Dissecting condescending newspaper column re: Secure Arkansas/Tea Party

Unintended consequences?  No doubt…but we thank John Brummett for bringing attention to matters of extreme concern to savvy taxpaying loyal citizens.  Since we are the ones footing all the government bills we’d better educate ourselves on what they and their “partners” are doing and why…most done to our detriment.

Comments & clarification follow after you read Mr. Brummett’s screed.

Tea Party, reasonable and not

Posted on 16 March 2010

By John Brummett

CONWAY — I wrote a few weeks ago that people in the Tea Party movement are irrational extremists.

So the McClanahans of Conway — Lowell, a prominent Rotarian, and his wife, Marsha — invited me to the next meeting of the Faulkner County Tea Party to see that they aren’t so crazed.

This gathering took place Thursday night. I am here to tell you that, indeed, they are not irrational at all. The McClanahans, I mean.

But some of the 135 people in the audience and the evening’s guest speaker, a woman named Jeannie Burlsworth — well, let me be careful not to overstate with incendiary language: They trouble me in the way they let their imaginations run wild to fuel their distrust of anything having to do with government.

First the better news: Lowell McClanahan strikes me as a perfectly reasonable man.

He explained that he became alarmed at what he, as a thorough conservative, viewed as a leftward lurch of the Obama administration. He said he helped found this local Tea Party organization only to advance constitutionally limited government and fiscal responsibility, principles we all ought to endorse.

He said he is interested in strategic goals, not general cries to “take our country back.”

McClanahan stressed that the Tea Party, at least in Faulkner County, practices open attendance and free expression. That’s admirable. So, he said, I should not ascribe to all Tea Partiers everything that gets spouted either from the audience or by a guest speaker.

That brings me to Jeannie Burlsworth. (1)  She’s the chairman of Secure Arkansas, which has never quite gotten its act together to get its ballot initiative before the voters to deny public benefits to anyone 14 or older not properly documented for citizenship. (2)

She kept going off on tangents in her presentation (3) — about health care reform, or Barack Obama, or cap-and-trade, or lost sovereignty, or Patrick Henry Hays — only to say she didn’t have time to give everyone a full report on each.

Patrick Henry Hays?

I’ll come back to that in a minute.

If there is a central theme in Burlsworth’s scatter-shooting oratory, it would seem to be that American politicians at all levels and off all stripes, even Republicans in many cases, are conspiring to sell out our individual American liberties to sinister one-world control. (4)

Here’s an example from Burlsworth of how politicians allegedly work against the people: Attorney General Dustin McDaniel’s job includes assessing citizen proposals for ballot initiatives, such as those Burlsworth’s group puts forward, for fair phrasing and technical correctness. This means his office sometimes tells Burlsworth’s group to rewrite something before he’ll give it an all-clear for signature-gathering.

So, in Burlsworth’s view, this means that McDaniel was trained at the elitist Aspen Institute(5), to which he won a fellowship a few years ago, in how to keep the people down by resisting noble initiatives arising from their attempted exercise of liberty. (6)

This Aspen Institute is one of those self-important think tanks depleting foundation money, which has to go somewhere, on conferences and retreats and the gifted higher thinking amid rarefied air of a more sophisticated class.

I know Dustin McDaniel. He went to the Aspen Institute because it made him feel like a hot-shot and was a resume enhancer. (7)

Anyway, his office has been approving these initiatives by Secure Arkansas, after improving them to make them less vulnerable to legal challenge. The problem for Secure Arkansas has been that the group hasn’t had the wherewithal to collect the signatures.

Now to Patrick Henry Hays. He’s the veteran mayor of North Little Rock. But that, Burlsworth asserts, is the very least of it. (8)

There’s this thing called ICLEI, standing for International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives. It is a collection of municipal government officials from around the world who seek to advance ideas for sustainable economic growth deploying so-called green initiatives. (9)

Because he wanted to feel important by joining such a thing, and because he’s been around a long time, Hays has risen to the current board chairmanship of the American division.

Burlsworth sees this ICLEI as a vital cog in an international conspiracy to fabricate a global-warming scare through which politicians worldwide, led by Patrick Henry Hays of North Little Rock, Ark., will avail themselves of this coded phrase, sustainable growth, to take over our free and independent country. (10)

She said Gov. Mike Beebe must report to Hays periodically on how much he has done to deliver Arkansas to this global control.

I know Mike Beebe, too. And I know Patrick Henry Hays. Somehow I can’t picture Beebe reporting diddly to Hays.

But some of these people would think I’m naive, or in on the fix.(11)

——-
John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699.

Regarding the above Brummett article:

This kind of journalism is just what we have come to expect regarding anything  politically incorrect, e.g. the Constitution, rule of law, individual rights/responsibilities/freedoms, etc.

1.      Jeannie Burlsworth is a lady of considerable intelligence, oratory abilities and ethically impeccable.  

2.      Denial of benefits, not mandated by the federal government, to illegal aliens.

3.      Burlsworth is passionate about the reality of the many undermining attacks occurring in/on our republic. (There are so many, you cannot come close to covering them all in one limited speech.)

4.      Anyone not in denial or complicit knows there is no real difference in the two parties ultimate goals…power & control.

5.      Aspen Institute of Humanistic Studies is a global organization with offices around the world.  Environment, education, and health are major concerns for this "international non-profit organization dedicated to informed dialogue and inquiry on issues of global concern."  (Newspeak for global Collectivism)

6.      The AIHS targets “leaders” in the public & private sectors, unlike ACORN which targets the “disaffected”….both are organizers with specific goals, none of which is good for the American middleclass. A.G. Dustin McDaniel was not randomly chosen in order to make him feel like a “big shot”, he was selected because he was seen as a “player”.

7.      2009: McDaniel took a Middle East trip, including Egypt, with Aspen ($13,232) and attended their Seminar in Aspen, CO. ($2,224) The Institute did not subsidize these trips for the fun of it. Also, the trips were taken during the height of the Arkansas Legislative session—why was his presence not mandatory and what were citizens paying him to do?

Aspen Strategy Group Members (A selected few for those who are familiar with famous Neo-Cons & Progressives…a veritable “Who’s Who” of anti-American Globalists.)

·        Joesph S. Nye, Jr. - (Group Chairmen)

·        Brent Scowcroft - (Group Chairmen)

·        Madeleine Albright

·        Richard Armitage

·        Zoe Baird

·        Eliot A. Cohen

·         Susan Collins

·         Richard Danzig

·         John M. Deutch

·        Dianne Feinstein

·        Michele A. Flournoy

·        Richard Haass

·        Chuck Hagel

·        Jane Harman

·        Robert Kagan

·        Nicholas D. Kristof

·        Richard G. Lugar

·        Sam Nunn

·        Mitchell Reiss

·        David Sanger

·        Anne-Marie Slaughter

·        James B. Steinberg

·        Marin Strmecki

·        Strobe Talbott

·        Michael Eisner

·        Mortimer Zuckerman

·        Mickey Edwards

8.      The same is true of ICLEI…a global organization dedicated to the destruction of individual, state, and country sovereignty.  Their mission statement=” Local Governments for Sustainability is an international association of local governments as well as national and regional local government organizations that have made a commitment to sustainable development”.  Translation=Government control of every facet of your life.  Extremely interesting that the North Little Rock mayor is the president/CEO of the entire USA division and he didn’t rise to such an important global position by wanting to “feel important”.  He was selected because he was seen as one who would work to move their agenda effectively.

9.      “Over 1107 cities, towns, counties, and their associations worldwide comprise ICLEI's growing membership. ICLEI works with these and hundreds of other local governments through international performance-based, results-oriented campaigns and programs.” (ICLEI website)

10.   “Our campaigns, programs, and projects promote Local Agenda 21 as a participatory, long-term, strategic planning process that addresses local sustainability while protecting global common goods. Linking local action to internationally agreed upon goals and targets such as Agenda 21, the Rio Conventions, the Habitat Agenda, the Millennium Development Goals and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation is an essential component.” (ICLEI website)

11.   Brummett could be either naïve or complicit…or both.  Hard to tell.  The point is that asking bold, direct questions can now make a citizen a target of some ugly repercussions, making it uncomfortable, even unsavory to question boldly, which of course is the goal.

Those who are familiar with Brummett’s columns understand that he is a Progressive, constantly & consistently advancing the Collectivist agenda, but in this particular piece he may have angered his mentors by commenting on their activities…including Governor Beebe.  In any case we are glad to see these activities discussed in a newspaper and brought to the attention of the public.