Posted on 02/21/2011 6:42:57 AM PST by Servant of the Cross
The dirtiest words in a liberal’s lexicon — besides “judgmental,” “intolerant,” “unfair,” and “Constitution” — are “revanchism” and “irredentism.” For years, I had no idea what these words actually meant, although like a good red-diaper baby, I threw them around a lot. But to men of a certain age, and I’m talking about men even older than my father, the sainted “Che” Kahane, they’re terms that get our side frothing at the mouth, foaming from their nostrils, and stamping their feet against the imaginary, Stalingrad-like cold of Hallandale, Fla.
Recently, I’ve learned — and I researched this directly on Wikipedia, so it must be true — that revanchism means revenge (apparently it’s French or something) and a burning desire to get back territory you’ve lost. To put it in terms we can all understand, think of the Crusaders heading back to the Holy Land, the Germans re-occupying the Saarland, the foodies safely marching up Amsterdam Avenue in the wake of the fascist Giuliani administration. It’s the yelp of the loser planning a comeback, the bluster of the defeated bully, and now, the cri de coeur of some Wisconsin pol defying the clear wishes of His Serene Majesty, the Emperor Barack Hussein Obama II, Lord of the Flies, Keeper of the Hoops, and Protector of the Holy Cities of Honolulu and Chicago. How dare he?
After all, didn’t the great and powerful BO2 win the 2008 election? Didn’t that entitle him to rule as he sees fit, without the meddlesome priests you wingnuts call “red-state governors”? Wasn’t it a clear sign from Gaia that a person of no talent or accomplishment, a poor extemporary speaker, a man with apparently no friends from his youth in Indonesia, his school days at Punahou, his sheep-dip year at Occidental, his mystery stint at my alma mater, Columbia, and his undistinguished tenure as editor of the Harvard Law Review, could be elected president of the United States?
So who are these pissant politicians and pundits and midwestern peons to defy Hussein’s imperial will? Who are they to rebel against the infinite enlargement of the union/welfare state he embodies, the very Cloward-Piven word made Alinskian political flesh, leading the Party of Take to fulfill its destiny and finally devour the Party of Give?
I guess what I’m trying to say is: Stop it. You’re scaring us.
You see, we haven’t planned for this. We have a form of the Brezhnev Doctrine, which is named after one of our great role models, Leonid Brezhnev, and which clearly states that once a country goes Communist, it can never go back. And while we don’t exactly embrace the retro term “Communist” — we prefer socialist, progressive, or, in a pinch, Democrat — we give ol’ Leo a sly tip of the hat whenever we bring down our AFL-CIO hammer and our SEIU sickle. We see every conflict between looters and moochers — excuse me! I mean “public servants” — and taxpaying suckers the way the Soviets looked at the Prague Spring, and it’s just a matter of time before the tanks roll, and the cries of “Dubček! Dubček!” are replaced once more with “Yes, we did!”
As you seem to be learning at last, we have two modes of operation, depending on how civil we’re feeling at the moment. The first is our usual, unlovely, snarling viciousness, our relentless mockery of everything you clowns hold dear, our sapper-like devotion to undermining the “Enlightenment” ground you stand on even as, like heroic members of the Résistance, we sometimes have to blend into the population and pretend to be patriotic college professors, lawyers, and U.S. senators whenever we’ve got the short end of the stick.
The other is our whiny, dog’s-belly approach to faux-surrender, in which we become as pathetic as a helpless, whipped cur offering his tender nether regions to the Big Dog, all the while figuring out how we can make common cause with the roving band of coyotes just over the next canyon, to tear the sonofabitch apart the next time we catch him alone in a dark alley.
And that’s what we’re trying to figure out now: to flip or to flop? As I thrill to the noble sacrifices of our selfless public servants, confronting the Man in Madison directly, I personally am as proud as “Che” was, watching Morningside Heights burn while he smoked a Cuban cigar to show his solidarity with la Revolución and put his feet up on the dean’s desk. On the other hand, though, I worry that we might be overplaying our hand here, that the forces of revanchism might be too strong, and that the Battle of Mad Town will turn out about as badly for us as the Battle of the Ebro did for the heroic proles of la República.
Which is why I’m inclining toward the belly strategy. We gave our standard human-shield ploy a shot when the Wisconsin teachers “got sick” and then showed up en masse, kidlets in tow, to scream about the unfairness of changing a status quo that required you to support them in the style to which they’d become accustomed, and required them only to keep breathing for as long as possible. But it’s a tough sell when your adorable moppets tell reporters they’re at the capitol because they’re “trying to stop whatever this dude is doing.”
So forget all this confrontational hoo-hah. Far better to make our arguments on the basis of their factual correctness, their emotional correctness, and their political correctness.
Think of “public service” for what it really is, a secondary form of welfare, in which “workers” pretend to work and the government pretends to “pay” them — just like in the old Soviet Union! I mean, if it weren’t for government jobs, all of these “non-essential” personnel would be lounging around on their porches, drinking beer and firing unregulated handguns into the air or at each other — or, even worse, at us — unable to deal with the vicissitudes of life and therefore deserving of our public charity. Without public service, politicians such as Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd would have been just another couple of Irish barroom horndogs; Governor Moonbeam, Jerry Brown, another Buddhist moonbat; and Robert Byrd a humble white-sheeted follower of Nathan Bedford Forrest. Public service gave these men jobs — real jobs — and meaning to their lives. And you malevolent capitalists want to take it all away.
So go ahead and unleash your racist hordes of teabaggers on a bunch of doe-eyed third-graders; all they’re asking for is a few years of “employment,” followed by a lifetime of free health care and a lavish pension. How can you in good conscience try to break up a perfect racket, in which public-employee unions “negotiate” with the politicians for ever-more-generous pay packages, and then kick back a substantial percentage of the swag in the form of perfectly legal “campaign contributions” to help get their benefactors re-elected? And all at your expense!
So cool the confrontation, fellow lefties. At the moment, we can’t stop the dude from doing something. The dude abides. Live with it.
Just don’t ask me about “irredentism.”
LISTEN to Newsradio 620 WTMJ Milwaukee conservative Charlie Sykes over the Internet!
Click Here http://www.620wtmj.com/home/ondemand/44930432.html
A fine rant, Kahane, but safe to say you enjoyed writing it more than I enjoyed reading it. In good ranting, it’s like art, when you’re done you stop.
it is good to get a clear sense of what is going on.
GOOD READ!
The "teachers" lied about being sick, and then stole the money that they were paid while the lie was going on. If these people can "justify" out and out lying and thievery in this case, how easy will it be for them to justify it in just about any case? Would be robbing the local 7-11 to bolster their "retirement" fund be the next step?
Just damn!, I can't think of a better way to increase the enrollment in all the private schools in Wisconsin...
Gerty and I would ever send our kids to be taught by liers and thieves.
That read like garbage.
good read
ROFLMAO!!!!! Some HS kid in Madison is FAMOUS!
This article is great!
With the price of gas & the weather there- might as well set up home schooling with talented senior members of the community helping to ‘teach’.
Save gas/car costs===$2000 annual
Save wardrobe costs==$3000 annually
Save cell phone/Twitter/texting costs==as much as $5000 annually
Give your kids a better education====PRICELESS
The time is coming for a correction, and it won't be pretty.
Government unions have a long-standing incestuous relationship with the Democratic Party. In return for massive campaign contributions and foot soldiers for political campaigns, elected Democrats not only reward their union benefactors with favorable contracts, they shield them from the kind of accountability that private sector employees face. That’s one reason our schools are failing. It’s why cities and states with entrenched Democratic leaders are bankrupt. It’s why governments ballooned while millions of private sector employees lost their jobs and even their homes.
Sums up our current political and economic situation and how we got here. “Irredentism” is used awkwardly however!
Thanks for the ping.
That's the seemingly obvious point I'm surprised I don't hear more often. These "teachers" are teaching Wisconsin children that lying and stealing are OK. They're proudly marching en masse declaring their pride in their immoral conduct. Why is this not reported as the scandalous behavior that it is?
It's nearly here. All it should take is another 10% increase in food prices. Loan servicers have been kicking the can down the road for the past year, modifying home mortgages down to 2% and extending terms out to 40 years to keep homeowners in their houses.
The problem is not with home mortgages, but with all of the other debt consumers have in great abundance, and those lenders aren't giving an inch, even though they're owned by the same big banks that received taxpayer bailouts.
The average American is exhausted by the events of the past few years, and increasing food prices will be the straw that finally breaks the camel's back.
When Atlas groans and gives his final shrug, it will not be pretty.
Now that's a keeper all by itself!
What an entertaining, spot on and illustrative (to those who might not have read books such as “Radical Son”) read...thanks so much for posting it, as I would not have seen it if it were not for your posting...
Thanks!
The sad thing is...this, while written somewhat with tongue in cheek or for dramatic effect, is reality for that one-third of liberals who are ideological enemies of this country.
Not the one-third who are normal people, but let their emotions make judgements for them (”Why can’t we give some of our tax money to people who don’t make as much?”)
Not the one-third who are the true-believers, wild-eyed kool-aid drinkers who froth at the mouth at the mention of Bush and Cheney.
I am talking about the one-third who understand and implement Alinsky, know that “Useful Idiot” does not apply to them, and see Cloward-Piven as a viable tool.
Thanks bitt.
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