If you have not yet read Theodore Dalrymple’s Our Culture, What’s Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses, do so soon. There is a chapter in the book titled “Barbarians at the Gate” which chronicles (and predicted as it turns out) the lawlessness we see in France today. This book is a must read. My review of it can be found on Townhall.com.

Wall Street Opinion Journal JOEL KOTKIN Tuesday, November 8, 2005

France’s rigid economic system sustains privilege and inspires resentment.

The French political response to the continuing riots has focused most on the need for more multicultural “understanding” of, and public spending on, the disenchanted mass in the country’s grim banlieues (suburbs). What has been largely ignored has been the role of France’s economic system in contributing to the current crisis. State-directed capitalism may seem ideal for American admirers such as Jeremy Rifkin, author of “The European Dream,” and others on the left. Yet it is precisely this highly structured and increasingly infracted economic system that has so limited opportunities for immigrants and their children. In a country where short workweeks and early retirement are sacred, there is little emphasis on creating new jobs and even less on grass-roots entrepreneurial activity.
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TownHall.com Kathleen Parker November 6, 2005

Parents increasingly at war against a culture they find aggressively sexualized just lost another battle. This time against the local school board.

In a recent ruling, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (that be the Left Coast) determined that parents do not have a fundamental right to control when, where and how their children are taught about sex.

Rather the state — in its far greater wisdom about what’s right and wrong — has ultimate power over your kids.

• Filmmaker Michael Moore insists that corporations are evil and claims he doesn’t invest in the stock market due to moral principle. But Moore’s IRS forms, viewed by Schweizer, show that over the past five years he has owned shares in such corporate giants as Halliburton, Merck, Pfizer, Sunoco, Tenet Healthcare, Ford, General Electric and McDonald’s.
• Staunch union supporter Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) has received the Cesar Chavez Award from the United Farmworkers Union. But the $25 million Northern California vineyard she and her husband own is a non-union shop.

  The hypocrisy doesn’t end there. Pelosi has received more money from the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union than any other member of Congress in recent election cycles.

  But the Pelosis own a large stake in an exclusive hotel in Rutherford, Calif. It has more than 250 employees. But none of them are in a union, according to Schweizer, author of “The Bushes: Portrait of a Dynasty” and a regular contributor to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other periodicals.

  The Pelosis are also partners in a restaurant chain called Piatti, which has 900 employees. The chain is – that’s right, a non-union shop.

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World Net Daily Dennis Prager

One of the more appealing aspects about being on the Left is that you do not necessarily have to engage your opponents in debates over the truth or falsehood of their positions. You can simply dismiss your opponent as “anti.”

Anti-worker: It all began with Marxism. If you opposed communism or socialism, you were not merely anti-communist or anti-socialist, you were anti-worker. This way of dismissing opponents of leftist ideas is now the norm. Anyone, including a Democrat, who raises objections to union control of state and local politics is labeled anti-worker: “anti-teacher,” “anti-firefighter,” “anti-nurse,” etc. This is how the unions are fighting California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s attempts to rein in unauthorized union spending of members’ dues to advance leftist political goals. He is depicted as an enemy of all these groups.
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