There’s nothing a tyrant hates worse than an apostate.<\/p>\n
When the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem – a radical fascist and anti-semite who hob-nobbed with Hitler and rooted for the Final Solution – first started agitating against Jewish immigration to “Palestine” before World War 2, he turned his goons loose on…<\/p>\n
…moderate Arabs. \u00a0Not the Jews. \u00a0Because like tinpot tyrants the world over, the Grand Mufti knew that while virtually none of his people were going to convert to Judaism, plenty would be perfectly happy to seek accomodation with them; radicalism had to be made safer than peace, to keep his base in line behind him.<\/p>\n
And tyrants, petty and otherwise, the world over have repeated the pattern; Lenin killed the Socialists and Mensheviks to consolidate his power before going after the Czarists. \u00a0Franco killed the moderates and accomodationists, as did his communist opponents.<\/p>\n
I’m not going to say that the DFL and its friends at the various PACs – Alliance for a Better Minnesota and so on – are in that league. \u00a0Perish the thought.<\/p>\n
Over the past week or two, the regional and, now, national left have been in high dudgeon over Target’s donation of $150,000 to MNForward, a political action committee that seeks to send gays to re-orientation camps in Colorado.<\/p>\n
{scrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatch}<\/p>\n
Wait. \u00a0That can’t be right. \u00a0Let me look…<\/p>\n
Whew. \u00a0OK, I had that wrong. \u00a0MNForward is a pro business <\/em>PAC.<\/p>\n But you’d never know it from the left’s response to Target’s donation of $150,000 to MNForward, a Political Action Committee whose entire focus is on business, and the notion that a DFL governor would be a disaster for Minnesota businesses already suffering from a lagging economy and among the highest corporate taxes in the nation.<\/p>\n Of course, Target is far from the only company giving money to MNForward. \u00a0Best Buy and Hubbard Broadcasting (both former employers of mine), Polaris, Davisco, Red Wing Shoes, Regis (whose founder, Myron Kunin, gave $5K to “Win Minnesota”, which is the money-laundering cutoff for “Alliance for a Better Minnesota”), Securian, Pentair, Federated Insurance, the Insurance Federation of Minnesota, and Cold Spring Granite have so far ponied up something around $900,000, which is a few bucks more than the Daytons and Alida Messinger have contributed all by themselves, and less than half than what they, their plutocrat cronies, and their union supporters have given to A4aBM and “Win Minnesota” alone<\/a>, so far <\/em>in this race (and sources tell me A4aBM will eventually spend ten million, mostly in Dayton and union money, this cycle). \u00a0That’s less than a quarter<\/a> of what Matt Entenza has spent so far, most of it attacking Emmer.<\/p>\n Of course, Hubbard Broadcasting is the #4 TV station in a four station market; they’re so desperate for ratings, they’ve begun experimenting with the radical notion of not appearing relentlessly left-of-center <\/em>– the experiment is only partial, and the jury is still out. \u00a0Polaris and RedWing pretty much serve blue-collar clienteles; you don’t find a lot of urban “progressives” on snowmobiles or wearing steel-t0ed work boots. \u00a0Most people have no idea food processor Davisco exists, but they’re rural and thus off the radar for the urban progressives. \u00a0And most people can get a vague idea from their titles what Securian, Federated, Cold Spring and IFM do – but none of them are linked with “progressive” ideas or, to most people, any ideas at all. \u00a0(I know what Pentair does, but the odds are pretty good you don’t…)<\/p>\n But Target, and to a lesser extent Best Buy? \u00a0In addition to immense charitable giving to a very eclectic array of community groups and schools (Target in Minnesota’s leading corporate charitable donor, and their money helps support dozens of public, charter and alternative schools), both led the way on “diversity” in the Twin Cities. \u00a0They are widely regarded as “progressive’ companies, and both have long put their money where their corporate mouths were when it came to acting <\/em>“progressive”. \u00a0Both actively worked to support GLBT employees; I knew not a few gay managers at Best Buy, and their orientation seemed not to harm their careers in the least; I’ve never worked for Target, but friends who have tell me it’s at the very least the same. \u00a0And that’s a good thing – <\/em>because both companies led the way in recognizing that a person’s orientation has nothing to do with his or her productivity, talent or merit.<\/p>\n So what happens when a “progressive” company donates to a candidate that dissents from the economic policies <\/em>of the party that has tried to seize the word “progressive?”<\/p>\n They’re seen as apostates – “traitors”. \u00a0And Big Progressive – that combination of Big DFL, Big Labor, Big Gay, Big Open Border, Big Academia and so forth – know that they must destroy apostates.<\/p>\n So A4aBM and its cronies in the “Human Rights Coalition” – a Big Gay group – have spent the past week painting Target, that most progressive of companies in that most progressive of places, Minneapolis – as “anti-gay”. \u00a0Because of a contribution to help Minnesota’s business <\/em>climate, supporting a candidate who Big Progressive wants – needs – to paint as “anti-gay”.<\/p>\n (Is Emmer “anti-gay”? \u00a0He’s been on record supporting traditional marriage amendments; he’s also said on the Northern Alliance that it’s really a side issue for the governor – as it in fact is. \u00a0Is supporting traditional marriage “hate”? \u00a0Is it “rabidly anti-gay”, as a gay co-worker of mind called it? \u00a0I think it devalues the term “hate”, but as PJ O’Rourke said, I’m not a liberal, so I’m not an expert at stuff I know nothing about…)<\/p>\n And so Target and Best Buy, the “apostate” “progressives”, must be destroyed, while the Polarises and the Hubbards and the Securians and Pentairs get left alone; no “progressive” is ever going to start doubting the mother faith because a snowmobile manufacturer or a rural food processor or a granite company supports Tom Emmer.<\/p>\n But “progressive” Target and Best Buy? \u00a0That’s <\/em>a threat.<\/p>\n And so the thoughtcrime must be punished.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There’s nothing a tyrant hates worse than an apostate. When the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem – a radical fascist and anti-semite who hob-nobbed with Hitler and rooted for the Final Solution – first started agitating against Jewish immigration to “Palestine” before World War 2, he turned his goons loose on… …moderate Arabs. \u00a0Not the Jews. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,2,18,51],"tags":[115],"class_list":["post-12396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-10","category-minnesota-politics","category-pc","category-liberal-tyranny","tag-abm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12396"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47770,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12396\/revisions\/47770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}