We are reading The Forsaken by Tim Tzouliads. An incredible book about the migration of Americans to the Soviet Union in the early 30's, lured to factory jobs during the Great Depression. Jobs at first. Then American passports replaced with Soviet passports. Then the knock in the middle of the night.
From page 74, discussing the departure of the American ambassador, William Bullitt, who left when he realized the true nature of the Communist enterprise:
William Bullitt was far from alone in realizing the truth of what was taking place around him. One of the American reporters, William Henry Chamberlin, left at the same time in the early summer of 1936. "I went to Russia," Chamberlin later wrote, "believing that the Soviet system might represent the most hopeful answer to the problems raised by the World War and the subsequent economic crisis. I left convinced that the absolutist Soviet state...is a power of darkness and of evil with few parallels in history...Murder is a habit, even more with states than with individuals." Perhaps it was not accurate to say that the Terror had begun then. In truth it had been in existence for many years. But Bullitt's departure did coincide with a vast expansion and acceleration of the process, as if what once had been mere habit had now been transformed into an overwhelming compulsion and an inexorable desire.
Chamberlin was lucky to leave. Moreover, he was lucky there was a place to escape to.
Both. We would venture to guess that those few who still pay taxes make up most of the proud patriots who attend the rallies. If that has anything to do with certain ethnic groups being under-represented, then is it safe to suggest the current tax code is racist?
Memory Lane: Here is the video we made from last year's tea party on March 15th:
And here is the video from the April 15, 2009 tea party:
We plan to attend a tea party in a yet-to-be-announced location, however weather may be an issue.
A hearty Ushanka Tip to all those who attend a rally today. Have fun, be safe, and if you see any libs do as Obama says: "don't be afraid to get in their face".
UPDATE 7:45pm:
We attended today's Tea Party rally in beautiful Kansas City! The forecast was for rain, but it was a dry gathering of determined Kansas City patriots. Pics and video coming soon, except we have to post this picture immediately:
UPDATE 10:45pm:
We've been enjoying the many pictures from fellow bloggers of today's Tea Party rallies. This one jumped out at us from The Digital Hairshirt:
Just a note that posts will [continue to] be scarce. We are traveling to an undisclosed Tea Party this week. In the meantime, please click over to some of our friends in the blogroll to the left.
Our apologies for the few posts these past weeks. We've discovered a secret, diabolical plan by the Democrats to silence their critics: Taxes. We've either been completing our tax returns, or stressing over them. Hence the few posts.
While we haven't been producing, we have continued consuming. We will provide a post-HCR blog post here shortly with the best of the colorful comments from our conservative mentors.
In the meantime, we've been negligent with our Ushanka Babe posts. English Russia has a post we took this picture from: Miss Belarus Detective 2010. Let the interrogations begin!
A bloc of pro-life Democrats turned out to be the linchpin to passage of the Senate's massive health insurance overhaul Sunday night, as President Obama cemented a 219-212 victory with a pledge to issue an executive order "clarifying" abortion language in the Senate bill.
Dems will be Dems.
Two competing interests in today's historic vote on government-run health care: The Tyranny Revolutionaries and their useful idiots, and those Freedom-Loving Revolutionaries that will not go down without a fight.
We offer a heartfelt Ushanka Tip to the latter, and a big fat Ushanka middle finger to the former.
We finished Solzhenitsyn's In The First Circle today. Here was a discussion between two prisoners on page 667 that we found earily relevent to today's vote for tyranny. Of course, they are two Russians who share the common Gulag dream of the US coming to rescue them.
"You have to understand that the more prosperous, the more free and easy life becomes in the West, the less ready Western man is to fight for fools who have allowed themselves to be oppressed. And they are right; they haven't opened their own gates to the robber band. We have deserved our regime and leaders; we got ourselves into this mess, and we must get ourselves out of it." "Their turn will come." "Of course their turn will come. There is a destructive force in prosperity. To prolong it for a year, a day, a man will sacrifice not only all that belongs to others but all that is sacred. He will defy the dictates of common prudence.
About 30,000 rallied yesterday in DC against government healthcare. Here is a pic lifted from Nice Deb's site:
Not one mass-produced sign. Not one union-provided bus. Not one liberalprogressive communist in sight.
Obamacare will result in the creation of at least 16,500 new jobs. Doctors? Nurses? Ha! Dream on, suckers. That’s 16,500 new IRS agents, who’ll be needed to check whether you — yes, you, Mr. and Mrs. Hopendope of 27 Hopeychangey Gardens — are in compliance with the 15 tax increases and dozens of new federal mandates the Deemocrats are about to “deem” into existence. This will be the biggest expansion of the IRS since World War II — and that’s change you can believe in. This is what “health” “care” “reform” boils down to: fewer doctors, longer wait times, but more bureaucrats.
May we suggest the Democrat Party change their name to: The Party (P). It would be worse than the vote today to continue to ignore the communist inspirations of the DNC. For the three people out there that still doubt us, watch this clip of Senator Brown (P-OH) found at NewZeal:
I don’t want to hear all this crap about wait until November, etc… What’s going to happen in November? A bunch of Republicans are going to get voted in. And they are NOT GOING TO DO ANYTHING! This law will NEVER be REPEALED! And despite the bitching, moaning and anger, the majority of Americans are just going to go along with the Socialist program like the asshole sheep that we are.
I will now wear a big fur hat (courtesy of Ushanka) and call everyone comrade. Can’t wait to see the looks I get in the Post Office tomorrow.
Mr. Pinko, you'll notice that the hat keeps your ears warm as you wait in line at the USPS. That benefit is transferrable (no pre-conditions) to lines for an MRI, bread or a job too. A good comrade gets every little bit of use out of his few possessions!
A good book and a good cigar: Solzhenitsyn's In The First Circle and an El Rey Del Mundo.
Page 339: Part of an argument between two political prisoners. One, Nerzhin is a devout communist despite his predicament, and the other is Rubin.
We join the conversation with Rubin speaking first:
"Listen, whose marvelous lines were those I heard a little while ago, about the two Alyoshas?" "Things were different then, before I'd learned to discriminate, before my ideals were clearly defined. In those days...it was still possible..." "And now you see your ideal clearly in the shape of the Gulag?" "No! In the shape of the ethical ideals of socialism! Capitalism has none, just greed for profit!" "Listen!" By now Nerzhin was wedging his shoulders into the fork of the tree, preparing himself for a long discussion. "Could you kindly explain these socialist ideals you talk about? They're nowhere to be seen at present. All right, maybe somebody's botched the experiment, but when and where can we expect to see them; what do they amount to? Eh? Socialism, of whatever variety, is a sort of caricature of the Gospel message. Socialism promises only equality and a full belly, and that only by means of coercion." "Isn't that enough? has any society in history ever had as much?" "You'll find equality and full bellies in any good pigsty! What a tremendous favor they've bestowed on us! Equality and plenty! Give us a moral society!" "We will! Just don't make difficulties! Don't get in the way!"
The freedom-loving Soviet prisoners had one thing that we don't have today: prison walls to keep their ideological opponents from running away from the debate.
Just go to Daily Kos if you want to read more about equality and full bellies.
The useful idiots in our mainstream media exist in the name of liberalism. Our home page, now with 1866 biased headlines, is more than enough proof of their leftist ideals. Some of the headlines are intended, while others - likely most - are accidental. They just don't see anything wrong with headlines like these most recent five:
Why the Democrats Need to Hang Tough on Fincancial Reform - Time Coffee Party answers Tea Party - CNN Behind the GOP 'Commitment to America' - Newsweek Catholic hospitals support health care bill - AP Tea Party Avoids Divisive Social Issues - NYT
But sometime the MSM serves a greater purpose. To be a beacon of hope to their few, like-minded readers. Those readers have been under a lot of stress in recent days over the stalled government takeover of health care.
They see their president shelve any/all campaign promises of transparency, C-SPAN coverage, bi-partisanship, no death-panels and no taxpayer-paid abortions in his latest push to get the legislation passed. The votes have been short since last summer, even when the Senate was filibuster proof with 60 votes and the House flush with heart-bleeding bed-wetting liberals.
For the liberalprogressive communist now laying in the dark in a fetal position with only MSNBC for a light source, some good news is needed. Even manufactured news.
This headline from today would be newsworthy --- if it ran one or two months after the May 31, 2009 murder of Dr. Tiller.
But why run such an article almost a year later?
If demand for late-term abortions went unanswered after the Tiller murder, you'd think we'd have had 10 months of news to that effect.
Have we been inundated with 'recent and unexpected spike in deaths during child labor' stories? That is the reason for the procedure. Right?
Or, now follow us on this point... is the MSM stepping in to offer a ray of sunshine on these otherwise gloomy days? Even the most loyal leftist is disheartened when Pelosi announces for the 180th day in a row that she 'has the votes'. These are tough times. Even for the few that still have jobs.
Our gut says the Los Angeles Times is cheerleading with the happy story of infanticide to cheer up the otherwise depressed base.
To put public school spending in perspective, we compare it to estimated total expenditures in local private schools. We find that, in the areas studied, public schools are spending 93 percent more than the estimated median private school.
So we should conclude, having ourselves attended government schools, that we are 93% smarter than our private school counterparts? That we have 93% more opportunities?
by Tim Tzouliads. An incredible book about the migration of Americans to the Soviet Union in the early 30's, lured to factory jobs during the Great Depression. Jobs at first. Then American passports replaced with Soviet passports. Then the knock in the middle of the night.
