A funny thing happened in the GOP debate in South Carolina last night.  FOX NEWS’ Juan Williams implied racism in Speaker Newt Gingrich’s defense of capitalism, and Gingrich did not back down:

Williams: Speaker Gingrich, you recently said, “Black Americans should demand jobs, not food stamps.” You also said, “Poor kids lack a strong work ethic,” and proposed having them work as janitors in their schools. Can’t you see that this is viewed, at a minimum, as insulting to all Americans, but particularly to black Americans?

After Williams asked this question, about three people applauded somewhat timidly, but there was mostly silence in anticipation of how Gingrich might dig himself out of this one.  He had been put on the spot in front of the world by a media spokesperson who not only opposed Gingrich’s position, but who himself was black, and who views almost everything through the lenses of race.

But Gingrich did not fold. Instead he looked at Williams and responded: “No, I don’t see that.” In other words, Gingrich was saying “No, I don’t see how capitalism is racist nor do I see how a defense of capitalism is racist.” The venue exploded with applause and cheers.

Gingrich then continued by telling the audience his daughter’s first job had been as a janitor in a Baptist church in Georgia when she was thirteen. Said Gingrich: “She liked earning the money, she liked learning that if you worked you got paid, she liked being in charge of her own money, and she thought it was a good start.”

Amid applause, Gingrich continued

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If you allow the media to tell the story about Mitt Romney’s comment, “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me” you can easily be mislead that Romney is a emotionless, suit and tie wearing, profit hoarding CEO. On second thought, that last part may be entirely true. Aside from that, what’s even truer, and totally acceptable, is Romney’s attitude.

Yes, it is perfectly OK to fire someone if you are not satisfied with their performance or service, especially if you are the one forking over the dough. That is what makes a free market, capitalist system run in high gear. It feeds competition and pushes service providers to deliver the very best quality. Accountability is an important reason why free societies produce more than controlled societies. Moreover, it’s why many trust the private sector over government. This was precisely what Romney was referring to. Anyone who pays for a service ought to have the ability and right to terminate any agreement with a service provider if certain expectations are not met.

Answering a question about health care Monday morning, Mr. Romney said he would allow individuals to have their own insurance because it would provide the insurance company with an incentive to keep its clients healthy.“It also means that if you don’t like what they do, you can fire them,” Mr. Romney said. “I like being able to fire people who provide services to me.”

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It seems like everyday I wake up and it’s the same old story with politics and politicians: If you vote for my bill, I’ll support yours; the Republicans hate this and the Democrats hate that; you scratch my earmark and I’ll scratch yours…

It’s frustrating.

If it’s not a disgraceful politician being exposed for illicit behavior, it’s somebody in some party being caught shoveling money to their friends or illegal back-door dealings, or charges being leveled. Then the other party thinks they have the moral high ground, even though it was their guy or gal that was caught the week before.

A massive cottage industry which produces nothing, builds nothing, and spends taxpayer money like it’s going out of style has grown up around Washington DC. It’s an establishment political class, grown fat and powerful on our backs which grows and grows…

… And regardless of the prevailing economic climate – it just keeps getting bigger.

What is the average American supposed to do?

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Always ready to recruit the embittered  and disgruntled at any opportunity, the Communist Party USA has established a special veterans committee. The target – demobilized Iraq War veterans.

From the People’s World;

With the Iraq war officially over, leaving 4,500 U.S. troops and 100,000 Iraqis dead plus tens of thousands wounded, the soldiers who fought and experienced the horror are returning home. They’re stepping out of one war zone and into another.

Faced with high rates of unemployment and discrimination in hiring, many are coping with horrific injuries and post traumatic stress disorder, fueling drug and alcohol abuse, and divorce and record suicide rates.

The experience is causing veterans to draw basic conclusions about the real nature of U.S. foreign policy and even capitalism.

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When one hears someone say “communism is a great concept, a wonderful idea on paper, etc,” you know right away one is dealing with a political novice. For someone to make such a ludicrous statement in light of insurmountable evidence is either ignorant or is willing to suspend reality to entertain their own thinking, which is in essence, liberalism.

Communism runs counter to everything we know about human nature. Humans cannot reach their fulfillment while existing under arbitrary restraints. Communism is indeed a concept; a concept of shared misery. Liberals only fluff up the language and call it shared sacrifice. Either way, it brings man down to a lowly state of existence by force of a badly flawed human idea and, if removed, humans will do what comes naturally. That is produce, trade, think freely, and continuously challenge their environment where innovation and abundance comes naturally.

To say communism is a great idea on paper is like an engineer who designed a bridge except once the bridge was constructed it collapsed under its own weight. The engineer would certainly not say his design was right on paper. He would have to concede that his idea was flawed from the start, both on paper and in application.

The great flaw of communism was identified in the earliest days of the communists heyday. Back in 1920, Ludwig von Mises, argued that communism calls for the abolishment of free markets and because of this, central planners would effectively be flying blind during planning production. “Every step that takes us away from private ownership of the means of production and from the use of money also takes us away from rational economics.”

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Reawakening Virtues, the latest book from Big Government contributor Armstrong Williams, seems an oddly timed release. As the Republican presidential primary kicks into gear, social issues have largely been placed on the backburner of our national dialogue in favor of economic issues, yet Williams’ book, subtitled Restoring What Makes America Great, unapologetically emphasizes personal and social virtues as the building blocks of America’s much-needed recovery. Drawing from the positive role models and learning experiences in his life, Williams visits a bevy of topics to paint a clear portrait of right living that can make sense for both sacred and secular reasons.

Williams begins with issues fundamental to human nature before moving into broader societal, economic, and civic concepts. Most of the book’s early chapters focus on family issues and parenthood, where Williams uses the example of his own hardworking father and mother and the different roles they played in his development to illustrate the ideal he envisions for American families. This segment of the book also devotes a chapter to the sanctity of life, advocating some thought-provoking abortion policies, especially his take on expanding the rights of fathers in the decision whether or not to terminate a pregnancy. The book’s middle tackles an assortment of miscellaneous topics, from physical fitness to conscientious objection to race, giving readers a wide scope of issues and ideas to mull over.

Reawakening Virtues’ standout chapter defends capitalism as not only a morally sound economic system but the most moral economic system the world has seen–not just for the rich and businessmen but for the poor, as well. Through a brief historical summary, Williams shows that the development of the middle class and upward mobility for the poor were uniquely tied to the rise of capitalism, then demonstrates the philosophical and moral superiority of capitalism compared to its modern competitors, communism and socialism. (more…)

Social liberals are extremely frustrated that the “worker’s paradise” that seemed so near three years ago, is fast slipping away due to voter rejection. With the huge borrowing and spending stimulus failing to revitalize the economy, social liberals took to the streets in Occupy Wall Street movements around the country. But the movement is rapidly being taken over by vicious Marxist elements bent on over-throwing capitalism with violent revolution, called “Black Bloc”.

In 2008, candidate Barack Obama campaigned in Germany and France to trumpet that America would soon bond with Europe and “Together, we must forge trade that truly rewards the work that creates wealth.” These are code words for America is embracing Europe’s collectivist march. Over the next two years, the President and his veto proof Congress legislated for the collectivization of healthcare, socialization of financial services, bail-out the unionized auto industry, and unbounded arrays of new regulatory constraints to fundamentally transform the U.S. economy. In solidarity: the United Nations designated October, 31, 2011 as the beginning of the International Year of the Cooperative to celebrate “the beginnings of a genuine discussion and debate about different economic models —models that value fairness at their core”.

The breadth of socialist ambition and the failure of massive borrow and spend initiatives to deliver economic recovery led to spontaneous rise of the Tea Part movement in America and an epic rejection of social liberal policies at the polls in 2010. Following that electoral shellacking, a broad spectrum of pundits urged President Obama in the words of Politico to: “move to the center to find common ground with the GOP and adopt the “triangulation” strategy employed by Bill Clinton” after his 1994 midterm losses.”

Social liberals have howled this year at what they see as the President lurch to the political center as selling out their core values. Bent on creating their own spontaneous movement; social liberals quickly latched onto the Occupy Wall Street movement. Over $500,000 in donations poured in as labor unions and elected officials embraced the movement. Marches and occupations sprung up nationwide to serve as a national microphone for the cause.

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From The Guardian (UK):

The revolution could be trademarked in the US as more entrepreneurs seek to profit from the Occupy demonstrations.

T-shirts began to appear days after the first protest on 17 September, a march through lower Manhattan. Now T-shirts, coffee mugs and other merchandise are being offered on the campsites that have sprung up in cities across the US. The US patent and trademark office has received a spate of applications.

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The Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements were both born out of the despair following the 2008 financial crisis, and both have tapped into the public’s anger over the unfairness of bank bailouts and huge bonuses for the risk takers while the rest of the country has struggled with unemployment, falling home prices and anemic economic growth.

Yet the elite media has constantly vilified the peaceful Tea Party as right-wing rabble for prodding politicians to do nothing more than reduce the bloat of government.

Meanwhile, politicians, the press — and now CEOs — have generally celebrated Occupy Wall Street as the second coming of the civil-rights movement — no matter how many times its followers have clashed with police in the name of Mao and Che Guevara.

And the worst part about these unfair depictions of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street?

There’s no end in sight.

I can’t remember a single instance in which the chief executive of a major bank or conglomerate has said something nice about the Tea Party’s goals of limited government, lower taxes and free markets — the very things upon which this country was founded.

But such business leaders as GE chief executive Jeffrey Immelt and Blackrock chief Larry Fink have been falling all over themselves trying to say nice things about the OWS protesters, their grievances and rants against capitalism — even while the unwashed mob is nearly rioting not far from their corporate headquarters.

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One of Occupy Wall Street’s early planners and activists has given public credit to Glenn Beck for correctly analyzing the ultimate goal of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement: a violent revolution in which the wealthy are dragged into the streets and killed.

Malcolm Harris, an editor and activist who “has been active in OWS since the first planning meetings,” confirmed Beck’s analysis in his comments at a panel discussion on October 14th in New York–the same panel discussion that featured New York Times freelancer Natasha Lennard.

Transcript (emphasis added):

Well, and I think that’s–that’s one side of what people want, right, ’cause that’s not the only thing people want, they also want to take the banker out of his, you know, fucking tower and string him up in the public square, right? [Applause] That’s not–that’s not, like, just the crazy left. That’s everyday folks talking about their experiences.

And, like, this is America, right? We want to talk about “we’re the 99%” as if we’re also not the 99% that loves Transformers 4, right? [Laughter] As if this is the 99% that doesn’t also, like, feel passionate anger. “All we want is, like, you know, our little appropriate piece of the pie and we just want to be friendly.“

And the capitalists know that’s not the case, right? If you want to read what the capitalists think about this you can go look at what Glenn Beck says, right? He’s got a better analysis than most people on the left about where this could go, how threatening this…—

(There’s a cut here in the original video. It seems to continue about Beck.)

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From Entrepreneur:

The Occupy Wall Street movement has very different objectives from most small-business owners. Doug Schoen, a political pollster and Fox News analyst, recently surveyed 200 protesters and concluded that the majority of the movement’s members want higher taxes to redistribute wealth and heavier regulation on the private sector. But most small-business owners have been calling for less regulation and lower taxes to get the economy going again.

Moreover, most small-business owners believe in the capitalist system, while Occupy Wall Street expresses some anti-capitalist views. Take a look at some statements made in the movement’s first official release. “Corporations … have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions…. have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ health care and pay…. [and] have spent millions of dollars … to get … out of contracts in regards to health insurance.”

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In this YouTube video posted by TheRightScoop here, an unnamed individual said to be a professor at New York University can be seen encouraging protesters to bring down Capitalism.

“If we get rid  of the board of directors, if we get  rid of the major  shareholders, the machines will still be there. The factory will not move. The workers will have all  the skills.  We will produce just fine.”

A bit later in the short video, he  goes on, ”We have the people. We have the plan. And the obstacle is a tiny minority.”

While making a point of naming “Capitalism” as the enemy, he encourages the confiscation of wealth and the taking of private property in the cause of a system he, curiously enough, does not seem to name.

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In the beginning, I was willing to accept that a group of unhappy citizens utilized their First Amendment rights to protest what they believe to be an injustice (as I have written here and here):  the picking of winners and losers by government with a weak coverup attempt via cronyism.  I accepted, at first, their claims of being a “non-violent” group wanting to have their grievances heard.

Yet, as the “movement” began to grow, it became obvious that being “non-violent” is “non-correct.” Quickly, the OWS protesters were co-opted by those who believe in violence as a legitimate means of achieving their objectives:  Van Jones, who wants to see an “American Autumn” emulating the Arab Spring (which was, and still is, very violent), Michael Moore — who has stated publicly that the “rich” can give up their money now, peacefully, or later (though he doesn’t elaborate on what happens to get the money later, one can imagine), and even Roseanne Barr got into the mix. Barr actually said she longed for the return of the guillotine and re-education camps for those who don’t give up their wealth willingly.

In my appearance on CrossTalk, I was joined by Jason Del Gandio – assistant professor of rhetoric at Temple University and author of “Rhetoric for Radicals,” (a handbook for 21st century activists) and Kevin Zeese, organizer of October 2011.org and activist.  In that program a few things came to the surface:

Both Del Gandio and Zeese pushed the meme that the organizations across the nation were non-violent. Zeese made it clear that they were not allowing themselves to be co-opted by Jones, Moore, the Democrat party or anyone else, claiming:

Van Jones is not part of the Occupy movement…he’s a Democrat…if Obama and the Democrats embrace us, they gonna be very sad to see that we will be protesting them as well…we see them as part of the crony capitalist corrupt economy that has resulted in 400 people having as much wealth as 154 million, not because they are smarter or work harder, but because they are politically connected and essentially bribing through campaign donations…

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The mainstream media is knocking itself out making comparisons between the Occupy Wall Street protests and the tea party movement. For years, the left has tried to find a left-wing equivalent to the tea party movement without success. Remember the Coffee Party? I didn’t think so.

The protesters in Manhattan and the tea party are 180 degrees apart. This rag-tag group of unwashed, middle-class socialists protesting against corporations and the rich don’t really know why they’re protesting. They just know they want something for free.  Lots of free stuff to everyone, except to the wealthy who produce the free stuff, is what the protesters want.

The Occupy Wall Street protesters represent perfectly what liberals, such as Nancy Pelosi, initially labeled the tea party movement in 2009. Pelosi tried to halt the rapid spread of the grass-roots tea party by suggesting it was controlled by the Republican Party and calling it “astro-turf.” That failed as people recognized that the Republican Party is not capable of creating anything with the brilliance of the tea party movement. The Occupy Wall Street protesters are another matter. The strings controlling it run directly to the labor unions and the White House. Obama political advisor Patrick Gaspard, who has worked closely with the ACORN-controlled Working Families Party and the largest local within the Service Employees International Union, has actually advertised on Craigslist to pay protesters to join in the fun taking place in Manhattan. Don’t expect any reporting of this from the mainstream media! They are too busy trying to compare the incomparable Occupy Wall Street to American patriots in the tea party movement.

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It’s all about the Benjamins, baby!

Occupy Wall Street protesters asked “Wall Street banker” James O’Keefe for capital investing yesterday. They wanted funding for the “Constitutional World Federation” they are planning. Another protester goes into detail about funding for the Occupy Wall Street protest came from Almagamated Bank. They’re all for capitalism, but only if it benefits them.

James O’Keefe scores another win against the hypocritical left.
Via Project Veritas:

The past week was very interesting in Presidential politics.  The darlings of the rank and file Republican Party, New Jersey governor Chris Christie and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, have concluded it is not time to run for President. Herman Cain (who was recently labeled a racist by a Democrat strategist on CNN) has become the sweetheart of the white-supremacist, right-wing Tea Party.

The popular press is lauding liberal Democrats for having finally found their own voice in the Occupy Wall Street protests. And Missouri’s Democratic Senator, Claire McCaskill, did not even show up for President Obama’s (who polls below 30% in MO) fundraiser in St. Louis. And a rumor is circulating that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has told Obama he cannot win passage of the jobs bill as proposed and will only take it in pieces to the Senate floor, thus distancing himself from the President.

Does anyone need to know anything else about the 2012 elections?

The problem for decades in Washington has been that lawmakers, Republican and Democrat, have spent their way to political success. Now that there is no more money, nobody knows what to do.  In fact, there is only one Congressman, Darrell Issa (R-CA) who has started (not inherited) a successful company that sold a product and wasn’t just in the service industry, law, accounting, insurance, medicine, banking, you get the idea.  The genesis of American capitalism is an agrarian society taking the risks necessary to make something from nothing and selling it.  He is likely the only one that has made the sacrifices necessary to build something from nothing, and make a profit.  The concept is that without actual profit you can’t spend money.  Everyone else, Democrat and Republican more resembles the Occupy Wall Street group who want to tell everyone where money should be spent, decisions based on personal interests and taxes, not capitalism.  The situation is exacerbated by the contempt and lack of cooperation between the congressional parties, as well as between members of Congress of both parties and the executive.

For some time, the question of when that animosity began has gone unanswered. Certainly there have always been hard-fought ideological battles in the halls of government. But there have also been famous relationships between party leaders, relationships that helped bring these leaders and the country together. When did our modern politics deteriorate so much? Recently a longtime friend and Washington insider suggested that it began with the defeat of the nomination of Judge Robert Bork, the highly respected and superbly qualified candidate, for the Supreme Court. (more…)

The Occupy Wall Street protesters say they’re demonstrating against capitalism. Sure they are…

In January of 2011, Facebook was valued at $50 Billion dollars.

In February of 2011, Twitter was valued at $10 Billion.

In March of 2011, YouTube was valued at $36 Billion and Google was valued at $190 Billion.

None of these companies would exist without capitalism, but the anti-capitalist leftists currently occupying Wall Street will never, ever protest these companies. They’re even organizing their protests through their websites.

Why is the left’s hatred of capitalism so selective? Google is a publicly traded corporation; its executives feed off the so-called profiteering of Wall Street just as deliberately as Goldman Sachs or any of their other boogeyman du jour. And if we’re talking how these corporations make profits, why doesn’t the left get asbent out of shape over Google and Facebook selling their personal information to marketers as they do with banks charging interest on loans? (more…)

Down with banks, student-loan debt, and expensive elections! Up with barter…capitalism…and…Mitt Romney?!?!

On October 4, 2011, Reason.tv visited the Occupy Wall Street protests at Liberty Square in Lower Manhattan, on Day 18 of the ongoing demonstration.

The crowd was relatively small at about 300, and included educated but unemployed workers, college students and recent graduates, homeless drifters, performance artists, 9/11 truthers, and a not-insignificant number of journalists.

The “leaderless” movement is made up of more than a dozen smaller groups, such as the “Information” group with Macbooks hooked up to generators who maintain the “OccupyWallStreet” Twitter feeds and liveblogs, a “People’s Library” consisting mostly of donated leftist literature, and a well-stocked kitchen where organic vegetables are sliced for communal salads.

Student loan debt, campaign finance reform, and general anger with the sluggish economy were the more frequent grievances aired, but the demonstrators are hardly monolithic in their passions or opinions. Among the boilerplate anti-capitalist rhetoric included a lifelong Democrat professing his support for Mitt Romney, an unemployed aviation mechanic declaring his continued support of capitalism and disgust at corporate welfare, and a homeless man expressing skepticism that any of the protestors would remain in the park if just ”one bad wind” rolled through the area.

Also in the crowd was Republican New York City Councilman Daniel J. Halloran, who took all questions from the assembled crowd, and even won them over after forcefully denouncing taxpayer bailouts of corporations and eminent-domain abuse.

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Me and my very own SEIU “minder” take a journey onto the streets, up to the banks, and into the minds of the grassroots and populist (I swear. No, really. This is really, really spontaneous stuff) #OccupyWallStreet movement. (Side note: my strategy to go incognito by not wearing any product in my hair was an utter failure.)

Steve Jobs personified capitalism and free markets in as pure and beautiful a way as the world has seen in the modern generation of industrial giants. His pursuit of excellence — his passion to make Apple the best and most profitable company it could be — enriched the lives of untold millions.

Jobs set a new standard for how a personal computer should work — i.e., it should be as easy to use as nearly any other home appliance. The industry was forced to follow Jobs’ lead. His leadership in developing the iPhone completely changed the game — forcing competitors to quickly evolve beyond a device that flipped open to one that brought the entire digital world to one’s fingertips. Jobs not only put the word ‘apps’ into our shared lexicon, but — against betting odds — made app-interface the present and future of digital media consumption.

And, under Jobs’ leadership, Apple developed the iPad — the industry standard for the modern tablet. Not long ago, people sneered and snickered at the name, iPad — and boldly predicted the failure of Apple’s big gamble. What fool would dare to try to establish a middle ground between a smart phone and laptop when none yet existed? Steve Jobs dared. He created a new market, out of thin air, and welcomed tens of millions of happy customers to Apple for his efforts.

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