Readers of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four will remember the character Emmanuel Goldstein, Enemy of the People. It’s unclear whether Goldstein was a real person in Orwell’s nightmare surveillance society of the near future. That didn’t matter. As a focus of hate, hence as a sort of unifying ideological glue for the rulers of Oceania, Goldstein was plenty real. If he was a fiction, he was a convenient one, for he helped maintain the brotherhood of paranoia that kept society together.
Every day at 11:00, work would stop as people congregated around the ubiquitous two-way telescreens for the ritual two-minute hate:
As usual, the face of Emmanuel Goldstein, the Enemy of the People, had flashed on to the screen. There were hisses here and there among the audience. Goldstein was the renegade and backslider who once, long ago (how long ago nobody quite remembered), had been one of the leading figures of the Party, almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and then had engaged in counter-revolutionary activities, had been condemned to death and had mysteriously escaped and disappeared.
The programmes of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure. He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party’s purity. All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching. Somewhere or other he was still alive and hatching his conspiracies: perhaps somewhere beyond the sea, under the protection of his foreign paymasters, perhaps even — so it was occasionally rumoured — in some hiding-place in Oceania itself.
In his inaugural address in January, Barack Obama promised to put “an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.”
I hope you’ve noticed how free from petty grievances, false promises, recriminations, and worn out dogmas public discourse has been since that glorious new dawn, 20 January 2009.
What, you haven’t noticed the promised political metanoia? Confidentially, I haven’t either. And I suspect at least part of the reason was dramatized by Orwell’s dystopian novel. The Obama administration and its PR enablers are addicted to blaming others for their own difficulties and failures.
The President likes to refer the economic crisis as a “mess” that he inherited from George Bush. But how does explain that the deficit was some $400 billion under President Bush and is projected to be about $2 trillion — $2 trillion — this year?
He doesn’t explain it. He blames others, especially President Bush.
What was unseemly in January is almost risible now. When will Obama take responsibility for failures that occur on his watch?
Even Kimball can quote Orwell for his purposes. But Roger’s true pantheon: ‘Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, the “mob” of citizens who dare to criticize their dear leaders in townhall meetings across the country.’
And I especially love this: “Nancy Pelosi, poor thing, sees swastikas everywhere….” Reminds me of another member of Roger’s pantheon, Bill O’Reilly (this from The Forward): “This is exactly what the Nazis did — they disrupted rallies, they came in and shouted people down,” O’Reilly said. He was speaking in 2005 about Connecticut students shouting down a right-wing lecturer. His words are still true.
“When will Obama take responsibility for failures that occur on his watch?”
2012
“When will Obama take responsibility for failures that occur on his watch?”
President Obama will NEVER claim his many grave errors or mistakes; he will find a scapegoat & move on to his next disaster.
The Democrats–besides President Obama–NEED a bogeyman to work his slight of hand; however, since the Democrats control Congress & the White House, the bogeyman is hard to find since President Obama should look in the mirror to find the monster.
Despite control of all levels of government, the Democrats are imploding. Why? President Obama has revealed himself to be a Marxist thug, although his mask remains a bit cracked & broken in places at the moment. The Democrats have overreached with Porkulus & continue to overreach with Cap & Trade & now their attempt to control health care. The Sleeping Giant of America is wide awake & very angry. The Democrats deserve everything that blows up in their faces.
Heck, it’s been 7 months, yet the people realize President Obama is a danger to the Republic; they realize he must be marginalized NOW & in the 2010 elections. All the pandering in the world cannot save many of the Democrats now…
If Obama and the Progressive movement are successful, the internet will become the updated version of the two-way telescreen that was so pervasive in Oceania. The government will monitor our activities and their content. If they think you are taking too strong a stand against their ‘enlightened’ progressivism, they will shut you down or come after you. Can black-bags and Room 101 be too far beyond that.
“Your crazy! That could never happen here!” I’m sure there are those who are believing this. But where does it end when the government has already done all the things it has. Scapegoats and enemies are necessary for repression. In order for Big Brother and The Party to maintain control in Orwells’ Oceania, the people were kept at the edge of starvation and a perpetual state of war. These controls on a population are mirrored in America by the twin evils of class warfare and energy dependence. (Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia!) The parallels are obvious.
The under 30 group that voted Obama into office, by a margin of 60% in that demographic, have had their “minds put right” by the union controlled schools that are the tool of Big Brother. The rest of us will have to be reeducated, all thought of freedom burned out of us, until all that is left is “sadness and love of Big Brother”.
“Oceania, tis for thee.”
They’ve even developed an algorithm. Take an industry. Add the prefix “big”. Today, the enemy is “big pharma”. When the energy issue comes up again, it will be “big oil”. Note that industries that play ball with the administration are never “big”. There’s no “big silicon”, even though that industry has considerably higher margins than oil. In Ralph Nader’s heyday, GM was the epitome of “big”. Now, they’re the country’s biggest welfare mama. I want to see the vilification of “big autos”.
They’re political alchemists. They can make anyone into Goldstein.
(Those who notice that “Goldstein” is a Jewish name might wish to ponder the Obama administration’s policies towards Israel.)
Roger, you may be the only American Jew who cares about Obama’s thoughts and ideas about Israel. Eighty percent of Jews voted for him because of Dem politics and their, almost psychotic, affinity for black Americans.
As for seeing Orwell in what the Dems and Obama are doing is right on point. The Dems have used double speak to indoctrinate American youth; denied free speech with PC and thought police; subjugated the MSM; and
obviated our Constitution and legal system except for the purposes of aggrandizing their power.
We no longer live in a free and democratic society. People are just catching on. Political correctness is mind control instituted by the state. Hate crimes is a category set aside for enemies of the state. This has been going on for some time. You cannot have a debate of ideas with people who demonize you before you open your mouth and have the full backing of the lapdog media.
The Left starts out with accusing all dissenters as a) stupid, b) indifferent to human suffering or c) Neo-Nazis. So there is no debate – just an enemies list. If you succeed in demonizing your opponent you have won the debate.
You don’t want Obamacare, you are just a pawn for the insurance companies, a stooge for the Republicans.
If you look like a potentially formidable candidate for the Presidency, you become a person with limited intellect. You face a slew of trumped up ethics charges, and oh yes your family is splashed all over the tabloids as all screwed up. The politics of personal destruction.
What is going on now is nothing short of a Communist take over of the country. They are using the same tactics. They don’t care what the people want. Remember the people who were suppose to benefit from the new socialist paradise in Russia? They ended up starving to death by the millions.
Rex Lex (1642): Obama Lex (2009)
Roger if you do not understand why our debt has gone up, perhaps you should take a remedial course in macroeconomics. I am waiting for your metanoia when you recognize that your statements have to be backed by facts to be believable to anyone but the wingnuts, but I guess we have to expect your paranoia will rule your thoughts
Assuming that Obama is a malignant narcissist, he will never engage in any sort of personal introspection which might conclude he and his actions are the source of any problem. He has to use or make up strawmen upon which he can project phantom causes of his and his administration’s failures. As his political potency decreases, mere strawmen will be insufficient. He will soon resort to outright narcissistic rage at those around him and at the very people he has pledged to serve. Heads will roll.
Our republic’s hope lies in the defeat of Obama’s party at the polls during the 2010 mid-term congressional elections and in Obama’s defeat in the 2012 presidential elections.
God bless America. May our republic endure and prosper in freedom.
Gosh, Obama is on TV more often than a weatherman in a hurricane. I get so tired of his endless campaigning. His “Town Halls” are 45 minutes of a campaign address and 10 questions answered with campaign talking points.Every one of his town hall lectures I’ve seen have blasted the insurance industry and not one word about ambulance chasers who push up premium costs. And BTW, notice his enablers on TV, especially David Gregory on Meet The Press yesterday. The way he’s going, he should be the next commentator on MSNBC. He was that biased.
#11 “Obama is on TV more often than a weatherman in a hurricane.”
Which made me muse that Obama is on TV more often than Geraldo Rivera in a hurricane. And, he’s got about as much credibility these days.
There are basic categories of Liberal Marxists, these were explained in Orwell’s 1984, (written in 1949) and they are still relevant today. They help to explain the twisted logic of why people become Progressive Socialists when a minimum of common sense would preclude such an otherwise self indulgent or thoughtless decision.
The book delegated a working class of people, who were without standing and were considered to be inconsequential: these were the non-party members or the “proles” as they were classified in the book. In Russia and China and to a degree in the United States, strict adherence to the “Party line” is a tenet of the Progressive Socialist or Democrat Party, deviation will exclude you from the party or in Russia or China exclusion translates into death.
The next circle of political hierarchy is the party, a member within the party is expected to be a member of the party above all else, religion is an obsolete opiate of the masses. The party is the family and the God for the member. Most party members are merely Lemmings who are faithful card carrying members who never doubt Fearless Reader or the Party line, even when the line takes diametrically opposing views from one day to the next. The party tells you how to think and how to feel. Among the Lemmings there are the fanatics who become carried away with their zeal and with a combination of wide eyed fanaticism, deep breathing, and prosethylyzing they can gain entry into the cadres of the Elite.
The Elites control the money and power. They have absolute control over every aspect of everyone else’s life. Thus an Elite has a life of luxury while everyone else lives a mundane everyday existence.
Although the Progressive Socialist might seem to be altruistic with his Liberal Marxist Ideas of humanism, in reality, their motives are far more sinister and border on criminal.
To consolidate power and control, the Progressive Marxist has traditionally murdered, starved, enslaved, and worked to death millions to accomplish their goals. Yes, despite their cries of racism, the Progressive Socialists have enslaved more people than any other group and possibly all groups put together since the beginning of time. Stalin and Mao are the most prolific mass murderers of all time.
The Progressive Socialist must invent bogeymen to create a diversion, otherwise their weaknesses and corruptness is on view for the world. The Global Warming Hoax is one of these diversions, it keeps the Lemmings and Useful Idiots focused in a tunnel vision and prevents them from doing analysis of the scientific data. To refute the party line is to bring down the ire of the party. Funding is withheld, promotions are denied, and advancement is stifled. This is Orwellian control in the initial stages. In the advanced stages of Stalin, Mao, Kim Jung, or Chavez you are liquidated, much simpler. After all, Al Gore has told us the debate is over, to question is futile, the party has spoken.
“(Those who notice that “Goldstein” is a Jewish name might wish to ponder the Obama administration’s policies towards Israel.)”
Orwell was obviously modeling Goldstein on Leon Trotsky, who was the Stalinist version of Goldstein.
The reason why the Obama Administration needs a Goldstein is because it is integral to Alinskyist tactics – “‘Pick the Target, Freeze It, Personalize It and Polarize It”. You need a demon to denounce, because you don’t want to discuss the specifics of your proposals.
Maybe the administration should have another e-mail hotline for anyone who spots a “well-dressed” man.
My new best name for the President is “Demander in Chief”
And let’s not forget the evil “big” insurance companies. These liberals are almost as predictable as they are tedious.
Shadow,
Enlighten us. Why did the deficit quadruple? Here is your opportunity to educate a bunch of knuckle dragging right wingers.
Obama is doing a great job as POTUS. If the goals of his administration is to destroy America. He has increased our deficit so even children who have not been born yet owe taxes. The economy is in ruins, the stimulus money was thrown away and produced nothing, no jobs, no stability, no recovery as promised. The Libtards will keep drinking the kooaid and pushing thier adgenda. The American patriots are waiting in the background Guns in hand to take the country back. The only thing that can restore The Constitution is Revolution by the people and many of our so called leaders will be targeted for termination. They will try to label these patriots as terrorists and get the military to defend them only problem with that is most military personell are OATH KEEPERS and will assist this purge of TRAITORS. May God Have Mercy on Thier Souls because the people you sold out will not.
Once Obama has all the names and addresses of the like minded and doppelgängered Emmanuel Goldstein’s then his plan can be announced and implemented. The reactionaries and those against right thinking of the neocom won’t be forgotten, they will be reeducated and reformed in the way man was envisioned in 1917 and for those that can’t or refuses to be politically malleable, a show trial and a long tenure in a quiet place. He has his shock troops funded now, uniformed in black with boots and truncheons. Once ACORN takes over the voting and counting of votes its over.
Profound short paragraph
These are probably the 5 best sentences you’ll ever read. This is one paragraph that should be in every book in every school room in every city in every state in our great Union . Our educators should make a lesson plan on this one statement and beat these words into every head in every class in every state in these United States of America.
“You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”*
* Adrian Rogers, 1931-2005
Whom ever would find fought with those 5 sentences would find fought with a Baby’s smile or a warm smile and hug from a loved one .All though it is not the far left Socialist or Obama way
PS send this to others that really Think and truly Love this County .
Speaking of remedial courses, I have one for the Shadow right here. Read and enjoy.
If the truth is ever told, Bush will go down in our history as one of the greatest presidents.
Obama and a Democrat congress wholly own this down-turn. Owing to the failed policies of the community reinvestment act, flowing through to the Pelosi / Reid war on energy… and then to the rise of an aspiring president to be who was running around saying he would bankrupt the coal industry, rewrite NAFTA, double the capital gains taxes out of ‘fairness’ and soak the rich for every new social programs he and his leftist cronies could dream up.
What was a strong market and a strong economy blew a gasket at the proposition of an Obama president with a complicit congress lead by hard left anti-capital zealots. Everyone said ‘Sell!’ and the economic collapse proceeded. Now that Obama is in office and is illustrating quite well that his promises were not empty leftist campaign rhetoric we’ve seen an even further collapse of the economy.
I blame the media, for without their help Obama would have been revealed to the people for who he really was and our great American system would not be suffering a cancerous case of Obamaitous.
bibio44, you are quite right that O’Reilly is an embarrassment, a hypocritical bully. What he is not, however, is an elected official in the United States government.
I sometimes wonder if we’ve become our own Big Brother. I look at facebook and the information people volunteer about themselves. Or the fact that anything said or done by anyone is subjected to being recorded and uploaded by the millions of quick cameras we have available to us. There is something unsettling when a person can speak out at a local town meeting, be recorded by someone else at that meeting and, an hour later, be watched by some curious dude in Indonesia – or his boss the next town over. We didn’t need to wait for Big Brother. We are him.
Obama’s left-wing policies are like a virus and the Tea Party movement is the nation’s immune response.
“When will Obama take responsibility for failures that occur on his watch?”
I don’t know, but Bush was given until Sept. 11 when all of the foreign policy cans kicked down the road by the feckless Clinton administration landed at Bush’s feet. I’m not inclined to give Wonder Boy any more slack than that, although the truth is that he doesn’t even deserve that much.
But Roger, didn’t you hear? Obama raised the chocolate ration to twenty grammes!
Shadow,
Anyone who has taken first grade math knows why we have a deficit:
gov receipts – gov outlays = HUGE negative number
HUGE negative number_Obama = 4*HUGE negative number_Bush
No one needs an economics course to know that massive gov borrowing is bad for the economy. In fact the only you could think otherwise is to have taken an econ course. But of course I’m probably a closet racist. After all how else do you explain that I think Obama is a buffoon.
Oh, that does it!
}}} slam {{{
* looks up metanoia *
Orwell sure has been coming up a lot lately. You know, this was all so very interesting when we read about it the first time back there in High School. Orwell, 1984 and Animal Farm, that guy is really starting to sink in.
Well as the poll numbers get worse, the tax revenue decline rate increases, the add revenue for MSM declines, and the weather keeps being cooler than usual, the Obama machine will go into flail then thrash mode.
Look out for appearance for an external enemy that we have to get behind Obama to fight.
The Obama administration is floating it out that they are willing to lose congressional seats and even the 2012 presidential if they can just get a federal health care agency in place. Then they can use it to regain power. I think someone is sniffing cat nip.
Fox news elicits the same response.
The interesting thing about the Bush response to the Obama lead down-turn is that it was the exact correct thing to do. We were slipping into a deflation cycle which, as anyone who studies economics knows, is death to a capital economy. Solution? Print a whole ton of money… basically double the US money supply and deflate the dollar to match the deflation cycle of goods. With the money we bought interests in the banking system that needed the capital for liquidity. In one move we doubled the money supply without suffering any inflation or loss in relative value of the dollar to other major world currencies.
Bush didn’t leave Obama a bad economy he prevented a disaster that, as the banks recover, will give us an infinite % return on investment because it didn’t cost us anything in inflation to print the money we used to buy the interests and bail them out.
Obama’s response after taking office, however, was the exact wrong thing to do. With his massive stimulus-bill / democrat-Christmas-list (plus pushing for cap and trade and health-care ‘reform’) it sent a signal to other countries that the US was heading down an anti-business / punish-the-producer path that would be unsustainable.
In order to pay for the growing deficits the US has to issue new debt and the world is voting no confidence… both by not buying the new debt and by selling the old debt that they normally would hold. This drives up the interest on new debt and old debt alike so the deficits and total debt will punch from already being way too high — up into the stratosphere well beyond reason.
Hopefully something can be done in time to correct this. Sending a signal during the mid-terms is probably our best hope. It straightened Clinton out and knocked him off of his populist white horse.
I predict that by the next Presidental election race in 2012 the list of evil schemers to demonize will be several times longer than it is now. It will be an honor to be included on that list. If someone were to start a petition asking to be included, I will sign it.
As soon as I saw the title of this article, I knew that same instant that the trolls would show up throwing the very same accusation back at the author.
We are honestly as divided as the Jews and Palestinians in this country. I, for one, do not plan on backing down. All of you left-wing turds can kiss my Goldstein *ss.
Blame and credit where due.
Bush43 added $4.9T to the national debt during his 8 years.
Obama has already added $1T to the debt since he took office, and is on track to add a total of $1.8T to the debt during his first year alone
I notice Shadow disappeared after he was challenged about Obama quadrupling the deficit. I guess his 2-minute hate was over.
“When will Obama take responsibility for failures that occur on his watch?” You have, obviously, not noticed the shoulder difference. Bush has the broad, squared off shoulders of a Texan. They can carry responsibility. Obama has the sloping shoulders of a North-Eastern Yankee. Responsibility just slides right off Obama’s shoulders.
#31, above — link to $1.8T, above.
Hope the CBO’s assumptions about federal tax receipts are as conservative as current projections are bad.
Oh God, not 1984 again! It’s always 1984 with you guys. That or the Fall of Rome, or the Rise of Hitler. An unkind observer would conclude you’ve only read a half-dozen books. When you or one of the other PJM pseuds like Victor Davis Hanson compares the current world situation to–oh, say, 14th-c. Uzbekistan or some equally obscure historical context, then I’ll pay attention. Until then I can’t help but conclude your historical perspective was fully formed in high school.
Orwell purposely picked the name “Goldstein” to illustrate that anti-
Semitism was an integral part of modern totalitarianism. Mr. Kimball is, I believe, making a similar point about Obama. He’s a totalitarian and, as such, is an anti-Semite.
I wonder when we’ll see the equivalent of Directive 10-289. Perhaps a lot sooner than anyone would have predicted.
bibio44, there are key differences between liberals shouting down a respesentive of the Minutemen invited to speak on illegal imigration problems at a university and conservatives shouting at a Representative that supports Obamacare that seems to elude you.
The Minuteman has been invited to offer his views and perspectives on a topic. If one goes to hear a speaker, it does not seem unreasonable to allow them to speak. He has no power to affect those liberals’ lives; he is simply giving his opinion on the matter. An opinion the “protesters” seemingly not only don’t want to hear, but don’t want anyone else to hear either.
That Representative, however, has been elected and is entrusted to represent those people who are angry at having been ignored for so long. The town hall is not supposed to be a speaking event where the constituents sit back and absorb the wisdom of the ruling class. It is, rather, a venue to allow the citizens to express to their elected officials their opinions and, yes, even communicate their anger and frustrations.
All fruit is not apples.
The author missed one of the most important features of The Two Minutes Hate, when Big Brotha appears on the screen and the Party members start swooning.
OBAMA’S election was not a good day for AMERICA.
Those who love freedom must fight back.
CITIZENS: Buy only necessary items – cut off revenue to the government. Cancel ALL media – cut off revenue to the MSM propaganda machine.
SMALL BUSINESS: Hire NO ONE until 2010 election is over. You create most of the jobs in the US. Only after OBAMA and LIBERAL REGRESSIVES are out of power will you be appreciated AND your efforts rewarded.
BEGIN THE 2010 ELECTIONS NOW: CITIZENS hold your OWN town meetings. Invite the opposition to your current “elected” NON-REPRESENTATIVE. Invite ones who share YOUR majority views.
Meet at YOUR schools.
Invite local police to insure the meeting is not punked by the left.
MEET, BLOG, TWIT, TEXT, FAX, CALL, REBEL!
40
Actually, I think this era is closest to the Hellenistic, which was another era when standards dissolved. Although, there is a speech in Petronius’ “Satyricon” about the end of art that could have been lifted verbatim into contemporary post-modern discussions on that same topic, to say nothing of the similarities between the crass materialism of that era and today. Then, the Left’s shrieking shrillness, willingness to obliterate all distinctions and moralizing also reminds one of the eschatological fervor of the early Christians. One could even reference Dostoyevsky’s “The Possessed” to find the same sort of nihilistic bombast as that guy who lived in the President’s neighborhood, but was otherwise unknown to Obama.
So, yeah, there are a lot of analogues to the current Left and its cast of characters one could find. I like the Jew-Palestinian one I made above as the best examplar of the current impasse, personally. I just can’t wait for our very own two-state solution. I’m tired of debate, it’s time for us to vote with our feet.
#!BIBIO44(44? are you that proud of your IQ?)Hey tumor: pray that your host is not a beneficiary of the Ohole’s health care fraud;if they deny him care,he’ll go, and so will you!The real nazis are Obama and his demtards with mengele care, and ACORN thug militia,and his idiot lickspittles like you.
“You may be the only American Jews to criticize Obama,” ( paraphrase).
I am one of them and by my reckoning, 20% of the US Jewish population is about 1.2 million (if using 6 million stat). Add most of Israel’s Jewish population, though I suspect there are moonbats there as well, (also at about 6 million), let’s say 5 million and the smattering of Jews in Europe and beyond, and there is close to six million of us questioning Obama.
That’s almost half of world Jewry.
There’s hope for my people, yet.
“We no longer live in a free and democratic society.”
– - – - -
Yes, we do. Everything that has happened – the demonization of Bush, the annointing of Obama, the trashing of Palin – has all been dutifully ratified and accepted and recorded as Truth by We The People.
Problem is, We The People have lost the critical thinking skills that a democracy needs in order to benefit from being a democracy. When I think of all of the otherwise-intelligent people I know who sort of vaguely bought into the whole “he’s a new kind of politician” crapfest and voted for Obama, I get a rash all over my stomach.
We’ve begun the process of reverse evolution, I fear. The television-centric, every-problem-has-a-simple-answer, it’s-for-The-Children!! society we’ve become looks not to logical review and analysis of issues and problems and actions, but to the simple test of “does it make me feel warm and fuzzy at the very first blush?”
This simplistic denial of reality allows us to feel like we’ve acted correctly – like we’ve fulfilled our responsibilities – without having to take the time and energy to figure out what ought to be done, and, in order to protect our egos from dissenting voices that suggest that perhaps we should know something about an issue before we pronounce judgment on it, we’re given permission to simply demonize incorrect thought without having to consider why we’ve deemed it to be incorrect.
It’s all about comfort, and the fear that someone might think that we’re less charitable and loving than we should be. Television teaches us that there’s no reason we should ever be uncomfortable, and we’ve embraced that lesson like no other.
Shef Rogers:
“When you or one of the other PJM pseuds like Victor Davis Hanson..”
Ah, the conceited liberal’s bag o’ insults- useful for all occasions!. I just love it that you think Dr Hanson, a senior fellow at Stanford/Hoover, is a “pseud.”
Myself, I think that the fall of the Roman republic through the rise of the patrician populares demagogues is a reasonable parallel. Although the manipulation of the Athenian mob by Cleon is also instructive.
You are all forgetting about the biggest rip off business in the US….BIG ACADEMIA
This is no surprise. Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign can’t be anything like his 2008 campaign, because Obama’s no longer either an outsider or a “clean slate” running against the blunders of the incumbent. Now he is the incumbent, one with an actual record of performance that’s not very flattering to say the least. At this point, demonizing the opposition is pretty much all he can do to make himself look any better.
We’re talking about a man who, 28 years later, still thinks that he deserved an A in a course at Occidental College in which he earned a B. So your question “When will Obama take responsibility” is rhetorical, right? Because it is obvious that this is a man who is so convinced of his own perfection and infallibility that he is quite incapable of admitting error, let alone publicly talking responsibility for it.
This administration is a complete cariacature of politicians who have risen to their level of incompetance. With Pelosi and Reid, you get a three-fer. While we all sit back and assume that they can’t do THAT much damage, the fact is they can. I read a book years ago called A Distant Crossing that calls whats happening today 15 years ago. When you elect clowns, prepare for a circus.
“The President likes to refer the economic crisis as a “mess” that he inherited from George Bush. But how does explain that the deficit was some $400 billion under President Bush and is projected to be about $2 trillion — $2 trillion — this year?”
It was $160B under the last of the Republicans in 2006.
ReConUSMC: Thank you for that quote. I copied and saved in in my files. Unlike Obama some people can say a lot in just a few words.
The Shadow:
Roger if you do not understand why our debt has gone up,
———————–
Deficit spending fueled almost primarily by social entitlement programs promulgated by the Democrats.
STOP FEEDING THE TROLLS … they are morally corrupt and dishonest. You can not expect a reasoned debate with them.
watch this clip and you will understand why they continue to make the same arguments over and over no matter what they are shown or told.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTmbcyeZ9ic&feature=related
this clip gives great insight into the lefts blind following of an ideology that will bury them at the same time it buries us.
Funny, the only ones he has yet to demonize are Trial Lawyers, the elite left media powerhouse, and the infamous ‘zero-liability voters’. Basically those who would not become enslaved to a socialist government.
Last week doctors were ripping out children’s tonsils and this week they are amputating legs for millions of dollars… THIS is who this nation has chosen to run the country??? Cops make stupid decisions based on race? I can not believe people think this guy is intelligent, everything the man has said that was not printed up on TOTUS has been utterly moronic. That which has been read verbatim from TOTUS…who knows who is writing that well-worded propaganda. At least the empty suits in my closet have hangars in them so I know what I’m dealing with.
STOP FEEDING THE TROLLS … they are morally corrupt and dishonest. You can not expect a reasoned debate with them.
THERE IS NO UPSIDE ENGAGING THE TROLLS. WATCH THE VIDEO CLIP.
watch this clip and you will understand why they continue to make the same arguments over and over no matter what they are shown or told.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTmbcyeZ9ic&feature=related
this clip gives great insight into the lefts blind following of an ideology that will bury them at the same time it buries us.
55. Sharpshooter:
“The President likes to refer the economic crisis as a “mess” that he inherited from George Bush. But how does explain that the deficit was some $400 billion under President Bush and is projected to be about $2 trillion — $2 trillion — this year?”
It was $160B under the last of the Republicans in 2006.’
Not to mention that the CONGRESS is responsible for all funding, expenditures, and taxes. The Democratic-led 110th of January 3, 2007 – January 3, 2009 was no exception.
Barack Obama inherited NANCY PELOSI and HARRY REID’S economy.
Shef Rogers #40,
What a moronic post. I wonder if a psychiatrist could even help you.
See…you use (in reverse, albeit…) the notion of:
“If Hitler said the world was round, that wouldn’t make the statement any less true!”
YOU WISH TO DENY REALITY.
So be it.
Have fun with your post-modern “colleague” who denied gravity.
#40 Shef Rogers – Wow. You sure stepped into that one. Do you not know how intelligent and educated some of the posters here are?!? In short order, you got arcane references… and got slapped down. Da-amn! Not the usual blog site, is it?
#57 Sharpshooter – Um, not all Progressives are Democrats! Just a caution, here.
Rene Girard, in First Things’ current issue, reviews his theory of scapegoating and mimetic violence, and tentatively begins to apply it to the Islamist terrorists. It is worth a read (link at http://www.mistermoleman.com).
And just in time. Now that our own president has signed on to the theory that all mideast problems are the result of Jewish intransigence, Iran’s nuclear Mullahs know what to expect as they prepare the ultimate Holocaust weapon. The world will rebuke(in polite diplomatic terms), the world will issue mild sanctions, and then the world will shrug. And after Shoah Two, the world will say: “See what the Jews have brought down on their heads THIS time!”
We need to remember that while Western politicians engage in verbal scapegoating, others in the world are plannning the more literal version.
“When will Obama take responsibility for failures that occur on his watch?”
Let us hope that the only failures on his watch are failures to dupe the American people.
#9 The Shadow
You accuse Roger of not understanding macroeconomics. Then you tell him to back his statements by facts. Then you call names: paranoid, wingnut.
In case you did not notice, Roger did use facts and you did not. I am pretty sure macroeconomics does not include spending your way out of debt, destroying perfectly good, usable cars, not investing in the resources we have: oil, coal, nuclear, but in those we might one day have. (Recipe for lots of abuse on this one by all the politicians invested in “green.”) Spending billions on jobs that last a week or two and then are gone. Shadow, the economy is in very bad shape. I know this because our small family business has withstood bankrupcy after bankrupcy of customers, suppliers. Every single work day is filled with disasters, one right after the other. And we are concentrating on paying down all debt as fast as possible.
Actually it is a tactic straight out of FDR’s playbook. FDR frequently demonized certain businesses to gain support for his agenda. It cost him many allies.
I agree with (33). Had the media done their jobs, Obama would not be president. The media saw fit to bolster his campaign in every way possible. So folks, next year when you are paying, paying, paying, thank our so-called Main Stream Media! Obama lucked out with an uninformed public!
It’s funny to hear far-right loons warn of 1984 and associating that with the likes of Obama. A man they’ve accused of being soft on foreign policy, yet they are envisioning jack-booted Obamagans smashing grannies and making your children socialists. How ridiculous.
The sky is falling..the sky is falling…
#50 BOHEMOND,#62 ED WALLIS,#63 MARC MALONE, RE#40 SHEF ROGERS: Get some help; I know that simple minded condescension directed at intelligent conservatives,is congenital with brain-damaged , libtards who think it’s still Woodstock,but why should you continue to suffer because your parents,refused to take their penicillin for VD,and instead chose to continue to take drugs when they conceived you? I hear there are great medical advances in Cuba for coping with congenital brain disturbances,Shef,and you don’t need to wait for the O’hole’s Mengele care program to be passed.
Obama’s method of blaming his predecessor is, of course, dishonest, but what’s so new about it? It’s standard political fare, not exactly “two minutes of hate” stuff.
# 69 Middleman, I have bad news for you dear, we are NOT “far right loons.” We were a sleeping giant, but we are now wide awake and angry. And you, my dear, are the last “troll” (turn-about is fair play) I will ever feed.
I have two grandsons in the Military that have taken the oath to protect our Constitution.
They will not fight against Americans, but they know that it is the responsibility and burden of America’s Citizens to protect not only the Constitution but the Republic for which we stand.
It is the Citizen not the Soldier that must use his vote and if necessary his life to protect our Republic. Pray that it never comes to that but be prepared if it does.
A quote if I may:
The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed – where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.”
2009 Judge Alex Kozinski
#74
Is a troll what you call anyone who disagrees with you?
Your ilk are not a sleeping giant, but rather one of the final gasps of air from a dying breed. You’ll be missed only for your comic value.
Wrong, Congress spent 4.9 trillion over eight years, tax revenue covered all but one half of one trillion dollars of their price tag.
that half a trillion- $500 bil, is what the spending deficit we had at the end of fiscal last year was*.
No matter how much the collective total sent in to D.C.. the congress always goes over budget and exceeds what the taxpayer is bound by law to submit, on pain of imprisonment and property seizures, but not for the congress people with their money parked in foreign banks, fully aware, with their accountants, as to how to avoid taxes and game the very system they make sure the vast majority has not the resources to escape.
You got some fuzzy math goin there; you sound like the talking points of the current “Ways and Means’ committee, which sets the tax code and writes the tax laws, chaired by tax cheat Charlie Rangel.
And given that the congress knows they cannot fund the budget as it is or how it is projected for “healthscare/deathcare”, now matter how much they soak the “rich” 250 G(?), 200G(?), 150G(?) (whatever?): they know they will have to raise taxes on all who pay taxes and that still won’t be enough. It still won’t be enough if they roll over the budget allowance for Medicare as it is, as they are planning to do (hence the ‘communitive’ strictures outlined by dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel and czar Holdren, those are in the bill), and ‘bundle it’ for use in that $500 bil Medicare yearly revenue that’s there to plunder and to contribute to the cost of the plan, and it still won’t be anywhere near enough, and meanwhile, the CBO estimates of between 9 and 11 trillion is what they project it will cost for health care bill alone in the bill as they’ve read it, and that doesn’t include the fact that (the estimated) 47 million “uninsured” come in to this system at this point with no new doctors added to the plan in order to address the addition of these new clients and their vouchers, to the program.
Congress gave out TARP and “Stimulus” money to the tune of a 2.5 Trillion ‘emergency’ ‘bundle’ in the first six weeks alone, and in addition to that is the omnibus spending bill cost that has all sorts of pork in it as well, and the total cost projected for the next 4 years just seven months in are 25 trillion dollars.
How much of tax revenue will retire what portion of that 25 trillion dollars? Even with tax increases across the board?
You take your budget spending, and subtract what tax revenue pays for, and you get your budget deficit cost, added to next years total deficit spending. It is either borrowed, issued as bonds to be repaid in four years, or simply piled up as unpaid debt.
The only way to eliminate the deficit is to start eliminating federal government programs, and that is precisely what 0bama “promised” when he said “We are going to look at gov programs and improve that can be improved, and eliminate the ones that don’t (work)”.
So far he has yet to mention even a single government program that qualifies as one “that doesn’t work”, and either eliminate it or scrap its funding (too many union toes he might step on), and there are loads of those to start into.
This is just like your computer memory: you cannot exceed your hard disk memory capacity; if you do you will crash it, and you will have to re-boot your system, and start over, losing all your data if its not backed up on other (independent) sources.
You cannot run a deficit with your hard disk storage capacity, promising to cover that deficit later when you get your hands on some memory.
That’s how the original welfare qualifications and restrictions worked until they were sued out of existence for the express plan of crashing that system in N.Y. state, so that the federal givernment would be drawn in to the lurch for to pick up the slack.
One can only speculate as to whether crashing the system of our federal budget is by the same motive and design as this original hemorrhage was designed to do to state and federal welfare programs originally back in the fifties and sixties.
My question arises when one asks: if “47 million” uninsured (for whatever reason, they are young, and don’t want to budget for insurance premiums, for example) are the issue, why not have a plan that provides gov. insurance for these 47 million not insured (and under 65 and not qualified to receive Medicare supplements), why not get government program going for them, as opposed to a single payer (the government, via the taxpayer, [via his tax revenue payments])? Forced as we all would or will be into the “public option” (i.e.- no options at all) following the obliteration of any last vestige of private insurance carriers.
See: what happened when Hawaii tried this angle and see why it needed to be scrapped there.
there’s got to be more and the plan gives itself away when we flag the catch phrase “we want to control costs”.
Dead giveaway: Whenever the Left says they want to “control” something, e.g. birth “control”, gun “control”, the constitution is in danger of being “shredded”. If our government goes bankrupt, and collapses, the idea is to shift “control” to the U..N. and have an alien structure come in with all sorts of Marshal Law emergency dictation, look fir those to start tumbling down is the form of mass inoculation for the “Swine” Flu
Epidemic,no, Pandemic this fall, with world wide “emergency” decreed and world widely Administered by WHO and U.N. when the health care distraction has gone completely belly up and the feds in government want to retaliate with something that won’t be an issue (for them) that is subject to and/or “up for debate”.69. Middleman:
“It’s funny to hear far-right loons warn of 1984 and associating that with the likes of Obama. A man they’ve accused of being soft on foreign policy, yet they are envisioning jack-booted Obamagans smashing grannies and making your children socialists. How ridiculous.
The sky is falling..the sky is falling…”
Lincoln was soft on foreign policy as well, he opposed the Mexican American War yet presided over the greatest killing of Americans ever experienced. He also violated his Constitutional powers, took political prisoners, and by today’s standards was guilty of a host of war crimes.
I hope and pray that the above does not, or cannot come to pass, but I still have my suspicions.
Quoth the Who bird just to day- H1N1 is set to “explode” (their word) this fall into a world wide “pandemic”.
Gee, what an accurate representation of sensationalist propaganda. Don’t want to get anyone’s emotions riled, accidentally, now would they?
So when we had Tarp 2 and “Stimulus”, those alone quadrupled the deficit, before omnibus spending bill.
Now the total (projected by reuters) is nowww….. follow the yellow bellied brick road-
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE57K4XE20090821
They look like nice luxury suits you posted. Thank you!