Reflections From a Murky Pond

OK, as all students of real and accurate American history know, Big Labor, i.e., labor unions, have always had a complex and often antagonistic relationship with Blacks. This has changed little over the last century. The only change has been the unions choosing to catch wayward Blacks and keep them on the unions’ plantations rather than clubbing them down in streets as they used to do.

But oh how the unions hate it when the Blacks leave the plantation. How dare those “uppity niggers” accept monies from individuals that the unions and their paid-for politicians fear and loath such as the Koch brothers.

A powerful government workers’ union will end its support for the United Negro College Fund after the group accepted $25 million from the conservative powerhouse Koch brothers and the college fund’s president appeared at a Koch event.

In a letter made public Thursday, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees said it will no longer partner with or raise funds for the fund, known for its iconic motto, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”

Naturally, the AFSCME’s President, Lee Saunders wasn’t satisfied with merely refusing to further support the United Negro College Fund. He also had to take UNCF’s President and CEO, Dr. Michael Lomax to task for his uppitiness.

AFSCME President Lee Saunders said the actions of the college fund’s president “are not only deeply hostile to the rights and dignity of public employees, but also a profound betrayal of the ideals of the civil rights movement.”

Saunders’ may be too politically correct and savvy to speak frankly, but there’s no real doubt that his personal attack upon Lomax was anything but a dog-whistle for “Oreo,” “Uncle Tom,” “Sell-Out,” and/or “Race Traitor.” It’s pretty obvious that Saunders and the AFSCME can’t abide by Blacks who aren’t beholden to them.

Of course, the funny side of this is that Saunders and the AFSCME don’t have much of a whip to crack over the backs of the UNCF. They’ve donated between $50,000 and $60,000 annually to the UNCF for its AFSCME/UNCF Union Scholar Program over the last 11 years and the Koch Brothers just gave the UNCF $25,000,000 – 38 times that total amount.

Tags: AFSCME | America | Blacks | Charity | Koch Brothers | Labor Unions | Lomax | Money | Politics | Racism | Saunders | UNCF

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 15th, 2014 at 7:43 am and is filed under Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

It’s an old axiom that a sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic. A corollary to this would be that a sufficiently advanced scientist is indistinguishable from a magician or other magical entity.

There are, in the latter case, ways to distinguish the scientist from the magician or other magical entity…
 

Yep! The only magic scientists and researchers have is mendicant magic in that many of them do seem to be able to conjure funding out of the aether…as long as they are practicing orthodox, “white magic” at least. Those following a purer path don’t do so well at all.

Tags: Beggars | Corruption | Funding | Humor | Junk Science | Magicians | Money | Research | Science | Scientists

This entry was posted on Monday, May 12th, 2014 at 9:05 am and is filed under Humor, Technology. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

America, like all nations, is and always has been under threat from foreign powers. Like the peoples of all nations this is something that Americans are used to and something that they can deal with…or could deal with. Things has changed and the new threats to America are both existential and difficult to deal with.

The new threats aren’t military; they’re economic. They’re also not the run of the mill threat to international trade. No, the new threats to America are foreign governments choosing to punitively divest themselves of US sovereign debt and eliminating the use of the US Dollar as their nations’ reserve currency.

Russia has bluntly pointed this out.

MOSCOW, March 4 (RIA Novosti) – An adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that authorities would issue general advice to dump US government bonds in the event of Russian companies and individuals being targeted by sanctions over events in Ukraine.

Sergei Glazyev said the United States would be the first to suffer in the event of any sanctions regime.

“The Americans are threatening Russia with sanctions and pulling the EU into a trade and economic war with Russia,” Glazyev said. “Most of the sanctions against Russia will bring harm to the United States itself, because as far as trade relations with the United States go, we don’t depend on them in any way.”

Glazyev noted that Russia is a creditor to the United States.

“We hold a decent amount of treasury bonds – more than $200 billion – and if the United States dares to freeze accounts of Russian businesses and citizens, we can no longer view America as a reliable partner,” he said. “We will encourage everybody to dump US Treasury bonds, get rid of dollars as an unreliable currency and leave the US market.”

Do not mistake me; in no way would I normally think this was a credible threat at this time. These are not, however, normal times and the Russian cultural psyche has proved itself willing to use “scorched earth” tactics. They’re also fairly strongly allied with China, who could both tolerate the damage to themselves from divesting themselves of US sovereign debt and eliminating the use of the US Dollar as their nations’ reserve currency. In point of fact, China would likely benefit from doing so in short-term. Hence, while the threat is not imminent, it is credible.

This, in all likelihood, isn’t going to happen. What is going to happen is that the Obama Regime will not push for sanctions against Russia for just about anything. And this, in turn, means less than it might since Europe’s flagging and vulnerable economy is dependent upon trade with Russia.

The important point is the threat is credible, extremely serious, and has been made. This not only shows the soft and flaccid underbelly of the America of the 21st century, it’s removes one of America’s greatest weapons, our trade.

Tags: America | China | Debt | Deficit | Geopolitics | Glazyev | Money | Politics | Putin | Russia | Sergei Glazyev | Vladimir Putin

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 15th, 2014 at 7:33 pm and is filed under Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

The current cause célèbre or, at least, shouted slogan of America’s domestic enemies is “income inequality.” Right now they’re appearing as if they are really incensed that the poor in America, who are now a permanent portion of the population, haven’t had their average incomes increase as much as the wealthier have.

That’s right; they’re complaining that the poor aren’t improving their lot as much as the wealthier are, not that the poor are poorer.

And so, of course, they’re yammering for the government to force those who’ve made more money to pay that money out to the poorer people through taxes and various and sundry laws and regulations designed to to give the poor a bigger slice of the mythical pie.

Do not bother to lie to others or yourself; these plans and proposals are all governmental confiscation of private property in order for redistribution. Yet what crimes have the successful committed to deserve having their property confiscated? Have they stolen this wealth from the poor? Have they committed some heinous act beyond being more successful than some of the other residents of the nations?

The simple answer is no, the wealthy have done nothing wrong nor have they stolen their wealth from the less successful fractions of the American population. They have simply adapted to- and succeeded in navigating the shifts in wealth generation in these modern, global times.

Tags: America | Economics | Economy | Globalism | Liberals | Money | Politics | Socialism | Wealth

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 29th, 2014 at 12:41 pm and is filed under Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

There are a plethora of problems, failures, and issues with the Liberals’ and Progressives’ economic agenda. In fact, there are so many of them that it beggars credulity that anyone of a serious bent and possessed of a real education would take them seriously. All these problems, however, stem from the same root cause and that can be addressed simply.

The entire Leftist economic dogma is based upon a philosophy that I describe as Egalitarian Consumerism.

Egalitarian Consumerism

Function: noun

Date: 2013

Definition(s):

1. a belief that people are intrinsically equal and, therefor, deserve equal access to all material goods and services.

And therein lies the core of the problem. The Liberals and Progressives may stridently complain about capitalism, corporations, and America’s consumer culture but they’re entire economic agenda is directly and irrevocably tied to just those things. They don’t want to put an end to these things; they just want everyone to be able to have all the same stuff, whether they’ve earned the privilege of doing so or not.

There are a plethora of problems, failures, and issues with the Liberals’ and Progressives’ economic agenda. In fact, there are so many of them that it beggars credulity that anyone of a serious bent and possessed of a real education would take them seriously. All these problems, however, stem from the same root cause and that can be addressed simply. The entire Leftist economic dogma is based upon a philosophy that I describe as Egalitarian Consumerism.

One need only look at who they claim are poor, or at how the Liberals and Progressives have created a permanent “underclass” based upon a relative scale, to see this as being the truth.

And therein lies the core of the problem. The Liberals and Progressives may stridently complain about capitalism, corporations, and America’s consumer culture but they’re entire economic agenda is directly and irrevocably tied to just those things. They don’t want to put an end to these things; they just want everyone to be able to have all the same stuff, whether they’ve earned the privilege of doing so or not.”

This in a nation where one of the common, recurring complaints of these same Leftists is that “the poor” are overfed to the point of morbid obesity!

No. The Left is all about stuff. Worldly goods are their primary concern – so much so, in fact, they will scream at the top of their lungs that it’s unfair that some few people can buy so much more useless crap than others can and achieve a material quality of existence better than others can.

What’s far worse is that they cling to the dictates of Egalitarian Consumerism with such fanatical devotion that they honestly don’t care if the only way that they can achieve this is to lower the overall material wealth of the nation to a point where the the lowest economic classes are no longer considered “underprivileged.”

Tags: America | Consumerism | Egalitarian Consumerism | Egalitarianism | Liberals | Money | Politics | Progressives | Society | Wealth

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 15th, 2013 at 8:19 am and is filed under Politics, Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.