Showing posts with label War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label War. Show all posts

Friday, January 16, 2015

DENNINGER: How is it that no one is ever held accountable for the failures of government?

The Market Ticker points us to the catastrophic fail that is the Department of Homeland Security under the most feckless, criminally stupid, and corrupt transparent administration ever.

Homeland Security spent $50 billion over the past 11 years on counterterrorism programs, but the Department cannot demonstrate if the nation is more secure as a result.

[Sen. Tom] Coburn also found that 700 miles of the nation’s southern border remain unsecured. The DHS is not effectively administering or enforcing the nation’s immigration laws, while only 3 in 100 illegal immigrants will ever face deportation.

The report also found that the DHS spends more than $700 million annually to lead the federal government’s efforts on cybersecurity, but struggles to protect itself, federal and civilian networks from the most serious cyberattacks.

The Department has spent $170 billion for natural disasters since 2002 because of an increased federal role in which the costs of small storms are declared “major disasters.”


In short, DHS has done nothing of use in its time on the planet.

It cannot demonstrate any impact in reducing terrorism.

It cannot secure the border.

It cannot prevent or deter hacking, nor has it improved security of the nation's computer infrastructure.

It has blown ridiculous amounts of money on storm damage repairs, but only because small storms are rapidly declared "major disasters" and thus the font of federal spending opens.

In short "DHS" does nothing other than waste money and funnel it to friends and family.

Yet here's the punchline:

Even with the grim findings, Coburn expressed optimism about the Department’s future if Congress acts swiftly to address the problems in the report.

Uh huh.

If you had a department in a company that had five tasks and executed rationally on none of them you'd fire everyone involved. You certainly wouldn't allow it to go on for more than a decade before taking that action either.

But see, that's the problem with government. It never shrinks because nobody is every held accountable for failures nor do they lose their job when they either are incompetent or worse.

A corollary observation: government never shrinks, it always grows larger. Like some sort of tumor on the body politic, agencies expand in good times and bad. At best, incompetence and unaccountability are the hallmarks of most federal agencies. And, at worst, like the IRS under Steven Miller and Lois Lerner, government becomes weaponized against the very people who fund it.


Hat tip: BadBlue Prep News.

L'EMBARRAS: The Obama State Department

Our summer intern Biff Spackle (on Twitter @BiffSpackle) has a little fun with the sheer, unvarnished idiocy of President Jarrett, who was certainly behind this bizarre display.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Thursday, January 15, 2015

GENIUS: Freed Gitmo Detainee Opens ISIS Base in Afghanistan

By Judicial Watch

As President Obama frees droves of terrorists—including five Yemenis this week—from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo news reports confirm that a Gitmo alum who once led a Taliban unit has established the first Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) base in Afghanistan.

His name is Mullah Abdul Rauf and international and domestic media reports say he’s operating in Helmand province, actively recruiting fighters for ISIS. Citing local sources, a British newspaper writes that Rauf set up a base and is offering good wages to anyone willing to fight for the Islamic State. Rauf was a corps commander during the Taliban’s 1996-2001 rule of Afghanistan, according to intelligence reports. After getting captured by U.S. forces, he was sent to Gitmo in southeast Cuba but was released in 2007.

Rauf’s Department of Defense Joint Task Force Guantanamo file describes him as being closely associated with several senior level Taliban commanders and leaders. It also says that Rauf admitted involvement in the production and sales of opium as well as associations with criminal elements within the Taliban and the Northern Alliance. From the file: “Due to recent findings that detainee may have had a more important role within the Taliban than previously thought detainee’s intelligence value has been updated from low to medium due to his possible knowledge of: (1) Taliban leadership, (2) Taliban command and control.”

Rauf is one of a number of Gitmo terrorists who have returned to the fight after getting released, yet Obama continues freeing captives to keep his campaign promise of closing the prison. Just this week he let four Yemenis go, despite the risk that they will likely join Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemen-based terror group that claimed responsibility for last week’s attack in France. In fact, dozens of freed Gitmo detainees have rejoined Al Qaeda in Yemen, the country where the 2009 Christmas Day airline bomber proudly trained. In 2010 Judicial Watch reported that a number of high-ranking Al Qaeda militants in Yemen—once held at Gitmo—may have been involved in a sophisticated scheme to send bombs on a U.S.-bound cargo plane.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

"I putt with Charlie"

Best. One. Yet.


I can't find the original artist on the web (i.e., "A 57th State Production"), but alert me in the comments if you know who created this particular keeper. Credit where due and all that.


Hat tip: Lee.

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

The question is...

...at this point, should we send it back?



Hat tip: Papa B.

Monday, January 12, 2015

Guess who will grace the next cover of #CharlieHebdo?

CNN has the story, but not the cover itself.

Editors of the Paris-based satirical magazine released the cover of their next issue on Monday night, and it shows a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed, holding up a sign with the now-famous slogan "Je Suis Charlie."


That slogan has become a rallying cry in the wake of the horrific shootings that left 12 dead at the magazine's offices last week.

...The new cover was shared by Liberation, a French newspaper that lent office space to the surviving staff members of Charlie Hebdo... Liberation's news story about the new cover said it was specifically meant to depict Mohammed.

...Many major news organizations, including CNN, have refrained from showing any of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons that purport to show the prophet. Executives at CNN have cited concerns about the safety of staff members and sensitivity about Muslim audiences.

Frauds. Punks. Cowards. Either you believe in freedom of speech or you don't.

So we know where CNN stands. Or rather squats. On its knees, in a pose of submission.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

RESET: Russia Names NATO its Number One Military Threat

By Investor's Business Daily

New Cold War: A revised Russian military doctrine identifies NATO as Moscow's No. 1 threat, as the Obama administration announced it was returning control of 15 bases in Europe back to the host governments.

Russian President Vladimir Putin gave President Obama a lump of coal in his Christmas stocking in the form of a revised strategic doctrine.

It re-emphasizes that NATO, notwithstanding President Obama's "flexibility" and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's "reset" button, is the No. 1 strategic threat facing Russia.

We are reminded of Obama's rebuke of Mitt Romney in the third presidential debate, when the GOP nominee was ridiculed for listing, in response to a question, Russia as our No. 1 strategic geopolitical threat.

"The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because ... the Cold War's been over for 20 years," said the president who promised the Russians more flexibility as he disarmed the United States.

Apparently Putin does not share the view that the frigid era of confrontation is over.

The latest Russian strategic doctrine, the fourth since the end of a Soviet Union whose demise Putin has mourned and whose territories he seeks to reclaim, comes after the 2008 war against the former Soviet republic of Georgia, its annexation of Crimea and its creeping invasion of Ukraine.

Russian strategic doctrine was revised by Boris Yeltsin after the USSR's demise. It was revised again in 2000 under Putin, and again in 2010 by Dmitry Medvedev.

Some would argue the newest incarnation merely gives shape for the first time to Russian neighbors' fears and has a few disturbing new wrinkles that bear watching in light of a staggering Russian military renaissance.

The doctrine announces Russia intends the "lawful use of the armed forces . . . to ensure the protection of its citizens outside the Russian federation."

This was the pretext Moscow used to seize the Crimea and Nazi Germany's excuse to annex Austria and the Sudetenland prior to World War II. This is not good news for the Baltic states NATO is obligated to defend.

Bold Career Move by @BenAffleck

I guess good ol' Ben stands with Charlie, too.



Hat tip: BadBlue Fame

CARTOON O' THE DAY: John Kerry Stands With Charlie

From the brilliant Stilton Jarlsberg:


So true.

Also, John Kerry is whining about all of the progressives who are criticizing the administration for playing hooky during this weekend's solidarity march.

To be fair, the NFL playoffs were on.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Legendary Cartoonist R. Crumb Weighs in on Charlie Hedbo

Robert Crumb was the iconic cartoonist of the sixties counterculture.


It would seem he's not impressed with the "bravery" of the media as it pertains to Islamofascism.

The hat tip goes to Jake Tapper, who notes the President's absence from the weekend's solidarity rally as follows: the President of France was the first to visit the U.S. after 9/11.


Sunday, January 11, 2015

The 4 Biggest Hypocrites Praising Free Speech in Paris Today

Kabir Chibber of Quartz helps bust the tyrannical hypocrites who today claim to stand with Charlie Hedbo. Here are the four of the worst offenders.

Foreign minister Sameh Shoukry, Egypt
Three al-Jazeera journalists—Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed—were jailed for seven years for spreading false news and supporting the now-banned group, the Muslim Brotherhood. The trio had denied the charges. On New Year’s Day, the country’s top court ordered a retrial... Reporters Without Borders ranks Egypt as second in the world for the number of journalists arrested, including this photojournalist who describes his 16 months behind bars as an “endless nightmare.”
Prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, Turkey
Turkey held almost 50 journalists in jail two years ago. There are seven journalists in jail at the moment, mainly for producing propaganda for outlawed political parties.
King Abdullah, Jordan
Mudar Zahran, a Palestinian writer for The Jerusalem Post, was sentenced to as much as 15 years in jail with hard labor for writing about the king’s dependence on Israel for power. He told the the paper he was charged with “inciting hatred and attacking Jordan’s image and the image of its one nation.” He spoke from the UK, where he has been granted asylum.
Prime minister Enda Kenny, Ireland
Perhaps most surprising of all in these circumstances, Ireland has had “blasphemy” as a criminal offense on its books since 2009. Already one Muslim has threatened legal action against any Irish publication that reprints Charlie Hebdo’s front-page depiction of the Prophet Muhammad. Blasphemy is punishable with a fine of up to €25,000 ($29,500), but there are plans to hold a referendum to abolish it... Blasphemy is defined by the Irish as “publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion.” It doesn’t sound like the drafters of this law would have much time for the people at Charlie Hebdo.

Hat tip: BadBlue Tech News

QOTD: Right of Return

By Dan from New York

Sent via a friend:

“This attack only underscores the need for France to immediately engage in negotiations with French Muslims that will result in the creation of two states for two peoples, living side by side in peace and security, with Paris as a shared capital..."

Similar notion expressed here:


Related: The 751 No-Go Zones of France.


Saturday, January 10, 2015

SHARYL ATTKISSON: The U.S. Government vs. David Petraeus

By Sharyl Attkisson

The New York Times reports federal prosecutors are recommending felony charges against former CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus for allegedly providing classified information to a civilian author and journalist with whom he allegedly had an affair.

In light of the news, it’s worth looking at the following excerpt from my book: Stonewalled.

Meanwhile, another controversy is waiting to boil over within the Obama administration: a sex scandal involving the CIA’s Petraeus. The timing is—intriguing. Only after the Benghazi attacks, as Petraeus’s loyalty to the administration falls into question, does everything turn sour for the spy chief.

In the immediate aftermath of the Benghazi attacks, Petraeus first draws ire from some administration colleagues for not reading from the Carney-Obama-Clinton-Rice book of fiction. While they’re pushing the spontaneous protest narrative, he’s disclosing full information on the suspected al-Qaeda links, to House Intelligence Committee members at a classified briefing, according to those present. Then the talking points his agency approves for public dissemination on September 14 say that the CIA provided warnings on September 10 that the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, could come under attack and that Benghazi was in a precarious state. Clinton’s state department sees the inclusion of that damning information in the CIA’s original proposed talking points as a “knee-jerk cover-your-ass moment” on Petraeus’s part. One official later tells me, “We thought, Why are you guys [Petraeus’s CIA] throwing us under the bus? . . . They made it seem like the State Department was given a warning they ignored. [But] no specific warning was given.”

Emails indicate that on September 15, 2012, a CIA representative sent Petraeus the final version of the talking points that had been revised “through the Deputies Committee” after “State voiced strong concerns with the original text.” The CIA’s references to terrorism and early warnings had been removed.

Petraeus expresses disapproval of the final version, writing that he would just assume that they not be used. But his deputy, Morell, and the White House give them the green light.

Is all of this the beginning of the end of Petraeus’s career as CIA director?

Let’s look at a timeline constructed primarily using government accounts:

In November 2011, Petraeus, who’s married, allegedly begins an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell.

The Official Apologist for Murder and Terror of The New York Times: Nicholas Kristof #CharlieHebdo

By Abigail R. Esman

On the day when journalists were massacred in Paris, while blood still ran wet where they had fallen, and as eye witnesses described the killers' shouts of "Allahu Akbar" – "Allah is great" – the New York Times' Nicholas Kristof asked the world not to judge the killers too quickly: most urgently, he said, don't jump to the conclusion they are Muslims.

Really? Even when they sounded the Muslim prayer? Even when they called their deeds, loud and clear in the streets of Paris, "vengeance for the Prophet"?

Here's what Kristof did not do: condemn the killings. Praise those who had been slaughtered. Express horror at their execution. And admit that men who praise Allah after committing mass murder are, religious profiling or not, probably going to turn out to be Muslim.

It just kind of is that way.

(Interestingly, in listing a number of Islamic terrorist attacks on Western targets, he also failed to mention that Muslims were involved in the attacks of 9/11. Ask yourself why.)

Instead, he begged his readers not to judge. He repeated the clichéd platitudes about the "majority of Muslims" having nothing to do with Islamic extremism, and praised, not the editors and cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo, but non-Muslims who rose to the aid of Muslims who feared reprisals after the recent (Muslim-led) hostage crisis in Sydney, Australia.

What he might have done, but didn't, was take a lesson or two from the New Yorker's George Packer, a man who actually knows a thing or two about Islamic extremism, and about the courage of journalists confronting it: he was one of them. At around the same time Kristof seems to have been penning his column, Packer wrote:

Friday, January 09, 2015

"It's not racial profiling. It's logical deduction"

By Investor's Business Daily

Security: In the wake of the Islamist terrorist attack in Paris, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani argues to reinstate a policy cancelled by Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has arguably left the city as exposed as it was on Sept. 10, 2001.

Although the Paris terrorist attack by Islamists has not been linked to any mosque, the historical record is dotted with similar attacks that have such links, including the Nov. 5, 2009, rampage at the Army base in Killeen, Texas, by Maj. Nidal Hasan that killed 13 and wounded 31 as the self-proclaimed "Soldier of Allah" shouted "Allahu Akhbar" (God is great) in a manner similar to the Paris attackers.

Hasan's nearly two dozen messages to al-Qaida terrorist leader Anwar al-Awlaki, once a spiritual leader at a mosque in suburban Virginia where Hasan worshipped, put Hasan on the radar of authorities who, tragically, did not heed the warning signs.

Thinking of mosques as potential hotbeds of the Islamist fanaticism that can fuel terrorist attacks isn't politically correct, yet it's happened.

As we have noted, the Saudi Embassy-funded and Muslim Brotherhood-owned Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Northern Virginia, where Hasan worshipped and al-Awlaki preached, was also where the 9/11 hijackers who led the Pentagon attack got help with housing and IDs.

It was in part that link between the 9/11 terrorists and a mosque that prompted the creation of the NYPD anti-terrorism unit known as the Demographics Unit or Zone Assessment Unit.

Thursday, January 08, 2015

The Charlie Hebdo massacre demonstrates how incredibly vulnerable our society is to Islamic terror

By Michael Snyder

If just three crazed jihadists can cause this much worldwide terror, what could thousands or even millions of them do? We live at a time when our world is becoming increasingly unstable, and thanks to the Internet hundreds of millions of people can know about a major act of terrorism within minutes of it happening. And that is what Islamic terrorists want. They want to cause fear, panic and terror, but more than anything else they want attention. They want the world to know what they did and why they did it. Even as much of the world recoils in horror in response to the massacre at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, there are millions of radical Muslims in the Middle East that are greatly celebrating and are hailing these jihadists as heroes. This is the biggest global news story of 2015 so far, and it is going to encourage other jihadists to commit similar attacks. And without a doubt, these kinds of attacks have already been increasing. It is being reported that worldwide suicide attacks by Muslims nearly doubled from 2013 to 2014. Sadly, what we have seen up to this point is probably just the tip of the iceberg.

We live in a society that is absolutely teeming with soft targets. The United States is literally a “target-rich environment” with thousands of schools, shopping malls, movie theaters, sports stadiums and government buildings to choose from. The possibilities for Islamic terrorists are endless.

Meet the 12 Victims of the Charlie Hebdo Massacre

There are some sick, sick individuals out there. No, I'm not just talking about the animals behind the massacre of artists and writers in Paris. I'm talking about their apologists. People like CNN's Wolf Blitzer. Like Bill Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. Like CNN's Jim Clancy. And many, many others.


Courtesy of Black Five, our response to these Islamonazi SOBs is as follows:

Pour les porcs d'amour lâches qui n'ont pas la virilité pour plaire à une souris: apporter. Comme vous l'avez semé le vent, vous pouvez récolter la tempête et il peut détruire ce qui vous soutenez. Que le monde et des milliers d'intensifier dessiner et écrire de vous et ce que vous soutenez moquer. Vous avez tué, et peut tuer plus, mais vous ne pouvez pas tuer une idée, et le rire vous moquer encore et de l'écho à travers les âges. Nous ne sommes pas peur, et nous sommes fiers de dire Je Suis Charlie!

Oh, you know what "media" outlet did publish Charlie Hebdo's cartoons? Al Jazeera.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Wednesday, January 07, 2015

OBAMA'S GREATEST HITS: "The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam"

It would appear that some misanthropic misunderstanderers of Islam took those words to heart. The brilliant Mark Steyn explains:

[In my] book After America, I speculate on how future generations will look back on our time from a decade or two hence:

In the Middle East, Islam had always been beyond criticism. It was only natural that, as their numbers grew in Europe, North America and Australia, observant Muslims would seek the same protections in their new lands. But they could not have foreseen how eager Western leaders would be to serve as their enablers. ... As the more cynical Islamic imperialists occasionally reflected, how quickly the supposed defenders of liberal, pluralist, Western values came to sound as if they were competing to be Islam's lead prison bitch.

Among them is the so-called leader of the free world, who stood up before the world at the United Nations and, in service of his Administration's lies over Benghazi, shamefully told the assembled leaders:

The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam.

Mission accomplished - at least in Paris. As I wrote two years ago:

10 Stunning Facts About the Charlie Hebdo Attacks

1 The Charlie Hebdo attack was carefully planned and likely involved inside information.

Wednesday’s attack must have been carefully planned and based on some inside information. For it came precisely as Charlie’s weekly editorial meeting was under way with a maximum turnout of writers, cartoonists and editors.

2 The attack came just hours after publication of an Islam-focused issue.

The attack also came only hours after the weekly’s new issue went on sale with a cover inspired by a new novel by Michel Houelbeque, which envisions the election of a Muslim as France’s president in 2022.

3 French law enforcement had provided security details to protect the paper's top editors.

The government had provided police protection for four of the weekly’s key editors. The assassination of three of them on Wednesday suggests the protection may have been more formal than real.

4 One of the killers was a known terrorist who had been captured just a few years ago and then freed.

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

BEST OF 2014: "Dear beautiful America, please, stop moving Forward"

Guest post by Aleksey


Upon migrating to the United States many years ago, I embraced my new home and left the past behind. Never could I imagine that, at some point, that past would become relevant.

But now, I am compelled to talk about it again.

In the USSR, we had state-controlled media which shaped the narrative entirely.

Our founder, Vladimir Lenin, was portrayed as a noble, charismatic, and smart man -- the champion of the underdog (the working class), the seeker of equality, defeater of the rich. The humble man with common ideas who was destined for greatness.

Lenin peered at us intently from textbooks and walls. His was the face behind the good intentions that shaped our everyday life.
As a kid, I was largely shielded by my family -- they took the brunt of "adult tasks" in everyday life. They bribed officials to accomplish the most basic of things, they conserved every kopek and piece of bread, they got me the rare medicines I needed, all through means I didn't dare fathom.

Of course, there was nothing special about those medicines, those favors, or anything else that took such effort to obtain -- in America, you can just go out and get it in a corner store. In the Soviet Union, the word "deficit" was commonly used in everyday language.

"This and this product are in deficit." This meant that you couldn't buy them. Maybe for the next three months or maybe forever, unless someone was bribed or the product was obtained via the black market, friends, or contraband. Fruits and vegetables had their "seasons" when they made an appearance in local stores -- we didn't have advanced technology like hydroponic farms.

Instead, adults were herded into collective farms, which were the Soviet antithesis of family -- or individual-owned farms. Under cheerful banners of "accomplishing a five-year plan in four," they usually underperformed and the bureaucrats responsible faked the numbers, which moved up the chain of command.

"Deficit." I heard this term a lot, as I stood in long lines for bread and milk in stores with cheerfully generic names like "Progress" or "Sunrise."

The lines resembled those formed by hipsters in America lining up for the sale of the next iPhone model -- except we stood in them every day.

As much as my family shielded me from their troubles, they couldn't protect me from factors beyond their control. They couldn't raise my level of living above theirs. And they certainly couldn't get me anesthetics for dental visits. Sitting in the gray, sterile corridor for two hours, hearing the sobbing of the kids already in the dental chair as their teeth were drilled without anesthetics, water, or suction, and knowing that your turn was coming -- some handled it better than others.

In the local clinic, needles were resterilized and reused. Ambulances took three hours to arrive, if they came at all.
That was our "free" healthcare.

We also lived in a "free" apartment, which was suffocatingly small by American standards, and it took years, if not decades, for an average couple to obtain such a place. Usually, several generations of a family lived under one roof until the government bestowed upon its citizens another gray five- to sixteen-story building that looked just like its gray neighbor and had the same exact green-painted swings in the yard.

Since almost nobody had cars, people could rarely afford to move to another city or republic.

Public transportation, which we all had to use, consisted of cranky people squeezed tightly like sardines inside a rusty box on wheels. Despite that, when I was eight, I wanted to be a trolley bus driver. Partially because of all the buttons he flipped to open and close doors, but mostly because there was a wall between him and the sardine can.

The walls in Soviet apartments were poorly insulated from noise and cold. Therefore, wall carpets were dominant in Soviet culture. They all looked similar, usually colored red with abstract, curving patterns.

Soviet factories were state-controlled. Variety was not a concept. The color red was all over the place -- it garnished the banners hanging off the sides of gray five-story buildings, with profiles of Lenin, Marx, and Engels fluttering lightly in the wind, proclaiming that "Marxism-Leninism is the symbol of our times." Others stated, "Forward toward Communism!"

Red was splattered on our classroom walls and our school uniforms.

In grade school, you became an "Octyabronok" (named after the October 1917 revolution) and wore a Lenin-faced star on your lapel. You got a free newspaper, the "Young Leninist." Later, you became a "Pioneer" and swapped the star for a red tie. After that, you moved on to "Komsomol" (All-Union Leninist Young Communist League). Those who did not follow the groupthink enough to make it to "Komsomol" lost access to crucial resources and careers later in life.

I grew up with no concept of "brands." If I wanted to get that shoddy water pistol that suddenly appeared in a store, and my parents let me, then that was the water pistol. It broke in two weeks, of course.

Bread in the stores was the bread. Milk was the milk. Kolbasa was the kolbasa. Everything was manufactured by the state to provide the minimum required survivability, and minimum expected functionality. Improvements in design and the manufacturing process did not exist.

When I came to America and laid down on an American bed, it struck me that it was more comfortable than any bed I'd ever experienced. It was the result of evolving design oriented toward customer satisfaction -- a concept alien to my former homeland.
The two famous brands of Soviet cars, Zaporozhets and Moskvich (both named after their places of origin), just... existed. We didn't really have Zaporozhets 1980 followed by a new and improved Zaporozhets 1981 -- now with power steering! No such thing. It was a car, and it required no further improvement. There was no customer demand, because people were poor, the state-controlled prices were very high, and product evolution crawled at snail's pace.

The very concept of "customer convenience" did not exist. We didn't have bottles sculpted to fit the shape of your hand, nor did we have polite cashiers, for they were under no obligation to please anyone -- they worked for the state. The abacus was still in common use in our stores while American stores had electric change machines, credit card readers, and sliding doors.

Like most things, clothes were in "deficit" and thus traveled from older to younger siblings in every family over time. Broken things weren't thrown away but repaired.

Our giant lamp television was carried in the family since about the time I was born. It received three channels -- all State-controlled. On our evening news program, the Chernobyl disaster announcement was calm and lasted fifteen seconds. Our state papers, such as Pravda and Izvestia, were not read but used as invaluable sources of free toilet paper. This is not a joke.

Our propaganda put the big focus on the noble working class and how there was no such thing as a "lower" profession. Much emphasis was made on the nobility of simple working man, and certainly there is something to that.

But when the janitor receives roughly the same salary as a teacher who is paid roughly the same as a surgeon who is paid roughly the same as a programmer, all of them surrounded by peers who get paid the same no matter how well or poorly they perform, some people start carrying the team, and then they just give up. Everyone performs poorly in the end.

It was painfully obvious to everyone just how low the desire of the average person is to produce goods for other people. Without competition or opportunity to get ahead, with the state controlling production and paying equal salaries to workers regardless of their contributions, we had no concept of abundance.

With our "free" services, we regularly experienced water and electrical outages and sometimes went to a nearby forest to get water. Once you fill that bathtub with water, you can't use it for anything else.

The first time I entered an American food market at the age of seventeen, I froze.

Older Soviets who visited American stores for the first time, got hit harder -- all the lies they were taught from childhood through the decades of their lives -- until that last moment, they expected them to be at least partially true.

Sure, they heard stories from overseas, but come on, those were just the Potemkin villages, mirages created to make the Soviets jealous. How can one imagine the unimaginable?

"They told us in Odessa, that in San Francisco it's hard to find milk."

This is the typical Soviet mentality, and they were used to it, and they bought into it, and then they entered that American supermarket and saw the rows upon rows of milk of different brands and kinds and fat percentages.

This is where some have been known to cry. It is the realization that their lives were stolen from them by the regime. A realization of what could've been, if they had been lucky enough to be born in this place which, from everything they knew, could not possibly exist.

I now live in Northern California, in the heart of the Bay Area, thousands of miles away from my homeland.

And yet the poison of Soviet propaganda seeps through college dorms just as it did in Soviet classrooms.

Stop a random youth on the street and you'll find out what he thinks about capitalism (bad!) and communism/socialism (good!). Their favorite news programs are the "Daily Show" and the "Colbert Report," where comedians reinforce their brainwashing via short, catchy clips.

Walk through Berkeley and you will see wall graffiti of the same hammer and sickle that adorned the big red flags of the Soviet era.

This doesn't extend to just youths. People of all ages, even acquaintances that I otherwise respect and admire, are like this. They support the "progressive" leader Barack Obama, worship the nanny state, and believe in equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity.

They badmouth capitalism and complain that only one percent of the American population has the "American dream." They buy into the class warfare rhetoric hook, line, and sinker. They want artificially raised minimum wage, government handouts, and believe that Obamacare is the greatest thing since the invention of pockets.

I look at them and the red ties materialize, familiarly, around their necks.

There are "academic" speakers now who advocate that having too many choices is "bad for you." Too stressful to choose, you see.
Living in the Soviet Union, being bombarded with similar nonsense, we had nothing to contradict it. When we walked outside the school, the everyday reality had no traces of the wealth afforded by capitalism. We lived in the grayness and that grayness was all there was.

Americans leave school to go home and they drop by a mall to buy something from an incredible selection of wealth and choice afforded by capitalism. They drop by a small corner store, which could probably feed a savvy Soviet village for a month (dog food is food, too, you know), and they pick up some "entertainment food" that did not exist in the USSR, in quantities that weren't affordable for an average Soviet family.

Then they go home and write essays on their expensive iPads about how they don't have the American Dream.

Now, most American news sources are no different than Pravda and Izvestia. Now, the government used the IRS to stifle political opposition. Now, ObamaCare is a wealth redistribution platform disguised as a common good. Now, Obama is being portrayed in academia and the media alike as a charismatic, messianic, "progressive" figure, fighting for the "underdog." He would feel right at home as the General Secretary of the Communist Party. Now, Obama Youths are me, from decades ago. Leninist academia has had its way with them. Now, just like Soviet leaders, American leaders give lip-service to "social justice" while stocking up on personal wealth for their families.

There's nothing new under the sun. I'm hardly the only ex-Soviet to point out the parallels. But some things matter enough to bear repeating.

Dear beautiful America, please, stop moving Forward.


Hat tip: BadBlue News