Hennessy’s View

To no one’s surprise, leftist idiots and hate-mongers like David Frum, Keith Olbermann, and the staff of CNN point their crooked, hostile fingers toward Andrew Breitbart as the cause of Shirley Sherrod’s pain. That’s like blaming Ron Howard for the problems on board Apollo 13. 

What Breitbart and Big Government did regarding Ms. Sherrod was identical to what every television news program does every day of the week. They produced a news story based on information reasonably available to them. 

Unlike the paid liars and libelists at MediaMatters, ThinkProgress, and MSNBC, Breitbart’s journalistic integrity was close to perfect in the Sherrod story. 

• Facts were correct
• Persons were properly identified
• Video and words were propoerty attributed

Further, the tale of redemption part of the speech was absent from the video Breitbart received.  We all wish he’d received the whole video. But he didn’t. He honestly believed he had the whole story, and he ran with it. 

The accusations against Breitbart, including those leveled by Shirley Sherrod herself, are shameful and unsubstantiated. They reveal the despair of a dying ideology, not the considered judgment of reasonable men and women.

Andrew Breitbart accurately demonstrated with that video the NAACP’s overt racism. That’s why Olbermann and Frum are angry: Andrew let us in on the truth.

But Shirley Sherrod was wronged.  She was wronged by Barack Obama, the hyper-racial President who has worked overtime to create racial hostilities. She was wronged by Ben Jealous and the participants of the NAACP’s recent convention whose malicious and bigoted lies about Tea Party attendees demanded Breitbart’s (and others) search for truth.  She was wronged by the White House staff’s paranoid fear of the power of Glenn Beck and Fox News.

Mostly, though Shirley Sherrod was wronged by a lifetime of miseducation. Her entire worldview was formed from a pack of lies—lies that all of hear every day, but only some of us are lucky enough to see for what they are.

The public schools, the racist faculties of most American universities, the press, the destructive parasites of the Civil Rights Industry conspire to convince good people like Ms. Sherrod that they are incapable of making it on their own. Over her lifetime, Ms. Sherrod has been pummeled with lies that resulted in a contempt for whites from which she’s happily extracted herself. But she has not overcome the false teachings that others owe her happiness and money.

Let’s pray that Ms. Sherrod will have an epiphany that frees her from hatred of achievement just as she’s been liberated from her former contempt for white people.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Technorati Tags: Andrew Breitbart, Shirley Sherrod

When the NAACP’s Ben Jealous fired a reckless volley at the Tea Party, he missed his marked and struck an innocent woman.

One week ago tonight, the news cycle was alive with the excitement of a heavyweight fight.  The NAACP’s Ben Jealous needed to raise money and restore a sagging membership. He decided to pick a fight with the Tea Party. 

On Monday, the NAACP leaked a resolution to the Kansas City Star that stated:

The resolution . . . calls upon “all people of good will to repudiate the racism of the Tea Parties, and to stand in opposition to its drive to push our country back to the pre-civil rights era. [emphasis added]”

By painting as ‘racist’ the 20 million people who have attended a Tea Party event, the NAACP forced the hand of Tea Party organizers. That response came from the St. Louis Tea Party with a resolution condeming the NAACP for lowering itself into the gutter.

The fight continued into the Sunday talk shows.  The NAACP backtracked, softened its resolution, and softened its rhetoric in the wake of criticism.  At times, Ben Jealous even tried to claim he’d never said what he’d said.

Then on Monday, video emerged of a USDA bureaucrat, Shirley Sherrod, addressing an NAACP meeting. In the video, Sherrod talked about withholding information and assistance from farmer because the farmer was white. The audience approved.  The woman was forced to resign under pressure from the White House. The NAACP denounced Sherrod’s blatant racism.

But that was only half the story.

If anyone had bothered to watch the whole tape (over 40 minutes long), they’d have learned Sherrod’s story was a story of redemption.

Shirley ended up going above and beyond to help the farmer save his farm.  She got over his whiteness and helped his humanity. Though she tells her story in subtle tones, it is a rich story of transformation.

Starting fights is easy.  I’ve done it myself. But the consequences are often far worse than intended. The suffering rarely limits itself to the combatants. There’s always collateral damage. 

Perhaps the best thing to come from Ben Jealous’s recklessness was  not a discussion of race, which I believe we have too many of. The lesson here is: be very careful before throwing the first stone, because you have no idea who it will strike.

I said nasty things about Shirley Sherrod yesterday online. I hope no one read them, but I know that’s a false hope. I am sorry.  I should have waited for all of the facts, but I did not.  Shame on me.

Take an hour and listen.  You may not agree with everything Shirley says. That’s okay. But I don’t think you’ll be able to avoid the conclusion that is a good woman trying to do the Lord’s work the best she can with the life she’s given. That’s about as American as you get.

UPDATE:  Or maybe not. Dan Riehl thinks I’m being a softy. Is she a Marxist and an unrepentant racist? I’ve been too willing to see the best in people before.

Dana Loesch has more. She points out that Sherrod calls out the NAACP for starting a fight where none was needed. But also points out that the “post-racial” Obama has intentionally fomented racial mistrust that has fostered this nasty environment. 

Darin Morley: “Fifty years ago we were segregated by law. Today, we’re segregated by our own choices.”

Popularity: 8% [?]

Technorati Tags: NAACP, racism, redemption, Shirley Sherrod

For the past seventeen months, Alex Rife has covered the conservative movement with the highest quality video available. His work even got me on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

For Alex to continue his video apostolate, he needs our help.

I just joined his network for $5 a month.  I hope you will, too.  Today.

Alex has invested thousands of dollars and thousands of hours of his time in our mission. He has travelled to Washington, DC, and to every corner of Missouri and Illinois to make sure we leave the world a detailed record of our amazing movement.

But I just learned that Alex relies on us, the people, to continue his operation.  That’s why I signed up for $5 a month as soon as I got home from the Prop C Lit Drop in South St. Louis today.

For just a monthly donation of $1, $5, or $10—or a one-time donation—you can help Alex continue his noble work.

Please do it now. Click this link to donate or subscribe. It will  take less than a minute to subscribe to ConservativeTVOnline.com.  You will feel better about yourself for having helped. Please do this right now, because if you don’t do it now, you never will.

Please comment below after you’ve joined. Let’s build some momentum for Alex and his family.

Thank you. I’ll leave you with Alex’s video from the 2nd Amendment in Washington earlier this year.

Thanks again.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Technorati Tags: Alex Rife, Conservative TV Online

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Major General Stephen Layfield, the reviewing officer at the Navy’s June 11 Boot Camp Graduation, introduced my son, AT Jack Hennessy, and 848 of Jack’s fellow sailors to America’s enemies. He mocked at our enemies’ plots to destroy America, pointing out that before him stood “eight hundred and forty-nine reasons why you’ll never succeed.”

The crowd of about 4,000 roared. The sailors, in ranks, could not even clap. But I’m sure they smiled.

Graduations are held in a huge field house at Great Lakes because of the unpredictable weather.  My son, Patrick, and I sat in the in balcony of the auditorium.  Below us was a sea of white Navy jumpers and a fine example of America’s future.

General Layfield’s words explained the phenomenon I’d noticed earlier in the ceremony.  When 849 voice speak in unison, they make even the amplified voice of a lone baritone sound thin and pale. 

My son is now a full-fledged sailor.  He’s in Pensacola for Aviation Technician Class A School.  From there, he’ll come home on leave before continuing with Class C School, then onto an air squadron.

Our enemies have 849 new reasons to hide in caves. And I have one more reason to be annoyingly proud of my son Jack.

Thanks to everyone who’s written and called to found out Jack’s doing.  He appreciates your thoughts and prayers.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Technorati Tags: boot camp, Graduation, Jack Hennessy, Navy

ST. LOUIS TEA PARTY HOSTS A PARTY

Register Here

AT SKY MUSIC LOUNGE IN BALLWIN

Folks, we decided that we can’t be all serious all the time! We need to have some fun, too! Sky Music Lounge in Ballwin is a fabulous place to share some adult beverages and have a good time.

Register Now

Come join Dana Loesch of 97.1 FM, Jim Hoft, our very own GatewayPundit, Bill Hennessy of the St. Louis Tea Party, Jim Durbin of 24thState, John Burns, and a large throng of Block Captains and patriots!

DON’T BE SHY! BRING 3 FRIENDS!

Come and join us this Thursday, June 17th, from 6-11 p.m. at Sky Music Lounge in Ballwin (930 Kehrs Mill Road, Ballwin, MO.63011)

http://www.skymusiclounge.com

We’re suggesting a $5 donation as your cover at the door, but if you feel generous, thanks!

Donations go to St. Louis Tea Party’s Block Captain/Liberty Evangelist Program (we’re handing out thousands of constitutions door-to-door around St. Louis and training patriots to get politically active)

Register now

Please register so we can see how many people are going to come out and join us.

PS: Sky Music Lounge is definitely one of the best and most enjoyable music, bar and grill locations in the entire St. Louis Region. You really won’t want to miss out. Check out their website:

http://www.skymusiclounge.com

Popularity: 5% [?]

Technorati Tags: social hour

This fantastic quote comes from Nasim Taleb (author of The Black Swan) via Timothy Ferriss (author of The Four-Hour Work WeekI).

Robustness is when you care more about the few who like your work than the multitude who hates it (artists); fragility is when you care more about the few who hate your work than the multitude who loves it (politicians).

Dazzling, really.  Imagine what we could accomplish by ignoring the haters.

How do we channel the artist’s robustness and flush the politician’s fragility?

Ignore the Critics.  Few brands are hurt by things others say about them as they are by the things they say about themselves. I have never really been hurt (feelings aside) by what others have said about. But boy would I like to take back some of the things I’ve written, said, or done in reaction.

Listen Less.  I unsubscribed to my Google Alerts for my name, my blogs, and my books. I blocked Twitter accounts that regularly criticize me. I pay almost no attention to facebook.  The only time I hear the bad things people say are when someone else brings it to my attention, or on the very rare occasion that hater has the courage to say it to my face.  By blocking out the senseless negativity, I am a much happier, more productive man.

Keep Moving. The enemy will inflict the most damage when you’re pinned down, because a stationary target is the easiest to hit.  So keep moving.  “Damn the torpedoes, Smedley; full steam ahead.”  The universe hates it when people successfully resist entropy by creating something wonderful or doing something meaningful.  That’s where the criticism comes from.  Keep moving and the universe (and your critics) will spend their ammo shooting where you’ve been.  Let them.

Pray for the Haters.  They’re miserable. The people who ridicule and attack you are unhappy. They deserve your prayers.  “Bless them, Father, for they know not what they do,” is simple enough.  I like to add, “Same goes for me.”

Try these tricks if you find yourself the target of verbal attacks.  They’ll help you focus on your fans and ignore your critics.  It’s liberating.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Technorati Tags: critics, haters, Liberation, nasim taleb, timothy ferriss

A friend of mine explained an interesting theory to me the other day.

“The natural tendency of the universe is to level everything,” he said. “This entropic force leads us to just ‘go with the flow.’  But what makes us human—what built civilization and made man noble—was when we finally resisted entropy.  When we built a levy to keep our village from flooding, or when we learned to lure and trap, then farm, animals instead of tracking them.  Those were acts of resistance.”

Fascinating.  And it rings true. And everything worth doing meets up against resistance.  The universe likes disorder, and man’s attempts to stand athwart entropy, yelling “STOP!” just piss it off.

But we do it anyway.

And in standing up to the universe, we take a great risk.

Another way to describe this act of resistance is raising standards.  If you’re a Tony Robbins aficionado, that might sound family.  In Awaken the Giant Within , Robbins admonishes us to raise our standards about everything. 

That’s great, but it’s very difficult to successfully adopt more than one change at a time.  So let’s put a little minimalism on this concept. 

The next time you’re faced with any problem, raise your standards. 

The tendency—the way the entropic universe wants you to handle id—is to lower your standards.  Got a lot of student loans?  Take a job the government wants you to take in exchange for loan forgiveness. See a law you don’t like? Complain to yourself.  Don’t like your Congressman?  Deal with it. Someone flips you off?  Flip back and yell.

Those are all examples of lowered standards.  How could you raise your standards for each of these to force a different outcome? 

How about getting a second job to pay off the student loan early?  How about starting a foundation dedicated raising awareness about that law’s consequences? How about supporting a worth candidate?   How about smiling and saying a prayer for the bird flipper?

Do I follow my own advice?  No.  Not all of the time.  I try, but I forget. I’m not as diligent as I should be about raising standards and many other things.

One of the reasons I’m stating this publicly, though, is to put more pressure on myself to raise my standards.  By posting it here for friends and enemies to see, I will have to be more conscious of the need to lift my own standards whenever I’m faced with a problem.

That means every problem, from my emotions to my lawn care. 

Here are three simple questions that help find the higher standard?

1. What do I believe that allowed this situation to develop?
2. What would I have to do to make this situation the way I want it to be?
3. What am I willing to stop doing in order to make it the way I want it?

The answers to these questions will show you the path out of any problem and into a high standard for yourself.  It’s worked every time I’ve tried it, anyway.  I just don’t try it often enough.

I would love to hear about your methods for raising your own standards in the comments below.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Technorati Tags: entropy, higher standards, problems

Seth Godin is one of my favorite writers, thinkers, marketers, and presenters. Everything he writes is worth your time reading. Two of his books stand out for me.  One is Tribes, because Tribes describes the whole Tea Party experience perfectly. And he wrote it a year before the Tea Party things started.

Right now, though, my other favorite Godin book serves as a question and a guide for the Tea Party movement.  The Dip is about that period between initial success and final victory.  The sub-title: a little book that tells you when to quit (and when to stick). 

And that’s what I want to write about today.

I won’t bore you with a recap of what happened in the last year.  No one cares.  Some might, but they’re not the ones who count. The ones who care about reliving past glory have already decided not to seize more.  Those people have already quit.

Instead, I’ll talk about what I see right now and the decisions we have to make. Not as a group, but as individual human beings.

Are we in this to win, or not?

November seems a long way off. It’s only the very start of summer.  Kids just finished school. Summer vacations are still in the future. The NBA and NHL haven’t even finished their seasons yet. 

And a lot of people are exhausted.  Our houses need work—all the work we didn’t do last year or over the winter or this spring.   We’re tire of the commitments, of the arguments with spouses, of missing kids’ graduations and ball games, of turning down job opportunities.

In moments of quiet reflection, we just wish it was all over. We wish November would get here.  Or maybe we wish we could just walk away.

Have you drafted that tweet or blog post or facebook note that tells the world, “it’s been real, but I’m going back to my plow?”  Have you?

I have.  I’ve written that post many times. I’ve even sent an advance warning to close friends, and they haven’t always tried to talk me out of it. 

But I haven’t quit yet.  Neither have you. 

This is the Dip.

Different people will hit the Dip at different times, but everyone who’s committed to victory will go through one. Or seven.  Every major league champion, everyone whose name is engraved on Lord Stanley’s Cup has been through the Dip. Every accomplishment worth talking about followed a Dip.

The Dip is purgatory for champions.  James O’Keefe went through the Dip in New Orleans.  He didn’t quit.  He came out on top. One day he’s announcing the end of his court ordeal, the next day he’s revealing a sting on the Census Bureau.

The Dip is resistance, according to writer Steven Pressfield.  If you quit now, no one can criticize you. You won’t be embarrassed.  Hell, after the past fifteen months, walking away from grassroots stuff will give you more time than you’ve ever imagined.  You can fix up your house, take a long vacation, read that stack of books that you’ve assembled but haven’t cracked.  You’ll be able to learn a new language and grow your own organic vegetables.  Maybe you’ll take up knitting or quilting to scrap-booking.

No one—least of all me—would blame you.  You’ve done more than most for your country and for my children.  Thank you.  As Seth writes:

Winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt-until they commit to beating the right Dip for the right reasons. In fact, winners seek out the Dip. They realize that the bigger the barrier, the bigger the reward for getting past it. If you can become number one in your niche, you’ll get more than your fair share of profits, glory, and long-term security.

If you think we can win this thing—if you think the American Ideal is still in our blood—then you might, one day, blame yourself if you quit now. 

The finish line isn’t close.  I’m not gonna lie to you.  The finish line is far away. Between here and there lies the roughest, most dangerous terrain we’ve crossed yet. There are mines and dangerous snakes and wild beasts.  The enemy will try to destroy us, and it will succeed in destroying a few. Others will jump out at the Dip, unable or unwilling to carry on. The barrier on this one is very, very high.

But there’s strength in numbers, and there’s power in faith. We have both.

The hard work is before us now, and the glory of  media attention and meeting famous politicians is long gone.  Now it’s for the win, for God and country, for ourselves and our posterity.  

Congratulations: you’ve made it to the Dip.  On to victory.

P.S. Another great book (which Seth Godin loves, too) is Steven Pressfield’s:  The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles

Popularity: 18% [?]

Technorati Tags: Seth Godin, The Dip

A new poll shows American’s are stressed out.  Almost half of Americans say they’re under moderate to severe financial stress.

I feel it, too.  Financially, emotionally, and chronologically. 

While my book Zen Conservatism won’t fix all your problems, it will help you deal with what’s going on in America a little better. 

From now until Father’s Day, I’m giving you $4.95 off the cover price, so you can get the book for just $10 plus shipping.  You’ll have to enter the Discount Coude 38VBA6QR to receive this special discount for visitors to Hennessy’s View.  This discount is not available through Amazon or in any bookstore.

Click here to order Zen Conservatism and enter discount code 38VBA6QR to save $4.95 today.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Technorati Tags: father's day, stressed out, Zen Conservatism