Twas the Night Before Cliffmas --- Also Save-America--Give-a-Book-and-a-Cube-to-a-Boob-for-Christmas-2012 -- i.e., Give the Book, Shakedown Socialism, and The Peoples Cube to a Liberal or Non-Political Friend for Christmas.

Twas the night before Cliffmas, when all through the land The Top-Two-Percenters were wringing their hands Awaiting ObamaClaus taking taking their shares For redistribution to equalize shares. The Children of Julias lay snug in their beds While hopes of ObamaStuff danced in their heads. And Julias and Julians in quilts, warmly wrapped Had just settled down for a long winter's nap. When somewhere nearby there arose such a clatter, They sprang from their beds to see what was the matter, and straight to their windows they eagerly dashed in hopes 'twas ObamaClaus bringing his stash. The moon on the breasts of the street-walking ho's Gave lust, which in minds of the Julians arose. What else to their wandering eyes did appear? A red-suited man in a Limo appeared.

Twas pulled by eight donkeys so stubborn and slow they knew twas ObamaClaus promising dough. 'cross Broad Street to Wall Street while baying they came,
spurred-on by Obama Claus calling their names: "On, Reid, on, Pelosi, on Fannie and Fred," "On, Biden, on Holder, on Geitner," he said. "On, Durbin, once more to the street known as Wall,
or join other asses I keep in the stall." As Globalized Warming makes hurricanes fly Their carbonless fooprints they left in the sky As bounding they did over Wall Street they flew the Limo so full and Obama Claus too. And then, in a twinkling, they saw and approved the prancing and pawing once deemed so uncouth. On stopping, Obama Claus then turned around and out of the Limo he hopped with a bound.

Attired all in red from his head to his foot with hammer and sickle he then undertook to break into homes of the Two-Percent hacks to then redistribute their stuff to his pack. His eyes how they twinkled! His smile was so merry! So cheeky his visage, so quickly he hurried. His hair changed by stress from the buying of votes from vibrantly dark to the whiteness of snow. The butt of a smoke he held tight in his teeth with smoke he'd exhaled 'round his head like a wreath. A broad smile he showed, but the fire in his belly and tones of his chuckles revealed what he relished. Not chubby or plump and thus pleased with himself, To work he proceeded with help from his elves. A wink of his eye and a twist of his head Told Julias and Julians they'd nothing to dread. He spoke the word "fair" in describing his work as redistribution of Two-Percent's worth.

Then giving a nod, to his Limo he strode and showed Two-Percenters his mid-finger pose. He rolled-down his window and uttered this riddle: "Instead of you-name-it, I've sold you the sizzle." They heard him exclaim as he flew out of sight, "My redistribution makes everything right." The Julias and Julians then fell back asleep Content stuff from Two-Percent folks they would keep. But soon after Cliffmas, while reading his script, Obama Claus said, "We've gone over the cliff." He added, however, "The fault ain't on me but rather the blame goes on Bush 43 and top-two percenters afflicted with greed," And Julias and Julians did quickly agree.

But soon after that, they experienced chills when they couldn't pay electricity bills at skyrocket prices Obama foretold when EPA Rules ended power from coal. They then asked Obama, "Just when, please advise, will gov'ment relief from this coldness arrive?" "From solar solutions," Obama replied, Wear blankets with hoodies 'til Summer arrives."

The Night Before Cliffmas

Twas the night before Cliffmas, when all through the land

The Top-Two-Percenters were wringing their hands

Awaiting ObamaClaus taking taking their shares

For redistribution to equalize shares.

The Children of Julias lay snug in their beds

While hopes of ObamaStuff danced in their heads.

And Julias and Julians in quilts, warmly wrapped

Had just settled down for a long winter's nap.

When somewhere nearby there arose such a clatter,

They sprang from their beds to see what was the matter,

and straight to their windows they eagerly dashed

in hopes 'twas ObamaClaus bringing his stash.

The moon on the breasts of the street-walking ho's

Gave lust, which in minds of the Julians arose.

What else to their wandering eyes did appear?

A red-suited man in a Limo appeared.

Twas pulled by eight donkeys so stubborn and slow

they knew twas ObamaClaus promising dough.

'cross Broad Street to Wall Street while baying they came,

spurred-on by Obama Claus calling their names:

"On, Reid, on, Pelosi, on Fannie and Fred,"

"On, Biden, on Holder, on Geitner," he said.

"On, Durbin, once more to the street known as Wall,

or join other asses I keep in the stall."

As Globalized Warming makes hurricanes fly

Their carbonless fooprints they left in the sky

As bounding they did over Wall Street they flew

the Limo so full and Obama Claus too.

And then, in a twinkling, they saw and approved

the prancing and pawing once deemed so uncouth.

On stopping, Obama Claus then turned around

and out of the Limo he hopped with a bound.

Attired all in red from his head to his foot

with hammer and sickle he then undertook

to break into homes of the Two-Percent hacks

to then redistribute their stuff to his pack.

His eyes how they twinkled! His smile was so merry!

So cheeky his visage, so quickly he hurried.

His hair changed by stress from the buying of votes

from vibrantly dark to the whiteness of snow.

The butt of a smoke he held tight in his teeth

with smoke he'd exhaled 'round his head like a wreath.

A broad smile he showed, but the fire in his belly

and tones of his chuckles revealed what he relished.

Not chubby or plump and thus pleased with himself,

To work he proceeded with help from his elves.

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Told Julias and Julians they'd nothing to dread.

He spoke the word "fair" in describing his work

as redistribution of Two-Percent's worth.

Then giving a nod, to his Limo he strode
and showed Two-Percenters his mid-finger pose.

He rolled-down his window and uttered this riddle:

"Instead of you-name-it, I've sold you the sizzle."

They heard him exclaim as he flew out of sight,

"My redistribution makes everything right."

The Julias and Julians then fell back asleep

Content stuff from Two-Percent folks they would keep.
But soon after Cliffmas, while reading his script,

Obama Claus said, "We've gone over the cliff."

He added, however, "The fault ain't on me

but rather the blame goes on Bush 43

and top-two percenters afflicted with greed,"

And Julias and Julians did quickly agree.

But soon after that, they experienced chills

when they couldn't pay electricity bills

at skyrocket prices Obama foretold

when EPA Rules ended power from coal.

They then asked Obama, "Just when, please advise,

will gov'ment relief from this coldness arrive?"

"From solar solutions," Obama replied,

Wear blankets with hoodies 'til Summer arrives."

Help save America: Give a book and a cube to a boob for Christmas in 2012-- i.e., give the book, Shakedown Socialism, and The Peoples Cube to a liberal or non-political friend for Christmas in 2012. How so? For the answer to "how so," scroll down past the artwork immediately below.

Before Andrew Breitbart's death, he popularized the insight expressed by Bill Frist's policy advisor, Bill Wichterman, that "Politics is downstream from culture" and devoted vast amounts of energy and effort to enable advocates of limited government to understand the implications of such insight. The gist of the insight is that advocates of limited government cannot hope to expand the scope of their influence outside the "limited government 'choir'" without first expanding their presence and influence in popular culture in order to reach the minds of the huge swath not only of habitual voters but also infrequent voters and also those with no history of habit of voting because the overwhelming majority of such people are not political junkies. Instead, they pay scant attention to the news and have quite limited knowledge of history, economics and politics. As a consequence, whatever they glean from popular culture is what shapes whatever political conclusions they reach and whether, or how, they're likely to vote.

Assuming this to be correct, which I believe it to be, it ought to be self-evident to those of us in the "limited-government 'choir'" that we must learn to exert our influence in popular culture and by other lawful and moral means to seek to capture the attention of the ill-informed among us in order to impart knowledge to them. Beck (with whom I don't agree on a number of things) quite brilliantly recognized this in creating one of his slogans: "The Fusion of Entertainment and Enlightenment," and in doing so, he hit the nail on the head. Thus, among the tactics we must employ to first catch the attention of the uninformed in order to inform them is the tactic of provoking their curiosity or attracting attention by our cleverness. Oleg Atbashian commenced a tour de force exposition of such cleverness coupled with enlightenment by his creation of ThePeoplesCube.Com website and by is authoring a short, easy-to-read book (Shakedown Socialism) providing his first-hand knowledge (gained from his having been born and raised in what was then the Soviet Republic of Ukraine) of the arrogance, corruption and hypocrisy inherent in a collectivistic or socialistic form of government. Thus, to help save America, what each of us in the "limited-government 'choir'" ought to do is to give a copy of his book and his Cube to each of our friends, relatives, acquaintances who does not yet understand the limited-government principles we understand. By doing this, each of us has the potential to influence people outside our "choir" to learn information which, once learned, would likely make then want to join our "choir."

To help illustrate what I'm recommending, I created the artwork inserted at the top of this article, which I hope readers will find useful for the purposes I've described above:

Shakedown Socialism-- A Entertainingly Informative Book that can Help Save America-- If You Give Copies to Non-Leftist Friends.·

Oleg Atbashian ("Red Square" at ThePeoplesCube.Com) has written a short, easily-read, and fascinating book, Shakedown Socialism, that can help save America from her accelerating slide down the slippery slope of illusory equality leading only to the bottomless pit of Leftism (i.e., socialistic, collectivistic progressivism). How could this book do that?

The recent plethora of excellent, new books advocating restoration of limited government disciplined by constitutional guarantees of individual rights of life, liberty and property have, no doubt, strengthened the resolve and confidence of Americans already in liberty's "choir," But outside liberty's choir, such books generally have not gained readership-- i.e., among Americans considering themselves "liberal," "moderate," "independent," "non-political" or simply uninterested in politics.

How could Shakedown Socialism do what such excellent books have failed to do-- i.e., reach minds outside liberty's choir? To understand how this book could (and likely would) do so requires understanding why so many excellent books extolling the superiority of liberty over Leftism have failed to do so: It's because authors of most such books design them to appeal primarily to political junkies in general and to those in liberty's choir in particular. Thus, such books are unlikely to attract the attention of, and hence unlikely to change, minds outside liberty's choir.

Making this challenge much more daunting is the fact that for decades, the Left has successfully peddled Leftism subliminally through entertainment that appeals to minds outside liberty's choir, while our side has limited itself to "preaching" to liberty's "choir." Thus, it's time for our side to abandon such unilateral disarmament on the battleground of ideas.

How could, and would, Shakedown Socialism reach and change minds outside the choir? There are two essential steps: the first is for us to take action to make it available to those who would not seek it out (i.e., we must enable the book to seek them since we know they won't seek-out the book); the second, which the book is designed to do on its own, is to interest such people in reading it.

To motivate people already in liberty's choir to perform step one, it's best to first explain how the book itself accomplishes step two: Once made available to a person outside liberty's choir, the book is likely to spark interest in perusing it, and such perusal is likely to seduce the peruser into reading it. Reading it is likely to make the reader more amenable to viewing a system exalting liberty as being superior to one exalting collectivism.

What are the things about this book that would spark interest in perusing it? First, it's short (125 pages). Second, the front cover designed by its author features an intriguing optical illusion conveyed in clever art-work. Virtually everyone finds optical illusions interesting. Most people noticing that a book features artwork cleverly creating an optical illusion to convey its theme are likely to at least peruse it to view additional artwork and illusions. They're also likely to infer that the author is particularly clever and that the ideas and insights of such author would likely be interesting if not fascinating. Perusal of Shakedown Socialism would reveal that it contains clever, illustrative artwork about artistic, political and historical illusions. Virtually anyone who begins reading it in the process of perusing it would quickly realize that it's written in easily-understandable language conveying common-sense insights about human nature, politics and economics rendered authoritative by the manner in which the author weaves into the material his biographical, first-hand experiences first under a system exalting statist collectivism over individual liberty and then under a system created to exalt liberty over statism.

This will be especially true of young people whom our education system has failed miserably for the last several decades. It will help them understand (in a common-sense way) how Leftists use intellectual illusions to do to the minds of non-political people the same thing that optical illusions do to the eyes in order to trick the mind. The book invokes the readers' own common sense to spark their realization that Leftism's promises of "equality" are intrinsically illusory. It enables them to understand the Orwellian intent behind the Left's spouting of noble concepts such as "equality," "justice," "fairness," "economic justice," etc.

By enabling readers to understand that leftism is the intellectual equivalent of optical illusions and to learn from Oleg's first-hand accounts how people being ruled under such a system ultimately come to recognize its oppressive and illusory nature, Shakedown Socialism can, and will, reach (and change) minds outside liberty's choir. This leads us back to "Step One." Since we know that people outside liberty's choir are highly unlikely to seek, and purchase, a book on politics such as Shakedown Socialism, few of them will ever learn about it unless we who are in liberty's choir purchase extra copies of the book and give them to our friends and relatives outside the choir. The book will do the rest, but it's up to us to create the circumstances under which the book can do its job for as many minds as possible. So, purchase extra copies of Shakedown Socialism and give them to your friends and relatives outside the choir, and do so as soon as possible to maximize the chances of your doing so having the effect of motivating recipients of your gift to vote in favor of liberty and in opposition to collectivist statism on November 2, 2010.

Oleg has done the hard part by writing, and brilliantly illustrating, a book that engages common sense of the readers outside liberty's choir to enable them to recognize the inherent superiority of a system of liberty over collectivism. Let's make this the most gifted (i.e., given as a gift) book in recent history. There's too much at stake not to do so. Furnish this link to all your friends in liberty's choir and urge them not only to purchase a copy for themselves but to purchase as many as they can to give to their non-leftist friends outside the choir.

Finally, I "confess" that Oleg is my personal friend. I have found him to have a better understanding and appreciation of, and a stronger commitment to, the principles that founded America than do so many Americans. The idea for this everybody-buy-copies-of-Shakedown-Socialism-for-non-leftist friends is mine, not his. Nevertheless, even if I were never to have become his friend, I'm confident that reading the book would inspire me to make the same suggestion. Read it and I think you'll agree. We need to inspire enough non-lefists to join us on November 2, 2010 to throw out the SCRAP* and clean-up the HORSE CRAP.**

**HORSE CRAP = Hubristic Obamism Ruthlessly, Stealthily Enforcing Collectivism Relabeled As Progressivism