Methinks he’s forgetting that the only real way to gain someone’s respect – real respect – is not to cower in front of a bully who will merely abuse you, but rather stand up to them, show real strength of conviction, and stand independent and free. No one will ever truly respect you when they know they can walk all over you. It’s the first thing any woman learns when they finally, truly understand what it means to be in a healthy relationship. You know what? It applies just as much to international relations as it does romantic relations.
The capitulation of our freedoms will never get the “international community” to “like us more” or “respect us more”. It’ll merely give our enemies the tools they need to win the ideological world war we’re currently embroiled in between Islamic extremist dictators and the free world. When someone considers you an Infidel who is absolutely deserving of death, there’s absolutely no way to gain their respect, besides just kneeling and offering them your neck. But that’s hardly a form of respect I think we should be aiming for, do you?
You want to know the real reason why the people – the people – of the Middle East don’t respect America right now? This is a perfect example: we’re partnering with EGYPT to curtail freedom of speech. When you get in bed with dictators, the world doesn’t look at you the same way in the morning. And it’s not good.
The White House was caught with its hand in the proverbial cookie jar when a brave artist dared to record what was thought to be a private phone conference between devoted Obama followers who had been instrumental in securing Obama’s campaign for the presidency.
Patrick Courrielche, an artist, producer, and contributer to Breitbart’s Big Hollywood, received a series of emails in early August from the National Endowment for the Arts, inviting him to participating in a “brand new discussion” between the NEA, the White House, several political organizations, and several select artists, producers, writers, actors, poets, gallery owners, influential individuals, and “cool people”, to discuss how the art community can best come together in order to “push the President, his administration, and his agenda.”
Yes, you read that right. The White House has directed the National Endowment for the Arts to bring together a coalition of artists and culturally influential individuals in order to produce creative works that will help push the President’s agenda.
I believe the dictionary would define such state-initiated works as “propaganda”.
But it didn’t stop there. Indeed, during the conversation, both the officials from the NEA and the White House specifically requested that the artists focus on several of Obama’s key platform issues, including health care, energy, and the environment. And just in case there’s any question as to the ideology they hoped this artwork would reflect, they specifically mentioned Shepard Fairey’s iconic ‘Hope’ poster and will.i.am’s “Yes We Can” song as examples of what they were hoping the artists could achieve. Yeah, they weren’t exactly hoping for bipartisan messages of patriotism.
Thankfully, when Mr. Courrielche received these emails, something didn’t feel quite right about this whole prospect. So when he joined in on the phone conference, he had his iPhone ready to record the entire conversation. If it hadn’t been for his bravery, this likely would have remained buried.
But the funniest part is, despite having an absolute record of each email and a complete audio recording of the entire conversation, the lead official from the NEA in this project, Yosi Sergant, is actually daring to deny any involvement in the project. But he doesn’t stop there; indeed, he’s trying to deny the project’s very existence. That’s a bit of a stretch, considering the fact that Mr. Sergant’s voice is heard throughout the entire recording, with him going so far as to even voice caution to the participants about being careful with their language, as they’re still ironing out certain legalities. Meaning, they know full well what they’re doing is crossing not only ethical boundaries, but legal ones as well.
Good luck denying all that, Mr. Sergant. You’re gonna need it.
I don’t have much time, as I’m trying to publish three quick posts here before heading off to bed, so I don’t have the best links and resources available for you yet. So please bear with me. But I simply had to post information about this for those of you who may have missed all the hubbub about this today. When I told a friend about this, their first response was, “What? You’ve got to be kidding, this has to be some sort of YouTube hoax, right?” That convinced me I couldn’t wait to post this.
Anyway, the best place to start is probably Mr. Courrielche blog entry that started it all. It’s a bit long, and unfortunately he doesn’t have the audio posted with it, but it’s well worth a read. Click here to check it out.
As I said, unfortunately Mr. Courrielche hasn’t posted the recording on his blog yet, at least not as far as I’ve been able to find. I did manage to find a YouTube clip of an interview Mr. Courrielche gave to the Glenn Beck program. I know, I’m sorry I’m posting a link to Glenn Beck, I’m sure that will probably offend or upset some of my more moderate readers. Please, put aside your feelings about Mr. Beck, because Mr. Courrielche does a brilliant job of explaining the situation quite concisely. But most importantly, it features audio clips of the actual conversation.
I know there are more audio clips out there from the original recording, since I heard several on the news program where I first heard about this. Again, apologies for not having those ready, I’ve really got to get some sleep. I’ll do some more searching on this tomorrow and post more links as soon as I can.
I don’t know anything about that guy, but I’d say he did a pretty darn good job of summing up “political correctness”, the ‘Fairness Doctrine’, and pretty much all the other Leftist attempts to get their way, no matter what the people or their laws have to say about it. Not all individual leftists, mind you, but the movement as a whole and where it’s heading today? Definitely.
So do me a favor, won’t you? Don’t shut up.
I want to thank my good friend Joey for sending this interesting little tid-bit to me. I’m going to show you two different media articles and I want you to tell me if you detect any media bias whatsoever. You might have to look carefully, you might not recognize it right away, but please, take a look, evaluate this very thoughtfully, and tell me if any sort of hidden agenda jumps out at you, okay?
Exhibit A: CNN’s Political Ticker is a sort of twitter for CNN journalists. I present Bill Schneider’s Political Ticker entry from 8:19PM on March 24, 2009, the night of President Obama’s press conference. It was posted while Bill Schneider was attending the very press conference he’s referring to, so yes, he was in the same exact room. Click here to see Exhibit A.
Exhibit B: An article from Fox News. If you’re skeptical of Fox News, don’t worry, I’m not asking you trust what they wrote. Check it out, it’ll all make sense and you won’t have any doubts, I promise. Just see if what you see there jives with what Mr. Schneider had to say about his own experience at the press conference. Click here to see Exhibit B.
Did you catch the disparity? Click “More” for my conclusions, because I just don’t want to spoil the surprise if you haven’t already figured it out.
Obama White House Bars Press from Press Award Ceremony
by Andrew Malcolm
We are not making this up:
Barack Obama was elected commander in chief promising to run the most transparent presidential administration in American history.
This achievement and the overall promise of his historic administration caused the National Newspaper Publishers Assn. to name him “Newsmaker of the Year.”
The president is to receive the award from the federation of black community newspapers in a White House ceremony this afternoon.
The Obama White House has closed the press award ceremony to the press.
From the president’s official schedule:
“Later in the afternoon, the President and the First Lady will attend a reception with the National Newspaper Publisher Association in the State Dining Room, where they will be presented the Newsmaker of the Year award. This event is closed press.”
Maybe they’ll let the newspaper people pass the award through the fence.
