Maggie's Farm

For those (most Americans) who don’t follow the annual Eurovision song contest, won by Israel in 1979 for Hallelujah, it is closely watched in our house (on Internet). We enjoy “world music.” It is becoming a smaller world, sometimes not for the better, as this year’s winner, from Germany, sang a number in English! My Germany-born wife was aghast at this loss of diversity.

The music world is also losing other diverse sense.

Some Western musicians are canceling their scheduled performances in Israel, caving to leftist memes and pro-Palestinian veiled threats.

Then there are the attempts to boycott Israeli performers as well. The Eurovision song contest was held in Norway this year. The Norwegian pro-Palestine Committee demonstrated outside the arena holding the event since Israel had reached the finals. A statement from the organisation said: “We want to close Euro Song for Israel. They are not welcome. We will request the European Euro Song TV-consortium to boycott nations that indulge in occupation and apartheid.”

Oppression, despotism, suicidal hatred, terrorism, that’s OK with them? Far from the Summer of Love, huh!

Here’s the Israeli performance at this year’s Eurovision, a lovely love song.

Yeah, we can’t have love where hate triumphs.

Here's Israel's 1979 winner. (This taping has helpful lyrics.)

Some's idea of Praise God (Hallelujah) doesn't include to "hold each other's hands, and sing from one heart."

That includes some Western musicians.

The US Chamber of Commerce says (more here) that the term capitalism is misunderstood, as just 57% in its poll support capitalism.

“We need to do a better job of explaining the economic system in the United States and how it is working,” Anderson said in an interview. “We have been looking at anecdotal information that there was a misunderstanding of capitalism.”

Au contraire says the survey’s results of the peasants. Seventy percent support free enterprise and free markets.

Americans know the difference between the two as capitalism has increasingly come to be practiced.

Charles Derber, a sociologist at Boston College, says the results show the public’s unhappiness with the ties between “big business and big government,” exemplified by the multi- billion dollar bailout of banks in 2008.

“When people say they are down on capitalism, they mean they are down on corporate capitalism,” Derber, author of books including, “People Before Profit,” said in an interview. “They see capitalism as it exists here as anything but a free market.”

With bigger and bigger Big Government comes those, pardon the expression, capitalizing on getting their way or piece of the pelf, whether business, union, tax-exempts, state and local governments, etc.

Free enterprise and free markets, in contrast, indeed may we remind freedom itself, work best with a more limited government.

Now, that isn’t to say complete laissez faire, as there is sometimes some need for enforcement of rules of play to encourage competition, not stifle it.

In addition to the findings on capitalism, the Chamber’s poll found that 43 percent of those surveyed said the Obama administration’s policies are making the economy worse compared with 23 percent believing it is making it better.

“There is a major trust deficit,” Lombardo [the pollster] said.

The US Chamber knows the difference between free enterprise and capitalism as it has too often come to be practiced. Increasingly, Americans do. It’s the difference between freedom and fascism.

Perhaps some corporate, union, tax-exempts, state and local governments, etc. HQs need visits from a Tea Party, not just the federal government and its minions of bigger. It takes two to tango.

Homework: Michael Barone, Goldberg.

I fingered about 1000-words of witty repartee on the pageant, but -- and it's true -- my touch-typing and my other reflexes hit a big delete before I finished. So, if you want to, at least, see what you missed, and not hear a horny wise-guy, you'll have to go to this luscious link. There's also about 150 photos for your menu. My advice: pick one from each column and enjoy the Hooters smorgasbord. Watch the pageant and special features until you go blind, or find a new side of your special other.

The below is from the memory images indelibly on the inside of my eyelids. 

Believe me, a connoisseur, it's far better than the skinnies at the Victoria Secret TV show. And, no veils to hide behind, just all teenie bikinis.

One-hundred were chosen from the 4,000 Hooter girls in 26-countries. Of the hundred, 3 were A-cups, 10 B-cups, and 10 C-cups. Do the math, and if you can keep your mind and imagination from wandering, that leaves 67 --er, 77 -- with a D, who will have to do detention with the teacher. Any PhDs out there to volunteer? Flowers instead of ivy.

The field of dreams was cut to ten, two A-cups, two B-cups, and six Ds for detention, maybe a spanking.  The choice of the four who escape discipline reflects the over-the-hill two cougars among the judges, trying to cut the competition in the wee-drunk hours perhaps.

Five dark hair and five blondes, so diversity rules. Speaking of which, my vote is for equal opportunity, so my id tips for tall, D, Black, LeAngela Davis. (OK, political types, she is probably named after a communist, but I'm willing to be her comrade for this cause.)

Then there were five (and 95 winners at the stage door to provide a shoulder and a Jag to console). An IQ test in bikinis: don't bother listening to the girls, just look interested. (best advice="don't eat yellow snow"; best talent="pour beer and hoola-hoop at same time" -- bet someone will lick the spill)

A special insight. The girls use "butt-glue" to keep their bitty bikini bottom from creeping up and going Indian to wipe them out.

And, my favorite commisar, and the judges', Miss World Hooter, goes to looking great globally, LeAngela Davis. From Columbus, Ohio. I didn't know there was so much booty buried there (though I dug up a golden C there one business trip, probably a groovy grannie by now). Go exploring and dig it.

Here she is:

I haven't been in a Hooters for lunch in about 15 years. Tomorrow, I'm taking my 5-year old chick-magnet Gavin, former champion breast-feeder, to a special lunch.

BTW, last years winner took her support to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. I bet they saluted in every way.

Driving home from errands, I listened to Rush. He said, “Liberalism is socialism is marxism.”  OK, I get that Rush makes his points with rhetorical flourish. And, I get that rhetorical flourish can serve the purpose of arousal.

What I, also, get is that excess in speech or action will most often be counter-productive in persuading most of those on the fence as well as those fewer of contrary views who may be open-minded.

What I, further, get is that excess in speech or action will most often harm oneself in keeping an even keel and integrity of purpose. The feedback loop polarizes oneself, thus becoming less focused and effective, even if self-satisfying to rant, and may even harm one’s meaningful relationships.

The Democrat-run Democracy Corps does some very worthwhile polling. Its latest, 55% of likely voters find ‘Socialist’ an accurate label of Obama. It is, and I’m surprised that more do not think so. “Socialist” is a flexible term in usage, but is recognized as redistributive, at best, and needing or leading to oppressive measures, either at worst or inherent. That is Obama, even if of the imbued ‘60s variety of either idealism or confusion or avoidance about harsh realities.

“Marxism” is more discrete in meaning, not even making more than a feeble nod toward individual liberties.  Marxism, also, is so convoluted in its logic and practice as to have lost any claim to worth, except among the truly loony or self-servingly authoritarian. Professed believers in marxism or self-labelers as marxist expose themselves as so far outside acceptable in the US that only a very few tenure-protected academics might or a very few self-destructive wackos. 

Rush's point is harmed by going too far, unnecessarily, in demonizing Obama. He is dangerous, purposeful, redistributive to the harm of productive, and critical of the US' values and value to the harm of our security and that of allies. Neither, as Rush says, is Obama purposely damaging the US; he really thinks he's not and is improving it by his lights. Obama is, in a sense, worse than a manipulator. Obama is a true believer who marches himself and others forward in blind self-polarization.

But, he's not a marxist, just imbued with the infantile socialism and leftist world view he was and is immersed in, and that is protected from penetration by his chosen similars.

So, I think that Rush went too far, unnecessarily.

Similarly, no far worse, is depicting Obama with a Hitler mustache or such, and such visual demonization. Aside from not true, it cheapens oneself, cheapens truly worse fiends and acts, and is a turn-off that chases away those who otherwise might listen.

If you can’t make a decent argument from facts, and the facts are bad enough about Obama, then become better prepared, but don’t do yourself in and your purpose. Don't be self-polarized, so as to lose sight of the means and ends.

Don’t get mad, get even. Our democracy provides plenty of opportunities to do so sanely and constructively.

Below is the translation from the Chinese government's first-ever White Paper on the Internet in China. Part Three of the six-part document is titled "Guaranteeing Citizens' Freedom of Speech on the Internet."

China Internet watcher Rebecca MacKinnon reports:

I've heard from several journalists and policy analysts (not people based in China, for whom such cognitive dissonance is normal) who at first glance thought they were reading The Onion or some kind of parody site. How, people asked me, can a government that so blatantly censors the Internet claim with a straight face to be protecting and upholding freedom of speech on the Internet? The answer of course is that China's netizens are free to do everything... except for the things they're not free to do.  The list of the latter, outlined in the next section titled Protecting Internet Security is long, vague, and subject to considerable interpretation:

...The Chinese government attaches great importance to protecting the safe flow of Internet information, actively guides people to manage websites in accordance with the law and use the Internet in a wholesome and correct way. The Decision of the National People's Congress Standing Committee on Guarding Internet Security, Regulations on Telecommunications of the People's Republic of China and Measures on the Administration of Internet Information Services stipulate that no organization or individual may produce, duplicate, announce or disseminate information having the following contents: being against the cardinal principles set forth in the Constitution; endangering state security, divulging state secrets, subverting state power and jeopardizing national unification; damaging state honor and interests; instigating ethnic hatred or discrimination and jeopardizing ethnic unity; jeopardizing state religious policy, propagating heretical or superstitious ideas; spreading rumors, disrupting social order and stability; disseminating obscenity, pornography, gambling, violence, brutality and terror or abetting crime; humiliating or slandering others, trespassing on the lawful rights and interests of others; and other contents forbidden by laws and administrative regulations.

Other than that, people are totally free. What's more, the use of the Internet by the people to "supervise" public officials is praised. As long as - in the process of said supervision - state power is not subverted, "state honor" is not jeopardized, nobody is humiliated or slandered, and no "rumors" are spread. The rise of Twitter-like microblogging services is even praised. (Twitter itself is blocked by the "great firewall," though tens of thousands of Chinese Internet users are believed to access it anyway through third-party clients and circumvention tools).

Rebecca MacKinnon is a must read for those who try to keep up on China’s increasing censorship of the Internet.