Here's a shock! The idiot communists at rabble.ca are offended by Canada's proposed memorial to the victims of Communism

This is the website published by the spouse of federal NDP leader Libby Davies

Pathetic old Communists gather in Toronto to mourn Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez

Sure, dead and soon to be a ghoulish tourist attraction Hugo Chavez won elections in Venezuela. He did it by taking control of all media in his country and having opposition leaders imprisoned and assassinated.

Yesterday, a couple of dozen stupid, pathetic old Communists who want Canada to have its own version of the "Bolivar Revolution" gathered in Trinity Bellwoods Park to mourn the passing of their "commandante" and to heap scorn on democracy.

Blogwrath was there and has a report up you can see at this LINK.

The Republicans' Gordon Gekko unleashes the forces of fear against Newt

There's capitalism and there's capitalism. There's the good kind that creates jobs, produces valuable services and products, leads to technological advances, and creates choices and freedom for consumers and employees.

And then there's the Mitt Romney/Gordon Gecko/George Soros kind. That's the kind where creepy characters make a few calls, pull a few levers, buy and sell other people's achievements, then take a profit.

Mitt Romney's corporate raider capitalism is not the kind that built America, but it could be the kind that destroys it.  Romney's similarity to Oliver Stone's fictional character is eerie, even down to the slicked back hairstyle the two share. Romney is not a criminal, but neither is he inspiring.

So without much to motivate people to vote for him out of enthusiasm, he is trying to scare voters out of choosing Gingrich by unleashing a pack of media hounds like the flaky Ann Coulter, who now is a Romney booster.  Only a year ago, Coulter complained that if the Republicans pick her current candidate of choice, it would be the same as handing the 2012 election to Obama. But for her, Gingrich just isn't conservative enough. So she goes with Romney?

The Democrats must be enjoying the specticle of Republicans accumulting ammuniation for President Obama to use against them in the fall.

Cornell Law Professor William Jacobson writes on his blog Legal Insurrection that:

It’s really no surprise. As Mitt Romney has faltered from inevitability to modest favorite, a chorus of pro-Romney voices in the media and Republican Party is insisting that if Newt is the nominee, we not only lose the presidency we also lose the House and fail to take back the Senate.

It’s pure conjecture. If a bad week can cost Romney 20 points in South Carolina, it can cost him that much in Ohio, or Florida, or Virginia in the general election. Current polling is interesting, but overstated in its import.

Yet the argument is stated with absolute certainty.

"Occupy" was an old movement using a new tactic

Michael Coren and Richard Klagsbrun discuss the aftermath of the Occupy Movement





Thanks to SDAMatt2a for the video

Fiscal conservatives are the modern day Robin Hoods

Before its demise, while walking through the muddy turf at the grimy Occupy Toronto compound not so long ago, amid the accosting cacophony of signage, one could spot the inevitable placard calling for a "Robin Hood" tax. The call for a special tax on the higher income earners is a routine feature of demonstrations by anti-Capitalist, anti-Globalization activists, and the the notion of it betrays their misconception of economics and history. The premise behind a Robin Hood tax runs completely opposite to everything the outlaws of Sherwood Forest represented.

Steal from the rich and give to the poor was the mission statement that enshrined the Merry Men and their leader as heroes in popular culture. But who were the rich in the medieval Europe? It was the nobility, who were also the government. And what was the source of the wealth accumulated by the aristocracy at the time of the Plantagenet kings? It was taxes that the government forcibly extracted from the poor. Robin Hood retook the money that the government took away to be spent on items that fulfilled their own agenda, and returned it to the people, who could use it to feed and serve the needs of the private citizenry.

So who is it now that wants to stop the government's ability to force you to give them money, for which they account rather poorly and regularly squander? It's not the defunct Occupy Movement, or the tax-hungry New Democratic Party. They want to hand more money to the government and use that as a conduit to claim more of it for themselves. It's not the civil service unions, who want to raise taxes so that more of them can remain secure at the expense of the rest of the public.

Today's Robin Hoods are fiscal conservatives who, like their legendary predecessor, want to keep money out of the hands of inept bureaucracies and restore it to the hands of the people. Fiscal conservatives, like Robin Hood, believe that money belongs to those who worked for it in the first place so they can choose how to use it for themselves.

Medieval anti-Government Fiscal Conservative

The anti-globalization, anti-capitalist movement's profound ignorance is evidenced by their wanting to replace a system that has provided the most  freedoms and prosperity in the history of mankind with a proven failure. The Marxist-based one they prefer has,  every single instance it has been used at the governmental level, resulted in totalitarian dictatorships and national squalor. If you to do something inefficiently and incompetently with the worst possible outcome, there's generally no better way of accomplishing that than to hand the job over to government. That is precisely what the anti-capitalist backers of the failed Occupy Movement want to do.

The only resemblance the anti-Capitalists in the Occupy Movement had with Robin Hood and his Merry Band was that they lived in outdoor encampments. But that's where the similarity ends. In reality, they, and the political actors like those in the NDP who support higher taxes, are acting as proxies for our Sheriff of Nottinghams and King Johns who want your money for their own selfish purposes.

Using the Wizard of Oz and Sherlock Holmes to explain Occupy Toronto

Michael Coren and Richard Klagsbrun discuss the silliness of a movement that wants to replace the most successful economic system in the history of the world with a proven, abject failure



Thanks to Blazing Cat Fur and SDAMatt2 for the video

Tea Party Protest Warriors Invade OCCUPY DC

h/t Blazing Car Fur

Democrats should consider running Felonious Munk in 2012 - he knows how to pay his bills

h/t Dodo Can Spell

NDP's Socialist Caucus sees a silver lining in Layton's cancer diagnosis

The NDP's Socialist Caucus is a manifesto-driven group of fanatics who want to drive the agenda of Canada's Official Opposition in Parliament.

Jack Layton was able to translate his personal popularity into major gains for his party in Quebec, and was the glue that held the party's disparate moderates and the radical socialists together. Layton's recent announcement that he is taking a leave of absence to fight cancer for the second time bodes as badly for his party as it does for him personally.

Without anyone who comes close to Layton's popularity or ability to moderate the NDP, an internecine, knives-drawn free-for-all is all but inevitable. Layton made an aged, uncharismatic former labour leader from Quebec as interim leader, anticipating his return, but realistically, a second cancer battle is a journey that leaves that likelihood remote.

The NDP's Socialist Caucus is still resentful that the party attempted to remove the word "socialist" from its charter and has fought bitterly to introduce its agenda of anti-capitalist, anti-Israel, pro-Castro Cuba socialism to prominence.

Could it be just a coincidence that only a few days after Layton announced he was stepping down to fight cancer that the Socialist Caucus presented its revitalized website and campaign to move the NDP firmly into the anti-Capitalist camp.

Without a strong leader, this could be a golden opportunity for this faction to insinuate itself  as a force in the national NDP. This group co-sponsored a rally calling for violent revolution in Canada, they want to abolish private ownership of industry and property ,and wants to destroy democratic Israel while celebrating totalitarian, Communist Cuba.

The head Commissar of the NDP's Socialist Caucus is one Barry Weisleder, a substitute teacher with the Toronto District School Board.

Like anti-Israel fanatic Judy Rebick, Weisleder thinks Layton's NDP has gone too mainstream, so while offering condolences whose sincerity can only be guessed at, they assuredly welcome the chance that the absence of a strong mainstream leader presents to them.

Too Funny for Words: The Marxist boneheads at rabble.ca blame Vancouver riots on Capitalism

You can't make this kind of stuff up..well, at least not unless you have brain damage:

Final trashing of downtown Vancouver is a manifestation of what has become the normal popular response to contemporary capitalism's behaviour. In this instance, the corporate media hype around the playoffs, NHL manipulation of the series, local on-site liquor vendors' fuelling of the crowd, and the assuredly pre-ordained defeat of the Canucks led to the ensuing post-defeat looting of the high-end chain stores and the trashing of cop cars. As we have seen increasingly across the globe, this event was simply a local manifestation of frustration and anger generated by contemporary capitalism as practiced and lived in this outpost of empire.

University of Toronto academics (and Linda McQuaig) angered by $35 million dollar donation

One would think that when an entrepreneur and philanthropist donates $35 million dollars to a public university for the purpose of establishing a top caliber school of Global Affairs, there would be cheering from people ostensibly interested in improving education and enhancing the debate about international issues.

But at the University of Toronto, it appears there are some staff members and their acolytes who are deeply troubled at the prospect of students being given a well-rounded education that strays from their "approved doctrines."

Peter Munk is the founder of Barrick Gold is one of Toronto's foremost philanthropists. His $35 million dollar donation to the University of Toronto to establish the Munk School of Global Affairs was intended to give U of T a program that could rival those at Stanford and Oxford universities. The purpose is to facilitate the experience and knowledge of students who can think critically and enable to them to engage with a variety of ideas and perspectives in order to contribute to addressing compelling world issues.

Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, as recent experience at U of T demonstrates, there are some academics at that institution who do not appear to be able to differentiate between critical thought and indoctrination. Their own views suggest that they are afraid that any thought that disputes their own should be suppressed and they object to Munk's donation to the university, ostensibly on the grounds that this is part of the "corporatization" of academia and that Munk may have "influence" on the curriculum.

It must be appalling for professors like Paul Hamel and John Valleau, and someone with the absence of a moral compass such as Linda McQuaig to think that anything other than Marxist perspective could inform political theory at U of T. The Munk School of Global Affairs is headed by Janice Gross Stein, who is as fair-minded and non-ideological as one could hope for in a teacher.

To give an indication of Munk's commitment to the open exchange of ideas, you only need look as far as the Munk Debates series he sponsors.

The Munk Debates have brought together people of diametrically opposing views to provide public exchange of ideas in which people can balance proposals and engage in something OISE students aren't exposed to: critical thought. The debates have been on subjects such as The Canadian vs US health care systems, whether religion is a force for good, climate change, humanitarian aid and more. Participants have included people with such varied outlooks as Stephen Lewis, Christopher Hitchens, Charles Krauthammer, Mia Farrow, Tony Blair, John Bolton, Gareth Evans and so on.

At the Blair/Hitchens debate, I met some Munk School students and they were thoughtful, balanced, intelligent people who were open to a variety of ideas.

Which is exactly what seems to bother McQuaig and the opponents of the donation and the Munk School of Global Affairs. Under the guise of wanting "critical thought," they seemingly want students to be able to have one type of thought and to be critical of anything that digresses from it. That could be called many things, but "critical thought" it ain't.

There are a lot of things I could write to make fun of the ideologues opposed Munk's donation and to ideas that contradict theirs. But nothing does the job better than this piece of news: The Toronto Star's blogger, Antonia Zerbisias, who without explanation backed out of being a featured speaker at the mini-hate fest earlier this week, is going to enthusiastically attend a full day of anti-Munk protest this Saturday.

The Klein Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Polemics

"The problem with her book is that it's 500 pages long and she absolutely fails to support anything." Johan Norberg



reason.tv presents Johan Norberg's debunking of Naomi Klein's incompetent polemic, The Shock Doctrine




In this next video, Norberg discusses how Klein got everything ass-backwards in her most emphasized example, the supposed introduction of "Disaster Capitalism in China" following the 1989 massacre in Tienanmen Square. Except it was the anti-capitalists who ordered the massacre and the Chinese Free Market Special Economic Zones were introduced 10 years earlier in 1979. Even the ultra-leftist Guardian observed her incompetent polemics.

"The only Chinese source she cites is the new leftist Wang Hui, who is interesting, but has a particular line to strike - rather like writing about America and quoting only Michael Moore." Jonathan Fenby in The Guardian

 

Norberg wrote a devastating critique of Klein's book for the Cato Institute which can be viewed here.