Communism Part II: The Scourge Spreads
By The Glenn Beck Program Updated 03/29/2016
A generation has passed since the Cold War ended — and along with it, a true understanding of communism. Young voters today grew up in school systems where capitalism was often a dirty word. They heard the siren call of socialism and its promise of being the great equalizer. They’re in for a rude awakening. In this series, Glenn discusses the origins of communism, what it really means and what lurks behind the pleasant label of “democratic socialism.”
Source: http://www.glennbeck.com/2016/03/29/communism-part-ii-the-scourge-spreads/?utm_source=glennbeck&utm_medium=contentcopy_link
http://www.glennbeck.com/2016/03/29/communism-part-ii-the-scourge-spreads/
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Libya to “Open the Floodgates” to Europe - Way to Go Hillary
Libya to “Open the Floodgates” to Europe
The refugee flow from Libya to Italy could double this year, and Libya’s shambolic “government” says it lacks money to deal with the issue. The Times of London reports:
Libya will “open the floodgates” and let thousands pour into Europe if the West does not help combat illegal immigration, officials have warned.As Europe fears a bumper year for Mediterranean crossings, detention centres and coastguards say they are chronically underfunded and lack the basic tools they need to stem the flow.Last year, 154,000 people crossed the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy, according to Frontex, the EU’s border agency. This year the number could more than double as migrants are redirected via war-torn Libya following the closure of the Balkans route.Lacking funds, supplies, tools and training, Libyan authorities say they have been abandoned by the West and have not benefited from £3.6 million supposedly committed to combat illegal immigration. EU support programs are on hold as the civil war escalates.“The state is very weak and there is no money,” Colonel Mohamed Bourgiba, head of the Gweea detention centre, said. “Most of us here aren’t even getting paid.” Gweea, 30 miles (50km) east of Tripoli, holds hundreds of migrants. If things do not change, he said, “We will just stop working and open the floodgates. Because at the moment we are doing all of this for nothing.”
Libya appears to be eyeing some of the funding the EU has so generously doled out to Turkey to keep its refugees at home recently:
The agreement struck in March between the EU and Turkey to send migrants that cross illegally to Greece back across the Aegean puts more pressure on Libya when it is buckling under an 18-month conflict, AbdelRahim Rajahi, a colleague of the general, added. “We are operating 50 per cent underfunded but have we seen a single Euro from Europe? No.”
Crossings to Italy are already up markedly this year, while ISIS isreportedly using the refugee routes through Libya. Meanwhile, there’s no food or proper equipment for Libyan forces supposedly fighting terrorists:
Mohamed Bayyoud, 35, a former law consultant who built a reputation as a fierce warrior in the 2011 revolution, said that they needed the five-year UN arms embargo to be lifted urgently. “We need the international community to equip us. The range of our rifles is just 500 metres, which is useless,” said the young commander, dressed in a camouflage cowboy hat and civilian shoes.[..]US and UK special forces visited the Abu Grain checkpoint six months ago to gather information on how the militants could be stopped, said Brigadier-General Mahmoud Zaghil, who is in charge of running military operations in the central region. They promised to supply at least bulletproof vests, but they had yet to arrive. When they did, the soldiers would attack. “We have the intel, we have the men, we are ready to fight. Isis is an international problem. As soon as the West realises that and help us we will conquer them.”
Is this the Libyan government’s fault for misdiverting funds, the West’s fault for not following through, or just an omnishambles? Nobody’s saying—and the media doesn’t seem particularly curious to find out, or to put the pieces together. Of course, if Obama were a Republican there would be non-stop, wall-to-wall coverage of this continuing disaster, and if Hillary Clinton were a Republican the press would never let anybody forget for a minute that this is the policy she once hoped would be the star in her crown.
Mike Rowe on Trades vs College
Off The Wall
Jim Childers writes…
Hey Mike - I hear all the Presidential candidates talking about the "right" of "free" college and how college is necessary to function in our society. I have not heard a single candidate opine about the necessity of training for the “trades.” Why do you suppose our "anointed ones" have such a myopic view of the blue-collar class even as they court their votes?"
Hi Jim -
If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say that most candidates don’t focus on the necessity of trade schools, because most voters would prefer their kids get a four-year degree from a University. If a majority of voters valued skilled labor as much as they value a sheepskin, I suspect Donald would be campaigning in a hardhat, Hillary would be stumping in steel-toed pumps, and Bernie would be handing out free welding torches.
Truth is, a lot of well-intended parents still believe that kids who attend trade schools do so because they’re not “college material.” That’s an absurd stereotype with no basis in reality, but for the millions of parents who want something “better” for their kids, it’s reason enough to discourage a career in the trades. Unfortunately, this reasoning is not only faulty, it’s destroying economies large and small.
Consider the number of college graduates today, who can’t find work in their chosen field. Hundreds of thousands of highly educated twenty-somethings are either unemployed or getting paid a pittance to do something totally unrelated to the education they borrowed a fortune to acquire. Collectively, they hold 1.3 trillion dollars of debt, and no real training for the jobs that actually exist. Now, consider the countries widening skills gap - hundreds of thousands of good jobs gone begging because no one wants to learn a useful trade. It’s madness. “College For All” might sound good on the campaign trail, but in real life, it’s a dangerous platitude that reinforces the ridiculous notion that college is for people who use their brains, and trade schools are for people who use their hands. As if the two can not be combined.
Last month, I was invited to comment on the annual list of America’s “Top Jobs” and “Top Schools,” (as determined by one of America’s “Top Magazines.”) I passed. Not just because I’m suspicious of lists - I passed because nowhere on the list of “top colleges” was a single trade school mentioned. Not a one. Not surprisingly, none of the careers my foundation supports made the list of “top jobs.”
This is a classic example of how society quietly discourages careers in the skilled trades. We don’t publish lists of careers called “Jobs We Don’t Want Our Kids To Do.” Instead, we publish “America’s Top Jobs,” and leave off dozens of critical professions. Likewise, no one makes a list called “Schools To Attend If You’re Not That Bright.” Instead, we announce the “Top Colleges,” and omit schools that train people for a whole category of critical vocations. It’s a brilliant way to reinforce the existing stereotype, promote a one-size-fits-all approach to education, and guarantee a workforce that’s dangerously out of balance. But the scariest thing about these lists, is not their obvious bias - it’s their degree of influence on otherwise sensible people.
Would a sensible person recommend The Godfather to someone who hates violence - just because it won Best Picture? Would a sensible person recommend a Steakhouse to a vegetarian, just because Yelp gives it 5-stars? Would a sensible person recommend The Ritz to a traveler on a budget, just because Trip Adviser says it’s the best hotel in the city? Of course not. But every year, lots of otherwise sensible people recommend a four-year college to kids who would be far better served by Trade School. They defer to someone else’s idea of what a Top School is - regardless of suitability and cost.
I’m not an economist Jim, but I’m pretty sure this is how college got so expensive in the first place. We start by exaggerating it’s importance. Then we call it a “right.” That creates demand and guarantees supply. Then we free up billions of dollars, and encourage millions of teenagers to borrow whatever it takes to pay the freight. The pressure on these kids is enormous - from their parents, their guidance counselors, and their peers. So they sign on the dotted line, and that’s that. Is it any wonder the cost of a degree has risen faster than the cost of food, energy, healthcare, and even real-estate? Is it any wonder some politicians want to fix the problem by forgiving the debt altogether and making college free for everyone?
It’s hard to look at what’s happening with education and not be reminded of the housing collapse. As I recall, that all started when politicians campaigned on the idea that home ownership was a fundamental part of the American Dream, and therefor a “right” that all Americans should enjoy. Then, those same politicians allowed banks to offer adjustable rate mortgages with no money down to people with no credit and no collateral. Then, they allowed Wall Street to roll out mortgage-backed securities. Ultimately, thousands of Americans were given the “right” to borrow billions of dollars and move into homes that were wildly overpriced.
There’s plenty of blame to go around, and I’m happy to condemn the crooks in DC and Wall Street who drove the bus over the cliff. But the real-estate bubble wasn’t inflated by corporate greed alone - it was inflated with the mistaken belief that living in a house is somehow “better” than living in the same sized apartment; that paying down a mortgage is somehow “smarter” than paying rent. I’m afraid the same kind of thinking that pushed people into over-priced homes they can’t afford has pushed people into over-priced degrees that don’t lead to jobs. And to those arguing that a college education should be a “right,” I’ve got to ask, if that’s really the case, what’s next? Physical fitness?
Seriously, why not? A healthy body is no less important than a healthy mind. So why aren’t the candidates talking about free gym memberships? When they do, I can tell you what happens next - we’ll see a list of “Top Gyms” that provide the very best equipment and the very best trainers. Screw the YMCA - if you really care about getting fit, you’ll enroll at the best gym possible, and if the cost is prohibitive, no sweat - you’ll have access to a “Fitness Loan!” Then, when the price of gym memberships go through the roof, and people start defaulting on their payments, the feds can bail everyone out. Because if physical fitness is a “right,” shouldn't it also be free?
I had a drinks with a buddy last week who wants free college for everyone, and ran this exact metaphor past him. He agreed that fitness was important, but told me the government doesn’t subsidize gym memberships because physical fitness doesn’t require access to a gym. He pointed out that anyone can get in shape at home doing sit-ups, lunges, and jumping jacks.
I agreed with my friend, but suggested that access to knowledge is not much different. Today, anybody with an Internet connection can access 99% of all the accumulated knowledge on the planet. You Tube alone offers thousands of college courses and lectures for free.
My friend told me it was unfair to compare a course at Princeton to the same course on You Tube. I told him I wasn’t just comparing courses - I was comparing cost. New stadiums, student unions, and beautiful campuses are all very nice, but they don’t make you smarter, or more employable; they just make your education that much more expensive. My friend then suggested we change the subject - which I took as a victory, and we retired to the pool table - where I suffered multiple defeats and picked up the tab.
Point is, there’s an excellent case to be made for attending a four-year school - if you can afford it. But if you can’t, it makes no sense to assume a mortgage-sized debt in exchange for a general base of knowledge that doesn’t lead to a job. This stubborn idea that a four-year degree is the best path for the most people is ruining lives and wrecking our country. And it’s not going to stop if we don’t confront the stigmas and stereotypes surrounding the skilled trades, and dispel them for the nonsense they are.
Whatever your politics, this is not the time for our candidates to be promoting one type of education over another. The truth about education is this - there can be no hope of success without one. Period. But right now, the majority of available jobs do NOT require a four-year degree - they require training - the exact kind of training that parents, guidance counselors, and presidential candidates should be encouraging at every turn.
Mike
PS In the interest of putting some money where my mouth is, check out our new Work Ethic Scholarship Program. We've scrounged up another $400,000 to train folks for the kinds of jobs I’m talking about. (And if you already have a liberal arts degree, or a secret love of Greek architecture, we won’t hold it against you.) Apply here. mikeroweworks.org
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Europe at -Europe at the Edge of the Abyssthe Edge of the Abyss
Europe at the Edge of the Abyss
America can still avoid sharing Europe’s fate. But only if we take action
By Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online
Because of what Europe has become, it now has few viable choices in dealing with radical Islamic terrorism. Its dilemma is a warning to Americans that we should turn away from a similar path of national suicide.
After suffering serial terrorist attacks from foreign nationals and immigrants, a normal nation-state would be expected to make extraordinary efforts to close its borders and redefine its foreign policy in order to protect its national interests. But a France or a Belgium is not quite a sovereign nation any more, and thus does not have complete control over its national destiny or foreign relations.
As part of the European Union, France and Belgium have, for all practical purposes, placed their own security in the hands of an obdurate Angela Merkel’s Germany, which is hellbent on allowing without audit millions of disenchanted young Middle Eastern males into its territory, with subsequent rights of passage into any other member of the European Union that they wish. The 21st-century “German problem” is apparently not that of an economic powerhouse and military brute warring on its neighbors, but that of an economic powerhouse that uses its wealth and arrogant sense of social superiority to bully its neighbors into accepting its bankrupt immigration policies and green ideology.
The immigration policies of France and Belgium are unfortunately also de facto those of Greece. And a petulant and poor Greece, licking its wounds over its European Union brawl with northern-European banks, either cannot or will not control entrance into its territory — Europe’s window on the Middle East. No European country can take the security measures necessary for its own national needs, without either violating or ignoring EU mandates. That the latest terrorist murders struck near the very heart of the EU in Brussels is emblematic of the Union’s dilemma.
As far as America is concerned, a fossilized EU should remind us of our original and vanishing system of federalism, in which states were once given some constitutional room to craft laws and protocols to reflect regional needs — and to ensure regional and democratic input with checks and balances on statism through their representatives in Congress. Yet the ever-growing federal government — with its increasingly anti-democratic, politically correct, and mostly unaccountable bureaucracies — threatens to do to Americans exactly what the EU has done to Europeans. We already see how the capricious erosion of federal immigration law has brought chaos to the borderlands of the American Southwest. It is a scary thing for a federal power arbitrarily to render its own inviolable laws null and void — and then watch the concrete consequences of such lawlessness fall on others, who have been deprived of recourse to constitutional protections of their own existential interests.
Europe’s immigration policy is a disaster — and for reasons that transcend the idiocy of allowing the free influx of young male Muslims from a premodern, war-torn Middle East into a postmodern, pacifist, and post-Christian Europe. Europe has not been a continent of immigrants since the Middle Ages. It lacks the ingredients necessary to assimilate, integrate, and intermarry large numbers of newcomers each year: There is no dynamic and fluid economy, no confidence in its own values, no belief that class and race are incidental, not essential, to one’s persona, no courage to assume that an immigrant made a choice to leave a worse place for a better one. And all this is in the context of a class-bound hierarchy masked and excused by boutique leftism.
Naturally, then, Europeans are unable to understand why a young Libyan came to Europe in the first place, and why apparently under no circumstances does he wish to return home. Specifically, Europeans — for a variety of 20th-century historical and cultural reasons — often are either ignorant of who they are or terrified about expressing their identities in any concrete and positive fashion. The result is that Europe cannot impose on a would-be newcomer any notion that consensual government is superior to the anarchy and theocracy of the Middle East, that having individual rights trumps being subjects of a dictator, that personal freedom is a better choice than statist tyranny, that protection of private property is a key to economic growth whereas law by fiat is not, and that independent judiciaries do not run like Sharia courts. It most certainly cannot ask of immigrants upon arrival that they either follow the laws of a society that originally made Europe attractive to them, or return home to live under a system that they apparently rejected. I omit for obvious reasons that few present-day Europeans believe that Christianity is much different from Islam, and apparently thus assume that terrorists might just as well be Christians.
Even worse is the European notion of medieval penance: Because one in the concrete present apparently wants little to do with a Moroccan second-generation ghetto dweller, he fabricates abstract leftist bromides to square the circle of hypocrisy and assuage his guilt — sort of like Hillary Clinton or Mark Zuckerberg calling for perennial open borders to justify their Wall Street–funded luxury and tony apartheid existence.
In Europe, immigrants are political tools of the Left. The rapid influx of vast numbers of unassimilated, uneducated, poor, and often illegal newcomers may violate every rule of successful immigration policy. Yet the onrush does serve the purposes of the statist, who demagogues for an instantaneous equality of result. Bloc voters, constituents of bigger government, needy recipients of state largesse, and perennial whiners about inequality are all fodder for European multicultural leftists, who always seek arguments for more of themselves.
So unassimilated poor immigrants from the former Third World become easy proof that inequality and unfairness are still here and must be addressed with someone else’s money — as if France has failed because it did not make an immigrant born in Algeria a good French socialist restaurant owner in 20 years.
The same phenomenon is with us in the United States. Without open borders, the Democrats would have had to explain to Americans how and why more taxes, larger government, more subsidies, less personal freedom, racial separatism, ethnic chauvinism, and a smaller military make them more prosperous and secure. Yet importing the poor and the uneducated expands the Democratic constituency. The Democrats logically fear measured, meritocratic, and racially and religiously blind legal immigration of those who want to come to America to seek freedom from statism. If a poor Oaxacan, who crossed into the U.S. three years ago — without education, legality, or knowledge of English — does not have a good car, adequate living space, and federalized health care, then the Koch brothers, Wall Street, Fox News, or the Chamber of Commerce — fill in the blank — is to blame, and legions of progressives are available to be hired out to redress such social injustice.
The Western therapeutic mindset, which maintains that impoverished immigrants should instantly have what their hosts have always had, trumps the tragic view: that it is risky, dangerous, and sometimes unwise to leave one’s home for a completely alien world, in which sacrifice and self-reliance alone can make the gamble worthwhile — usually for a second generation not yet born.
Demography is Europe’s bane. One engine of unchecked immigration has been the need for more bodies to do the sorts of tasks that Europeans feel are no longer becoming of Europeans. Demographic implosion is an old and trite observation; but more curious is the reason why Europe is shrinking — the classic and primary symptom of a civilization in rapid decline.
Europeans are not having children for lots of reasons. A static and fossilized economy without much growth gives little hope to a 20-something European that he or she can get a good job, buy a home, have three children, and provide for those offspring lives with unlimited choices. Instead, the young European bides his time, satisfying his appetites, as a perpetual adolescent who lives in his parents’ flat, seeks to milk the system, and waits for someone to die at the tribal government bureau. After a lost decade, one hopes to hook up with some like soul in her or his late thirties. The last eight years in the U.S. have seen an acceleration of the Europeanization of America’s youth.
Socialism also insidiously takes responsibility away from the individual and transfers it to the anonymous, but well-funded, state. The ancient Greek idea that one changes one’s children’s diapers so that one day they can change his is considered Neanderthal or just crudely utilitarian. Why seek children and the honor of raising and protecting them when the state can provide all without the bother and direct expense? Why have a family or invest for the future, when the state promises a pleasant and politically correct old-age home?
Without a Second Amendment or much of a defense budget, Europeans not only divert capital to enervating social programs, but also have sacrificed any confidence in muscular self-protection, individual or collective.
Even postmodern nations remain collections of individuals. A state that will not or cannot protect its own interests is simply a reflection of millions of dead souls that do not believe in risking anything to ensure that they are safe — including their own persons and those of their family. Finally, Europe is Petronius’s Croton. It does not believe in any transcendence as reified by children or religion. If there is nothing but the here and now, then why invest one’s energy in children who live on after one dies? Like atheism, childlessness reflects the assumption that ego-driven rationalism and satisfaction of the appetites are all there is and all that there ever will be.
Europe’s perfect storm is upon us. A shrinking, statist, and agnostic society that does not believe in transcendence, either familial or religious, is now in a war with near neighbors of a very different sort. In the Middle East, the fundamentalists are growing in numbers, and they most certainly do believe that their own lives are nothing in comparison to the Phoenix-like resurrection of their Caliphate and the sensual pleasures in the hereafter that will reward their martial sacrifices in the here and now. Of all the many reasons why immigrants to Europe so often dislike their generous hosts, the simplest may be because they so easily can.
Even H. G. Wells could not dream up any better harvest of Eloi by Morlocks, and it would take another St. Jerome (“All were born in captivity and siege, and do not desire the liberty they never knew. Who could believe this?”) to chronicle the Western tragedy.
As a general rule, whatever Europe is now doing, we should do the opposite — for our very survival in an increasingly scary world.
Sue the Disruuptors
National Law Journal Slams Trump Protesters; Sue Them!
"Sue the Disrupters" - Such as Those Who Blocked the Highway to a Trump Rally or Those Who Engage in Illegal Protests on Campus - Since the Criminal Law is Failing to Deter This Increasingly Common Criminal Activity
Because the threat of arrest and small fines obviously isn't discouraging a growing number who engage in criminal activities such as blocking streets, the author - public interest law professor John Banzhaf - suggests that
l those adversely affected should sue the disruptors for civil damages under a variety of legal theories, some of which have already been successful. He includes in his proposal "what we have unfortunately all too often tolerated on college campuses - protestors who interrupt speakers to prevent others from hearing them, who physically block attendees' access, and who threaten violence to squelch speech. Unless we do something about it, the problem will persist - and could get worse," he argues. The article notes, for example: "Last year, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society was forced to pay $2.55 million to Japanese companies for illegally using aci and smoke bombs to disrupt their whaling. Several different students were forced to make five-figure restitution payments because of their criminal disruptions of construction projects. Similarly, 11 who engaged in illegal activities at the Mall of America faced a $40,000 restitution claim, and 14 disrupters who chained themselves to a train faced even larger claims, although both were reportedly later dropped."The piece concludes as follow: "It's neither unfair nor unreasonable to hold criminals liable for the harm they callously and deliberately cause others. In these situations, and in many too numerous to mention on college campuses, the threat of arrest and small criminal fines hasn't deterred small groups from inconveniencing the much larger public, just to make their point. Perhaps it's time to add something stronger to the arsenal - "Sue The Disrupters."
It is entitled: "When the Rabble Rousing Turns Criminal, There's a Civil Solution // Protests are a good thing, but blocking access and inciting violence must stop." [bit.ly/1pFtOTB ] (https://t.co/
10 Companies w/Dangerous Dividends
MSN : 10 Companies in Danger of Too High Dividends
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/savingandinvesting/10-companies-paying-dangerous-dividends/ss-AAgFe2y
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/savingandinvesting/10-companies-paying-dangerous-dividends/ss-AAgFe2y
Monday, March 28, 2016
Communism Part One - Glenn Beck
Communism Part I: How It’s Marketed
By Jonathan Updated 03/28/2016 | 2:44 PM EDT
A generation has passed since the Cold War ended — and along with it, a true understanding of communism. Young voters today grew up in school systems where capitalism was often a dirty word.
They heard the siren call of socialism and its promise of being the great equalizer. They’re in for a rude awakening. In this series, Glenn discusses the origins of communism, what it really means and what lurks behind the pleasant label of “democratic socialism.”
Source: http://www.glennbeck.com/2016/03/28/communism-part-i-how-its-marketed/?utm_source=glennbeck&utm_medium=contentcopy_link
Communism Part One - GBeck
ALL FOUR PARTS: All Four Parts
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