The left is past all caring about what you or anyone else might think. They protect themselves by wrapping themselves in a miasma of smug complacency about their goodness and virtue and its absence in others. It is a confidence trick on the poor, the young and the productive. Why any of these would vote for parties that only make them worse off while pretending they care oh so much is the great question of our age.
If the parties of the right cannot work out how to explain to the lower half of the income distribution on which side their bread is buttered they will seldom win elections and our social and economic conditions will continue to crumble. The predatory activities of our elites under the name of socialism or progressivism or liberalism or whatever else they decide to call their covering ideologies will pick the bones of our societies clean until there really is collapse.
This is Roger Simon via Instapundit looking at this same problem.
Leftism has devolved into a kind of scam run not only on others but also on the self. Leftists are brilliant at convincing themselves of their own altruism and then broadcasting it to the public, thus providing cover for the most conventionally greedy and selfish behaviors. We see that in our society all the time: the quondam Marxists of Hollywood, the media, and the academy blathering on about economic equality while living lives the Medici could not have dreamed of.
Part of this construct is a ‘prevent game,’ a public persona and system erected so privilege cannot be questioned or undermined. A nomenklatura more successful and sophisticated than anything ever conceived in the Soviet Union. The result of this is a highly stratified society. As is well known but scarcely reported, blacks and Latinos have actually done worse under Obama than other groups. Normally, that would be unconscionable, considering the rhetoric. But as we know, it’s all about the rhetoric. Reality is unimportant — an inconvenience.
Relatively unbridled capitalism has always the best way out of this, the best way to true social mobility, but our nomenklatura doesn’t want to admit this because it might threaten them and their perquisites. It would blow their cover.
As usual, no one is buying Steve’s product because they’re just not smart enough to appreciate it. LOL.
William Bragg
4 Jan 13 at 11:04 am
Great post steve.
Equality to leftists is not really about redistribution. It’s about something else. It’s about keeping the successful in check.
JC
4 Jan 13 at 11:05 am
Braggs
You’re better off talking about JFK conspiracy theories and your support of the Iranian regime hanging gays and stoning women for adultery than this stuff. You don’t understand it.
JC
4 Jan 13 at 11:07 am
Is Billy Brag in competition with kero boy for the inanity prize?
Biota
4 Jan 13 at 11:15 am
“As usual, no one is buying Steve’s product because they’re just not smart enough to appreciate it. LOL.”
Because it’s counter-intuitive. Obviously the guy who gives you money for nothing is the good guy, right? The fact is by doing so, they own you. Psychology 101. Lefties love psychology, so they must be dishonest in pushing the benefactor line, eh?
The Beer Whisperer
4 Jan 13 at 11:41 am
The point about the fate of ‘minorities’ under Obama is very telling. I didn’t know this, and suspect that US voters didn’t either.
The Republican election campaign was extraordinarily inept.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch – it is hard to think of a more regressive and destructive policy than raising energy prices for no good reason. The ‘compensation’ packages will be short-lived, and in any event, missed a lot of people, like self-funded retirees on fixed incomes. The Coalition should be hammering this issue, and stop pandering to Malcolm Turnbull and his fans with mealy-mouthed and expensive policies that waste public money in the name of saving the planet.
If the US ever recovers, it will be because of the cheap energy which is being developed in the face of bitter opposition from those who claim a monopoly on caring about the poor. Conservative parties have lost the plot by accepting the premises of their opponents. Time to step up, boys and girls.
johanna
4 Jan 13 at 11:46 am
And this is the outcome.
In the socialist, gun-free utopia of Britain, with its delightful national Socialist Health Service murdering 60,000 people a year, the level of criminal violence tops not only every country in the EU but also South Africa.
Mk50 of Brisbane
4 Jan 13 at 11:46 am
“It’s about keeping the successful in check.”
You mean “the competition”. If you look at the seeds of Marxism in Germany, it was the feudalists demonising the merchant class for being greedy, when they were really just trying to prevent their slipping power over the populace to the attractive towns where freedom and money lived. It’s the greatest fraud in human history.
The Beer Whisperer
4 Jan 13 at 11:51 am
Scrotum:
Ahh, the projection of left-wing scum. Where would we be without such poorly educated feeble intellects unable to grasp even the basic fundamentals of reality?
Probably a lot better off, truth be known.
And old Scrote here is such a gap-toothed window-licking mouth breather that he can’t even identify a power-elite trying to make itself into an aristocractic class.
Which is the entire point they try and breed intellectual peasants like Scrotum, Numbers, Monty and the rest.
Mk50 of Brisbane
4 Jan 13 at 11:51 am
The Glitterati seem to be monotonously Left supporting, perhaps it provides access to the political oligarchy – its hardly democracy. They do seem to be afraid of the lower midddle class and the independent minded workers.
Democracy is not the natural order of things, its not some inevitable dispensation we evolve to with enlightenment. Marxists know that democracy is predicated on internal contradictions; chiefly that all people are not ‘equal’ except in law, and a majority can democratically tyrranise and exploit the minority.
History demonstrates that variations of democracy have only worked for a while, perhaps a few hundred years. It can only work where the subjects are more or less homogenous and more or less equal.
Democracy will not work where the subjects are stratified into collectivised racial, economic, and other designer classes. That will take us from the current oligarchy to dictatorship, not a pleasant journey.
Jannie
4 Jan 13 at 12:08 pm
“As usual, no one is buying Steve’s product because they’re just not smart enough to appreciate it. LOL.”
And, of course, the left would never assume that people aren’t buying their product because they are too stupid. I remember the 2004 election, when nearly all the leftists I knew complained bitterly about how stupid the Australian people were for returning John Howard to office. But given what has emerged since, would anyone seriously go back in time and elect Mark Latham? It is now almost universally acknowledged that Australia dodged a bullet in Latham.
Similarly, after the 2004 US elections, there was a graphic doing the rounds of the internet that purported to show that states with high average IQs nearly all voted for Kerry while states with low average IQs nearly all voted for Bush. It turns out this was some kind of a hoax, and the figures quoted for average IQs by state were not backed up by any evidence and were simply pulled from thin air.
Monkey's Uncle
4 Jan 13 at 12:09 pm
mk50, that article says that Britain has 20 times the violent crime rate of Australia per capita, and Canada 10 times. Have to call BS on that one.
braddles
4 Jan 13 at 12:15 pm
Thomas Sowell talks about his excellent book “Intellectuals and Society” nails all of the memes the left love to trot out in the clear and forceful way that Thomas Sowell is so good at. The video is here
washout
4 Jan 13 at 12:22 pm
“Have to call BS on that one.”
Fair call. Anything short of dismemberment in Australia is considered “non-violent”. Want lower crime figures? Tighten the definitions and voila!
The Beer Whisperer
4 Jan 13 at 12:24 pm
I think I am liking the way you whisper into that beer, mate.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
4 Jan 13 at 12:49 pm
Seconded ! Epic
Rod Clarke
4 Jan 13 at 12:57 pm
“I think I am liking the way you whisper into that beer, mate. ”
I love beer, and beer loves me back. Actually, it’s the yeast I whisper to. After all, they are the living part of the beer, and understand English as good as any horse!
The Beer Whisperer
4 Jan 13 at 1:01 pm
Clearly you have not been to a northern town at closing time on a Saturday night.
brc
4 Jan 13 at 1:04 pm
I just read a delightful piece titled “difficulties or an atempt to help” by Seymour Hicks, a 1920 book for gentlemen.
The section on gambling sums up the leftist government well..
“The keeper of hell de luxe has not to depend upon whether A,B, C or the bank wins. All he has to do, as I say, is to charge the winners anything from 2 shillings to 4 shillings on every pound thrown on the table, for the privilege of being his guest.”
Hes describing a nicely appointed gambling establishment for gentlemen, where port, fine cigars, lovely ladies and good food are all provided for “free”..
Except for that constant drip, drip, drip of a bit from the pot, until only the house wins.
thefrollickingmole
4 Jan 13 at 1:42 pm
Braddles:
Fair enough. What facts are you basing that on?
be interested in links to your data.
Mk50 of Brisbane
4 Jan 13 at 1:52 pm
Irony of the left…. Robyn Williams telling us climate skepticism is as outrageous as suggesting paedophilia is good for kids, then The Guardian tells us paedophilia might be good* for kids!
*artistic license: “not harmful”
Harold
4 Jan 13 at 2:12 pm
How bad is crime in the UK??
thefrollickingmole
4 Jan 13 at 2:14 pm
Nicola Roxon had this to say with regards the bulk buying of milk powder by Chinese visitors:
Imagine if Abbott or even Bishop had said that, the left would foam about ‘free choice’ etc.
nic
4 Jan 13 at 2:30 pm
One son-in-law and one grandson-in-law both rabid lefties prior to and since joining our family have just realised under the Rudd/Gillard reign that Socialism is a great idea but it does not work.
The message gets through to most rational people when they mature into real citizens and not dreamers.
Maggie
4 Jan 13 at 2:46 pm
SteveK:
WillB: first post…
Facts confirmed…
Forester
4 Jan 13 at 2:46 pm
Not in my little one’s case. Mrs Skuter tried valiantly to breast feed, with every intention of doing it for as long as possible. After 5 weeks, junior Skuter had lost weight. I am firmly of the opinion that formula saved the little man’s life.
I solemnly swear I will physically crush any breast feeding feminazi if they ever even remotely hint at criticising her.
Skuter
4 Jan 13 at 2:50 pm
“I solemnly swear I will physically crush any breast feeding feminazi if they ever even remotely hint at criticising her.”
Why wait? You know they want to!
The Beer Whisperer
4 Jan 13 at 3:10 pm
True, whisperer, but I need some sort of excuse that might mitigate my prison sentence.
Skuter
4 Jan 13 at 3:21 pm
I move that Pilbeserk be no longer heard (not a death threat).
blogstrop
4 Jan 13 at 3:22 pm
Send the feminazi for mammogram Scuter. That will do the job nicely for you.
Preparation for a mammogram:
Take your naked breast
Rest it inside an open fridge door
Slam the door shut hard.
Only strong non-lefty women can cope.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
4 Jan 13 at 3:38 pm
And old Scrote here is such a gap-toothed window-licking mouth breather that he can’t even identify a power-elite
trying to makewhich has made itself into an aristocractic class.FTFY, Mk50
Winston SMITH
4 Jan 13 at 3:42 pm
Unless of course they make various continuing choices that result in a shame so deep they are terrified of facing up to it. In that case leftism becomes ideological cover for amorality right up unto the death bed.
Seriously, whatever your religious view do you think there is a single Commandment Gillard adhere’s to let alone doesn’t despise. Utterly hardened.
Rousie
4 Jan 13 at 3:44 pm
Skuter – Alice had the same experience re breastfeeding but it did last a little longer like about two to three months. After that a feed took all of two mins and despite numerous visits to the baby health centre where I was told “persevere – breat is best yada yada” and after being attached to dreadful torture instruments called breast pumps and with junior still yelling his head off and losing weight I finally went out and bought some formula and ignored all other advice exceopt my own. My baby was hungry and living with a hungry baby is bad for monther and bad for baby
.
No further problems.
There are no hard and fast rules in the breastfeeding game. When my grandma was breastfeeding in the hospital she had so much they used her as milking cow for premmy babies who mother’s didnt have any milk yet.
If you want my deepest darkest suspicians breastfeeding was likely pushed as a policy initially so hospitals could save on formula. It then took on a life of its own.
Alice
4 Jan 13 at 3:46 pm
Alice, for once I agree with you.
Follow the money.
Winston SMITH
4 Jan 13 at 3:50 pm
All I can say after that description Lizzie, is that I am immensely relieved that there is no such thing as a ‘testegram’.
Alice, we were lucky that the local midwife actually told us to stop the breast feeding and go and get a tin of formula straight away. I appreciate the support…
Skuter
4 Jan 13 at 3:58 pm
Well my mum nearly starved me to death and was made to feel a failure because of pro-breast feeding stuff back in the 60′s…
thefrollickingmole
4 Jan 13 at 4:00 pm
Well back in the early seventies when newborns were born – if they got hungry and Mum’s milk hadnt arrived there used to be a smorgasboard to choose from (whatever doc prescribed) eg prosobee and I cant recall the other names of all the formulas prescribed for those first few days. Also glucose and water was given.
One premise was that Mum needed a rest after delivery so she could elect not to be woken for night feeds (hence the formulas avaialble or glucose and water).
Great outcome – Mum rested before milk arrives. Baby not unhappy being made to wait and another four days of supervision under care and Mum and Bub were ready to be discharged. This was the norm.
Now its – get up and go home Mum as fast as you can and use your own milk and no we will not give your baby formula or you a rest.
My advice these days is evacuate that uncaring hectoring environment as fast as you can and call your Mum!
Alice
4 Jan 13 at 4:19 pm
It started with the Lefts war on Nestle which started in 1973 which the UN and WHO and UNICEF were co-opted into by activists.
This is really a case study on international socialists using boycotts / lobbying and NGO’s and the UN to limit the free market.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Code_of_Marketing_of_Breast-milk_Substitutes
Rod Clarke
4 Jan 13 at 4:19 pm
Infant formula earned a poor reputation due to heavy promotion in the Third World where unhygienic preparation and understrength mixtures (owing to its high relative cost) led to increased infant mortality. The demonisation of infant formulas by the UN & WHO has fed back into 1st World attitudes to what is a safe alternative under first world conditions.
Cold-Hands
4 Jan 13 at 4:20 pm
Read the Wiki entry above – anyone would think Baby formula is in the same category as cigarettes
Rod Clarke
4 Jan 13 at 4:21 pm
Cold hands
The infant formula companies donated it to third world countries probably partly humanitarian but also as a way of advertising the product as well. It wasnt the formulas that were the problem.
It was the third world water they were mixing it with.
Bad news by the formula companies – they should have known really what would have happened.
Alice
4 Jan 13 at 4:26 pm
Cold hands
That move lost the formula companies a lot of business
(so someone should have been beheaed over that).
Alice
4 Jan 13 at 4:29 pm
Alice,
Maybe they were also motivated by a need to help the impoverished?
Perhaps a mistaken desire in retrospect, as you can’t help people that won’t help themselves
Cory Olsen
4 Jan 13 at 4:41 pm
Simon: “… had a house in the Hollywood Hills. And ate at gourmet restaurants. And there were plenty like me. I was part of a class. I felt safe and protected for many years, though finally I just left it. I couldn’t stand the hypocrisy anymore …”.
Hollywood could be described as the hypocrisy central, maybe it always was. In this interview (at ~4 min) Robert Mitchum says (with a wink) that in the immediate post-war years ‘… if you made up to $1000 a week (~$10,000 now) it was rather chic to be for the working man …’.
manalive
4 Jan 13 at 4:46 pm
“.. upwards of $1000 per week ..”
manalive
4 Jan 13 at 4:50 pm
Terribly chic still, manalive.
And so chic these days to be saving the planet so graciously for the working man’s jobless grandchildren too. Just ask Kate Blanchett and her very attractive and well-heeled friends. They don’t give anything up themselves of course, but they greatly encourage everyone else to do so.
Nicki Gemmell, Mia Freedman et al are the inner-urban less well-heeled middle-class versions. Nicki’s coming across problems ‘having it all’, being a slowly boiling frog, but Mia is going strong still. Girls rule, OK? Till they don’t.
And someone here called me an airhead!
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
4 Jan 13 at 5:22 pm
Yeah yeah, I read all that and totally agree, the only problem is this
The left are giving out money!
The right are boring us &€)@ less!
so when the money runs out the populace coming crawling back to mum and dad who started out in all places of the political spectrum and ended up right unless they got a government pension.
To succeed with people under 30 who science has shown still have undeveloped brains we have to take a leaf out of the lefts book…
http://www.isjuliagillardgoingtojail.com/
we have the jump on them because we have reproduced. I for one have media savvy unemployed hangers on who understand trickle down effect!
The lefties want guerilla warfare? Bring it on!
(and LIKE my new page please! They are on 4 continents now!)
mummybloggermel
4 Jan 13 at 5:23 pm
mummy
Did you just randomly select those sentences and stuck them together? Honest question.
JC
4 Jan 13 at 5:26 pm
Cory
You can help people that cant help themselves as in third world countries but I am not sure the desire to spread formula around the world was motivated as much by humanitarian reasons as economic ones. There is an awful lot of governments that donate to foreign aid and formula must have looked like a good thing for starving infants (Thats a contract for the formula company).
Unfortunately it was the water it was mixed with as mentioned etc
Had they known there was going to be that problem which caused a big backlash in their first world markets would the formula companies have entered into the arrangements to supply third world countries in the first place?
They dont sell as much formula as they used to do they?
Alice
4 Jan 13 at 5:28 pm
JC – re mummy’s comments – and you say Im on the meths?
Alice
4 Jan 13 at 5:29 pm
mummyblogger, I think you are trying to do something worthwhile about what is going on and good luck to you in that.
Elizabeth (Lizzie) B.
4 Jan 13 at 5:41 pm
Still seems to be growing – http://www.prweb.com/releases/baby_foods_meals/infant_formula/prweb735554.htm
Cory Olsen
4 Jan 13 at 5:43 pm
@lizzie B
It’s war! And I know you are in!
Apart from wit and right on our side, oh and yes facts, we have a secret weapon..
the old and unimproved dave is rebirthing a monster yabby pump picked up at Sydney roadside collections (Tim Blair thread probably gone)
That should de-lodge a pretty angry yabby..tell Bunyip! It’s all hands on deck now!
mummybloggermel
4 Jan 13 at 6:01 pm
@JC and Alice
No!
I am just not that interested in breastfeeding now my youngest child is 19, and I am interested in the main theme of the article, which (admittedly hard to tell) seemed to be about where the money is coming from to keep you guys able to blog esoterics, which I love. I want you guys to still have jobs, because you’re quaint and so forth. And fun. And friendly.
Or do you want Jules to stay? I’m sorry Alice but she has never breastfed (an infant).
mummybloggermel
4 Jan 13 at 6:23 pm
OK mummy – must admit Im a bit past itas well (breatfeeding and my son is older than yours)
As for where the money is coming from to keep me blog enabled
Let me tell you. I am turning off bloody fox TV because it is a waste of time because the dirty digger has just up pumped his ad rate and Im over it.
Kindle and blogging will do me
wit folks…the latest editions of kindle now show intrusive ads (unless you up pay the no ad option)
Jeez these guys really know how to kill a good entertainment thing dont they? I left TV because of the ads. Now Im leaving fox because of ads. My kindle..if they do it on mmy kindle I will fush it down the dunny.
My last refuge? … blogging (Unless Sinc starts popups).
Alice
4 Jan 13 at 6:37 pm
Thats flush above and a couple of other spelling errors etc (usual thing – too much meths, creme de menthe, gin, dry sherry, fruity lexia, champers, white wine etc)!
Alice
4 Jan 13 at 6:39 pm
Skuter,
my wife had the same experience with our son and breast feeding and it wasn’t until we started him on formula that he started gaining weight. She abhors the breast is best nazis as they don’t consider women like her who have if they had continued breast feeding it would have been to the detriment of the baby’s health.
Tator
4 Jan 13 at 6:41 pm
Tator thats three of us.
Bugger the breast is best (BIB) people. Its whatever works for baby. Load of old cobblers maaate that you must stick to breast feeding.
Babies get all the main antibodies in the first week anyway and if we hadnt had formula (us Mums who couldnt stick to the orders of the BIB machine)…we would have fed them mashed banana and cows wilk or mashed rice milk pudding anyway or farex mixed with milk.
You do what you do and most mother’s know instinctively what is best for their baby.
Alice
4 Jan 13 at 6:59 pm
Alice I’m with you
Let’s get them all of the breast.
Including the labor party.
I love mummy blogging!
mummybloggermel
4 Jan 13 at 7:53 pm
Democracy is a by-product of war as a logistics exercise.
Feudalism is a by-product of war as an elite gear sport.
Marxism is merely the exploitation of envy as a motivational force, in order to win the logistics exercise.
Capitalism is the exploitation of greed as a motivational force (and quite compatible with either Democracy, or Feudalism, but not Marxism).
Tel
4 Jan 13 at 9:39 pm
That very much depends on how the money runs out. If inflation and low interest rates successfully erode the retirement savings of the elderly, and medical bills go up for the boomers while available young labour is in short supply… then I guess mum and dad will just have to sell the house, into a market dominated by other mums and dads who also have to sell the house. Dear me.
The boomers do still have a powerful vote so they could encourage a flood of young immigrants… who would very quickly decide to vote for their mum and dad to come to Australia as well… at least there would be someone to buy that house.
Tel
4 Jan 13 at 9:45 pm
Ah but the money will never run out- The Goons had a £1,000,000 penny… Now in the US there is talk of a Platinum $1 Trillion Coin (from the Open Forum fred)
Seriously, Only in America?
Cold-Hands
4 Jan 13 at 9:51 pm