan Coyne Maloney is a political commentator based in New York City. More of his work can be found on the website Brain Terminal.Com
All contents ©2001-2007 by Evan Coyne Maloney, unless otherwise noted
Mr Maloney also offers Email subscription to his newsletter at his site.
By Evan Coyne Maloney
26 November 2007 @ 11:21PM
In a piece entitled “The silence of the artistic lambs,” Mark Steyn writes, “Most writers and filmmakers ignore today’s epic cross-cultural war. It’s safer that way.”
[A] recent panel convened at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London [discussed] the topic “Is All Modern Art Left Wing?” The formal discussion was dreary and predictable but things turned livelier when it was opened to the floor, and the question of double standards was raised: “Courageous” artists seemed happy to mock Christianity but curiously reluctant to hurl equivalent jibes at Islam. Grayson Perry, the Turner Prize-winning transvestite artist who looks very fetching in his little Disney-princess frocks, reveals that he self-censors when it comes to Muslims because “I don’t want my throat cut.”
But that doesn’t entirely explain it, does it? Earlier this year, Channel 4 in London broadcast a documentary called Undercover Mosque in which various imams up and down the land were caught on tape urging men to beat their wives and toss homosexuals off cliffs. Viewers reported some of the statements to the local constabulary. The West Midlands police then decided to investigate not the fire-breathing clerics but the TV producers. As the coppers saw it, insofar as any “hate crime” had been perpetrated, it lay not in the urgings and injunctions of the imams but in a TV production so culturally insensitive as to reveal the imams’ views to the general public. As The Spectator’s James Forsyth put it, “The reaction of West Midlands police revealed a mindset that views the exposure of a problem as more of a problem than the problem itself.”
Exactly. Did you see the latest remake of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers? It sank without trace a couple of months back and not just because it had Nicole Kidman in the lead. The new version relocates the story from small-town America to Washington, and sees it as a metaphor for power: cue endless references to Iraq and glimpses of Bush on the TV screens. Yet Bodysnatchers isn’t about power so much as a seductive conformity. That’s what the West Midlands police were attempting to enforce with Channel 4, and what the Rotterdam police managed to enforce rather more successfully when they destroyed a mural created to express disgust at van Gogh’s murder. Chris Ripke’s painting showed an angel and bore the words “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” But his studio is next to a mosque, and the imam complained that the mural was “racist,” so the cops showed up, destroyed it, arrested the TV crew filming it, and wiped their tape. A “tolerant” society cannot tolerate any assaults on its most cherished myths.
The dogma of multiculturalism holds that all cultures are equal, except Western culture, which (unlike every other society on the planet) has a history of oppression and war is therefore worse. All religions are equal, except Christianity, which informed the beliefs of the capitalist bloodsuckers who founded America and is therefore worse. All races are equal, except Caucasians, who long ago went into business with black slave traders in Africa, and therefore they are worse. The genders, too, are equal, except for those paternalistic males, who with their testosterone and aggression have made this planet a polluted living hell, and therefore they are worse.
Once you understand this, the Multicultural Pyramid of Oppression, you can begin to understand how to turn to your advantage certain circumstances that are beyond your control: such as where you were born, the type of genitalia you were born with, into what race you were born, and the religion of your parents. You see, the fewer things you have in common with The Oppressors, the more you can cast yourself as The Victim. And as The Victim, you are virtuous, so there are certain things you can get away with that others can’t: like actually oppressing people.
According to the rules of Multicultural Hierarchy, oppression can be excused if the oppressor comes from a more exotic group—to Western eyes—than the oppressed. If a documentary filmmaker were slaughtered in broad daylight for making a film about domestic violence among, say, Christian evangelists in the American south, an outcry would rightfully ring out from Hollywood denouncing the violence that’s intended to silence legitimate social commentary. But a documentary filmmaker killed for making a film about violence against women perpetrated in the name of Islam isn’t worth any comment at all from those same folks who are so rarely silent with the rest of their opinions. Identical crimes would have to be interpreted two different ways, because the only variable that matters is the corpse’s placement on the Multicultural Hierarchy relative to that of the murderer.
Consider what happens when you apply this thinking on a societal level: if we convince ourselves that all of the blame for the current state of the world should be placed at the feet of Western civilization, then why would any Westerner think that our civilization is worth fighting for? Or even worth saving? The rules of Multicultural Hierarchy require us to preemptively surrender, because any crime committed against us by a more worthy Victim is somehow deserved. And if we deserve it, then fighting against what we deserve amounts to fighting the administration of justice.
Many times in the years following the September 11th attacks, I’ve heard earnest-sounding commentators and social critics bring up “root causes” of September 11th—we are invariably the root of all causes, it would seem—and suggest that somehow, “we deserved it.”
Well, if we deserved it then—and still do now—then what business do we have defending ourselves? Who are we to stand in the way of justice?
People will rarely admit they favor surrender. But if we buy in to the politically correct thinking of multiculturalism, that’s exactly where we’ll end up.
Evan Coyne Maloney is a political commentator based in New York City. More of his work can be found on the website Brain Terminal.Com
All contents ©2001-2007 by Evan Coyne Maloney, unless otherwise noted
Mr Maloney also offers Email subscription to his newsletter at his site.
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