Category Archives: global warming

by Barry Kelly | February 13, 2014 · 7:36 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 97

FEBRUARY

February is a dismal month. Winter is still hanging around. Spring is still but a hope. If we could vote to abolish a month, I would vote to abolish February. It is only good for sleeping in and gathering strength for the rest of the year.

Politics in February are no better than the weather. The scary part is that unlike the weather, February politics won’t give way to a political spring. February began with the echos of a dismal, grey State of the Union address by the president talking about what he has accomplished and plans to accomplish this year. Talk about shades of grey. Nothing he has done or plans to do fills the people with the strength and hope that their lives will be better this year than last.

Class warfare and income re-distribution are not subjects filled with happy thoughts. The president may think February is the beginning of spring, but the people know better. The Federal Reserve will continue with a slightly diminishing monthly printing of money that will still supply Wall Street and the investment world with wealth but do next to nothing for the vast numbers of people who do not have the money to invest. Investors have done very well under President Obama but the people have suffered. Wall Street is not the economy. The President who is constantly ranting about the widening gap between the rich and the wage earner, is the cause of the widening gap.

While it is always springtime for the rich investors, it is always February for the workers, especially the unemployed whose buying power is gets less each month the Fed prints billions of new dollars that devalue both wages and unemployment checks. Please, Mr. President, stop talking Progressivism philosophy and free up the forces of growth from your avalanche of anti business regulations.

Start with the EPA who thinks it, not Congress, makes laws. Let’s back off killing the work of coal miners and put them back to work. Approve the pipeline from Canada. Stop listening to your environmental worshiping base who all have jobs. (We’d all be better off if more of them were unemployed.) Fire the head of your EPA who is a hardcover believer in the myth that human activity causes climate change. It is not science the climate warming crowd chants as it dances around dead solar units in the dark of the night. Of course the world’s climate changes: Remember the ice age when the site Chicago now stands on was under two miles of ice? Did our ancestors, what few, if any there were at that time, have so many fires that the rising gases from burning carbon warmed the planet and freed Chicago from its icy tomb? Did the Viking settlement on Greenland circa 1100 AD stop burning carbon material and caused the temperature to drop below the mark where agriculture is no longer possible? No, while climate change occurs, the cause is not human activity. The Progressives have to believe that human activity is the cause because, while they can regulate our lives, even the Progressives recognize they cannot yet regulate the sun, celestial orbits or volcanic activity.

May the political winds of spring bring back the slightly left-of-center Democrats before the Progressives (far, far left socialists) make them extinct.

By the author of the Jack Brandon Novels.

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Filed under Barry Kelly, class warfare, Conservative views, Eight Decades of Insights, global warming, Intelligence & Politics, Obama, Politics, Progressives

Tagged as carbon gases, class warfare, Climate change, coal, EPA, Federal Reserve, global warming, ice age, Obama, Progressives, workers

by Barry Kelly | August 15, 2013 · 7:00 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSTIGHTS 69-ADVISOR

PROBLEMS

The Advisor sat slumped in his chair. For the first time in his life he felt inadequate. His President and the nation needed help. There were so many problems, he wasn’t sure where to start or even if he should start.

Only one thing to do, he thought. Pull out your journal and put down your problems. If you can’t help President Obama solve them, at least you can record them. The record may help another President and his Advisor.

He uncapped his Waterman fountain pen, dipped it in the open inkwell to get the flow started, and wrote in large printed letters at the top of a clean page, PROBLEMS. Wondering what to write next, he just started to write. The words flowed like they were pouring from a deep wound in the Nation’s body.

Obamacare: Here’s an unpopular program that addresses a national need. Nearly everyone believes health care in America is broken and needs fixed. If this President could get over his revolutionary philosophy that pushes him to use every issue to destroy the opposition, it would be easy to pass a bipartisan bill that keeps the good parts of Obamacare and meets the nation’s needs without polarizing the populace. There is a constitutional process that could make this happen. President Obama has to take the lead. He shouldn’t worry about the opposition. They are without leaders and nearly hopeless. Also the President and his Progressive supporters must accept constitutional limits on executive powers and the role of the states. This is not a hard problem. Ignoring it can lead to impeachment talk.

After health care, the sweeping ink trail took up the energy problem.

To start with, energy is too important to be left to spineless politicians and those progressives who believe humans can control climate and its worldwide effects. How can anyone trust politicians or executive department heads such as EPA who refuse to recognize that the world’s climate has and does change, almost constantly in historical terms? The changes are not caused by humans. Humans weren’t even present for many of the changes. How about the time when there were two miles of ice over the place now occupied by Chicago? How many emissions from cars and coal-fired plants did it take to warm up the Earth then? Any objective person of science knows that minute changes in the Earth’s orbit, the energy put out by the sun, and the occasional meteorite might have been instrumental in changes in the world’s temperature.

Again, a bipartisan energy program would not be hard to accomplish if the President could bring himself to cast aside the misguided environmentalists and focus on an intelligent use of fossil fuels while investing modest sums in finding a cleaner form of energy in this century. In the meantime, I must help him recognize that the civilization we have today and may have tomorrow, is because of fossil fuel. Pipelines, drilling on- and off-shore for oil and natural gas and building refineries are good for the nation and cheap energy will bring manufacturing jobs back to America. Massive amounts of tax dollars, poured recklessly into solar cells and wind turbines, will not magically develop even ten percent of our energy requirements.

The Advisor liked to write and ponder problems by candlelight. The flickering light was a constant reminder of how close we are to the past. He felt we are much closer to the time of our founders than we are to the citizens of the next century. Of course, that is what history is all about. Knowing the past will help us get safely into the future. Maybe, that is the message I can get across to the President.

Even I have to get some sleep. I’ll leave National Security, overstepping of executive power, and the economy for another session. If the President comes back, I will have something for him.

By the author of the Jack Brandon novels. http://www.factsandfictions.com. The author has 27 years of Government service, including two years serving President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s as an advisor. Considering today’s volatile political situation, you are encouraged to pass on this blog or parts of it to your contacts and friends. Comments and dialogue are welcome and helpful.

Marita Noon Commentary: We Win They Lose (fggam.org)
Eight Decades of Insights 67 – the Advisor (factsandfictions.com)

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Filed under Alinsky, Barry Kelly, centralization, Conservative views, Eight Decades of Insights, foreign policy, General, global warming, Intelligence & Politics, Obama, political solutions, Politics, Progressives

Tagged as Climate change, Obama, Obamacare, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, United States

by Barry Kelly | February 19, 2013 · 4:09 pm

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 36

PLAYING THE ISSUES

If you have been following my recent blogs, you know I believe President Obama is following the guidance of Saul Alinsky, a brilliant radical tactician. The core of Alinky’s teaching is that “the issue is never the issue.” The only goal is the destruction of the existing order and replacing it with the Progressive (socialist/communist) blueprint for a new and better world where everyone gets a fair shot and everyone pays their fair share. Under this political social philosophy, even a discussion of ends justifying the means is meaningless. If you are striving for power, the means are always morally justified. This strategical approach gives anyone using it incredible flexibility. They can change sides at any time it appears advantageous. The first step in creating a new world is to destroy the current order.

English: Barack Obama delivering his electoral victory speech on Election Night ´08, in Grant Park, Chicago. (Wikipedia)

Now for some complexity. All issues are not the same and cannot be treated the same by the Progressives. For our purposes, I will put issues into three categories: The first category is issues that have been with us for several decades. Under this category live issues such as immigration, states rights, taxation, gun control, energy development, abortion, and solvency of our social programs. The second category are those that have been created recently. Here, I put climate control, sequestration, cabinet appointments, the role and size of the federal government, right to work issues, and government spending. Granted, some of these issues could fit under one of the two other categories. The third category contains those issues that appear to be spontaneous such as Benghazi, Syria, Muslim radicalism, international debt problems, unemployment, and job creation.

The flexibility Alinsky believers have somewhat depends on what category the issue is in. Take immigration as an issue. Obama cannot come out against immigration and he doesn’t have to put forward an effective bi-partisan solution. In fact he will not. Published plans, budgets, position papers are not part of Alinsky tactics as they limit changing sides or conditions abruptly. Instead, the immigration issue will be used to damage the Republican Party, the only party that stands in the way of the establishment of a Progressive dictatorship. This president does not want the Democrats and Republicans to come together to pass bipartisan immigration legislation. Instead, he will present obstacles and deal killers.

Since this is a blog and not a book, I’ll deal in this piece with only a few of the many possible issues. Energy policy is a perfect issue. Does any sane person believe America can be energy self-sufficient without the primary use of fossil fuels for several more decades? Yes. A constant search for alternative power sources is good as long as we are focused on creating an energy program in America that creates thousands of jobs and energy self-sufficiency. Windmills, algae, corn, solar panels just are not economically viable nor credible. How can any president not welcome the Canadian pipeline? It is a no-brainer unless your real objective is to create chaos, high unemployment, angry union workers, and blow off a good neighbor. Only Alinksy followers can applaud Obama’s lethargic non-action. Don’t fall for the Progressives blaming the increasing cost of gasoline on Big Oil. They aren’t boy scouts but the price goes up when the Federal Reserve, which is a private company, prints obscene billions of dollars each month that weaken the dollar. Arabs sell oil for dollars. The weaker the dollar, the more dollars it takes to buy a barrel of oil. Keep in mind few transformations ever occur in a country with an sound economy, near full employment, and a promising future.

One last issue, Benghazi. Could the president have anticipated this crisis? No. But his staff and Cabinet should have. This issue just popped up. The president didn’t know what to do. So he did nothing. Well, he did create confusion. To have this shameful crisis be centered around who created what “talking points” is a mark of Beltway mentally. Fix the blame. Not the problem. Not even Alinsky or Axelrod would have recommended he not call the Pentagon for action or fail to convene his National Security Council, or travel the next day to Las Vegas to attend a fundraiser, or throw Susan Rice under the bus, or the bumbling concealment of information. In keeping with Obama-type transparency he has even kept the names and whereabouts of the Benghazi survivors secret, in spite of requests from Congress. On the Benghazi issue, the president damaged himself as well as the nation. Using every issue as a means to attack your opposition often diminishes all of us. Just ask the surviving family members what they think about the issue is never the issue as a principle for presidential leadership.

By the author of the Jack Brandon thriller series. www.factsandfictions.com

Is there an Obama-Alinsky comparison to be made and will it push us over the fiscal cliff? (itmakessenseblog.com)
Eight Decades of Insights 34 (factsandfictions.com)
Eight Decades of Insights 35 (factsandfictions.com)

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Filed under Alexrod, Alinsky, Conservative views, Eight Decades of Insights, foreign policy, General, global warming, Intelligence & Politics, Obama, political solutions, Progressives

Tagged as Barack Obama, Benghazi, climate, Federal Reserve, gas prices, Obama, oil, politics, Republicans, Saul Alinsky, Susan Rice, Syria

by Barry Kelly | February 18, 2013 · 7:30 am

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 35

OBAMA’S WAR

From what I have seen over the last four years, President Obama’s war is not Afghanistan, terrorism, or the radical Muslim world. It is the war for political dominance, couched in the language of class warfare.

Barack Obama speaks to College Democrats. (Wikipedia)

First, let’s look at some of the terminology that’s present in nearly all his speeches, teleprompted or off the cuff. Saul Alinsky tells his followers to avoid alarming the people by using terms that have substantial negative baggage. For example, “social justice” means a socialist or communist society. “Progressive” means socialist or communists. Liberals and Democrats are not Progressives. Liberals and Democrats are in the mainstream of American traditional politics. Everyone has a right to a “fair shot,” which in Progressive terminology means that the only nation in the world which offers individual improvement through hard work, education, good choices, and commercial courage must be transformed into a socialist or communist society. Oh, and “fair share” is another term the president often uses in his speeches. Fair share means tax the people who already fund the nation with higher taxes because everyone is entitled to share of the wealth even if they do not work. (Those who cannot work do have a claim we should honor.) “Transformation” means the destruction of the existing society and the creation of a socialist or communist society.

Where have these people been? I’ve lived in Moscow and been, for extended periods, in other communist and socialist countries. There is no comparison between the USA and those elitist crafted and managed governments. In Moscow, the mecca of egalitarian governments, blacks enrolled in Patrice Lumumba University in 1973 often came to the Marine House bar at the American Embassy to escape racism. The world these forerunners of Progressive transformations built in the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and Eastern Europe were very ugly worlds where millions of people were murdered in the name of building a better, fairer society. If the terms fair shot, fair share, social justice, transformation, and expanding government resonante with you, think again. These Obama Progressives are practicing the same policies Castro, Lenin, Stalin, Marx, Mao se Tung, and the National Socialist Party in Germany used. Those were not nice societies. All were run by the Progressive elite. One person, one vote, one time. Isn’t it time we recognize the freedom we now have and those in progressive societies gave up in the name of social justice? It is the same ideology, the same issues, the same elite rule, and the same beguiling rhetoric. Forget the enticing words streaming from the teleprompters. Follow the actions and the money. You do not want the Progressive Dream fulfilled. It is a nightmare, not a dream.

A war of the have nots against the haves: This is Obama’s war. Remember, the issue is never the issue. All these terms disguise the manipulation of all issues such as tax policy, immigration, development of energy resources, global warming, the debt, job creation, gun control, “you didn’t build that,” contraceptives and religion, defense spending, the role of the Constitution, right to work, and changing the electoral college. While the Republican and even some of the Democratic leadership may believe these issues are the battleground, they are not. These issues are — according to Alinskites — only relevant if they are used to gain total political power by destroying the opposition, whether the opposition is a political party or an individual, a religion, or an idea such as a free market or capitalism.

If the Conservatives focus on fighting these issues, they will lose. So far the Republican leadership is losing the battle. They are not even on the right battlefield. Nor do they have the right ideas to fight the Alinsky doctrine. Trust me, if the followers of Alinsky win, you won’t like the world they’ll bring to you. As indicators, watch for Progressives telling us the Constitution is dead and needs to be rewritten for modern America, the growth and increasing centralization of the federal government, an increase in the power of the presidency and the changing of the two term limit for Presidents.

Progressive Congressmen Gather to Plot Agenda: Alinsky Invoked (gulagbound.com)
We Were Warned in 1963: Has Communist Ideology Overtaken America? (dcclothesline.wordpress.com)

By the author of the Jack Brandon thriller series. http://www.factsandfictions.com

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Filed under Alinsky, Capitalism, class warfare, Conservative views, Eight Decades of Insights, foreign policy, global warming, Intelligence & Politics, Obama, political solutions, Politics, Progressives, Terrorism, totalitarianism

Tagged as patrice lumumba university, politics, Saul Alinsky

by Barry Kelly | December 5, 2012 · 11:36 pm

EIGHT DECADES OF INSIGHTS 29

President George W. Bush signs the Homeland Security Appropriations Act of 2004 on October 1, 2003. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

UTOPIA VS REALITY

Some things we can control for the better. Some we can’t. Deciding which we can and can not do is the essence of the struggle between liberals and conservatives.

Both sides want to improve the condition of the people. Neither faction is evil; it’s just that the fundamental belief system is different. The roots of liberal philosophy are imports from foreign thinkers. Utopian communes, kibbutzes, socialism, communism (to each according to need, from each according to capability), interpretations of Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism, ancient and modern age totalitarianism all emphasized the good of society over the individual.

Efforts to achieve these goals all had to, or strived to, centralize power. Centralized power is always required to channel and control individualism for the good of the whole society. The problem has been that those who end up in charge of centralized power are not capable of deciding or managing how to balance their judgement of the needs of the masses with the needs of the individual. Instead, centralized power, especially in totalitarian governments, is used to perpetuate the rule of the elite. And there is always an elite. Nowhere in the history of the known world has unfettered centralization been successful. Yet some humans still try to improve life by centralization in spite of the clear historical record of total failure.

As an example of this innate drive for people to see centralized control over every real or imagined problem is the liberal position on global warming. Is the Earth warming? Maybe, probably, absolutely, positively not. All those answers are possible. The record of the Earth is that it has warmed and cooled. Surely it is a question science can answer, if they avoid cherry picking data to prove strongly held environmental beliefs. At one time, I’m told, Chicago was covered by two miles of ice and much later, Vikings cultivated Greenland for a period of one hundred years or so until the Earth cooled. Surely Chicagoans did not cause Chicago to freeze over nor did Vikings cause Greenland to warm. Just maybe our heat source, the sun’s output, or slight changes in the Earth’s orbit are the cause. These are causes humans cannot control or change. Certainly prehistoric carbon emissions from man-made industries were not responsible.

Centralization has been used by both parties to “fix” problems. The conservatives tried with the organization of the Department of Homeland Security. But do you feel safer now that effective organizations have all been dumbed down to fit the limited scope of human management? Or how about the Director of National Intelligence‘s bloated staff? Do you feel like our president is better informed? I think, in fact I know, he is not. Benghazi talking points come to mind.

Utopia is not to be found in liberalism or conservatism. (See blog 6 for more on centralization.) Both parties have worshipped at the altar of centralization. Humans and our complex civilization need regulation. But it has to be as little as possible. Centralization is the fuel for the growth of government which is, then, itself a motivator of more centralization. (In blog 3 I state we are a great nation not because of what immigrants brought with them but what they left behind.) We did have some experiments with European utopian settlements in America. They all failed. Unfortunately, the roots of socialism and totalitarianism have now come again in the name of progressivism and have largely taken over the leadership of the Democratic Party. We now have a government trying to centralize and manage all aspects of life, individual and national.

http://www.factsandfictions.com By the author of the Jack Brandon thriller series.