The Long March.
For those who, like me, have wondered if the Democratic party has taken leave of its senses to ram through health care in the face of its huge unpopularity with voters, an explanation…in Q and A form embodying questions I often get concerning the Obama-ites. Consider this a political catechism.
- I always believed the Democratic party thought first, last and
always about its political survival. But every index of public opinion shows that Americans hate ObamaCare. Frankly, I think the Democrats will be decimated in November—in fact I hope they are. But haven’t they taken leave of their senses? Do you have a rationale?
- By conventional political terms, you’re quite right. As a political
party they are quite mad. But you must remember that the national Democrats have abandoned being a party and have been converted into a 5-star ideological movement of the Left.
The Metamorphosis Began with McGovern.
The transition began with the McGovern nomination in 1972 and has veered leftward ever since.
In this they are like the stragglers of the Chinese Red Army who participated in the Long March 1934-35 to avoid defeat by Chiang kai Shek. They had become not so much an army but a band of revolutionaries. So like martyrs with a perverted sense of religion, they began the March they believed would take them to utopia.
Eighty-seven thousand began the 6,000-mile march from Southeast to Northwest China from which fewer than 8,000 survived but in doing so they enabled their ideology to survive, canonized their leader, Mao Zedong, making him more than a mere general but a god. Left-wing liberal ideologues today…all you have to do is to readThe Daily Kos…don’t want to just win elections and consolidate their gains: they want to overcome this country with their brand of revolutionary change now. A revolutionary is the kind of president Obama is, the kind of person he always has been.
And his fervor for radical change has consumed the Democratic party today—far different than the old days when under Hubert Humphrey and others they wished merely to win elections and pursue change via gradualism by cooperating with disparate allies along the way.
This Long March fervor is the difference you have to understand if you’re going to make sense of this thing.
Another Jail-Bird Spouting Revolution.
Q. If what you say is right, consider this: Every revolution has a fomenter, a political theorist as was Karl Marx for Marxism. Nazism had Hitler who wrote a book from jail, Soviet Communists had Lenin who wrote his tracts in a Siberian jail. If the Democratic party has turned into an ideological movement of the Left-- who is its chief theorist today? And are you going to tell me he wrote his tract in jail?
- I will identify him and will tell you he did just that.
Robert Creamer [pronounced “kray-mer] of Chicago, is the chief
political theorist the current Left. And like the aforementioned, he wrote his theory from jail—a book that spawned a series of articles on the Internet that has become the ideological treatise now followed by Obama, Pelosi and Reid.
His book, written in federal penitentiary at Terre Haut, Indiana where he was sentenced to 5 months for kiting checks and not paying withholding taxes on his left-wing organization, is titled—mildly enough—Listen to Your Mother: Sit Up Straight—How Progressives Can Win.
It is not straight out of Saul Alinsky from whom Creamer learned his trade—but it’s more radical than Alinsky’s books. Why? When you read Alinsky as I have…and when you talked to him as I did on three separate occasions (having gotten to know him through his top assistant Ed Chambers who…unlikely enough… was a Saint John’s classmate of mine circa 1950 (and who still in theory anyhow runs the Industrial Areas Foundation)… you know that he recommended coalitions with other forces and a gradualism leading to victory for the Left.
Alinsky beguiled and aligned with many disparate forces including (regrettably to my mind) the liberal clerical wing of the Catholic church where the late Msgr. Jack Egan was his enthusiastic cooperator and in most ways his co-conspirator.
That was Alinsky’s style…but it isn’t Creamer’s. Creamer is a Long March devotee as Mao was. As with Mao, alignment, cooperation and gradualism are not in Creamer’s vocabulary. He is a hard-shell ideologue, not a gradualist.
And make no mistake, he is the main successor to Alinsky, the chief political theorist and philosopher of a conscience-free Left which has taken over the Democratic Party. And he maintains the closest of ties with the Obama group. Example: He and his wife, Cong. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), of less importance to the Left than her husband, but still one of the most extreme Leftists of the House, were invited to the first state dinner Obama held at the White House—the one that Desiree Rogers goofed up by not guarding the door so intruders happened in without invitations.
Creamer Designed Strategy Dems Are Following.
A key article written by Creamer…after the Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts debacles that occurred from voter revenge on ObamaCare… has been accepted as gospel by Obama, Pelosi and Reid: “Why It’s In the Interest of Democrats to Finish Comprehensive Health Reform.” It appeared in The Huffington Post the blog most sophisticated Lefties go for guidance and recourse.
Q. What did it say? No normal party would proceed apace with this madness following such slaughters in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Virginia. A. I grant you that but remember what I’ve just said: The Democrats are a party no longer but in essence the nation’s Left and its chief theorist guru is Creamer.Almost like “Muhammad is His Prophet”—except that these folks are non-theological, no Allah. It is raw Statism. Remember, it was written after the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts. This is what he said…the question being whether Dems should quit pushing ObamaCare and concentrate on jobs-jobs-jobs:
“If Democrats stop now, swing voters will continue to believe that the Democratic health care initiative was a bad idea. The only way they can change their minds is if health insurance reform passes and they begin to see some of the benefits for themselves—and, just as important—see that the sky doesn’t fall…
“The fact is that if Democrats don’t pass a bill, swing members [of Congress] will be stuck with all of the negatives of voting for the bill—and none of the benefits of passing it…Voters like winners, not losers. They don’t want to hang out with losers and they don’t want to support them. If the Democrats—after working for months on health insurance reform—can’t get it over the finish line, the voters will write them off as losers and be less prone to give them their vote.”
Q. Makes a kind of perverted sense if you’re an Left wing ideologue, I guess. Continue with his views, please.
A, “Americans are welling over with frustration that government can’t get anything done to benefit their lives. As far as most Americans are concerned, Democrats are in charge of government. That means Democrats have to deliver real progress…Passing…health care reform would be a big accomplishment not only for Congress but for the Obama administration. History shows clearly that the popularity of the president is the major factor in affecting the number of members of Congress from a sitting president’s party that lose in mid-term elections…”
NOTE: Only Creamer of The Long March would conjure that Americans are mad that government hasn’t done enough. The whole note of Tea Party dissatisfaction and the switch of independents from the Democrats to Scott Brown was due to the fearful spending chart and deficit projections…but Creamer will not accept this. END OF NOTE.
Creamer again:
“[On the procedure called Reconciliation]. “Basically it will likely involve the House simultaneously passing the Senate bill and a `patch bill’ that will incorporate the changes made during the negotiations. The ‘patch bill’ will have to be passed in the Senate before or after the House acts through the ‘Budget Reconciliation’ process that is not subject to filibuster…”
And here is a provision that is very important. I’ll paraphrase because it’s sprinkled throughout the article and not condensed in cogent form.
Creamer stresses this:
Once the massive health bill is passed and signed…
Republicans of the future will NOT repeal it because it will have grown so popular they won’t dare to. Thus Democrats who stick with us on The Long March will have been justified. Republicans under Eisenhower didn’t repeal any New Deal legislation passed under FDR and Truman. Creamer is counting on the wobbly Republicans who come post-Obama NOT to repeal universal health care..
Crushing 200 Plus Year Old Tradition No Big Deal: Creamer.
“Members do not need to worry that this will be viewed as `jamming’ the bill through., Any bill that is passed by a majority of both Houses is not `jammed’ through. It is passed through a democratic process. What is undemocratic is the 60-vote filibuster rule that allows a minority to thwart the will of the majority. And from a political point of view, no one ever remembers the `procedures’ that were used to pass a major piece of legislation anyway. It will ultimately be evaluated based only on the impact it has on real people’s lives in the real world.” [Italics mine].
- Will this memo likely work for the Democrats?
- They will try mightily to ram it through but there’s no way it can
help the Democrats because of the bitterness it will engender even if it passes by some miracle. There’s no doubt that Mme. Pelosi is cracking the whip on recalcitrant House Democrats using the same argument Creamer used—you already voted for it and are going to take the heat: You’d better be sure that you don’t back down so that you can collect the benefits.
She’s stirring up the Blue Dogs (conservative Democrats) to join the vote. The only way the end scenario might justify Creamer is if the Democrats do ram the bill through and Republicans win control of the Congress this November, Republicans turn wobbly which being their history may well become the case, and don’t repeal the legislation. That would validate Creamer’s original prediction.
After which, if voters get the idea that Republicans don’t have the guts to dismantle this latest feature of the welfare state, the jig is up and Republicans may well lose in 2012.
Mega-Millionaire Peloisi: Dems Should Fall on Their Swords.
Q. How is Mme. Pelosi arguing that Democrats should fall on their
swords for health care?
A. An interesting question. This is how she argued it on ABC’s This Week in which she takes a leaf from Creamer’s book. “Well, first of all our members—every one of them—want health care., I think everybody wants affordable health care for all Americans. I know this will take courage. It took courage to pass Social Security. It took courage to pass Medicare….But the American people need it. Why are we here? We’re not here just to self perpetuate our service in Congress. We’re here to do a job for the American people. To get them results that gives them not only health security but economic security, because the health issue is an economic issue for America’s families” [Italics mine.]
Asking her members to fall on their swords and risk defeat for good old socialized medicine is an intriguing argument coming from a Speaker whose extraordinarily safe Democratic district encompasses 4/5ths of San Francisco, the most Leftward city in the nation, a district she has won with never less than 72%--often in the high 80s and who is a mega-multimillionaire through marriage to she can pay for her own campaign. It’s a safe bet that with such a heavy Democratic district she will survive reelection in any event.
And also that Bob Creamer’s wife, Cong. Schakowsky (who comes from a hugely Democratic district—mine-- and won last time by 75%.) But try to sell that to Democrat Bill Foster who represents Denny Hastert’s old district in the cornfields of Illinois which is definitely “swing.”
Also try to sell it to just the average American who has signified through poll after poll that his main concern is jobs-jobs-jobs, in response to which Obama pivoted. Yet last week he backed a $15 billion jobs bill which passed the Senate and continues to support the $1 trillion health care bill.
I repeat: The disastrous course for the Democratic party is clear. But he and Obama don’t care, don’t worry about immediate political defeats. They’re throwing the dice for the long-range. They’re enlisted on the Long March. .
Obama Sees Himself Ranking with Washington, Lincoln.
- What does Obama hope to get out of this for himself?
To be remembered as being far more than merely the first black president but a president…this is his fantasy, now…of the stature of Washington and Lincoln about whom their accomplishments can be summarized in one sentence each by schoolchildren (granted that public school children still learn about them).
You can encapsulate George Washington this way “first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen, victor of the American Revolution and our First President.”
You can describe Abraham Lincoln with the epitaph etched on the Lincoln monument tableau above the seated statue by Saint-Gaudens: “In this temple as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever.”
Something similar to those is what Barack Hussein Obama wants
to leave for posterity. Something like:
“Rated as one of the greatest American presidents of all time…ranking with Washington, Lincoln and FDR, Obama extended the inalienable right of health care to all his countrymen and became a beacon of light to which all international statesmen honor and seek to emulate.”
To do this he believes he has to follow Bob Creamer’s idea and ram health care through no matter what it takes or costs.
Q. Do other members of The Chicago Squid in Washington share his ambition for himself?
A. Almost all. That’s because almost all are courtiers. David Axelrod is. Valerie Jarrett is. Desiree Rogers, the White House social secretary, was until she was dismissed last week. The only one who has doubts and who keeps those doubts largely to himself is Rahm Emanuel.
By far the most practical and cold-hearted of the 51 Squid members in the White House, he can adroitly play hard-ball. After all, he crafted the “Louisiana Purchase” that rented Louisiana’s Senator Mary Landrieu, the “Cornhusker Purchase” that signed up Nebraska’s Ben Nelson (for a time until the deals became a scandal that alienated independents and liberal idealists), the Connecticut Hospital Deal that solidified the support of Sen. Chris Dodd (until he decided to retire).
What turned Emanuel off was this: When the news got out, Obama denied there were any deals at all—a convenient lie…and when that lie was discovered, turned aloof on Emanuel. He left Emanuel the loyal soldier hanging out there.
Other private disagreements Emanuel has are these: He doesn’t agree with Creamer on The Long March. He believes that after Massachusetts, Obama should have turned his attention to jobs-jobs-jobs leaving health reform for another day. He definitely does not believe in trying terrorists in federal courtrooms rather than before military tribunals.
Q. Speaking of Desiree Rogers, what was the occasion that told her she was no longer welcome and had to go?
A. A surprise birthday party for Michelle Obama where Desiree…who earned the name “Disarray” Rogers…wasn’t invited and wasn’t even informed. It was held without her in attendance.
This caused her to figure the handwriting was on the wall. Her sin was not just becoming a guest at the State Dinner which she was supposed to run as a staffer…but talking too much—talking incessantly about how she devised “the Obama brand” as if he were a tube of toothpaste or loaf of bread.
The Valiant Otis McDonald.
Q. Chicago blacks are aligned with Obama all the way—is that it?
A. Blacks will be the last liberal group to abandon Obama. It’s a race and blood thing not an ideological thing. This despite the anomaly that a Chicago black will gain historic fame by winning a battle against irresponsible gun-control which Obama has supported. Constitutional jurisprudence is likely to be changed by one city African American who’s in the long run likely to be remembered more enduringly than Obama will. He’s 76-year-old Otis McDonald, a Democrat, who is the lead plaintiff in the upcoming Supreme Court decision to throw out the needlessly restrict gun control law in Chicago, devised by Mayor Daley as a sop to encourage voters that he’s concerned about violence—whereas the problem with gun violence is not the availability of guns but the woeful conditions of family disintegration which have wreaked such damage on the black family.
Otis McDonald came to Chicago from Louisiana at the age of 17. He started out as a janitor and was promoted to maintenance engineer. He and his wife saved enough money to buy a house on the far South Side of Chicago in 1972. Chicago’s needlessly stringent anti-handgun ordinance kept him from purchasing a gun to defend himself and his family. He has had three break-ins where unarmed he had to chase intruders away—rising his life and limb. One time he found a burglar in his house and called the police. When he hung up the burglar said, “I overheard you calling the cops and now I’m going to kill you!” He somehow survived that incident but the very next weekend, Otis McDonald drove 200 miles to go to his first gun rally in Springfield.
It looks very much like the Supremes will toss out the Chicago ordinance—and ring in a victory for gun rights and the capacity of Chicagoans to protect themselves. That’ll provoke Mayor Daley into a near stroke of shouting, his jowls waggling…but give Otis McDonald, his wife and other blacks who need to defend themselves in dangerous parts of the inner city their first peace of mind since 1972.
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*: St. Frances of Rome [1384-1440]. Born the daughter of Paul Busso and Jacobella del Roffredeschi, a wealthy couple of Rome, though she wanted to become a nun, she was married at age 13 to a noble, Lorenzo Ponziani, and for 40 years was a model wife in an ideal marriage. With her sister-in-law, she ministered to the poor of Rome until she was afflicted with a serious illness…whereupon she and her sister-in-law devoted themselves to the sick of Santo Spiritu Hospital. Her son John Baptist was born in 1404, followed by a boy Evangelist and a girl Agnes.
With the death of her mother-in-law Frances became virtual head of the household. When a plague and famine struck Rome, she sold her jewels to aid the victims. Then the city of Rome fell and was occupied by the forces of Ladislaus of Naples in 1408 and Frances’ husband Lorenzo was injured in the fighting. Lorenzo was forced to flee for his life but the conquerors allowed the women and children to remain—thus Frances and the family remained. Their castle was looted and burned. In 1413 the plague returned which took the life of Evangelist. Frances converted her home into a hospital; two years later Agnes died. A year later peace was restored and Lorenzo returned but his health was shattered.
Frances nursed her husband and continued her charitable activities, organizing the Oblates of Mary, a society of women that help the poor but which was not bound by formal vows—and affiliated with the Benedictines of Mount Oliveto. When Lorenzo died in 1436, Frances entered the convent and was made Superior. She spent the remainder of her life nursing and in contemplation. She was canonized in 1608 and for some unaccountable reason is hailed as the Patroness of Motorists.
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