Brave new world: elderly man attacked by Obama supporter

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The election may be over, but not my outrage. Sorry to keep repeating myself, but I still can't believe what I'm seeing. What kind of a country have we become? I've devoted two ardent blog posts to this problem already and will keep mentioning the problem again and again as it rears its ugly head. And it's these very folks who keep crying out how hateful we are, all evidence to the contrary.

The malady runs deep, and even if our new president were to miraculously ask people to be civil-- unlikely since division seems to be the ongoing point-- that alone isn't likely to cause a core shift in ethics and behavior.

My thanks to the Moonbattery blog for this video link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSO-mdZPWB8

If this is where Change (tm) is helping to take us, I'll go back to when character and civility meant something.

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Hate Parade

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Hateful behavior from the left is piling up at our virtual doors almost faster than we can deal with it.

Even so, Michelle Malkin and others are doing a great job staying on top of this, reporting everything from the KGO talk radio host Charles Karel Bouley who cried out he wanted Joe the Plumber dead (in stronger language than I'm using here), to the man who wanted to summon a stoning of Sarah Palin "old school" style, to the Obamessiah himself actually flipping the bird on camera to McCain, just exactly and deliberately as he did (to hoots of delight) when he debated Hillary. Sandra Bernhard joked in a nauseatingly tasteless standup routine that Sarah Palin should be gang-raped. Protestors at McCain-Palin rallies carry mock fetuses and vile signs.

Hour after hour, day after day, hard-working alternative news sources and bloggers are reporting these maniacal incidents, shining light on behavior that should have every decent American reeling in disgust.

While we on the right may have a few seriously disturbed folks showing up now and then, this onslaught from the left is several orders of magnitude more prevalent. For a taste of how mindlessly depraved it is, have a peek at the hate mail section of Cinnamon Stillwell's dignified and intelligent site.

Everything we need to know about the left's hatefulness and irrationality is out there for anyone to see: the would-be leader of the free world and his people. It's sad, but it's also frightening.

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links to follow/stay tuned

Don't confuse them with facts

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The breakdown in civility makes me sad for our country. But we can take note of a few key reasons why it's happening.

Over the last few months I've been spending several hours every day doing my self-assigned homework. Part of what I've paid attention to is the rhetoric on the left.

It's not a pretty sight. The so-called defenders of open-mindedness and acceptance, the people who so deplore racism and assaults against civil liberties, launch-- hands down-- the most illogical, vehement, hateful venom imaginable. I've never seen it like this. Are we suddenly a nation of racists and class-divided zealots? Or is there a force at work goading people on?

One of the most striking aspects of this raging ideological war is the unapologetic lack of cogent arguments from the liberal camp to facts and conclusions put forth by the conservative camp. Present a series of historical facts, and a logical argument based on those facts, and you're not going to get a solid point-by-point rebuttal. You could hold your breath until you're purple and it just won't happen, because it can't.

We wait patiently to hear either that certain facts are incorrect, or that the logical conclusion based on those facts is itself flawed. Or perhaps be presented with an effective argument that despite the facts being acknowledged as correct as well as the logic, that there are overriding facts and solid logic that must prevail instead.

It doesn't happen.

What does happen, at best, is you are treated to a series of broad generalities, a smattering of emotional anecdotes and a few character assassinations for good measure. I've seen this again and again. Prepare an article, letter, or document outlining the history of economic policies, fully footnoted by reputable sources, and nobody is going to bother to refute any of it with any specificity because it's impossible to do so. Point out the futility and danger of cowtowing to our enemies, making your case by citing history, and prepare yourself for a straw-man argument instead, one unrelated to your actual points but delivered as if it refutes what you're saying.

Nowhere is the lack of clear thinking so obvious as when the problems with the democrat candidate himself are pointed out. So determined are people to believe in this man that they will ignore the stunning preponderance of damning evidence and danger signs... and build a shrine to him instead.

Without blinking an eye.

Any one of the outrageous problems with this candidate should have been enough to give people serious pause, but the messiah machine sees to it that facts are seen as irrelevant. Hatred of the right is encouraged.

For every occasional creepy pathetic skinhead poisoning the debate from within conservative ranks, there are hundreds of screaming liberals photoshopping blood onto our faces and using the foulest language imaginable. Evidence of this lopsidedness is so abundant there is absolutely no contest here. Any casually interested party can confirm this for themselves by spending just a short time online reading blogs and posts.

And while this seething rage and gleeful namecalling is no doubt meant to be the measure of their passion and committment to their beliefs, it displays a ghastly disregard for honest debate and an underlying hatred so pathological that it stops all hope of civility dead in its tracks.

What all this deliberatedly incited hubris means-- everything from snide ad hominem editorials to redfaced streams of obscenities-- is there's no firm grasp on reality. You can't mount a clear, logical argument when there isn't one.

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If there is to be any progress towards civility and rationality, root causes need to be addressed. We need to shed light on the postmodern beliefs that erode society. Fight the ignorance of the dangers presented by our enemies. Guard against the willing dismissal of history. Acknowledge the spiritual vacuum that all too easily invites a candidate to step in and be deified. Rid our society of its irrational self-loathing. Call out the outrageous liberal control of education and media. Not insignificantly, we need to wake up to the tragic suppression of low income black America by the democrat party, the people who are (ironically) served so poorly by the democrat candidate and his policies. Failed ideologies shouldn't even occur to people any longer except as cautionary tales. Be ever mindful of signs of growing fascism, knowing that this grows out of socialism, not capitalism. We are always free to examine alternatives, but if they don't make some kind of basic sense, we should be wise enough not to seriously consider them.

We supporters of the Constitution have our work cut out for us.

Honesty, ethics, and courage to name and face our enemies must overcome postmodern self-destruction. In economics and foreign affairs we must be willing and able to learn from history and act accordingly. Our hearts and emotions show us where the problems are, but clear, rational minds must address them.

But don't expect a lot of support for this idea from the left. They're too busy screaming, fainting, cheering, mocking, damning, and lighting candles.

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LA Times Disgrace: front page news

Or at least it should be. This journalism scandal is the latest blogosphere news, justifiably at the top of the list.

The question isn't whether the Los Angeles times has a video tape of mainstream media's favorite presidential candidate at a posh Jew-bashing dinner party. The rag has admitted they have a tape of the would-be president knee-deep in an event praising PLO operative and anti-Semite Rashid Khalidi, and they've already written a tepid story about it.

But this "news" institution adamantly refuses to air the damning tape itself. What happened to people's right to know? Or do we only have the right to know about wardrobes and tax returns?

The Times knows full well the damage this shocking, quite probably election-losing look at reality that video would create. In their infinite wisdom, they've decided what we don't need to see.

Not surprisingly, domestic terrorists William Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn were apparently on hand for the videotaped fete. And just to be clear, the media darling candidate and his wife weren't eight years old at the time, either. These particular wine glasses were raised in recent history. We're not talking the exploratory identity-forming adventures of a college student. This is a US senator in post 9-11 America.

Los Angeles Times, your ideology-driven suppression of vital news is obscene.

Leading the charge against this incredible affrontery are Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit, Michelle Malkin, and other alternative-media notables; Newt Gingrich and others have offered large rewards for copies of this tape. Make no mistake, Rashid Khalidi is not this candidate's only anti-Israel connection, but seeing him in the room with a smile on his face is more than enough to open some eyes.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times is working hard to secure its rightful place in the bottom of readers' catboxes.

In this nightmare of an election year, the challenge each day is deciding which of the dozens of insults to reason and attacks on liberty is most noteworthy. Today it's no contest.

Looking at this situation more broadly, talk radio needs to continue its campaign to warn people about the dangers of an America like the one we're seeing, where mainstream news picks a side and stumps without apology while liberal politicians demand the end of talk radio under the guise of the fairness doctrine.

Liberty in America will just be a memory if this tide isn't turned. Will we allow a so-called fairness doctrine to turn us into an Orwellian nightmare?

Under such a doctrine, the blog you are now reading could well be illegal.

Think about it.

Meanwhile, here's one of many places to check out the story:

http://tinyurl.com/5bbm57


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Write Turn Cafe: where to begin?

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Journalism's 'sub-tabloid' assault on truth and America

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One of my dreams is that this election, among other things, creates a tipping point of awareness in America. Outrageously biased and undeniably agenda-driven, our behemoth mainstream journalism machine needs to be outed once and for all, held accountable for countless grievances against truth.

When journalists are encouraged by their editors to indulge in lies, clear distortions, and deliberate misdirection, it's unacceptable not to hold the institutions accountable.

With freedom of the press comes serious responsibility, and we the people need to demand a more ethical journalism.

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Notes to self: a few other nagging issues

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The Ayers Problem: well, he wasn't eight years old when Ayers appears to have written much of that amazing autobiography; helpful friends you've got there, Barry

The Citizenship Question: Berg may be flaky, but I think he's onto something; Mr. Candidate, please show us the proof and then we'll be quiet about it

The Constitutional Crisis: who decides who has "standing" to bring suits and why; the decay of our Constitution

The Economy 1: if you're part of the problem, you can't be part of the solution; Raines and those dems too close to our economic collape for comfort

The Economy 2: 40% pay no taxes so you can't lower taxes for 95% of Americans without it becoming a welfare state; all math answers are not created equal

The Deification Project: we haven't heard you deny you're the messiah; candles and shrines for the annointed one

voter fraud
media bias
campaign contribution fraud, domestic
campaign contribution fraud, foreign
lies and distortions to citizens
unsavory alliances with frightening agendas
new world order/ global village/ UN problem
appeasement of enemies
reduced millitary strength
hanging Israel out to dry
the Africa problem
the Indonesia problem(s)
the Michelle-writes Most-whites-in-the-US- are-racist problem
Rules for Radicals phrases in speeches
the Rezco association and home loan problem
the Marxist agenda problem
the "No More Pre-existing conditions exclusion" plan for insurance collapse

the end of 401K?

the end of talk radio (Fairness Doctrine)?

To be continued...

draft; work in progress.

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Write Turn Cafe: Culture wars, media, and conservatism, part 1

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Today's conservative voice has many built-in frustrations. If we speak out against the dangers of socialism we are labelled McCarthyites. If we question Obama's citizenship or even criticize the man himself, we must surely be racists... never mind that we'd all vote for Thomas Sowell in a heartbeat. If we recognize the threat of Islamofascism, we are dangerously intolerant of Muslims. And everyone who has absorbed the relentless message of liberal mainstream culture knows that a Republican is either a vacuous Thurston Howell III smugly enjoying his probably unearned wealth, or a wild-eyed outcast poking his rifle out the window of his cabin.

In our daily lives, convervatives make rather less an issue of image than liberals do (as I've observed in my considerable personal experience with the unapologetically left-wing media industry, as well as my year at UC Berkeley), but that doesn't mean we're not aware of it. Do we disregard issues related to our image and currency within an arena defined and all but owned by our ideological adversaries? How can we carry messages across this divide? Even someone like David Horowitz, who was an active participant in radical politics before he awakened to his new beliefs-- views expressed with exacting care and powerful eloquence-- has far less mainstream acknowledgement than he should. Instead of these rare first-hand insights being given all due respect, his perspective brands him as someone who has sold out. At worst, we see ad hominem attacks; at best, we hear the sound of silence.

So what do you do when the culture itself is a kind of funhouse mirror?

Unfortunately, this seems a rhetorical question, at least for now. We preach largely to the choir, in hopes that someone from the other side wanders by the church and hears our message through the walls.

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Loneliness of the Blue State Conservative, part 1

For a moment, when I was setting up this blog, I was heartened.

We're sorry; that name has already been taken. What? Someone has already staked a cyberclaim on the blogspot name Hollywood Conservative? A quick click confirmed this; someone had, indeed, created such a blog. But then with a stab of dismay I realized nothing had been posted there in years, a proverbial cobwebsite.

My mind swam instantly with a fiction writer's assortment of various scenarios from best to worse case: Nothing had been posted there for so long, perhaps the author was now busy on a higher profile and more important project; good for them! No, wait... they might have become terribly ill and could no longer write. Maybe someone had begun to drive around their neighborhood at night, slowly, in a car with no lights on. Or they were abducted by little green men, probably contractors with a strong labor union.

Or, in the worst of all explanations, they finally lost hope.

Losing all hope is something I'm personally fighting every single day as the Presidential election grows closer.

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When I use the word Hollywood in the blog title, this should be construed in the broadest possible way, IE not a literal geographical reference, or even a reference merely to the filmmaking industry or surrounding culture. I put in the word "does" because its positive; it feels like such a hopeful word. Hollywood Does Conservative feels like there could just be a special, surprising truth... actual conservatives in the media in need of encouragement.

I've come to think of Hollywood as shorthand for the entire worm ouroboros biofeedback loop of media products, cultural landscape, and political opinion.

Be it known to all, I do not work in Hollywood The Place, and not even in the so-called Movie Industry per se, at least not in the way most people think of when you say "movie."

For twenty years I've worked successfully (but not without difficulties) as a freelancer in the world of corporate film and video production, usually in various art department-type roles. For most of those years the bulk of my work took place in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I am now semi-retired.

Like most conservatives in my industry, of necessity I remained, and remain, largely quiet about my beliefs. Oh, and it was the same story when I was a student at U.C. Berkeley, as well. (Talk about a glutton for punishment). I will be visiting these themes and memories not out of self-pity but the desire to share first-hand the way things really are.

Like many conservatives, I come from a fairly liberal background, and for years have lived at odds, in my case quietly, with a great number of people in my life.

Coming out of the conservative closet is risky but necessary business. But because not all conservatives hold precisely the same spectrum of beliefs, some explanation is always necessary. All too often, however, even before our mouths are open, the ears and minds of those around us are anything but. Why? Two reasons: (1) they "know what a conservative is", that is to say [pick at least one]: evil; fascists, racists, homophobes, etc.)", and more broadly; (2) a liberal stands on the high hallowed unshakable ground of moral superiority.

Beliefs are never so strong as when they are unreasonable, and one of the many ironies of the various forms and degrees of liberalism is that while its believers claim to stand for open-mindedness, we barely have time to open our mouths to calmly explain our world view than they are (pacifism notwithstanding) almost screaming and close to bashing us on the head. And if that isn't enough, their frequent anti-religious views often take on, dare I say, dogmatic fervor... with nary an eye-blink of irony.

No, I'm not advocating church and state be fused. No, I'm not a basher or a bigot. No, I'm certainly not a fascist. No, I'm not a hysterical ultra-extremist Christian or a close-minded so-called redneck, or... Where to begin? The battle is as wide as it is deep, and it's not an exaggeration to say I'm sick with concern about the country I love. Come to think of it, I'm not just worried about the USA, but Israel, too; you don't have to be Jewish to care deeply about the future of that country and its people.

It's a shame it's so difficult to share this concern with the people I love most. But I'm tired of not saying much of anything, so this is where the journey begins.

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Talk to you soon.