“What do we do now?”
– Robert Redford as Bill McKay, in the 1972 film, The Candidate*
We still remember a messianic Barack Obama criss-crossing all 57 states promising “millions of new green jobs” and to “close Guantanamo.” Those pre-September 15, 2008, days were heady times, the apex of doctrinaire postmodern liberalism without the responsibility of governance. Most of us then had never really heard of a teleprompter and were mesmerized by someone who could look out at us with instant impromptu recall of fact after fact — and in such eloquent fashion.
Remember how, with 19th-century monument backdrops or faux Greek columns, Obama rattled off the most honey-tongued panaceas at hundreds of “hope and change,” “this is our moment” revival hours. He lifted millions in Rev. Wright cadences without the nuttiness — and with plenty of advice to paramedics to attend to the fainting and collapsed. But the message? It was not unlike an Ivy League graduate student with his hand perpetually up in the seminar room, blurting out answers to questions before the professor could ask them. (Obamania reminded me of a farmers’ market shopper who once asked me what a “raisin plant” was and then inquired whether they would grow in Santa Cruz.)
War on terror? Easy, just shut down Guantanamo, end renditions and tribunals, pull out of Iraq, and prune back predator drones and other anti-constitutional and unnecessary Bush transgressions. Hadn’t we seen Redacted or Rendition? Wanting something to end, and being the right sort to want something to end, surely were to be synonymous with something ending.
Financial panic? At some point all those Wall Street greedy types that had enriched both the McCain and (to a greater degree) the Obama campaigns would realize that they had already made enough money, and they could either hand over what they owed us, or be socialized and recreated into working at the ministry of investment. Only in Obamaworld do the Peter Orszags among us never go into government briefly in order to revolve out to work for Citibank in Robert Rubin, insider, zillions-to-be-made style.
Tension in the world? No problem: reset diplomacy, talk to Ahmadinejad, reach out to Putin, lean on Israel, charm Assad or Chavez, start talking about Islamophobia and Western neglect of the real positive contributions of Islam. Presto, terrorists are reminded that our president’s middle name is Hussein and they desist. Enemies realize Bush is gone, and that a secretary-general sort is the new president of a flipped America. Peace reigns. Obama wins the Nobel Prize. Now we can finally heal the planet, as we quit trying to steal Iraq’s oil and enrich Halliburton.
Health care? Bring back HillaryCare but this time with “smart” changes and a competent salesman. As Obama advised worried congressional Democrats, this time around they had Obama as point man, or, as he sometimes bragged, “Just give me the ball.” He envisioned himself (literally) as Lebron James soaring to dunk, his congressional lackeys the uncoordinated nerdy cheerboys who would share in his reflected glory.
Eco-change? What better point man that a hip Van Jones, a bit further on the edge than Barack Obama, to shake down corporations for cap and trade and a vast new technocracy staffed by Ivy League green overseers and “millions of new (federal) green jobs”? Remember, the ooh/aah quote from Valerie Jarret about Van: “We’ve been watching him for a long time.”
I’ll stop. You get the picture: the grad students were going to run the campus and so instead of offshore drilling we were going to get properly inflated tires.
Not being Bush
Millions in commerce, journalism, academia, and the arts not only supported, but invested their careers in this adolescent world of Obama, to such a degree that tens of millions of others felt that they had to buy a pet rock or feel they had missed out on a “first-class temperament.”
Obama, now the “god” who, to paraphrase Sappho, sent his enthralled into tingling ecstasy, was an almost perfect liberal receptacle: half black with the ability to metamorphosize in bearing and cadence depending on the audience, young, charismatic, suitably Ivy League certified, on the edge with his Chicago organizing, but not on the edge with his Harvard Law Review fides, a non-socialist with a voting record to the left of the Senate’s only declared socialist — and free of any accomplishment, with lacunae instead of a resume, the largely empty vessel into which liberals could pour all their own pet utopian nostrums that usually Americans ignore.
You can see how Obama won. Yes, we know that 2008 was an orphaned election without an incumbent. The novelty of our first black president won 96 percent of the black vote and appealed to millions of affluent whites, youth, and minorities. The September 15 meltdown destroyed the McCain lead. McCain himself campaigned as if he wished to lose nobly in Ajaxian style. The media decided it had to ensure this once-in-a-lifetime gift, and joined rather than monitored Obama.
But there was more than that. Behind all this was our occasional but inevitable rendezvous (about every 30 or so years?) with this guilty liberal creed that the very system that has enriched and freed our society in ways unheard of elsewhere or in civilization’s past — free market capitalism under the aegis of republican government — is in itself pathological. In short, America has for so long become so free and so wealthy, we have institutionalized this periodic indulgence to fret that we weren’t free or affluent at all, or at least everyone here wasn’t, or that our exceptionalism came only on the backs of others, or that it was unsustainable and doomed. We go from worrying that those with cell phones and SUVs are about to kill each other over Xboxes and big-screen TVs in Black Friday rush shopping sprees to sermons that these exploited have no money to pay the electric bill to power all the gadgetry up the next day.
One of vdh’s best, and the competition is fierce.
You have to hand it to the commies….they had their hand-trained multi-everything manchurian at the ready when the time was optimal.
The baritone was primed by 20+ years of tobacco. The inseminated children with Moochelle were at maximum cuteness. No boys to be brattish, no less. And fortunately all of the people who knew where the dead bodies were buried were buried themselves. Have you ever marvelled that there is no living person who knows anything of importance about Obama’s extremely strange childhood?
Of course, having the Slimes deomonizing Dubya 24x7x365 for 8 years certainly helped with the timing, and having Soros / Goldman Sachs ready with mega-billions to puncture the leftist created Fannie Mae financial bomb was convenient as well.
What next. A decade of rebuilding for every year of destruction is my guess.
“proreason” is unnecessarily conspiratorial in his or her reasoning. Hanson mentions the “liberal guilt” that is a crucial aspect of the liberal, “progressive” psyche. Submission to the victim du jour is their mantra. I can’t prove that communists stage-managed every stage of Obama’s rise to power, but I can describe the culture that resonates to his programs. Here: http://clarespark.com/2010/12/12/hbo%e2%80%99s-in-treatment-and-boardwalk-empire/, and here: http://clarespark.com/2009/07/13/eros-and-the-middle-manager-s-m-with-implications-for-multiculturalism/.
“Proreason” is unnecessarily conspiratorial in his description of Obama’s rise to power. Hanson mentions liberal guilt several times, and that is reason enough to account for the support of those indoctrinated with the “progressive” ideology. See two blogs of mine that describe the submission of the left liberals and middle managers: http://clarespark.com/2010/12/12/hbo%e2%80%99s-in-treatment-and-boardwalk-empire/. Also http://clarespark.com/2009/07/13/eros-and-the-middle-manager-s-m-with-implications-for-multiculturalism/. The latter essay is unique and will not be found elsewhere as it is based on original archival research.
Brattish boys would have made him seem like a human being to me, instead of some sort of animated wax figure.
Let’s assume that communists have attempted to orchestrate Obama’s rise and his presidency. Without a political culture willing to accept this, proreason’s claim is conspiratorial and irrational. There has to be “liberal guilt” as VDH says. I wrote about it here. See also this. The first blog is about submission, the second about cultural pessimism.
Gee Claire, what are you, the school ma’arm?
Here are are few of hundreds of known facts:
1. his grandparents moved 2,000 miles from Kansas to Seattle to enroll Obama’s mother in a school run by declared communists.
2. mom then proceded to declare herself as a radical and America hater for the rest of her life. She met “daddy” in a Russian language class.
3. “daddy” was a card-carrying communist in Kenya. Obama has dedicated his life to him.
4. “gramps” recently had his fbi file destroyed. He was a suspected spy.
5. mom took little Obama to Indonesia when he was 6, a country that had just fought off a communist insurgency. Maybe you don’t find that strange. I do.
6. “frank”, mentioned 9 times in “Dreams” has been identified as Frank Marshall Davis, a card carrying communist.
7. Obama self declares himself as a marxist in college
8. He had a 20+ year long relationship with Bill Ayers
9. He was endorsed by the Socialist party in Illinois
10. Stanley Kurtz recently traced his socialist heritage to conferences he attended as early as 1983, but he was a marxist before that, according to a reliable witness who met him when he was 20.
11. Community organizers are marxists, plain and simple.
But that is hardly all of it. Something like 48 out of 49 planks of the Communist platform have been completely or partially implemented in the current regime. The regime is stuffed with radicals of all stripes. Then, of course, there is the auto industry, the health care industry, the student loan industry, card check, ObamaCare, and an endless list of marxist policis he has implemented since he lied his way into office.
But there is plenty more. Communists infiltrated this country as early as the 30′s. They got the bomb that way. Numerous spies have been identified. Their strategy is well known and has been very successful.
So if you want to live in a fantasy world and pretend that Obama and the left today are just good Americans who think a bit differently than you, enjoy your descent into serfdom.
But you will be denying reality.
This guy is a tool of the left. It is highly likely he has been at leaste “guided” and more likely “controlled” by marxists for decades. There has never been a major figure in American politics who comes even close to his radical beliefs and background.
Ok, but other than those items, are there any serious problems to be confronted?
You don’t tug on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit into the wind, you don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger, and you don’t mess around with Vic….
I’ll give you the one about the Lone Ranger…but I had always heard that the first two were ..you don’t sword fight with Zorro and you don’t steal cheese from Mighty Mouse.
isn’t that jim croce’s “you don’t mess around with jim” ? sorry, may be it’s trivial, but I’m italian…
“Well, it is still very hard to screw up the United States in four years.”
Yet the list of imposed disasters this administration has inflicted on the country are worrisome. When legislation started rolling out of Washington from a Democrat controlled legislature and White House, over the vociferous objections of the people who would have to pay for all of it, I started muttering wishes for a Bureau of Sabotage to slow government down. Frank Herbert was more of a prophet than I’d realized.
Failing BuSab, I can only hope the incoming congress can at least slow the juggernaut. If they don’t, the four years of Obama may indeed screw up the United States permanently.
We definitely need BuSab!
It’s hard to keep perspective on these cyclical – every 30 years – periods of political insanity conjured up by the looney Left. But they’re gettin’ worse. Judging by the events of last week, we’re not just in uncharted waters politically. The world’s been made flat and we’ve sailed over the edge. Can’t remember how many times in the past seven days I thought to myself, “Never seen that before”:
–The Obama press conference where on the one hand he lambasted Repubs as greedy and on the other he railed against the Left as being sanctimonious, ie., stupid. Always the fence sitter, Obama couldn’t figure out who to blame for his tax rate predicament, so he blamed everyone except himself. Some of the reporters looked around anxiously, before laughing. It was surreal.
– Bat sh*t crazy Pelosi then swooped into Congress to prevent what will be inevitable in two months. Donkey Congresscritters went rogue, swearing and snapping at the leader of their own Party. Moonbat droppings were all over the place.
– In the Senate Bernie Sanders was blabbing for hours, hoping someone, anyone, would take him seriously. I half expected the guy to wrap himself in the Socialist flag, pull out a gun and end misery, his and ours.
– And to top if off, the highlight of the week was the Bill and Barack Show, with Obama punching out early so the Missus wouldn’t get pissed off. That was beyond surreal. In ObamaWorld the word no longer even pertains.
So, of course, during this week where our political leadership appeared to be losing it completely, “conservative” renegade David Frum decided we should stop calling each other names. As Mr. Frum is known for impeccable timing, I figure name-calling’s called for, and he’s as frickin’ crazy as the rest of them.
All joking aside, that Clinton/Obama presser was one of the strangest bits of political theatre I’ve ever witnessed. The optics alone of the President turning the podium over to the grizzled old gas bag were stunning. Obama didn’t just exit stage right. He gave a lame excuse and slunk out the back door, while Bill ignored him and babbled on.
Apparently Axelrod et al thought they needed someone or something to shore up the base after Obama gave all those tax cuts to the rich white folks. But the problem remained of what Obama had said about Bill back during the campaign. Obama had to make amends. No better way to do that than to let Bill back on center stage. And, of course, a public rapprochement between Obama and the first Black President couldn’t but help shore up the minority vote.
Strange indeed. I got the impression that the press-room transition was choreographed, but they stumbled over each others’ lines. Have they made a power sharing deal? Do we now have Co-Presidents? Clinton is seen as the most popular and persuasive Dem, perhaps he is now the face of the new, conciliatory Dem administration. Certainly its becoming increasingly obvious that Obama is cracking under the strains he has brought upon himself.
Perhaps it has dawned on Obama that he was set-up to be a fall guy? As VDH says, he was the ‘Golden Child’, the perfect culmination of all of the Progressive’s efforts of the last 40 years: The takeover of academia and thence the media, the ‘Long March’ through the banking and legal institutions, Hollywood and the various literary and art circles in New York and San Francisco, the infusion of Piven-Cloward into local, state and then national politics, the conscious, planned weaving of gender, class, race, ‘imperial’ and environmental narratives into the fabric of social and political discourse… The push to sexualize youth, to make drugs seem cool; the subtle calls to anarchy, collectivism and revolutionary violence… and finally, the complete takeover of the Democratic Party under Soros et al., all culminated with the carefully staged rise of Obama. He was to be the Avatar of a new age. Or so it was sold to him I’m sure. But his paymasters surely knew that there was a good chance he would fail. The he would be reviled; and that his former supporters would eventually turn on him. And no-one falls farther than a messiah who disappoints.
So any move to the center clearly won’t work because well over a third of the country can see him for the fraud that he is, and can see right through the Obama-Clinton two step. Around a quarter will be furious that their messiah has betrayed them, after such soaring rhetoric, without so much as an apology. And centrists just got a lot easier to persuade that the entire Dem apparatus is over-run with corrupt clowns. To me the press-conference was a sign that Obama’s puppet-masters have turned their backs on him and have chosen the only surrogate that can do damage control. But this is really the ultimate sign of total meltdown behind the scenes. Now is the time for maximum effort from our side. Let’s hope that the GOP / Tea Party come out swinging relentlessly in January. No compromise (unless it is to lay the tactical groundwork for further strategic gains), no mercy. Give them nothing. Take from them everything.
The lefty media + C.A.P. are doing their best to stay calm and plan the way forward in national terms. But I’m sure they realize that this is a disaster of unprecedented dimensions for the entire Progressive cause. Not only is the Dem party about to slide into the abyss, but we are about to gain the weapons, and develop the narrative to expose their corruption and ideological madness, and flush them down the toilet of history.
Despite the gloom, it is absolutely possible to say that we are on the edge of a great American Renaissance. It’s entirely up to us whether that becomes reality. The only sensible thing then is to dispel negative thoughts, roll up the sleeves and set about the long, difficult task of restoring the Republic. If we fail, we can at least know that we poured our blood and sweat to succeed. But I have a sneaking suspicion that we are not done yet. Not by a long shot. The path will be treacherous, expect the unexpected… And remember: we are descended from men and women who crossed oceans, moved mountains and walked among the stars.
He seems increasingly ANGRY, and it’s because he has come to realization that he IS a “turtle on a fencepost”. I think his “handlers” thought he was intelligent enough to work with the “puppet master”, but his utter ARROGANCE and identity of victimhood got in the way, subsequently revealing his utter weakness- in character, intellect, etc. The biggest travesty is that “we the people” ever let him be nominated, let alone elected, without a thorough examination of his record and past, which he has since spent over $2 million concealing. How did this happen!!! I was vetted more as a LE officer back in the day, and he gets a pass to the greatest levers of power in the world? Duhhhh!
I could not disagree with you more Dr. Hanson on “America is too big to be screwed up in 4 years.” That’s akin (I humbly submit) to saying that the US Housing market has never collapsed all at once (a claim made during the housing bubble).
Here is why America is screwed, and the post-Obama years won’t be like the Bush or Clinton or Reagan or Carter years.
1. We are out of money. The bond markets are reacting (despite the Fed’s QE2 of about $600 billion) to the implied debt of the US States and municipalities which the US Federal government will have to bail out, along with its own debt. This money cannot be repaid so either it will be inflated away or repudiated formally, same thing. Hence rises in the Treasury yields. This is the EU all over again, same process.
NO MONEY.
2. We are out of resources. Everyone from the WSJ to the FT is pointing out that even modest increases in Chinese and Indian peasant’s standard of living, let alone the massive infrastructure projects, are sucking up huge quantities of limited food, cotton (clothing), and energy.
Everyone will get a lot, LOT POORER. Very rapidly. Resource shock after resource shock is coming. Not even dumping biofuels can make a difference.
3. We are out of investment capital. The Chinese have massive internal needs to pump up internal consumption seeing the end of US consumption, and are sucking up the world’s limited investment capital in one way or another. Same with Brazil, India, and other developed nations. While their own stays in place or buys strategic companies to transfer intellectual property to China.
4. We are hit by demographic tidal waves. Your Mexifornia points out that immigrants legal and illegal from Mexico and Central America are poor, consume lots of social services, and contribute little to the tax base. The LAT points out that illegal aliens at car washes get paid often $3.50 an hour, the min wage is $8 an hour. High rates of illiteracy, little/no English, teen pregnancy and illegitimacy, make most immigrants (they are mostly illegal aliens) poverty factories. Who in turn displace natives to places like Temecula incurring high costs in commutes and housing.
California is $26 billion in the hole over the next 18 months. The only places to cut are K-12 Education (37 billion in 2010), Health/Welfare (same) and Prisons/Corrections ($9 billion in 2010). Add to the fact that the SF Chronicle reports that 40% of the parents of K-12 students are not eligible to vote (illegals) and that over 50% of K-12 students are Mexican-origin, you have a recipe for disaster.
The remaining White Middle class is asked to take massive tax burdens at a time of massive inflation and fixed income to pay for what amounts to Mexican nationals here to displace them. Take over.
Everything is coming to a crisis at the same time. No more Chinese credit fueled booms, bubbles in dot-com or housing, no more Reagan-esque recoveries led by military spending and cheap oil. It is “Lifeboat Economics” where the only gains are to be made by throwing people overboard.
And you cannot “call the bullet back.” One law for those from Mexico and Central America (come to the US illegally with no penalty and “take over”) and one law for those who are born with White Skin (“go to the back of the bus” as Pres. Obama has said) is not sustainable and means there is NO LAW. NONE AT ALL. Just MEN. With power, or not. You cannot recreate law, when it has been debased, anymore than currency, or respect. States will, on their own, start deporting anyone and everyone who is here illegally (and their kids, regardless of status) because it is a matter of economic survival. As well as one of cultural survival (i.e. not living defacto in Mexico).
Obama and Liberals brought everything to a crisis. Neither were savvy and lucky enough like Clinton to put off reckoning with scarcity by presiding over a bubble. Obama and Liberals are presiding over America being turned into Mexico, while ordinary natives are crushed by high taxes (illegals paid in cash exempt as with most laws) and ever inflating prices for food, clothing, and energy. This is to say nothing of the crushing burden and unequal, race-based privileges and punishment meted out by ObamaCare (or rationing health care to pay for what amounts to 30-50 million illegal aliens and their kids). Having killed the Constitution and rule of law, the Liberals and Obama will complain inevitably on the naked spoils based divvying up of what remains, and ruthless tossing overboard of those on the outs in a real life game of “Survivor.” Which reality TV has helpfully schooled every American in.
[Or, much shorter, competition and the global ties of China means America cannot and will not recover, because this is not 1983-84. It is 2010 and what Ed Driscoll calls "A Rendezvous with Scarcity."]
My thoughts to your resource constraint comments would be that we have the resources here, available, to meet these demands. All we have to do is tap them.
I put forth there is a response to this coming crisis, and it’s called opportunity…
you were right until you got here:
“America cannot and will not recover”
Utterly ridiculous. The Chinese will eventually deal with their communist government just as the slumbering American giant will once again shake off its lethargy.
Too many nattering nabobs here. California is still the 8th largest economy in the world with natural resources second to none. I had a cornucopia of healthy meals today Chinese citizen couldn’t even imagine. I didn’t have to shovel the California sunshine either. of As far as America goes, talk to any immigrant, ask them where they would rather be.
Some of you folks view patriotism as Rev Wright views religion.
As far as America goes, talk to any immigrant, ask them where they would rather be.
If memory serves, roughly half of legal immigrants return to home. In addition, of the legal immigrants less than 10 per cent are white – mainly from UK and Canada.
“In addition, of the legal immigrants less than 10 per cent are white – mainly from UK and Canada.”
Uh, so? You have something against hard working, tax paying South or East Asian immigrants? As opposed to European immigrants, who arrive looking for more Euro-Socialism.
Besides, don’t worry. the collapse of their welfare states and Muslim immigration will send more of those white folks this way.
Count me as another voice of optimism. We have everything we need to recover our greatness but a few degrees of the pendulum’s swing.
I remember when people were saying that California is the 5th largest economy in the world, so stop worrying. Now, being the 8th largest means “don’t worry.” Soon it’ll be the 10th largest, then 12th largest, then…
I live in the Silicon Valley, and during the dot-com boom, liberals would brag about the “4th largest economy in the WORLD” in California. Now its purportedly the “8th largest..” Liberals have forgotten their bragging of yesterday and talk about their “Smart economy” etc. Smart has two meanings, one indicating high intelligence, the other meaning painful. I agree with the phrase’s meaning in its latter, rather than the former.
Yes, there are reasons we are called the Golden State. But don’t think we can keep it that way without a lot of effort and attention. CA may well have gone past its tipping point. There are just too many special interests who benefit from big and bigger government or who always look to it to solve problems – real and imagined. This means we will see a steady dimunition of our standard of living and opportunity for our children and grandchildren as government, regulations and unions grow and have to be paid for.
This article gives an interesting take on just how bad the prospects are for political reform. But their concept of A Union for the rest of us is an interesting approach.
Well Whiskey, you are my favorite contrarian, but you are wrong on this one.
Wealth creation is certainly connected to capital, but it isn’t entirely dependent on it by any means. Most of the major technologies that have fueled the growth in human lifespan, leisure time and comfort emanated from genius, not capital. The plow, the taming of animals, agriculture, the wheel, metallurgy, stirrups, concrete, gunpowder, the printing press, the steam engine, the cotton gin, the internal combustion engine, airplanes, radio, television, the PC, most medical advances, most internet technologies….and many many more are the gift of innovative geniuses, not governments or amassed capital. Sure there are exceptions…railroads, cell phone networks, mainframes, now ipods, and others required major capital infusions. The point is that the genius of America has been genius, not money.
We aren’t done by a long shot. The only things we have to fear are liberals and government. Once we get them out of the way, recovery can happen in a few short years. Unless of course, there is nothing less to invent. Don’t bet on that one.
Interest theory. So the steam engine was invented, then just started appearing all over the place without the development of manufacturing capital? The Wright Brothers invented the airplane, which then *poof* just appeared in ready-made airports without any capital? Somehow, I doubt that’s quite how it happened.
A genius without capital is just an eccentric tinkerer whose inventions are destined to be forgotten.
So you think the Boeing and Pan AM were the key to aviation. I don’t discount their contributions, but the Wright Bros and other pioneers were more important, and they had no capital at all. Same for the steam engine, and most other innovation.
My point, which you missed obviously, is that individuals are the heart of innovation and that America still dominates in innovation. China, btw, is severely restricted by it’s complex writing system and a language that few can learn who aren’t natives.
You can see the dominant impact of innovation everywhere. IBM had an absolute stranglehold on computing. Nobody thought they could ever be displaced. Who displaced them? Honeywell? DEC? GE? The hundreds of other highly capitalized companies that took a run over 30 years? Sorry buddy. Kids in their garages displaced IBM. Gates and Jobs did it, not GE.
If capital was everything, then the US economy would be 75% of the world’s economy by now.
As I said, capital counts, but innovators are king. And there certainly isn’t a lack of capital in this country anyway.
Tesla?
Capital will not always get you good inventors,
but good inventors can always get you capital.
- with apologies to Nappie Buonaparte.
The _only_ natural advantage the US has is the
creativity of its inventors; Time to repeal the
regulatory capture of patent law, and allow them
to work, or as the French say, ‘Laissez Faire’.
As much as it pains me to be a cynic, I have to point out that there are two things missing in your comment: 1) an appreciation that the dynamic to produce and retain technically skilled workers who can bring about the manufacturing and product innovations that are commensurate with a first-world economy has been seriously curtailed, leaving the United States with a huge pipeline problem; and 2) given that the self-same pool of talent that is trained at American universities are now mostly foreign born, and given that these same individuals are finding that their home countries are more hospitable and welcoming to innovation, they have ever increasing motivation to leave the United States. Bluntly, MBA’s and bankers are as useless to innovation and manufacturing as are lawyers and public school teachers. Time is now the enemy to your scenerio because we literally will now have to play catch up with the rest of the world just to maintain ourselves. Frankly, as a chemical technologist myself, I continue to see the vast array of disincentives to spending the time needed to master difficult technical subject matter as a student and as a professional. People are not that patriotic and will not postpone their earning potential, putting their families well-being and financial health at risk, for what has become increasingly meager rewards or worse – the loss of their livelihood by government fiat and regulation. The damage, once done, is not easily reversed!
You’re on the right track, Whiskey.
The Republic stands at the point Rome did in 44BC and it rockets along to where Cicero correctly forecast Rome would go.
This time, however, powerful rivals and historical precedents exist that Rome had none of. That will telescope events more rapidly and catatrophic than for the first republic.
America’s teachers have gifted us with several generations of unlettered mouth breathers for an electorate.
A come-back?
It’s just a question of “is it 500 years or a thousand this time”?
Just want to add.
The US can feed itself and can be energy independent any time it wants to. India and China entering the wolds commodities markets is a challenge we can meet.
Do not bail out California. For God sake these people need to learn.
I agree with you, Whiskey, on everything but the limited resources. The resources are there in plenty, but we are not allowed to exploit them for sane, rational uses. However, the net effect is the same. And this is because you are absolutely correct that the Rule of Law has expired in America. That genie don’t go back in the bottle, folks.
“We are out of investment capital.”
American companies are sitting on tons of cash.
Right on. Soros and company are effecting their agenda, masterfully crafted by the KGB/FSB. We yacked on and on when the Berlin Wall came down, etc. about the end of Communism? Call the “ism” whatever you want, but we are in BIG trouble, and I pray our military, when the time comes, snaps awake, and stands with “we the people”. The crash of the dollar is being orchestrated, and it will be divide and conquer. Many of the States fortunately see the writing on the wall, but it will be interesting to see what “force” will be wielded to subjugate us into the banana republic they plan for us. There is a lot of “good ‘ol boys” at the ready, but the Founders wanted the people armed at par with big gov- those nasty black rifles are small change in the face of even what the “3rd World” has, so to what effect “Bubba” will be a hedge, remains to be seen.
…and now we’ve gone from the White House acting like some out-of-control frat house, to the House of Representatives and Senator Bernie Sanders and the
White House together behaving like some D.C. conglomerate out-of-control Ivy league frat house.
Real progress. Catch the wave.
Again, Dr. Hanson concludes that the American people will react to the current mess by getting up, dusting themselves off and getting back on the bucking bronco, and things will be set arright once more.
I also hope to see America reborn, in the way Reagan rescued the nation and set it on a long term course of prosperity and success. But the damage is terribly severe this time, and I fear that even if another Reagan were to appear, it would be a decade or more before Americans could hope to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The trauma to the nation’s social and economic fabrics are profound, and one should be prepared for the possibility that the worst is yet to come.
Dr. Hanson is confirming what many of us have realized: we will survive this period, Obama has lost the initiative and those of us in the “fly-over states”, combined with others on either coast recognize this group is not a good fit for USA. Revolution is not necessary, mass vitriol is unproductive and lamenting what we’ve done is a useless excercise. That fact is that Obama is like an employee that BS his way into a position he is woefully unprepared for, lacks the demeanor to recover and sadly does not give a damn for the company. Unless the Repubs can find some good stuff, we’re stuck with this guy and must emphasize strategies to ameliorate the effects of his incumbency.
“The September 15 meltdown… The media decided it had to ensure this once-in-a-lifetime gift, and joined rather than monitored Obama.”
The mass media was heavily pro-Obama long before September 2008. It was pro-Obama back in the early Democratic party primaries when it savaged Hillary (I had no problem with that) while lauding Obama (and saying nothing about Obams’s past actions, speeches, or anti-American, anti-capitalism, and anti-democracy beliefs).
Now…we wait.
VDH, we really, truly, have no plan. We have no map for the future.
We are bouncing around from lily-pad to lily-pad without any semblance of direction, purpose or intent.
The rather insane left had us by the throat and is not all that excited about loosening their grip. Half of them want to put on a pair of gloves to hide the fingerprints, the other half simply want to finish the job.
And, we just might let them if we’re not careful.
I wouldn’t be that worried. We’re in a much better position now than we were a year ago. The insane Left grabbed us by the throat while we were asleep. Now that we’re awake they’re becoming downright hysterical. The Left knows what that means for them. They’ve always gained power by default. No one actually believes they can lead. We’ll get the map, the point man (or woman), and then we’ll get out of this mess.
We shall survive although in what manner has yet to be determined. I firmly believe that our next president, TBE in 2012, shall be a conservative, sex yet TBD. The question might be the size and depth of the economic hole we have to repair.
However, I also believe that the Socialists shall scream foul that their hopes and dreams have not been realized, that they have just made daily life more difficult because of the lack of will and ability of the current incompetent administration.
Of course, since we’ve now gotten a true Socialist government and a failing dome, all public efforts will be to ignore our reality and concentrate on restoring public confidence in Minnesota’s redistribution of city wealth.
Lastly, maybe Obama will now emphasize the need to speed up our green efforts for global warming! We only have 2-feet of snow on the ground now.
./sarc off
Never have I witnessed such a gross public display of incompetence when President Obama abdicated his responsibility to respond to questions at a recent press conference. He asked former President Clinton to take over the podium while he, the President of the United States, not wanting to offend the First Lady, went to a Christmas party. It is as if a captain of a ship, during a raging storm, asks a passenger to take the helm, while he, the captain goes below to take a nap. This petulant adolescent should immediately resign so he can party at his leisure without offending his constituents. Whenever I see President Obama now, I am reminded of the quote from Macbeth: “he is all sound and fury – signifying nothing”.
Dr VDH we can only hope that your long view of history will justify your optimism. Seriously ill patients often die regardless of optimism. Obama and friends have made a sick patient sicker. Your insights are appreciated but perhaps you can offer actual solutions to this critical situation ?
Reduce by 5 per cent all state and federal pensions that are more than double the rate of social security.
Immediately take 25 per cent of worth away from billionaires.
Defund NPR, CPB, UN, Palestinians, Dept. Of Education.
Close a lot of post offices and give postal workers larger routes and Segways.
Get our military out of Europe.
Let states and corporations go bankrupt. Salaries will be lessened and assets will be sold to those who will use them better.
Drill for oil to fuel power plants for electric cars!
i agree, somewhat,– we must let creative destruction happen
I do have to disagree with one statement Dr. Hanson (although I do agree with most all you say) bho ( he doesn’t deserve caps in his name ) is not 1/2 black–the only Black Person in his linage is his Great Grandmother.. He is there fore 1/16th Black…. I beleive the US law states something about need to have 1/6th Indian blood to be entitled to what little we do ive to the former American Natives !!!!!
Essential vdh
All in all the BHO’s for all of their bumbling incompetence have done more damage in a shorter period of time than an actual blood letting revolution. It has essentially been a race based and justified take down of the US Economy and the fundamental American values of individual responsibility and hard work needed to succeed.. It has pitted Americans against Americans and it empowers illegal immigrants to become “Victims” even in the face of their criminal actions. It also provides the Moral justification for their grievances based on lies and a rewriting of the history of the US. Truly a land of immigrants who as soon as they could they became the Americans that built the country. Now of course most illegal immigrants come as participants in the BHO take down of America.
It did not start with the BHO’s and this last election proves that the Republicans are not going to stop it. Already they have bumbled there way to huge future spending increases just to maintain a status on tax. Let us hope the TEA party Americans gain in strength and stick to constitutional fundamentals and are not taken over by some political agenda trying to build a power base.
I’d like to think we will see the dawn of a new era beginning on or about January 3, 2011. However, there are still too many Dems and RINOs in both the House and Senate for one to be sanguine about the real prospects of such an awakening. The “establishment” on both sides of the aisle is still very resistant to change.
So, our hope lies in ourselves. Let’s make sure the Tea Party continues, flourishes, and helps all of us prosper. We aren’t out of resources, either moral or physical. If we stop producing ethanol our effective corn production doubles. If we drill for oil in the Arctic and the Gulf of Mexico we can triple oil production. If we get real on nuclear power instead of wind turbines and algae we can produce all the power we need forever.
Our huge coal reserves can be made in to diesel fuel.
I too have hope; but that’s not a strategy. If whiskey’s view is closer to reality than we are, then the discussion needs to be all about the cost of “starting from scratch” vs. having an operating infrastructure to build on.
After all the EPA has decreed that exhaling is a habitual polluting behavior, and unions have infected nearly every critical service, and bureaucrats now control the food supply, and Congress continues to regulate communication between citizens, and so on. And our borders remain porous. So, at some point this enslavement just stops? Say who?
It’s against at least 10,000 laws, rulings, findings, regulations and edicts to build even coal/gas-fired power plants, or to drill anywhere, and you wish for near-term nuclear power. That adds another 10,000 legal obstacles.
How long will that morass take to clear through the courts? Wishful thinking is an easy way to kick the can. NO MONEY is another way of saying there’s no more road. How far can we proceed, without utterly destroying the concepts of seniority, longevity, tenure, AA, special-class and entitlement?
Large structures aren’t dismantled piece-by-piece; they require large implosions. Get ready.
Call me at least sceptical of your vision of our future, absent significant strife and pushback from the Left every step of the way.
Another great mirror of our times. Thanka VDH.
I continue to marvel at the utter vaccuum of a history for this man, and how he arrived so squeaky clean. It will come eventually, and I believe that it will be very enlightening, to say the least.
Well, if it really does hit the fan maybe Mr. Hanson will let us work his farm. Merry Christmas y’all.
WHAT DID OBAMA DO TO GET BILL TO DEFEND THE COMPROMISE DEAL?
Click my name for the answer.
Truth in humour!!! LMAO!
Hillary just can’t win.
Oh – this is a gem – Click the link if you haven’t yet viewed this.
I agree with ‘Cigars’…
The tide has already turned and existing veils have been torn down; the corruption and deceit of our ‘leaders’ will continue to be exposed and America will rise to its destiny in spite of these very temporary obstacles and threats. The halls of Congress will be filled with people filled with a deep love for God and country.
What men like Soros et al (people who think that they know better than God) forget, is the spirit of the American people, and the providential role of the U.S.A. which, along with Israel, will truly be the ‘shining city on a hill’. Freedom is an eternal purpose and the promise of God Himself, who is not about to let America be taken down by a bunch of self-loving thugs. We have been taught a valuable lesson…but we have NOT been beaten.
We will prosper and our economy will flourish as will our outreach to the rest of humanity. It’s has already begun.
By the way…I am an immigrant…an American citizen that is all too familiar with how statist, atheistic big government tries to replace God with false dependence on the state; crushing our spirits and our freedom. I believe that the Constitution is to be revered (spelling); and that it was divinely inspired and is divinely protected for the sake of all men.
We need not despair; rather, we must press on.
You, Husky, are a true American.
Now if some born here Americans would get on board and start thinking and acting like true Americans we’ll be out of this pickle in no time.
In “Annie Hall,” noted pedophile Woody Allen said, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. And those who can’t teach, teach gym.”
In America it seems, those who can, do. And those who can’t, kvetch. Can’t figure out what those who can’t kvetch do.
The Christmas present of all Christmas presents – The VDH Voice of Reason.
Cost – ability to read.
Benefit – sanity in a sea of lunacy, all year, two times a week, or more.
If you’re going to give yourself this gift just once, you scored a great one this week.
Thank you again Dr. H!
ditto!
Obama should really just do what Lyndon Johnson did in 1968 and just say that he is not running for re-election. It will save everybody a lot of time and effort in having to replay the 1980 election when Jimmy Carter was destroyed by Ronald Reagan. There is nowhere to for Obama to go but down, especially now when so many Americans want to kill Obamacare or at the very least repeal it. That was the high-point of his presidency and the bulk of Americans hated it. If most Americans hated your signature piece of legislation, it isn’t going to get better from now on.
Give it up, Barry O. It would probably be the best thing you could do for your party’s chances in 2012. But, the conservative in me says, “Run, run.” After all, Jimmy Carter did so well, right?
Just think good Doctor,
Without taxes, the Left disappears…back to making a living in an environment where “community organizing” courses imbue a less than saleable skillset.
Arguing whether 35% or 22% or 10% “death tax” is more fair is insanity. Is negotiating with a thief to determine how much he can steal a productive pursuit, or a successful strategy?
Now it seems keeping what you own is considered unpatriotic.
Congressman Weiner has told US, they want to pilfer our pockets, seize our property, in ever larger handfuls. They get to measure the theft in percentages.
The productive class is now openly under siege by the political class, and the best our newly elected junkyard dogs can accomplish was adding billions to the debt in a compromise?
All tax is theft. Otherwise we’d call it a voluntary contribution or a gift. We face this blatant confiscatory process unarmed, disarmed by 100 years of laws, rulings, regulations, Presidential edicts and unelected czars. Set “perfection” as the mission of all the gov’t agencies.
Corruption is rampant, punishable by mere censure. We voluntarily pay taxes? What a sham. Vote with your wallet, or you won’t get to vote ever again. Alinsky says to “overwhelm the system.”
VDH,
You nail everything except you neglected to mention that the Democrat-lite wing of the GOP managed to get the nomination for McCain; and that was tantamount to taking a dive, since McCain lacked the sex appeal to draw the distaff vote and he was himself ‘in the tank’ for Obama.
Dear Victor Hanson,
This post goes well with my coffee this morning. Thanks for it!
I wanted to chime in with this:
Every one of the movements you decry relies on two things. The first is prosperity bubbles which create the illusion that money is both easy to come-by and underserved. The second is the exponential increase in agency-hire during bubbles. When they are “wealthy” free born citizens will relenquish responsibility for even mundane things like house-cleaning, car-washing or child-rearing, to complete strangers (Meg Whitman’s dilemma is instructional here).
This intersection of a sweetened pot with burgeoning, ever-expanding deniability associated with the Bubble’s agency-economy is too nutrient-rich a substrate for our modern pirates to avoid.
But, rather than dwell on this obvious fact, I’m writing to make a larger point:
It appears that Clinton’s centrist DLC wing (remember them?)has perfected the bubble game. Ever try to pilot a motorcycle with an uncooperative passenger behind you…as your rider leans agains the turns, or too much into the turns, and forces you, the driver, to make dangerous moves to avoid wrecking? This casual obstructionism, always weighted towards the next critical “bubble,” is the Left’s MO. And they’ve got it down.
Of course, we can’t evict the Clinton/Pigford Democrats from our “motorcycle.” Love it or leave it…the Left’s chosen to do neither and there’s little we can do about it, short of abolishing their favorite domain, economic bubbles.
If you Hoovies could propose some solutions to this end, the country’d benefit greatly from it.
-S
You can sure say that again!
Dear Victor Hanson,
This post goes well with my coffee this morning. Thanks for it!
I wanted to chime in with this:
Every one of the movements you decry relies on two things. The first is prosperity bubbles which create the illusion that money is both easy to come-by and underserved. The second is the exponential increase in agency-hire during bubbles. When they are “wealthy” free born citizens will relenquish responsibility for even mundane things like house-cleaning, car-washing or child-rearing, to complete strangers (Meg Whitman’s dilemma is instructional here).
This intersection of a sweetened pot with burgeoning, ever-expanding deniability associated with the Bubble’s agency-economy is too nutrient-rich a substrate for our modern pirates to avoid.
But, rather than dwell on this obvious fact, I’m writing to make a larger point:
It appears that Clinton’s centrist DLC wing (remember them?)has perfected the bubble game. Ever try to pilot a motorcycle with an uncooperative passenger behind you…as your rider leans agains the turns, or too much into the turns, and forces you, the driver, to make dangerous moves to avoid wrecking? This casual obstructionism, always weighted towards the next critical “bubble,” is the Left’s MO. And they’ve got it down.
Of course, we can’t evict the Clinton/Pigford Democrats from our “motorcycle.” “Love it or leave it!” the bumper sticker goes. But the Left’s chosen to do neither and there’s little we can do about it, short of abolishing their favorite domain, economic bubbles.
If you Hoovies could propose some solutions to this end, the country’d benefit greatly from it.
-S
WHAT’S NEXT?
Obama calling on Carter as a hostage taking expert to validate his views on the GOP.
Either I am in an impressionable mood or that was one scintillating essay. It just seemed to catch the whole fantastic kaleidescope of events as I felt them over last three years. One kvetch: surely it was eco-indulgences that Pope Gore was peddling, not eco-penances.
Don’t paraphrase Sappho, cite H.P. Lovecraft, whose Nyarlathotep is a more apt reference.
American exceptionalism exists despite others and not on the backs of them. The idea that America’s success exists only to whatever extent the European Americans were able to oppress others is a cultural conceit that soothes the egos of many and is the fundamental basis of organizations like DemocracyNow. Here in Cairo, I had a journalist from DemNow tell me that Americans shake a money tree compared to people who live in India.
The liberal Left’s explanation for why many continue to do so poorly results in author’s who make up new explanations like racism 2.0 and white privilege. One time, I decided I wanted to hike deep in the Guatemalan jungle and visit Mayan sites inaccessible by road and also walk on an arrow straight ancient causeway between Nakbe and El Mirador recently found by satellite imaging.
I got a job in a crappy warehouse lifting thousands of pounds a day, denied myself a car, riding a bicycle a few miles to work in rain in the fall and cold in Nov. in Minnesota. I saved the money in 6 months and stepped on a plane. This is privilege to the Left I guess.
It is so simple and all my stories about college, other travels and art are the same. Convoluted explanations that involve Jim Crow and white baseball leagues are sickening to listen to in light of my own experiences and yet to deny the idea of lingering white privilege is considered insensitive and racist. Obama himself speaks a language of racism who has not a clue about real life or how to live one and complaining don’t get you a 100 mile 1 week hike in the Guatemalan jungle. “Do” is not in the liberal apologetic sinful West vocabulary because they defend those who refuse to “do”.
Obama’s rhetoric is getting worse, but he made a tax agreement with the “hostage takers” and “enemies”. This might be the pattern for the next two years. Him bitching but signing what the Republicans put in front of him any way.
The rhetoric needs to cool, it could justify violence from the left.
There are better writers than me, not a rocket scientist. But is seems to move past this disaster the center and right must fully pull back the curtain and expose the Progressives, soros OSI, and marxists attempting to seize our economy and government. Sarah Palin wanted to fully discuss Obama’s friends and background and beliefs but Mac would not let her. Maybe Nov 2010 was a start.
Soros, Ayers, Wright, Chavez, Morales, Putin, mouth piece Van Jones and his fake green friends, many Foundations, many University employees are now openly stating they are intent on destroying the Capitalist system brick by brick and transferring wealth – they actually think this is their time. Plus, they are trying to radically change our history and culture.
Obama has been their their friend for life, deception is over. The Clintons have been Alinsky acolytes also, just smoother. Must be removed at the roots.
Time to expose the wizards. Beck, Savage, others have done a fantastic job so far but the information has to go full bore mainstream Republican, traditional Democratic, and Independent by early 2012 or the nation is at risk from the Progressives, Marxists, and Soros OSI. They ain’t playin.
Some traditional Democrats (not progressives) in State legislatures are switching to Republicans. Patriots.
btw – some Russian reset. putin sold chavez 1,800 advanced Anti-aircraft missiles last year and will cooperate with Iran in supplying Nuke technology and they cannot run their heavy crude industry.
Good analysis, as always, but Reagan used a teleprompter and wowed the Brits with his seeming ability to speak so eloquently from memory. Until they learned the secret. Then they were merely impressed with his ability to speak so eloquently from a prepared text.
We are facing the “between times”. Shall we decline in to oblivion or is there a rising from ashes in our future? We have the resources, the academia, the talent . . . but do we have the “reason”? The characteristics of a good leader . . . WHO has them? The Tea Party waits . . . Patriotism waits . . . Opportunity is hidden behind a screen of abstract rhetoric . . . is the man behind the curtain willing to step forth and encourage US or will he be only a babbling fool who knows not what to do . . . the man who abdicates and falsely acuses. Shall we shed the parasites or succumb to the toxic and langish in the times gone by, of opportunity lost and the road not taken?
Essential vdh
James May: Good thinking Jimmy.
American exceptionalism is based on its unique self-definition, unique because it had never before been focused on in the history of societies.
This is its focus on the individual. America founded itself on the individual, an insistence that individuals were the basis of reason, analysis and development. America gave freedom and power to the individual – and this freedom and power enabled almost all of our modern technological innovations.
The freedom to think – expressed in free speech; the power to express thought – expressed in constant elections. The right of the individual to exist as an individual rather than as a collective – expressed in free speech and yes, in the 2nd amendment
How many collectivist societies, which denigrate the individual, which deny the individual the right to question, dissent, reason – have been innovative? None. Absolutely none.
Consider our modern example: The Islamic nations, which deny reason, questions, individual power, which insist on unquestioning adherence to dogma – make use of our inventions – everything from medicine to computers to oil (which they couldn’t extract or process on their own which is why the British and American oil companies developed) to planes, cars, guns -
What we have to be careful of is the Obama Gang’s insertion of statism, or collectivism, within the US. That is what they are doing.
Obama is not, himself, a crusader for collectivism or indeed for any intellectual theory; he is pathological, psychologically damaged; his focus is on himself feeling that He is in Power over others. So, when he moved from low grade college lecturer to politics he would of course be in the Democratic Party and in the radica left of that party.
And Obama is always run by others. His ‘ideas’ come from others not from himself. He is intellectually barren. Totally without thought or analysis. He operates only within a constant manipulation of others to make himself, personally, feel that he controls them. The smile, the wave, the vapid rhetoric. The ever present appeal-to-race.
Obama functions, always, with a dominant woman behind him to provide him with ideas and agendas: his mother, grandmother, wife.
And – with a set of advisors to again, provide his intellectual agenda. Obama ONLY FUNCTIONS within the personal interaction. Not the theoretical or policy. He leaves that to others.
The danger is that the Obama Gang behind him are inserting a statist structure into the US. (Soros, Pelosi, Reid, others). The Health Care is not about bettering health. It will harm health care. It is a statist or centralist governing infrastructure.
Consider EVERYTHING Obama has, as the upfront guy, guided by the BackRoom Obama Gang – put in place. It’s a statist STRUCTURE, meant to inhibit and constrain individual freedom.
Obama is psychologically against individual freedom – for individuals are not controllable. This statist infrastructure is our key concern – his Gang’s health care STRUCTURE, the deficit (payback for friends of Democrats), the various Cap-and-Trade, and other bills – are all about reducing individual freedom.
Calls for civility and an end to partisanship are always preceded by Progressives getting their keisters kicked at the polls; and occur concurrently with their continued attempts to conduct total class war.
It’s hard to engage in civil argument with someone who begins from the premise that anyone who doesn’t assent with their notions that unilateral disarmament is the only means of achieving peace, wealth redistribution is the only means to economic growth, and racial quotas are the only means to achieve racial harmony, is therefore a war-mongering racist toady for the Rich. There is no room for for debate with a bigot.
It seems like Frum wishes to condend with David Brooks for the privelege of assuming the coveted David Gergen Chair of Acceptable Conservatism for the Lamestream Media.
Whiskey like many others sees the economy dependent on great capital infrastructure which is definitely not the case in the information age. As an example I use my own industry as an example. I have been creating post secondary educational material since 1978. According to my university which keeps track of reprints from my work more than one million items from my books have been circulated. All of this activity was generated from accumulated knowledge. A further example of this little or no capital investment knowledge based activity is RIM – Research in Motion – creators of among other useful items the Blackberry. Putting the contents of one’s knowledge into providing solutions for real life problems is not at all capital intensive and the last time I looked North America and the rest of the anglosphere are streaks aheAd of the rest of the world in this area. BTW I post under my married surname which is not the same as the one I’m known by professionally.
VDH – This is a classic. I am keeping this one with me at all times!
You always elevate discourse on your chosen subjects but this one is one of your best, if not your best! Thank you
Now that we know what doesn’t work, perhaps we can return to sanity.
Nearly everything the good doctor points out that are the signature of this most misguided administration in modern memory must and should be thrown away; Van Jones, Valerie Jarrett, the Chicago machine, Big Green, 57 states, Slow Joe Biden, Robert Fibbs, George Soros, big unions and their communist bosses, appeasement for tyrants, record numbers in poverty and on food stamps, you get the idea.
It’s time for some retro thinking. We didn’t always have the problems we’re now having.
Had enough “progress” yet, America?
Now that we know what doesn’t work, perhaps we can return to sanity.
Nearly everything the good doctor points out that are the signatures of this most misguided administration in modern memory must and should be thrown away; Van Jones, Valerie Jarrett, the Chicago machine, Big Green, 57 states, Slow Joe Biden, Robert Fibbs, George Soros, big unions and their communist bosses, appeasement for tyrants, record numbers in poverty and on food stamps, you get the idea.
It’s time for some retro thinking. We didn’t always have the problems we’re now having.
Had enough “progress” yet, America?
Now that we know what doesn’t work, perhaps we can return to sanity.
Nearly everything the good doctor points out that are the signatures of this most misguided administration in modern memory must and should be thrown away; Van Jones, Valerie Jarrett, the Chicago machine, Big Green, 57 states, drilling moratoriums, Slow Joe Biden, Robert Fibbs, George Soros, Alinsky, Ayers, big unions and their communist bosses, appeasement for tyrants, record numbers in poverty and on food stamps, you get the idea. The rise of these anti-American ideas and people is in direct proportion to our current national woes.
It’s time for some retro thinking. We didn’t always have the problems we’re now having.
Had enough “progress” yet, America?
Is there a reason anyone on the right takes David Frum seriously these days?
The leftist media’s full-throated negative campaign against GWB didn’t run for the full eight years of his presidency. It found its voice only after a critical mass of Democratic Congresscritters, who’d eagerly voted for the Iraq war, discovered that there was political profit in reversing that decision, even with our sons and grandsons in the field and under fire.
But once started, that negative campaign set the stage for the fully bamboozled public to support the maximum anti-Bush – and the media indeed decided it had to ensure this once-in-a-lifetime gift, and joined rather than monitored Obama.
Thereby joining not only Obama in his aspiration to rule, but joining in solidarity those Democrats who’d sold out their pro-Iraq-war votes for a chance at looting the national till once again.
What does one do when ‘The Machine Stops’ ?
What does one do when ‘The Machine Stops’ ?
One likely has to figure out how to feed his family amid grocery store shortages, rationing or outright lack of products. The fedgov will count on you being distracted with this as they finish seizing all your rights. Be Prepared.
Read ‘With Folded Hands’.
To be so gifted with the written word. Perfection in simplicity.
Late 2008 was indeed low tide. Nov. 2, 2010, may have raised it a couple of inches but not nearly enough to make the boats float. But it is a start.
In fewer than two years, Obama has created considerable, widespread, semi-permanent damage to Americans and their economy. No mean achievement for an on-the-job, affirmative-action trainee.
Enough with the doomsayers. Every time is “differently” apocalyptic. Read VDH– this recession is about not getting a 2nd x-box or being able to upgrade to an HDTV. It ain’t great but it ain’t the Great Depression either. And I’ll take Chinese and Indian workers who want to buy scooters as “enemies” over 1930s era Euro & Japanese militarists.
Man up, people…(I’m looking at you Whiskey!). Obama is DONE. The dems are DONE. What comes next is up to…us.
Dear Mr. Hanson,
A most worthy rant.
Most excellent and very well done.
Bravo Man!
Bravo!
PS Mr. Hanson,
That’s what I call being pissed off, calling a cat a cat, in style.
Thank you for writing this. I’m sure you put much thought and time into considering how to couch your rightful anger and justified protest in a manner that in itself does justice.
It is a nice piece that takes the philosophical path of provincial had enough.
Worthy regards to you Sir.
Pss Mr. Hanson,
Now what? Keep on keeping on. Be the best you can. Liberty or Death.
And wait, a bit more.
You see, self immolation is about to take a life of its own. The left has never been anything worthy of true merit. Smoke and mirrors, criminal dissimulation, self destructive means to self destructive ends does not bode well in a Republic steeped and raised on the teet of Independence from Tyrants and their Tyranny, Liberty and Prosperity. No matter what anyone tries to tell you.
Now what?
You watch. These fools, snake oil salesman, grifters and larcenous tin horn potentates are about to bite off way more than they bargained for.
They have no idea of the retribution and redress that is going to rain down on their worthless hides.
The fat lady is not even close to warming up her vocal cords my fellow Patriotic American.
You watch Pal.
I rather liked the geodesic dome.
These problems go back way longer than four years – more like over one hundred years. We’re at the end of a VERY LONG ROPE that began with the Progressive era in the early 20th century. Many of those fiascoes have never been rescinded or recanted, only modified slightly.
America’s collectivist/irrationalist era is still with us and is just as strong as ever, overwhelming our individualist origins and heritage.
Well what do you know. Having long ago found VDH “always right”, I find a point (admittedly small) on which he is simply and completely incorrect. This piece, in a passing reference, includes “TM” among “the other periodic hysterias of the bored affluent liberal class”.
I practiced TM for many years. I taught TM for a few years. I spent ample time with its teacher, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. I certainly know far more than VDH on this subject and I can assure him and the reader that TM is a serious and valuable tool. While I suppose it’s true that its practitioners may well be more representative of the “affluent liberal class” (who have the time and interest in such matters), “bored” does not apply. TM is a technique that promotes greater calm, increased clarity of thought, and more focussed moral action. VDH’s inclusion in the list of “fads worthy of dismissal” is unfair, and I would have to add, unknowing and gratuitous. The Weekly Standard, of which I am a regular and grateful reader, did what can only be described as a “hit piece” last year on the occasion of the death of Maharishi. The reason for that and for VDH’s unfortunate and unjustified throw-away line re TM seems clear. The Right promotes traditional values and disparages anything resembling a “faux post-modern” religion. Very few on the right (clearly not Kristol or VDH) know much about the Human Potential movement in general, or things like TM specifically – in fact, so little as to not be aware that parts of this universe are worthy of the greatest respect, while others … not.
This antagonism rears its head every once in awhile, such as in this case. It’s not a big deal, but it rankles those of us who know otherwise, and it diminishes the moral authority of its proponents. TM helped many people evolve as individuals, certainly not as parts of a fad. I am very grateful for having found it, and in fact, I attribute my political evolution to the right to the clarity that I gained from it.
Happy to shed some light.
KS
I’m not sure there’s anything unusual or uniquely dangerous about our current situation. All financial crises suck. Here’s a list of 400 years’ worth of financial crises (from Wikipedia), all of which the countries involved managed to survive:
1637: Bursting of tulip mania in the Netherlands
1720: Bursting of South Sea Bubble (Great Britain) and Mississippi Bubble (France)
Crisis of 1772
Panic of 1792
Panic of 1796–1797
Danish state bankruptcy of 1813
Panic of 1819 (USA)
Panic of 1825 (Great Britain)
Panic of 1837 (USA) followed by a 5-year depression
Panic of 1847 (Great Britain)
Panic of 1857 (USA) recession w/ bank failures
Panic of 1866 (Great Britain) The Overend Gurney crisis
Panic of 1873 (USA) recession w/ bank failures, known then as the 5 yr Great Depression & now as the Long Depression
Panic of 1884
Panic of 1890
Panic of 1893 (USA)
Banking crisis of 1893 (Australia)
Panic of 1896 (USA)
Panic of 1901 (USA) NYSE crashed
Panic of 1907 (USA) recession w/ bank failures
Panic of 1910–1911
1910 – Shanghai rubber stock market crisis
Wall Street Crash of 1929 (Global) followed by the Great Depression
1973–1974 stock market crash (Global) caused by 1973 Oil Crisis
Secondary banking crisis of 1973–1975 (Great Britain)
1980s – Latin American debt crisis
Bank stock crisis of 1983 (Israel)
1987 – Black Monday – the largest one-day percentage decline in stock market history
1989–91 – United States Savings & Loan crisis
1990 – Japanese asset price bubble collapsed
early 1990s – Scandinavian banking crisis
1992–93 – Black Wednesday – speculative attacks on currencies in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism
1994–95 – 1994 economic crisis in Mexico – speculative attack and default on Mexican debt
1997–98 – 1997 Asian Financial Crisis – devaluations and banking crises across Asia
1998 Russian financial crisis
2001 – Bursting of dot-com bubble – speculations concerning internet companies crashed
2007–10 – Financial crisis of 2007–2010, followed by the late 2000s recession and the 2010 European sovereign debt crisis
Look at a period like 1873 through 1898. It started with a 5-year-long depression, then proceeded through a series of almost back-to-back economic crises. I bet the newspapers all had headlines saying “PANIC!” And I bet half the pundits and letters-to-the-editor were invoking the Fall of the Roman Empire and predicting the country’s imminent collapse.
Yet during that period we built railroads, nearly completed the conquest and settlement of the western frontier, built a world-class navy, and topped the period off by winning a war with Spain and taking over Cuba and the Philippines. And people still lived, worked, and prospered more or less. The welfare of our country and the course of our lives were affected by the economy, but not determined by it.
I’m with Hanson – we’re going through hell now, it’s scary and it’s not fun, but we’ll survive and come back stronger than ever.