Hitler told the Reichstag

“The government will make use of these powers only insofar as they are essential for carrying out vitally necessary measures…The number of cases in which an internal necessity exists for having recourse to such a law is in itself a limited one.”

He also promised an end to unemployment and pledged to promote peace with France, Great Britain and the Soviet Union. But in order to do all this, Hitler said, he first needed the Enabling Act.

Enabling Act, Article 1

In addition to the procedure prescribed by the constitution, laws of the Reich may also be enacted by the government of the Reich.

Enabling Act, Article 2

Laws enacted by the government of the Reich may deviate from the constitution as long as they do not affect the institutions of the Reichstag and the Reichsrat.  The rights of the President remain undisturbed.

Barak Obama, State of the Union, 1-24-2012

Some of what’s broken has to do with the way Congress does its business these days.  A simple majority is no longer enough to get anything -– even routine business –- passed through the Senate.  (Applause.)  Neither party has been blameless in these tactics.  Now both parties should put an end to it.  (Applause.)  For starters, I ask the Senate to pass a simple rule that all judicial and public service nominations receive a simple up or down vote within 90 days.  (Applause.)

The executive branch also needs to change.  Too often, it’s inefficient, outdated and remote.  (Applause.)  That’s why I’ve asked this Congress to grant me the authority to consolidate the federal bureaucracy, so that our government is leaner, quicker, and more responsive to the needs of the American people.  (Applause.)

Landmark Speeches of National Socialism, Edited by Randall L. Bytwerk

• “National Socialism was the most prolific rhetorical movement of the twentieth century.”
• “…[R]hetoric moved a civilized nation to support Nazism, and to close its eyes to the crimes that were not difficult to see.”
• “Everything that Nazism intended was revealed in its rhetoric.”
• “[Hitler] thought that the average person is uninterested in complex arguments, being ruled more by emotion than intellect.  Nazi rhetoric therefore avoided presenting detailed solutions to complex problems.”
• “Propaganda also needed to be one-sided.  Since the masses did not understand complex issues, presenting balanced arguments would only shake their confidence in the rightness of a cause.”
• “A speaker, Hitler thought, should stand before an audience with the fervor of an evangelist preaching a religious faith.”
• “Just as a religion or a church can never stop preaching and explaining the faith in a thousand ways from the pulpit, no more can National Socialism surrender the direct and powerful effect of the speech, which ever and against strengthens the faith of the movement and provides new power for the never-ending struggle.”
• “To maintain power required unceasing efforts to persuade Germans that National Socialism deserved their unconditional allegiance.”
• “Germans did not support Hitler because they expected him to lead them into a ruinous war, but rather because he and his party drew upon deeply rooted values and beliefs.”
• “…Nazism presented itself not as a political party, but as a movement that encompassed everything Germans held to be true and just.”
• “What propaganda avoids saying is at least as important as what it does say.  The Nazis realized that blatant lying often fails, and that people accept some things in general that they reject if they know the details.”

The number of speeches Obama has given since taking office roughly equals the number of days he has been in office.

The editors and columnists at Investor’s Business Daily [Investors.com] regularly provide sound analysis of the Obama administration, however, they may be missing the real nature of Obama.

He’s not just campaigning.  He’s relentlessly propagandizing a dangerous mythology with himself at the center.

The Beasts of Buchenwald by Flint Whitlock

• “The persecutions did not come all at once; they gradually grew more onerous once the Nazis saw that the open harassment of Jews and the imposition of unreasonable restrictions on them were not being objected to by the great bulk of non-Jewish German society. There was, of course, no way for the Jews to know if the Nazi’s threats were substantive or merely idle. There was no way for the Jews of Germany (and, later, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, etc., too) to realize that concentration camps, death camps, gas chambers, mass graves, and ovens were in their future.”
• “By the time they comprehended the enormity of the danger, it was too late.”

NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE          www.nationalreview.com
Victor Davis Hanson
July 11, 2011 4:00 A.M.
The Demagogic Style

President Obama is the new, cool version of the fifth-century Athenian Cleon.

The noun dêmagôgos first appeared in Thucydides’ history, mostly in a neutral, only slight disparaging way (usually in reference to the obstreperous Cleon), in its literal sense of “leader of the people.”

But very soon — in later fifth- and fourth-century authors (e.g., Aristophanes, Xenophon, Aristotle, the Attic orators) — both the concrete and the abstract nouns (demagogue and demagogy/demagoguery) and the verb (to demagogue) became ever more pejorative, describing crass popular leaders who alternately flattered and incited the masses (ochlos). Their trick was to obtain and expand their own personal power by clever rhetoric directed against the better off, coupled with promises of more entitlements for the “poor” paid for by a demonized “them.”

We often associate demagoguery in the U.S. with wild right-wing nationalists or cultural chauvinists, such as Joe McCarthy or Father Coughlin, or with folksy Southern “spread-the-wealth” populists, such as William Jennings Bryan (“The Great Commoner”) or Huey Long. And, of course, abroad there were no better demagogues than Mussolini and Hitler, who both started out as national socialists and then united the classes by transferring class hatred onto foreign bogeymen, in a fashion we later see most effectively in Juan and Eva Perón.

Demagoguery, at its best, requires good oratory and charisma — which is why Jimmy Carter was such a dismal failure at it, despite his half-hearted demonization of three-martini lunches and private yachts at a time of a record misery index that saw high unemployment, out-of-control inflation, and usurious interest rates, coupled with a neutralist foreign policy that had led to Russians in Afghanistan, Communist takeovers in Central America, and American hostages in Teheran. Carter’s mock-serious delivery was so droll, his presence so wooden, that his fist-pounding against “them” turned into caricature.

Under a more skilled practitioner such as Barack Obama, the arts of demagoguery have become somewhat more refined in our time, but they nevertheless follow the same old patterns: (more…)

If Obama Is Natural-Born, Why Suppress Evidence?

By JOHN F. GASKI Posted 04/26/2011 05:24 PM ET

Second Of Two Parts

So what of the cumulative evidence against our maybe-president’s citizenship?  Let the reader judge the balance and weight of a summary appraisal. (Curious machinations over a crucial piece of evidence, a birth certificate of all things, changed the balance for me.) (more…)

(click to enlarge images)

You can do this at home with your Adobe Photoshop Elements application.  Just open the recently released Obama long form birth certificate and select “images” to pull up the second layer containing selected elements of the composite birth certificate.  Then you might consider setting aside the vehement testimonials issuing from the main stream media, and think about the questions they should be asking.

Victor Davis Hanson

The president gave the sort of scare speech he not long ago warned against, and blasted the income-tax rates he not long ago agreed were necessary — in a context in which he has just presented a budget with a $1.6 trillion deficit of the sort he now says is unsustainable, and has warned about recklessly voting against raising the debt ceiling in a fashion that he himself had once done, in a larger landscape in which he had once damned attacking Middle East countries in optional wars, Guantanamo, renditions, tribunals, preventative detention, intercepts, wiretaps, Predators, and leaving troops in Iraq, and then embraced or expanded all that and more (this list is infinite and includes everything from drilling to campaign financing to earmarks).

These weird about-faces raise interesting questions that transcend the current politics of the deficit: (more…)

Pre-9/11 Hopelessness (continued)

“The treatment of the Islamists, mostly the Muslim Brotherhood and other Salafists, as a viable alternative to secular and authoritarian regimes was stunning. Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was criticized by liberals in the West, who suggested engagement with the Muslim Brotherhood in order to eventually replace the president-for-life. (more…)

From:    Mountain States Legal Foundation - Perry Pendley
Sent:      Friday, October 29, 2010 11:27 AM
Subject:    Opportunity to battle Obama’s attempt to invalidate Arizona’s illegal immigration statue

I want to tell you of a unique opportunity to participate in the battle by Arizona, assisted by Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF), against attempts by the Obama Administration to invalidate Arizona’s illegal immigration statute, S.B. 1070.

On Monday, November 1, at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Savings Time, C-SPAN will broadcast LIVE, oral  arguments before a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit in United States v. Arizona.  The three judges include:  Richard Paez (appointed by Bill Clinton), John Noonan (appointed by Ronald Reagan), and Carlos Bea (appointed by George W. Bush).

I will be watching.  If you watch, I would be interested in learning what you think. (more…)

This grievance provided grounds for an American Revolution: “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”

Obama and the left have excited the modern tea party to take to the streets in protest.  They have enabled the illegal immigration of merciless terrorists into our country who intend the “undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions” of Americans.

Once upon a time Americans revolted over governmental provocations like these.

Petition for Writ of Certiorari filed with the U.S. Supreme Court for Kerchner v Obama

The threat to petitioners’ life, liberty, safety, security, tranquility, and property is actual and concrete rather than merely conjectural or hypothetical. The Declaration of Independence recognizes these rights as “unalienable” and as having been endowed upon an individual by his or her “Creator.” The Constitution recognizes these rights not as being abstract or theoretical rights but rather as concrete and real and needing protection from government abuses. It recognizes these rights as the essence of a person’s being. Petitioners sued Obama after he assumed the great and singular powers of the Executive. Obama was not a mere candidate with no power. Obama has had and continues to have executive and military power to harm the petitioners. He actually exercises those powers on a daily basis. Petitioners cannot rely on Obama, who was born with dual and conflicting allegiances to protect them as a “natural born Citizen” would. The United States Supreme Court has recognized the problems presented by dual nationality and has stated that dual nationality is a “status long recognized in the law” and that a person with such dual nationality “may have and exercise rights of nationality in two countries and be subject to the responsibilities of both.” Kawakita v. United States, 343 U.S. 717 (1952). But because Obama has yet to and because he cannot conclusively prove that he is an Article II “natural born Citizen” because of his conflicting natural allegiance and loyalty, plaintiffs are not constitutionally expected to nor do they trust him to protect their life, liberty, safety, security, tranquility, and property as would a President and Commander in Chief of the Military who is a “natural born Citizen.” Petitioners must therefore be allowed to challenge Obama in order to protect these concrete rights.

Matthew Broderick played a hacker kid in the movie War Games who dialed into a government computer named WOPR, and triggered a global thermonuclear war game simulation with it.  In the movie, WOPR was located at the NORAD complex inside Cheyenne Mountain and it controlled our nuclear arsenal.  No one at NORAD realized there was a simulation going on and the military mobilized as if the threat was real.  The plot brings the world to the brink of nuclear war as the game between the hacker and the machine plays out.  Things eventually resolve and at the end the WOPR computer concludes the moral of the story–in a suitably robotic voice, “The only way to win is not to play the game.”

There you have the answer to Saul Alinsky and his Rules For Radicals.

msnbc.com news services
updated 9/18/2010 10:15:40 PM ET

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama came out swinging against Republicans in a fiery campaign-season speech to black lawmakers Saturday night, urging them to “guard the change” he was delivering with the kind of organizing that propelled the civil rights movement.

“I need everybody here to go back to your neighborhoods, and your workplaces, to your churches, and barbershops, and beauty shops. Tell them we have more work to do. Tell them we can’t wait to organize. Tell them that the time for action is now,” Obama said in his remarks.

Members of “the other side,” Obama said, “want to take us backward. We want to move America forward. In fact, they’re betting that you’ll come down with a case of amnesia. That you’ll forget about what their agenda did to this country when they were in charge. Remember, these are the folks who spent almost a decade driving the economy into a ditch. And now they’re asking for the keys back.”

“What made the civil rights movement possible were foot soldiers like so many of you, sitting down at lunch counters and standing up for freedom. What made it possible for me to be here today are Americans throughout our history making our union more equal, making our union more just, making our union more perfect,” Obama said. “That’s what we need again.”

The effort began Monday with a White House reception for black college officials. It included speeches by the president on Wednesday to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and by first lady Michelle Obama to a black caucus legislative conference that same day.

The president told the Hispanic group he is committed to an immigration overhaul, even though it has stalled in Congress. He blamed GOP opposition and said Hispanic voters should keep that in mind.

“You have every right to keep the heat on me and keep the heat on the Democrats,” he said. “But don’t forget who is standing with you, and who is standing against you. … Your voice can make the difference.”

Looking at this latest push from Obama, it’s obvious he’s dealing race cards, class envy cards, illegal immigration cards, culture cards, xenophobia cards, and probably a handful of others–pretty much red meat for everyone, whether you are for or against his hope and change.

If you’re for Obama’s change, he means to inspire you to action.  But even more importantly, if you’re against Obama’s change he means to inspire you to reaction.  It is in the reaction of the majority that his real power to control events lies.

Without conservative reaction to Obama’s racism, victimization and division, all he has is an echo chamber within the minority.  The real play, the big fish he’s trying to reel in, is the resonance from the majority, because their reaction makes the playing field on which to continue the game.

The main goal of community organizing is to provide a continuing provocation to the majority to get them to react irrationally, emotionally, to lose control, and to thereby become subject to manipulation.

Conservatives need to stop reacting to all of the dividing philosophies promulgated by the Left.  The basket full of plainly harmful and emotionally supercharged red-meat ideas that the left uses to cause division in America all deserve to be ignored.  There’s nothing new there, nothing to be learned, nothing to be gained, and conservatives know this on an intellectual level.

Conservatives need to stop allowing themselves to be jerked around by their emotions.  The left will carry on as they will.  No one can reasonably expect to change members of a brainwashed cult.  Conservatives should take themselves off the playing field and out of that game and allow the left’s ideas, such as they are, to just resonate among themselves.

If conservatives disempower the left’s harmful ideas by ceasing to react to them, I expect their politics of division will lose relevance and gradually die out.  And one day we’ll be able to put Alinsky’s Rules For Radicals into the ground where they belong with him.

How ‘Brilliant’ Can President Obama Be?
By JEFFREY S. HOWARD Posted 08/27/2010 06:06 PM ET

Every person, newscaster and commentator always prefaces any, even the mildest criticism, of President Obama’s policies with some statement about how dazzlingly brilliant the man is. Liberals, conservatives, independents — it never changes. Why is this? And most important of all, is it true?

What and where is the proof that Obama is such a sharp fellow? The recorded evidence is unavailable since his academic records, and test scores from three universities are sealed at his demand. Sure, he graduated from Harvard, but so did George Bush, who earned an MBA but is still pilloried by some as dumber than dirt.

We shall have to examine Obama’s performance and make our own assumptions based on observations.

Obama selected advisers and Cabinet heads who have basically no experience in the private sector. He relies heavily on them to tell him what to do about the sick economy. Their knee-jerk responses are Keynesian (borrow and spend), based on a dubious theory popular 70 years ago, and proved unworkable in the past.

They sold us the stimulus (”porkulus”) package of spending.The result? Rising unemployment and falling home sales prove that “recovery summer” is going down the tube without touching the sides. The president retains his economic Rasputins. Is loyalty to failure a sign of a great mind?

Obama farmed out the stimulus, omnibus budget, financial reform, cap-and-tax and health care bills to Congress — allowing it free rein. He did not exercise leadership and instead abdicated to the whims of Nancy Pelosi, David Obey, Harry Reid and Chris Dodd.

Trillions are borrowed and spent on the public sector while real jobs evaporate. Banks invest in bonds instead of businesses. Impending and threatened mandates, regulation and tax increases choke off entrepreneurial ambitions. Does this activity indicate a high level of intelligence, or just managerial ineptitude?

The president is unable to string a cogent sentence together without a pair of Teleprompters working perfectly. He can deliver a mesmerizing speech but can’t even remember who is standing beside him when the tape runs off the tracks. His most often used extemporaneous word is “um.”

This may be a clue as to why he has granted fewer press conferences than any president in memory. Can such performances be equated to “brilliance”? Not in my book.

Stepping in the political equivalent of a doggie dumpling seems to bring out the worst in Obama. Why and how could he pop off with everything from “The Cambridge Police acted stupidly” to flip-flops on the New York mosque issue, and everything in between? His inane mumblings about the skivvy shorts bomber, the public trial of the 9/11 plotters, the fanatic major who gunned down 13 soldiers, the Arizona immigration law and “saving or creating” jobs belies any vast reservoir of intelligence.

Sharp presidents do not dive into lose/lose situations with such gusto.

How is Obama’s foreign policy working out? The U.S. needs strong allies to defeat monstrous enemies. Dissing the British, scolding Israel, canceling the missile shield in Eastern Europe and groveling to foreign royalty do not bode well. Our enemies, from Iran to Venezuela, smell weakness and timidity. Ignoring cold reality and dreaming that personal charisma is the solution to international tensions is probably on the daft side of the intelligence continuum.

The “4 million green jobs” mantra espoused by the president is a canard when examined closely. Renewable energy technology exists only due to huge government subsidies. Ethanol is inefficient, raising the prices of gasoline and corn. Wind farms produce intermittent power that flummoxes the grid and requires conventional power plants to run continuously as backup. The net carbon reduction is miniscule.

Both schemes are massive misallocations of resources better used elsewhere. An astute president would inform himself on both sides of the issue rather than blatantly parrot a load of poppycock from the Van Jones crowd.

A Republican president who parties far more than he works would be trashed by every media outlet in the land. But Obama is a Democrat who enjoys the media’s deep support. He escapes any serious questions about his busy golf schedule, multiple vacations, endless fundraising and campaigning, constant banquets and concerts in the White House, and his obvious detachment from the people he supposedly leads.

He appears more of a dilettante than a leader. A smart fellow would move to de-emphasize his privileged lifestyle instead of flaunting it in front of a nation mired in a recession.

Giving him the benefit of the doubt, maybe Obama is smart. Then again, Jimmy Carter was intelligent but proved to be the worst president of our lifetimes — up to now.

• Howard, a Redmond, Wash.-based real estate developer, appeared on this page Aug. 20 with an “Open Letter To President Obama.”