The Council Has Spoken! The Watcher's Council Results

The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week's Watcher's Council match up.

"The difference between golf and government is that in golf you can't improve your lie." - George Duekmejian, former Republican governor of California

"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. -President Thomas Jefferson

""If we can really understand the problem, than the answer will come out of it, because the answer is not separate from the problem." - Krishnamurti

"It's easy being a humorist when you've got the whole government working for you." - Will Rogers




This week's winning essay, The Right Planet's – More Hipster Harf: ‘We Can’t Stop ISIS by Killing Them; We Need to Give Them Jobs’ uses State department Spokesperson Marie Harf's ridiculous statement about buying off Islamic State and others with 'jobs' as a starting point for an explanation on why the Left has such a problem facing up to radical Islam. Here's a slice:

For many years now I have said the State Department needs to be cleaned out from top to bottom. And I’m not alone in that opinion, either. The U.S. Department of State has a long history of working against the best interests of the United States, consistently shilling for all things socialist. Those who have looked into tax-exempt foundations like the Carnegie Endowment, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Consortium, Guggenheim Fellowship, etc., and the subsequent investigation by the Reece Committee, might know what I’m talking about.

The first U.S. Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal, once said, “Consistency has never been a mark of stupidity. If the diplomats who have mishandled our relations with Russia were merely stupid, they would have occasionally made a mistake in our favor.”

State Department Spokesperson Marie Harf recently told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews ISIS could be stopped if we could just create jobs for them.

At first blush, for those ignorant of Marxist ideology, this sort of thinking seems preposterous. Well, I am strongly inclined to agree. But I digress.

For dyed-in-the-wool Marxists and their fellow travelers (sympathizers), it makes perfect sense. This is why I believe it so important more Americans gain a better understanding of Marxism—since it is lauded and approved of by so many American universities and the liberal media, not to mention those in positions of power within our own government.

Karl Marx believed our view of history needed to be changed (cf. “hope and change”). Cleon Skousen wrote in his book The Naked Communist about the central importance economics plays in the Marxian religion. Marx believed history should be changed to “a fixed, undeviating, pre-determined course of progress which could be charted in the past and predicted for the future on the basis of a single, simple criterion—economics.”

According to Marx and his votaries, if we could only “level the playing field” by making everyone and everything the same (see “equality and fairness”), it would usher in a veritable utopia, i.e., the long hoped for “workers’ paradise.” Interestingly, about 90 percent of what Karl Marx wrote concerned economics (see Das Kapital).

Well, let’s just get something straight: ISIS doesn’t give a damn about economics—quite the contrary. Their motivations and actions are not influenced by Marxism, per se, but rather the teachings of Muhammad, and a literal interpretation of the Koran and the Hadith.

Although it should be noted that Marxism and Islam have quite a bit in a common.

More at the link.

In our non-Council category, the winner was Graeme Wood in the Atlantic with an interesting piece, What ISIS Really Wants submitted by Bookworm Room . He attempts to present something very rare in today's climate, an examination of the conflict from the point of view of Islamic State.An excellent read.

Here are this week’s full results. Only Bookworm Room and Ask Marion were unable to vote this week, but neither was subject to the usual 2/3 vote penalty for not voting:

Council Winners

• *First place with 3 votes!–The Right Planet – More Hipster Harf: ‘We Can’t Stop ISIS by Killing Them; We Need to Give Them Jobs’


• Second place with 2 votes –Simply Jews – Then we'll kill us some Jews too...


• Third place with 1 2/3 votes –The Noisy Room – ISIS Parades 17 Kurdish Fighters in Cages to be Burned Alive Like Jordanian Pilot


• Fourth place with 1 1/3 votes -The Independent Sentinel – Stunning: Barack Obama Refused to Share Intel With Egypt and Jordan


• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –Bookworm Room – Getting Obama On Board With Israelis: They’re not imperialists; they’re just undocumented immigrants!


• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –The Razor – Fifty Shades Of Pathetic


• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote –VA Right! - Will Hanover Schools Teach ‘Both Sides’ of the Pilot ISIS Burned Alive?


• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Nice Deb – Supporters of Violent Extremism To Participate In WH Summit on Countering Violent Extremism (Video)


• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Rhymes With Right – Chris Hayes Gets One Right On Similarity Of Muslim Murders To Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown Killings


• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Ask Marion – Palimania And Why She Can Win

Non-Council Winners

• First place with 3 2/3 votes! –Graeme Wood/The Atlantic-What ISIS Really Wants submitted by Bookworm Room


• Second place with 1 1/3 votes –Judicial Watch – Border Patrol Ordered to Release Drunk Drivers, “Allow Them to Go On Their Way” submitted by The Right Planet


• Third place *t* with 1 vote –Caroline Glick –Obama: Mainstreaming Jew-Hatred in America submitted by The Noisy Room


• Third place *t* with 1 vote –Andrew McCarthy/NRO – Folks Do the Randomest Things submitted by The Watcher


• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes -Tom Gross – What Bat Mitzvah? Nothing Random Here submitted by Simply Jews


• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes -Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad/The National Interest – Navigating a Turbulent Middle East submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD


• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes - Charles Cameron/Zenpundit – Joas Wagemakers on al-Maqdisi & the Jordanian pilot negotiations submitted by The Glittering Eye


• Fourth place *t* with 2/3 votes -The Other McCain – Tea Party & GOP Elite Walk Into A Bar. . . submitted by The Watcher


• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Breitbart – CNN Lists Attacks by Islamists, Says ‘Religion’ Had Bad Week submitted by VA Right!


• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Megan McArdle/Bloomberg –A Few More Arguments Against Obamacare submitted by The Razor


• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote -David Greenfield/FrontPage Mag –Heroes of Freedom Died in Copenhagen submitted by The Independent Sentinel


• Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote -Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion – U Cal Student Gov't votes to divest from most of world, including U.S.submitted by Rhymes with Right

See you next week!

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum. and every  Tuesday morning, when we reveal the weeks' nominees for Weasel of the Week!

And remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council, and the results are posted on Friday morning.

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