The presidency of Barack Obama is full of funny things that need not follow any sort of logic. Images and ideas just pop in and out, without worry of inconsistency, contradiction, or hypocrisy. It’s a fascinating mish-mash of strange heroes and bogeymen, this imaginarium of our president.
In the imaginarium there are no revolving doors, earmarks, or lobbyists. So Peter Orszag did not go from being OMB director to a Citigroup fat-cat. Once chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel did not make $16 million for his well-known banking expertise. The more you damn the pernicious role of lobbyists and the polluting role of big money, the more you must hire and seek out both. Public financing of campaigns is wonderful for everyone else who lacks the integrity of Barack Obama who understandably must renounce such unfair impositions.
Those who now vote against raising the large Obama debt ceiling are political hucksters and opportunists; those who not long ago voted against raising the smaller Bush debt ceiling were principled statesmen. “Unpatriotic” presidents borrow $4 trillion in eight years; patriotic ones we’ve been waiting for can trump that in three.
Catching known terrorists and putting them in Guantanamo is very bad; killing suspected ones by drone assassinations — and anyone unlucky enough to be in their general vicinity — is exceptionally good. Tribunals, renditions, preventative detention, and all that were bad ideas under Bush-Cheney, but could become good ideas under Barack Obama, the law professor who often sees no need to follow the law when an immigration or marriage statute is deemed regressive.
A million Iranians protesting a soon-to-be-nuclear theocracy is false revolutionary consciousness and to be left alone; a few thousand Israelis wanting to buy apartments in the Jerusalem suburbs is subversive and worthy of presidential condemnation. And when atoning for supposed American lapses, what better place to begin apologizing than in Turkey, the incubator of the Armenian, Greek, and Kurdish mass killings? We need to deny history to make the case that America is not exceptional, and to invent it to persuade us that the Muslim world is extraordinary.
Twenty-four months of a Democratic Congress, and over $4 trillion in spending, resulted in 9.1% unemployment and near nonexistent growth. Yet the culprit for the current situation is ten months of a Republican-controlled House that has yet to approve another $500 billion of borrowing. In the imaginarium, just a little more of the massive amount that has failed will not fail. But if the Republicans are to be blamed for not wanting to waste the last half-trillion, are the Democrats to be praised for borrowing the first wasted $4 trillion?
In the imaginarium, all sorts of demons and devils can unite to derail the brilliance of Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan. ATMs have for the first time after 2009 begun to eliminate jobs. But then so did the Japanese tsunami and the EU meltdown. The DC earthquake did its part, but then so did climbing oil prices and the Arab Spring. Of course, the ghost of George Bush floats over all the present mess. Economic gurus like Austan Goolsbee, Peter Orszag, Christina Romer, and Larry Summers used to write brilliant essays of what would work if they were to be in charge, and now write brilliant essays about why it did not work when they were in charge.
The common thread amongh the evolving fantasies of the imaginarium is the destruction of the United States of America.
I wonder if it ever bothers Obama to realize that in his quest to punish WASP America, he is also plunging millions of blacks ever deeper into poverty, despair and premature death? How can one possibly justify this, unless one has no conscience (a psychopath)? Is he even aware that his drive to “change” (i.e. destroy) America is an attempt to flee from the fear and pain that dwell deep within him, and that by fleeing them he only gives them strength, because none of us can really flee from ourselves?
To hell with Obama. Whatever personal demons drive his destructive rampage through our society (including the violent clashes the Dems are preparing in the days ahead), it ends January, 2013. After that will be the reckoning.
Gingrich (or Cain, or Bachman or Perry…) in 2012!
Right. You cannot escape your shadow. If you remain unconscious of it you will live it as your fate.
The whole premise of his seemingly paradoxical drive is income redistribution and reliance upon the government. The blacks being plunged into more misery will be subsidized more so, and in greater numbers, than they are now. It’s not so much a racial thing as a social thing. Jack up energy prices, give subsidies in the way of “tax” rebates or the equivalent of food stamps to the “underprivileged”. The healthcare law is the blueprint, driving people to the “exchanges” and the accompanying subsidy, eventually driving private insurance out of business and the feds into business.
As for the dilemma for the poor in the meantime, as someone once said, “You’ve go to break a few eggs . . . “
Love the nickname, from the real thing. Also, totally agree. This was a great and infuriating article.
no Gylippus it doesn’t bother obama at all. obama only thinks of obama and what obama wants and to hell with the rest of us. the sooner him and his intire regime is brought up on charges. tried convicted and punnished to the fullest extent of the law the better for the Country, they all should have all of their assets seised by the government and returned to the treasury to compensate for a small part of what they have STOLLEN from the AMERICAN people. ALL perssonnel connected with Annie Mae and Fannie Mae also should have all of their assets seised and returned to the people. further. these SLIMEBALLS should all be imprisoned for a period of 40 years and one day at extremely HARD labor,
In ancient Athens they had an institution called “ostracism” for dealing with people who tried to grab too much power (undermine democracy). Maybe its time to consider such a process, for “special occasions”.
Say what?
Ostrakismos – look it up. It was an alternative to the death penalty for those involved in various kinds of sedition.
“if it ever bothers Obama to realize that in his quest to punish WASP America, he is also plunging millions of blacks ever deeper into poverty, despair and premature death?”
lol.
There are too many biomass units consuming resources that Obama and his cronies need for their sumptuous lifestyles. The color of those units only matters in so far as he can exploit them in order to sieze the power necessary to eliminate most of them. The black colored ones who support him are damned fools. The white ones who support him are even bigger fools.
This guy isn’t black or white. He is green as in money, and red as in total power. Yes, he is more than a sociopath. Like all the tyrants throughout history, he is a psychopath. Just because he hasn’t yet been able to act out in the ways they all eventually do, doesn’t mean he isn’t the same as them. It isn’t possible to be a little bit lawless or benevolently totalitarian.
If you think it’s about money, you have grossly underestimated this enemy.
It’s about power and money.
It always is.
Ideology is the shell game they use to con the rubes.
“I wonder if it ever bothers Obama to realize that in his quest to punish WASP America, he is also plunging millions of blacks ever deeper into poverty, despair and premature death? How can one possibly justify this, unless one has no conscience (a psychopath)? Is he even aware that his drive to “change” (i.e. destroy) America is an attempt to flee from the fear and pain that dwell deep within him, and that by fleeing them he only gives them strength, because none of us can really flee from ourselves?”
Obama has cultivated his hatred over his whole lifetime. It has been his “rock”, which drew him to the Marxists he loves and which has engendered hatred towards all who love liberty. For all the privilege he enjoyed growing up, the lack of love left him void of it. He is a user and receiver, but not a giver, of love. He cannot. One cannot give what one does not have within. He gives to those who have given him the most money, and he has a big debt to repay. All the campaign rhetoric was to soothe the populace and develop the “messiah” aura, which he succeeded in doing. So audacious was he that he and Michelle both stated that we were not going to like what they did to us after the election, but that it would be good for us. It fell on deaf ears in the din of the maddening crowds. They’d not hear of it, after all, he was their “messiah”, by God! No one was going to wrench that away from them. In their own imaginary world of peace through talk alone, they thought that electing an eloquent (sarc) president would erase all America’s woes. Let’s hope this is not repeated.
The Republican nominee had better be ready for every black trick in the book. You can be sure that the David Axelrods on the left will dig up every conceivable item and turn it into a circus. Obama cannot run on an empty slate this time, so they have to slander his opponent. The Black Friday ploy of putting out a falsehood on the Friday before the election when the candidate cannot respond in time. It grieves me that our populace is so vulnerable to this stuff, but they are. If we re-elect Obama, we’ll DESERVE the destruction that follows.
On Axelrod…. yes, but. I have been so enormously encouraged by the rise of Newt Gingrich. Everybody with a pulse knows Newt has a steamer trunkful of baggage. But they are still supporting him. Why? Because sentient Americans are coming to the conclusion that only Newt has the vision, the commitment and the expertise to get us back on track. Right now, in the midst of crisis, to get this kind of man in office, people are willing to overlook a lot. Also, the whole Herman Cain axe job has sickened people… no matter what they think about Herman Cain. And don’t forget, Newt is a fighter. He is not naive. He is ready for the Dem’s dirty tricks. It should be a great battle to watch. The dirtier it gets the worse the Dems will look, in my opinion.
IMO, Newt Gingrich is as brash, brilliant, and flawed as Winston Churchill. I hope I’m right and I hope Newt gets into the Big Chair. I have no doubt that Newt Gingrich loves and deeply appreciates the divinely inspired genius of The American Experiment. God rest ye merry gentlemen, Let nothing you dismay…
“He is a user and receiver, but not a giver, of love. He cannot. One cannot give what one does not have within.”
Very insightful, and so true. This guy has some serious pyschcosis.
Of course he doesn’t feel bad about the Blacks. He’s a progressive/marxist. Read about the Progressive Movement in America. They hate the Blacks. Margaret Sanger, their darling, wanted to use human reproductive engineering to eliminate Blacks from the population. Look at how the democrats have kept Blacks in poverty and victimhood for more than a hundred years. It was democrats who created and ran the Ku Klux Klan.
Senator Everett Dirksen, a republican from Illinois, drafted the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It passed because of republican votes (if you don’t believe it, look up the congressional record). Most of the democrats voted against it, and Senator Robert Byrd, a democrat from Virginia (and a top official in the Klan), filibustered the bill for 80 hours.
Obama is just like the other traitor Blacks: Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Julian Bond, Charlie Rangel, Maxine Waters, James Clyburn, etc. They are the true racists. They use their own people to make millions for themselves, all the while pretending that they are champions of their race. They make me sick.
“…Obama is just like the other traitor Blacks: Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Julian Bond, Charlie Rangel, Maxine Waters, James Clyburn, etc. They are the true racists. They use their own people to make millions for themselves, all the while pretending that they are champions of their race. They make me sick.”
I agree. And as further evidence would point out the fact that it was blacks – not white European armies – who captured and sold other blacks to the slave traders. An uncomfortable fact perhaps, but a fact nonetheless. Blacks, exploiting other blacks. Call me stupid, but there seems to be a pattern here.
Byrd was from West Virginia, just fyi
OR ROMNEY!
No offense, you have your right to say that Word….It sorta revolts my stomach thou….Would i vote for him over 0b0mm0….HELL YES…But i would have to hold me nose….
The worst part Gylippus is that I feel Obama is doing all this on purpose, its a plan, not a mistake.
If any of you read “roots of Obamas rage” by D. D’sousa you will find out why Obama hates America, and the plan he has for us.
ABO…abo.
I also agree this is no accident….It is my growing [stronger and stronger] every day that this man 0b0mm0 is a spawn of Hell, A wart or bunion of Satan himself….This is not the work of a common everyday man on the street, this evil is straight born and bred from a demonic force, more EVIL than any man can imagine….This man 0b0mm0 is more evil than all the satanic despots before him….I will now await for the forces of hell to attack me and mine..
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&…Come quickly Lord Jesus,…..Amen
And he hates Winston Churchill, enough said.
I don’t believe for a moment that this is a deep, unrealized psycho turmoil causing Barack Obama to search for happiness because he was a misunderstood black child in a white world. You give him too much humanness. This man is evil, pure and simple. And he dances while his evil puppet master is holding the strings. Mankind may not survive this President and his Master. In fact I would rather see the end of mankind than see this world become the burning fiery pit of hell that it is heading for with this evil being at the helm. We may be looking at the beast. Has anyone checked his head?
Hyperbole is the absolute worst mistake you can make.
The two great things Obama does are read teleprompters and campaign. The two bad things are making slow decisions and making bad decisions.
We can not keep electing the same people and expect change. Sometimes, like in our current president’s case we make bad decisions, but we need to keep trying.
We can impose term limits, even if the folks in Washington will not. We need to Unelectum All. Any incumbent from either party needs to be voted out. That will cause change and we need change.
Yeah, that’s a brilliant idea; turn the government over entirely to the lobbyists, staffers, and ‘crats. The biggest problem Republicans have already is that they have to be shown to any office in the Executive Branch by a Democrat.
Before you open your pockets for the next Natural disaster, please keep these facts in mind: (Read to the end…)
• The American Red Cross President and CEO Marsha J. Evans salary for the year was $651,957 plus expenses.
• The United Way President Brian Gallagher Receives a $375,000 base salary along with numerous expense benefits.
• UNICEF CEO Caryl M. Stern receives $1,200,000 per year (100k per month) plus all expenses including a ROLLS ROYCE . Less than 5 cents of your donated dollar goes to the Cause.
• The Salvation Army’s Commissioner Todd Bassett receives a salary of only $13,000 per year (plus Housing) for managing this $2 billion dollar organization. 96 percent of Donated dollars go to the cause.
• The American Legion National Commander Receives a $0.00 zero salary. Your donations go to help Veterans And their families and youth!
• The Veterans of Foreign Wars National Commander receives a $0.00 zero salary. Your donations go to help Veterans and their families and youth!
• The Disabled American Veterans National Commander receives a $0.00 zero salary. Your donations go to help Veterans and their families and youth!
• The Military Order of Purple Hearts National Commander receives a $0.00 zero salary. Your donations Go to help Veterans and their families and youth!
• The Vietnam Veterans Association National Commander receives a $0.00 zero salary. Your donations go to Help Veterans and their families and youth!
No further comment is necessary. Please Share this with everyone you can.
In the imaginarium, all sorts of demons and devils can unite to derail the brilliance of Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan.
Always someone else’s fault. (Technically, a defense mechanism, an excuse for personal ineptitude and weakness.)
The only consistent things about Barack Obama are his insistence on his own superiority and blaming and casting of aspersions onto…(insert deus ex machina of choice)
At some point, the tension between insisting you’re the world’s savior and actually being the world’s savior breaks under the strain. Every time this guy references America’s decline and loss of greatness (most recently at the conference in Hawaii), he may even be secretly pleased at his policies having such an effect.
As during his campaign, Barack and his wife have continued to make more than a few allusions to Americans’ laziness and complacency.
Both Obamas attempt to conceal their contempt for America and Americans, but it leaks through anyway.
Yes. And I get the impression that his Supreme Court appointees also hate America. In some ways that is even more troubling. In fact we’ve raised a nest of vipers in our midst. The real question is not “how did this happen”, because the resentful and the power hungry are always present and fairly easy to recognize. (They telegraph their angry intentions). And they’ve been chipping away for decades. No, the real question is what do you do with vipers once their nest is exposed?
You do what needs to be done with any nest of vipers. Fumigate the place.
Yes, two of the laziest, anti-American, unAmerican “citizens” of this Nation who spend more time on expenses paid by the tax payers of America can find nothing good about this Nation or those who support them. They obviously feel so entitled that the concept of shame escapes them.
That would be on vacations whose expenses are paid for, etc., etc.. Please excuse early, uncaffeinated posting!
This ‘imaginarium’ is enabled and thrives only because of the willing acquiesence of the press. I do not have a megaphone to voice my outrage and while I applaud the good Doctor for his keen observations and eloquence, far too few people hear it – again because of the lack of that megaphone that the mainstream media possesses. Just ask yourself, were any of the hypocricy, lies and outright contradictions that Dr Hanson so well details attributed to a Republican president, what would the reaction of the media be? What would that megaphone be blaring? If you answer anything other than that they would be goading the American public to be out in the streets screaming for blood, you are a either a hopeless fool or a tool of the Left and an enemy of this Republic.
The negligence at best, criminal behavior at worst, of the media is just completely baffling to me. It is on such a grand scale. Honestly, “drinking the kool-aid” has been a catch phrase, but I wonder if someone has actually put something in their water fountains. It is impossible to be so blatantly biased without incentive.
I Guess they’ve been lulled by the promise of perpetual membership among the cogniscenti. Being robotic shills instead of freely discovering and interpreting doesn”t seem to bother them (plenty of self serving hypocrisy going around it seems.) Then there are the humorless dimwits over at MSNBC. They are a whole other story. I actually feel embarassed sympathy for them, lostmas they are in their little boxes of self-righteous ignorance and laughably misplaced resentment.
“..without incentive”? Fame. Praise, especially from their colleagues. Good pay. Acknowledgement of their innate superiority. Power. A place in the “real” power structure. A future in the new reality. What’s not to like.
Incentives depend on values.
It isn’t “willing acquiescence,” it is active co-conspiracy. The communists had captured elite academia and major media by the ’30s. “We have seen the future, and it works.” The NYT actively shilled for the Soviets. Most of the name-brand newscasters were, charitably, fellow travellers. Of course, they all ran to ground in the “Red Scare” days of the late forties, early fifties, but they didn’t change their strips. We’re now in the third generation. Some barely literate kid just out of J-school and making crap wages is a perfect tool. And public broadcasting is the best incubator. Examine sometime the career path from public radio and TV on to the staff of Democrat officeholders.
Recalling Orwell’s “1984″, when the chocolate ration fell from 30 grams to 20, the state-controlled media simply announced that Big Brother has RAISED the ration to 20 grams. The history books were revised so that anyone who remembered that the ration used to be 30 would be shown to have faulty memories.
In our country today, the history books don’t need to be revised. Apparently few have the attetnion span to remember that the chocolate ration used to be 30 grams. And the ones who do are dismissed as “raaaaacists”. This scheme seems to work just as well as the one Orwell described. We shall see.
Remember all those Republican “spending cuts?”
Here’s how it works: Say a program from the previous FY was funded for $1 billion. The automatic increase process for new FYs installed by the Democrats in the 70′s will make that $1.1 billion for the new FY, but the Democrats want $1.5 billion for that program. Republicans will insist on “holding the line” at $1.2 billion. So the Democrats scream that the Republicans have “cut” $300 million from the program, and have condemmend mothers and babies to early deaths or something. The fact that the Republicans have allowed the budgetary item to grow by $200 million is not reported by the media.
Except for the hypotheticals, this process is not a fable.
VDH you entirely miss the point. Reality is unimportant only dreams and wishes matter. Crime you say? What crime?
“Nobel” not “Noble”. Sorry, I cannot help it.
– our chance to stop Obama; get used to a second term.
Yes, exactly. And there WILL be a second term because the Republican candidate will have been selected by Democrats who, relieved of the necessity to participate in their own primaries and caucuses, will cross over in droves to vote for the Republican candidate they believe most easy to defeat. Anyone who thinks Democrats will have to steal the general election is in denial. The heist will have been made long before.
Obama has the media: print and TV networks;
Obama has the culture of Chicago political thuggery;
Obama has the African-American vote;
Obama (probably) has the greater portion of the other minority votes;
Obama has academia;
Obama has the student vote;
Obama has the lawyers;
Obama has the unions;
Obama has the nation-wide political organization;
Obama has the bully pulpit;
et cetera ad nauseum.
So in what imaginary world does the conservative voting population really believe they have a chance to win this election?
Just wondering!
Absent some externality that he can’t spin effectively or simply hide/deny, I don’t think he can be defeated. I’m not at all confident that he could be beaten by a united Republican Party, and I’m certain that he can’t be defeated when one or more of the factions upon whom Republicans rely in forming a coalition is almost certain to sit out the election or vote third party or even vote for Obama “to teach the ruling class Republicans a lesson.” In other words, the stupid party is very unlikely to defeat him. The only hope for the Republic is to maintain control of the House and as many statehouses as possible and make gains in the Senate so that he can be thwarted. The only problem I see with that is that the vast majority of Republican officeholders still can’t comprehend that they’re not dealling with the internal politics of the Rotary Club anymore, they’re dealing with a full-blown Alinsky-disciple communist operative who meant it when he said he intended to “fundamentally transform” America. But then nobody believed Hitler meant what he said in Mien Kampf.
It’s not up to the Republicans.
Every single registered Republican could vote in November 2012 and Obama would still have a decent chance of winning re-election.
Because the GOP base is 95% white, yet white voters now are down to only 74% of the voting electorate.
In 1980, Reagan won 56% of the white vote. But whites were 88% of the voters back then. If whites were 74% of the voters back then as they are now, Reagan would have gotten only 49% of the popular vote–and he would have lost the election.
How do we know? Because according to the exit polls, in 2008 McCain did slightly *better* with white voters than Reagan did in 1980 (57% for McCain, 56% for Reagan)–and yet McCain lost decisively.
It’s the 14 point decline in the white vote and the corresponding rise in black and Hispanic voters (who tend to vote Democratic) that has tilted the balance.
If white voters are only 74% of the electorate, for the GOP candidate to win a majority with white voters alone, he would have to win 69% of the white vote. That’s far better than Reagan did with whites.
The day is approaching when white voters will be only 64% of the electorate. And that point, it will be impossible for a Republican candidate to win with white votes alone. Because he would have to win 80% of the white vote–which is impossible because typically 22% of white voters are self-described liberals.
I don’t know how we change that. Even if we get immigration (invasion) under control, relatively less well-off people have higher birth rates. You’re sure never going to get educated white women to stay home and make babies. We’ve basically done with Hispanics what the Romans did with the Goths and even if we stopped the flood, there are enough of them to form a formidable voting block for the Democrats. And just as with the Blacks, it won’t matter that all Democrat policies are aimed at keeping them as dependent on goverment and as alienated as possible. I fear Mark Steyn’s forebodings are right; in fifty years Europe will be mohammedan and the US will be a rather nasty totalitarian state engaged in a bloody internal war.
There is one issue looming on the horizon that will impede the march of the left and the entitlement society, and that is the exploding budget deficit. Eventually the markets (or our Asian creditors, i.e., the Chinese) will impose their will on the US Government’s out-of-control spending. What happens when the Federal largesse has to be reduced and all the entitlement programs curtailed? My guess is that we will see an enormous social disorder spew forth from these groups who have lived off the Federal teet for generations.
Here’s the stuff of nightmares, and unfortunately the stuff of some crazies’ dreams: either the Republicans get a pair and say no the next time the Communist in Chief wants his credit limit raised or as you suggest, our creditors refuse to raise our National credit limit, the CinC decided to demagogue it like he did with not sending granny’s SS check but instead, decides he doesn’t have money for welfare and tells all those people getting fat eating Twinkies off the EBT card that the reason their EBT is being declined is those nasty Republicans. ‘Course, everybody knows that Republican is just code for rich honky living in the ‘burbs. So, the people who didn’t get their EBT recharged go to the ‘burbs to steal some plasma TVs because their babies are starving. Helter-Skelter.
I have returned to college for the last two years, after a span of 35 years. I can tell you unequivocally, that Obama does not have the college vote locked up. The very first public criticism I heard (on the street, as opposed to in the media) was on my campus. Furthermore, it is a California campus with a predominantly minority student body. I have been pleasantly surprised by the scepticism and critical thinking shown by my classmates and I have heard vitrually no vocal support for Obama. None.
They may not be vocally praising Obama, but they’re not going to vote for a Republican. Ever.
If that is the case then they will simply not vote so that of course means less votes for the Bozo! Hope the trend in increasing as I have read recently that oh well they are just as enthused to participate in his relection as they were in his election and are looking to finding a job and that so far the prospects are not too promising and they might realize that so far he is not really what they need and are looking at life as it really is and not as they wish it would be!
He has so far delivered empty promises and their thinking is becoming more realistic and pragmatic!
@Just Bill: me too! (returning to college after 35 yrs., on/off since 1/08) I attend a prestigious priv. univ. in Colorado, with many more elitist (liberal) academics than you’d imagine for a univ. that was prev. a theology school. But I too am heartened by the ACTUAL critical thinking shown by the student body. Our student population is admittedly mostly white, upper class; but by defin. lately that would show a propensity to be limo. liberals. So I *have* heard support for Obama, but not as loudly/much as one would think.
Good example: Morning after Bush’s last State of the Union address, our rabble-rousing lefty prof. asked what we thought of it. One uber lib. Jewish student (mom was tenured prof. at our U., and the religion is imprt., we all knew it) said vehemently, “That b@stard … I hope somebody shoots him!” Several seconds dead silence, then a few more sec. with low mutterings and uncomfortable rustling. I said, “What’s wrong with you? Are you an American? Whether you like him or not, he IS *our* president.” Her: “Not mine — he’s a fascist dictator!” Quiet again, then another student asked, “Then where are the concentration camps?” Another stud., “You might want to really THINK about what you’re saying, and rethink what you’ve already said.” Yet another, “You owe the class an apology, and please keep that kind of thing to yourself.”
I’m amazed the younger people who are supposedly in the bag for The One have turned the critical thinking skills back onto those who’ve encouraged it — but certainly not in the way they anticipated/hoped, but in a true way, seeing daylight through the deceit and outright lies.
I heard the same before the 2010 local and federal elections. The Republicans, after Obama’s win during 2008, were forecast to become a regional party, and the Democrats would have control of government for the next 20 years. Then came 2010. I was pessimistic, listening to all the prognosticators. What happened?
OT, but Txas governor Rick Perry passed the “franchise tax” (a form of corporate income tax, that negatively affects small business). Wine.com and amazon.com have cancelled opening distribution centers in Texas because of this (in particular, internet) tax.
Beware the next statist democrat that might replace 0bama.
If annualized total revenue is less than $1 million, there is no franchise tax. I believe most small businesses are exempt under that rule.
“Contrariwise,” continued Tweedledee, “if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.” Lewis Carrol, “Through The Looking Glass”
There we have the logic of Obama; although, with him, it seems to be little more than a complete mass of insipid contradictions, however, it is but a ruse to hide the devious intentions that dwell within a dull but cunning mind.
Carrol possessed a mind that seethed in mathematic formulas, you must read The Looking Glass in terms of math not prose, for this was his secret. Obama’s logic consists of lies and contradiction, aided by a complicit press.
With Carrol’s logic, we have genius: with Obama’s logic we have the intellect of a street thug with a penchant for lies.
And there is the flaw in your thinking…”and there we have the logic of Obama”.
The members of the Liberal Mob, or any mob for that matter, are incapable of logical thought.
Like all leftists, Obama lives in a mental fantasyland without the need to trouble himself with messy reality. His internal dialog goes something like this…
Conservative programs are condemned if anyone is harmed, regardless of the number helped. Progressive programs are praised if anyone is helped, regardless of the number harmed. Conservatives are evil and the good they may do is an unintended byproduct, while progressives have the purest of motives and any harmful outcomes merely mean the program needs more tweaking.
On top of that, add in a good measure of sanctimony, arrogance, moral preening, cultural Marxism, Alinsky, and the Frankfurt School, and you’ve got the epitome of a leftist, our own Dear Leader of the USSA, The Obamamessiah!
And there you have the crux of the matter. Namely, that Obama is a typical leftist, aka “progressive” aka “liberal”.
The fact that it is Obama doing all this in pursuit of a Utopia sans most of Western civilization is not as important as the fact that he is simply the latest Fearless Leader of the progressives. All of those in the movement fundamentally believe as he does, except the ones who consider him a pansy for not being hard enough on the rest of us. And he could not do as much damage as he has, without the assistance and collusion of his sycophants, enablers, and general helpmeets, like Rahm Emanual, Stevie Chu, Chrissie Romer, et al.
The fact that he apparently hates the West in toto is not nearly as important as the fact that his attitude is shared by those who, like the Gothic hordes, have followed him in his rampage through our society. A single delusional, narcissistic, egomaniacal fanatic isn’t nearly as dangerous as a large group of same. As I have said before, entire polities have disappeared when ravaged by people who believed themselves to be gods.
The problem isn’t that Obama is in the Oval Office. The problem is that a typical “progressive” is there, and has plenty of helpers.
clear ether
eon
Well said, eon. The thing we have to fear the most is not sitting in the White House now; it’s the socialist mob and ideology that he represents.
Do re mi mi mi:
“Imagine all the people,
living for today.”
Oh, scratch that. It is way scary. It sounds like an OWS/Democratican get-together.
It is difficult to believe that any leftist/progressive is actually in pursuit of a utopia. How can something so evil be in the pursuit of anything good?
First of all, you have to remember that “Utopia” is a word literally meaning “No Place”. The correct term would be “Eutopia”, which means “Good Place”. So those who dream of it have been spelling it wrong since Thomas More first wrote about the idea in 1516.
Second, most progressives, when asked, will speak glowingly of Plato’s “Republic” (written about 360 BC). The “Republic” states that a “perfect society” is only possible if its rulers have absolute power. And that said rulers must be chosen from among the philosophical and intellectual elite’- by other members of said elite’. Furthermore, the common people are not to have any say in decisions because they are, well, too common, and thus not sufficiently smart to be trusted.
The “Republic” was Plato’s manifesto on replacing monarchy with a “Dictatorship of the Chosen” (more accurately, the “Self-Chosen”), in which noble birth would not be a prerequisite for holding and wielding political power. You just had to be a “philosopher-king”, which he believed was superior to all other carbon-based life-forms because, well, it just was, that’s all.
I might add that the “Republic” has been used to justify more dictatorships than probably any other book in history, even the Holy Bible (the favorite “supporting text” of most European absolute monarchs from the 9th to the 18th Centuries A.D.). Plato’s text was most notably used by the later Roman Emperors to “prove” that their absolute rule was inherently superior to that of the Senate under the earlier Roman Republic.
Finally, keep in mind that only a very few people in any group, no mater what they advocate, may regard themselves as “evil”, no matter what they are crusading for. Most such are, like Plato, utterly convinced of their superiority of intellect and morals, and thus their “fitness to rule”.
Those who know they are doing evil, and do it anyway, are generally sociopaths and/or psychopaths who do it because they enjoy hurting others. And they are drawn to such “movements” like a bear to a honeycomb.
Donatien Alphonse Francois, Marquis de Sade, may have given a name to “sadism”, but he didn’t invent it. And incidentally, his writings are as much about political power and how it should be used by the “superior individual”, without reference to the mores of existing society, as they are about weird sex. In fact, he regarded such behavior as an expression of the inalienable right of the superior to use the rest of society as he wished. Which brings us right back to Plato, again.
The moral being that if you think those who seek “Utopia at any cost” are not reasoning the same way you do- it’s probably because there is a high probability that, in fact, they are not.
cheers
eon
Plato also said, “When first the Tyrant appears, he is a protector.” so he at least understood something most “useless idiots” fail to comprehend.
Reality sometimes intrudes on Obama and one wonders where goes goes for advice. When he was told Osama Bin Laden was in the crosshairs he decided to, ” sleep on it ” for sixteen hours. There are many questions this raises. Did he really sleep? Did he discuss this with anyone? Did fear of losing the target enter his thinking? The picture of Obama cringing in a corner when the SEAL team was engaged speaks volumes. Sleeping, cringing and golf seem to his areas of expertise.
We can probably rest assured that O’s thoughts at the time were only of himself and what would be best for him.
Excellent essay, Dr. Hanson. Perhaps your incurious colleagues might read this piece and insight might spring forth from their Obama besotted brains. But that, of course, would be like asking for the moon when it comes to the expectation of real enlightenment occurring in the closed leftist mind.
It’s really sad , our first president that was not a man but a concept. I really believe that that he will do something extra-constitutional, pardon illegals, nationalize banks, forgive debts, postpone elections to stay in power. You hear athletes and rappers refer to themselves as the “chosen one” and our guy and his minions believe that about him. The election is a year away, its going to be an amazing year.
When you deal with someone like President Obama who has never been wrong unless it suited his purposes at the instant of his mea culpa act, then you are dealing with a disordered personality that cannot understand personal guilt or shame. Such a person is characterized as suffering from a psychopathic personality disorder. We continue to love our psychopaths until we become nauseated by the sudden insight that overwhelms us, when we say OMG we have been duped, fooled, taken for a ride. Will that process take a full eight years or are independent voters and even some Democrats learning that we have made the largest political error of American history by electing a disordered personality to the most powerful position in the world?
Truth, facts and evidence have no place in America. They are unexceptional things for an unexceptional people.
We are living a photoshopped existence.
Reality isn’t perception, perception is propaganda. Propaganda is reality. Work through that slowly.
When you are immersed in leftist totalitarianism, when you are in the middle of a swirling coup, when you are in the eye of a takeover hurricane, the blur of events…the fog of political war…can dull the senses and confuse the mind.
We see the fun house mirrors and think that shapes and forms are distorted. We hear the muddled sounds from our fiscal “betters” and can’t process them because we are so deeply under water.
Our senses are dulled, our voices are muted, our instincts are confused, delayed.
We are being overthrown, boiled away one degree at a time. The Imaginarium isn’t filled with hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is saying one thing and doing the opposite. Saying you abide by a certain set of rules, then breaking them for you personal advantage.
That is a subset of leftist fascism. They never believed in our silly rules all along. They ignore them with impunity. They beat us with our own rulebook.
Don’t expect an ounce of linear logic to apply here. We are being ruled, not governed. We are being overthrown, not saved. We are being lied to, not debated. Capitalism is being brutalized, not stimulated. The free market is being shackled, not liberated. The truth is being gang raped, not sheltered.
Propaganda rules the day. Lack of transparency is the model. Shredding the Constitution is the goal. Takeover is the aim. Overthrow is the future.
Free market democracy, liberty, entrepreneurship, …are all dying. The Imaginarium is a mausoleum. Our freedoms are on the altar ready to be sacrificed to small c communism. Welcome to the revolution. You have been occupied. And, your generals are too timid to resist. Welcome to the revolution. You have been transformed against your will. You are powerless to resist, so you might as well lay back and enjoy it. Lean forward, bend over…and bear it. For the next several decades, all you will have is hope…and change.
Your comments make me sick to my stomach. Because they are true.
Well said, cfb.
Small quibble, though.
It’s not happening.
It already happened.
Yes. Calling them hypocrits implies that they have values that they can act against. But the only value that people at Obama’s level of leftist mania have is the desire for total power and unlimited wealth. People are like insects to them; objects to be exploited and used like cattle, grain or copper. If the people are insufficiently cooperative, and the leftists have gained sufficient power over them, herd them into camps in Siberia; steralize them; or work them to death. If the state (i.e., the leftists in power) need land, sieze the land. They are only limited by what they think they can get away with.
If they think they can get away with overruling settled law to give a business to their cronies instead of the rightful oweners, so they will. If they think they can ram coercive legislation through without the people even having time to read it, so they will. If they think they can redistribut billions of taxpayer dollars to their cronies, so they will. It is only a question of what they think they can get away with.
Agree, Proreason. Consider the throwing out of contract law in the Chrysler situation. That’s when I knew law no longer meant anything.
And very well put, CF. I adore your writing. And we need to hear that.
I resist
These words of yours shout “frustration” with a hint of “resignation.” What about critical mass? Are you convinced that things cannot get bad enough to get people off their butts & into the trenches? Maybe I am being too idealistic here, but I have trouble believing that the American people would put up with all their freedoms being taken away. If they do something drastic like delay next year’s election or, God forbid, find some way to enact martial law, will the American people allow them to get away with it? I hope not.
cfbleachers.
The paragraph that begins with the admonition to abandon all hope regarding the application of linear logic . .
It may be this November grayness . . maybe the wine . .
but a more sonorous knell for our beloved land – I cannot imagine.
You refer to a subset of leftist fascists that have never believed in our rules . .
And, below . . bobbcat asks: “If they do something drastic like delay next year’s election or, God forbid, find some way to enact martial law, will the American people allow them to get away with it?”
I know a little about the heartland. I can tell you. There will be pockets of resistance that will be celebrated in folk songs among freedom seeking and loving peoples – for centuries to come.
OK. Maybe it’s the wine.
Catherine, I too was left with the same impression. What is most striking is how quickly and easily some who say they love America are so quick to give up! Perhaps the wine being drunk is French.
MBY
MBY
Read what I say again.
I WANT my fellow readers to feel brutalized. I WANT them to see the gravity of the situation.
I WANT them to fight back against what I wrote…to stand and be counted, to prove me wrong.
Where are the counter-demonstrators to The Lice That Roared? Where is the investigation into the communist handlers of this diseased anarchist show trial against the free market? Where is the expose’ about the Cloward Piven, Soros Shadow Party, SEIU/ACORN, Cooper Union, Midwest Academy blueprint for this astro-turd, communist street theater?
Where is the anger, the backlash, the unveiling of the conspiratorial media’s vile participation in the coverup and promotion of anarchy, treason and overthrow?
Giving up? I’m trying my best to light a damn fire under the patriots and minutemen….who continue to slumber during an active coup.
If we don’t think this country is worth saving, then we can continue to mince around the edges of the anarchy. Game is on. And our Stupid Party is not getting in the game. These jesters on on the sideline in a cast.
Who will lead us? Massachusetts Mincing Mitt?
We are mincing around like a bunch of pantywaists, nibbling at the edges of the overthrow of our system of government. If we don’t have enough courage to face down the revolution, we need to lay back, bend over and take right up the place they want to shove it.
Give up? I want my countrymen to GET UP. Wake up. Wise up.
The revolution is here. Time to pick a side.
The Lice That Roared are on your doorstep. Grab the disinfectant.
And by the way…time to tell any sponsor of the conspiratorial media to pick a side as well.
Or lay down, roll over and beg.
Their minds simply won’t believe what their eyes and ears are showing and telling them. The Obamunists are so foreign to most people’s experience that they just can’t comprehend that there has been a coup d’etat.
As I alluded to above, it’s going to take a bit more than a leftist-sponsored ugly circus sideshow (OWS demonstrations dotting the country) to get people off the couch. Again, let them try to delay the election next year or worse, enact martial law & just see what happens. I have faith (perhaps foolishly) that people won’t stand for it.
The greatest asset the Obamunists have is that most of the opposition and very few of the general res publica can see what they’re seeing. This is especially an asset for the Left in dealing with opposition Republicans. Our candidate selection methods tend towards the “nice guy” candidate who’s made his or her way to some prominence through the Rotary, the Chamber, the trade association, and a little through the Bar. This “hail fellow well met” mentality combined with a hostile media has made Republican officeholders extremely averse to confrontation and conflict.
The Democrat Party became dominated by hard leftists in the ’80s. The big wall to wall public employee unions have been dominated by hard leftists since about the same time and completed their conquest or assimilation of smaller independent public employee associations by the early nineties and their takeover of the entire labor movement by the mid to late nineties. Heretofore, labor and the Democrats had been allies but their interests didn’t always coincide. Once organized labor became dominated by Leftists, they formed a symbiosis with the Democrats and they form a unified party of government in all but name a European-style socialist labor party.
Even though the Clintons were in every way ’60s leftists and Hillary wrote her thesis on Alinsky, I really think even they were caught unawares when they had the full-Alinsky turned on them by the Obama campaign. I had been dealing at or near a policy level with AFSCME since the late ’80s and had a copy of “Rules” on the desk of every member of my staff by the late ’90s and I’ll admit I was surprised by it. I’ll always remember a lunchtime conversation with one of the more reasonable union guys I dealt with; he was the one who played at being a Republican, but he was a trade unionist through and through. We were talking Presidential politics and I expressed my ever so expert opinion that Obama was a strawman put up by the Clintons so she could run to the right of him in their primaries and avoid giving the Republicans any good sound bites. He replied that even the Clintons might believe the same thing but the reality was that the AFLCIO had already decided to throw in with Obama and there was no way Hillary would get the nomination. Then I started paying a lot more attention and found myself on very familiar ground watching Comrade Obama. Once I started seeing him as just another Meany School trained or Alinsky disciple union representative, he made perfect sense, and he’s pretty good at it.
Those nice guys in the Republican leadership still try to address a bunch of committed communists as “my friend,” and think all you have to do is come up with a deal that they see to be in their interest. They don’t want a deal! They want constant conflict and the only real goal they have is to make their opposition look bad in that conflict. If the Republicans suddenly did an about face and passed Comrade Obama’s “jobs bill” as written, they’d either find a way to sabotage it in the Senate or turn it on its head and run against the Republicans for only being willing to enact such a parsimonious “jobs bill” that it would have little effect on the economy. It’s all about constant conflict, and our leadership and virtually none of the electorate at large has no clue what it is or how to deal with it.
They have no clue, Art…and if we try to give them a clue…they will fear the “McCarthyite” smear more than the truth itself.
The small c communists have walled themselves from being outed by Pavlovian training through the propaganda machine of the moderates. (of which, believe it or not…I still count myself as one)
The moderates are near brainwashed to believe that any accusation of hard leftism is a Joe McCarthy redux…thus, blocking acceptance of mountains of evidence, facts and truth.
The Journolistas are the fifth column for the overthrow of the free market.
The NY Times is willing to go down in flames fiscally for the cause. So is Newsweek. NBC drags the MSNBC red herring behind their lead horse…but that’s a distinction without a difference.
Bill Ayers is guilty as hell and free as a bird. He and his small c communist comrades tried to murder our men in uniform and their innocent dates at Ft. Dix. And…he was placed in charge of the indoctrination of our schoolchildren. Dear Leader’s association with Ayers was aggressively beaten back by the traitorous Journolistas.
Frank Marshall Davis was in very tight with the CPUSA and his mentoring of The One….and his sage “revolutionary” advice was carefully shaded into non-existence.
The Cooper Union crowd, Cloward Piven, Midwest Academy revolutionaries surrounded Obama’s entire life, ….ACORN, SEIU, UNO, dominate his political landscape.
James Cone’s “Liberation Theology” is a hard left, Jew hating, Marxist, white oppressor/black victimology that held the Obama’s in their pews, every Sunday, 11:00 for twenty years.
Our Department of Justice is being filled to the gills with small c communists whose resume’s read like a Workers Party invitation list.
The New Blank Panters are free to wield weapons, issue threats and control polling places with impunity.
Was Obama’s Social Security card actually get issued in a state where he never once lived?
Did he travel on a passport to countries where Americans were restricted from traveling?
Did not not only not have the grades to gain acceptance to Columbia or test scores…but also did not have the grades and scores to get into Harvard Law. Even taking into consideration affirmative action programs? Did he write his college thesis on the overthrow of capitalism? Did he combine his father’s treatise against capitalism along with Ayers small c communism and the Cloward Piven strategies for seizure of industries and overwhelming the system?
Is that why there is zero investigation into him, not an ounce of vetting…and worse…a coverup by the conspirators, traitors and treasonous in the media?
Why does nobody remember him at Columbia? How close was he with the New Party?
What do the New Party, Cooper Union, Midwest Academy, Frank Marshall Davis, Sam Graham Felsen, Barack Obama, Senior, James Cone, Van Jones, ACORN, SEIU, the Occupy Movement…all have in common.
Virulent Marxism and Barack Obama.
The Journolistas need to erase those facts. And they will. Anyone who raises them…will be smeared. Tailgunner Joe is out of bullets.
I do not believe that the Republic can be restored democratically though I’m willing to try for awhile. If we are able to restore a legitimate government, the stay-behinds and sleeper cells MUST be eliminated root and branch. I fear there are no Republicans with the stomach for it; the media will excoriate them and they’ll fear for their re-election and not eliminate those selfless public servants who will then leak, thwart, and sabotage right into losing the next election anyway. Since they’re going to hate you and attack you, you might as well give them a good reason for it.
If we control the Congress but the communists maintain the WH we place ourselves in the same place the Roman Senate found itself from Augustus onward, essentially irrelevant and in thrall to the Emperor, but so jealous of their postion and prerogatives that they could never effectively restore the Republic. Silver Period Latin literature is truly a sad canon; centuries of longing for the restoration of the Republic and lamentations of its demise but never willing to risk their lives and “sacred fortunes” to achieve the restoration. There is a lot of truth in the movie “Gladiator.”
finally people are seeing that democracy may not restore the rule of law.
congress is controlled by rinos …they are nearly as bad as the progressives
That’s just effing stupid. First, you “true conservatives” don’t get to decide who is a Republican in Name Only unless you’ve actually been a precinct officer, a district officer, a poll watcher, a county or state officer, or held an elected or appointed position with an R behind your name.
Second, I’m willing to bet you have no operative definition of a progressive and couldn’t intelligently compare and contrast progressives and the mythical rinos. I do know that idiots are more dangerous to the Republic than Progressives. The Nation can survive Comrade Obama; the question is whether it can survive the people who allowed him to get elected.
lol ….so all definitions must be checked by you or they don’t count argument working for you? (rhetorical question)
“There is a lot of truth in the movie “Gladiator.”
No victory without bloodshed. Time will tell. Meantime, the malls stay busy, restaurants are full, etc. IOW, people are going about their business as if things are not all that bad. And. They. Aren’t. Yet.
I dunno, business feels it, and not just in the sectors related to housing. Six years ago there wasn’t an empty seat at 150 – 200,000 seat NASCAR tracks, but now even with an exciting season, there are whole empty sections. There are empty seats at football games, car sales are down. I think only the very well off are still out there shopping til they drop. Just look at how they’re pushing and expanding “Black Friday,” retailers really need business. As much a problems as the collapse of the housing industry and its ancillaries is the fact that people are being squeezed by commodity inflation that is hidden in the CPI by housing deflation. Shelter cost is a huge factor in the CPI, whick number drives wage adjustments and inflation adjustments for those on fixed incomes. CPI remains flat so there is no basis for wage adjustments even though the things people buy every day are getting more expensive, some dramatically so. And with so many under or unemployed, there is no competitive wage pressure.
Take a look at this: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/16/business/economy/us-retail-sales-rose-0-5-in-october.html
Not an entirely rosy picture but one that suggests that most people continue doing their usual thing. The economy appears to be hanging on by a thread so far……
You miss the point Victor. Half way across the stream doesn’t get you all the way across! Note. Obama began his quest for the Presidency a long long time ago. To this end Obama seriously studied the art of oratory. By this I mean, Obama did two things that most people do not do. First, he seriously studied and seriously practiced the art of delivering a speach. I mean, Obama practiced intelligently for years(!) to perfect his teleprompter assisted neck-swivelling style. Like any ambitious actor Obama learned to do his schtick! Second, and this is where you miss the point badly, Obama studied how to mezmerise his audience. Read Paul Watzlawick et al on the Pragmatics of Human Communication (or some such title). Obama would have studied this book in particular, and stuff like it (think Milton Erickson). The aim is to block rational thought using well-modulated, logically contradictory communication. The effect is that Obama’s listeners lose grip of reality to some extent, they begin to mentally float off into the imaginarium as you call it. Can this guy be serious, they ask? There is nothing his audience can grasp that makes sense. Because nothing he says actually makes sense. His logically incoherent communication, demeanor, body language, actions are all part of the calculated effect. One day he is preaching about civility, the next day his minions viciously smear opponents. One day he berates the greedy bastards of Wall street, the next day he gives money to the same greedy bastards. What to make of it? He’s gotcha, since his incoherence has pragmatic effects!
In particular, incoherence cannot be defeated with rational argument, since like the laughing fascist the incoherent one can always respond with, “Whatsa matter? Don’t you get it? I was just kidding, ha ha ha.” Also, the incoherence provides a cover for Obama’s to use his minions to push his real agenda (a socialist United States).
Obama will, I repeat will, make his Republican opponent look like a fool (think John McCaine) if that opponent does not directly work out a way to block Obama’s calculated double talk. The so-called imaginarium does have pragmatic effects, you see, that must be confronted. But there are ways to defeat him.
Obama will, I repeat will, make his Republican opponent look like a fool (think John McCaine) if that opponent does not directly work out a way to block Obama’s calculated double talk. The so-called imaginarium does have pragmatic effects, you see, that must be confronted. But there are ways to defeat him.
–
You have me interested. Please say more on how Obama can be defeated….
Goffredo, you are correct!
Obama uses Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) as a form of audience hypnotism. He breaks logic in order to mesmerize the audience. (See YouTube “NLP and Darren Brown)
He told the troops in Iraq they had performed EACH mission with excellence or some other good adjective. The point is, EACH mission, logically, could not have gone well. THIS is NLP hypnotism.
He told Turkey that that nation was his last stop in a tour through Europe, in order to emphasize that it was a Muslim nation that was HIS LAST STOP. Then he went on to Iraq.
“Let me be perfectly clear…” is almost always a preface to when he is not.
This antipodal form of speech was learned, no doubt, by attending Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s church for 20 years.
Political and Clerical Tyranny in America are supported by politicians like Obama and Church Wizards-at-Mesmerizing as seen regularly on America’s broadcasting systems.
How can God ever forgive America for exporting such shenanigans? (Mesmerization schemes worse than Commies!)
Political and Clerical Tyrants move America to dumb and dumber, and that without most Americans being aware of it!
Great humans with minds like our friend Victor Davis Hanson, and the bloggers herein… move America to smart and smarter.
Strange thing is, where are great minds in Christianity? (www.inthatdayteachings.com asks that question.)
The Imaginarium of Barack Obama.
May this briilaint work by VDH be read throughout the nation. Barack Obama insults our intelligence more often than he plays golf.
Envy is an actual physical pain that an individual feels about the success of others when compared to their own failure. Rather then resolving the failure by emulating the success of “winners” their failure ferments into hatred of success, paralyzing any productive resolution of that failure. It is a primal reality that incapacitates reason and lends itself to the destruction of accomplishment. It is the velvet glove that comforts and consoles the hate within. Applied to group dynamics in the 21st Century it is the theory of Social Justice.
Envy, as described in the writings of Gonzalo Fernandez de la Mora’s “Egalitarian Envy,” is the driving force of those who wish to convince the public that there are those who have acquired “too much.” The subtle insinuation is that it was acquired dishonestly through exploitation of the “people” in some manner. Therefore, it’s only “fair” that those who have “too much” give an ever-increasing share to those who have “too little.” Envy in the Left lexicon is packaged as populist rhetoric and dressed in the seductive attire of “Social Justice.” It is one of the only forms of envy that people speak of openly in the public square and demagogue as a political theory on the stump.
The Left has become masterful practitioners of this populist rhetoric and the underlying appeal to envy. The antidote to such destructive speech is what de la Mora labels “emulation of success.” Unfortunately no alternative narrative has been offered to this destructive voice by the Right, just personal stories of business acumen, but no animating, reasoned voice of opposition. Statistics, charts, and “at least I’m not “i” is a road map to failure. The electorate needs a convincing and compelling narrative that is as much about them as it is about the candidate.
Just as Martin Luther recognized that the Latin Vulgate kept people distant from the truth, he reasoned that the language of the bible should be simplified for all people to understand. The Right needs to communicate in the voice of the times and not the vernacular (Latin) of the Right. It has a compelling message but few, if any, messengers that can speak in the vernacular of the Times.
Writers and the Leviathan by George Orwell (1948)
Now, to all appearances, the point has been reached when the working-class living-standard CANNOT be maintained, let alone raised. Even if we squeeze the rich out of existence, the mass of the people must either consume less or produce more. Or am I exaggerating the mess we are in? I may be, and I should be glad to find myself mistaken. But the point I wish to make is that this question, among people who are faithful to the Left ideology, cannot be genuinely discussed. The lowering of wages and raising of working hours are felt to be inherently anti-Socialist measures, and must therefore be dismissed in advance, whatever the economic situation may be. To suggest that they may be unavoidable is merely to risk being plastered with those labels that we are all terrified of. It is far safer to evade the issue and pretend that we can put everything right by redistributing the existing national income.
Gylippus, you are oh so malignantly misdirected in your observation. Sir Obama celebrates and co-habitates with the WASP nation swimmingly everyday and in every which way. He LOVES Waspishness and clings to it like I cling to my guns and religion. The man you might mildly despise as undermining your waspish future revels in waspish hellholes such as Nob Hill in San Fran and Martha’s Vineyard. Golfs all the livelong day with a fashion sense that J. Peterman of “Seinfeld” mythology would pronounce “regal”, and would not even part with his Moroccan leather upholstered mukluks that Michelle O (go girl) daringly and masterfully attained for him seal hunting with a Peterman serrated seal hunting knife off the Rock Gibraltar on a midnight dive that successfully bagged the Presidential seal. Hoo Ha! Vacationing in Spain has its’ upside.
I place the blame squarely on the first season of the TV series, ’24′. In that first season, we had a black senator running for the presidential nomination. He was a democrat BUT that fictional senator had depth, was moral and decent and the courage to confront his own demons. He showed true strength of character when challenged with his past, made difficult decisions that could possibly ruin his chances at the nomination and above all, was honest with the ‘people’. A fictional candidate who made the idealists of our country believe that perhaps they saw the same in the abomination that currently occupies the White House. So, it’s not McCain’s fault that he didn’t get elected, it rests on a fiction, which is why I’m waiting for a new TV series that will further bedazzle us with the greatness of Obama.
Coeurmaeghan in 29 Palms, CA
“So, it’s not McCain’s fault that he didn’t get elected, it rests on a fiction, which is why I’m waiting for a new TV series that will further bedazzle us with the greatness of Obama.”
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What do you mean you’re waiting for a TV series that bedazzles us with Obama’s greatness? There are already several such series on TV, including the CBS Evening News, The Situation Room, etc. etc. And despite their content, these series claim to be NON-fiction! Who could ask for anything more?
There was in fact one TV series which accurately depicted the duplicity of The One and his enablers, including those in the MSM. It was the “re-imagined” version of “V”, on ABC. (The 1980s original was on NBC, and frankly stunk.)
Once ABC realized that the pilot alone was a sendup of Obama & Co.’s “management style”, and the MSM’s complicity in same (ala’ Joe Klein’s novel on Presidential campaigning, “Primary Colors”), they recoiled with some horror. And yanked it.
cheers
eon
I am going to print this article Mr. Hanson and keep it with me so whenever anyone asks why I don’t approve of what Obama is doing or when they think I’m only a racist and they want to suggest he is doing a good job because this “mess was handed to him”, I will pull out the article to have a ready list of Obama’s failures.
Thank You
I think you give Obama far too much “credit.” My thesis is that he is and has been a dumb lazy black guy who made it through most of his life on affirmative action and being (Biden’s phrase), “clean and articulate.”
In my view, ALL his ideas come from one of the pimps who own him. They are the ones who want to destroy the middle class in America, Obama is just going along for the ride.
I am still amazed at the lack of detail about Obama’s early life. A Republican surges in the polls and, the next day, we know all about his college life. Not with Obama.
I certainly hope the media will cover whoever the dems finally decide to run in 2012 with a little more integrity.
No, he’s more than just a dumb, lazy affirmative action token, though he’s that too. Comrade Obama, or whatever his given name was, is a Red Diaper Baby groomed from birth for this role. His grandparents were either very close fellow travellers or outright members of the Communist Party. Their daughter followed in their footsteps and went on further down the path. You had to be of a particular ideological bent to live they way they did and, especially, to let your daughter live the way she did in ’50s and early ’60s America even in communist/leftist hotbeds like Harry Bridges’ Seattle and Honolulu.
If we ever restore a legitimate government, we will find that he attended those Ivy League schools as a foreign student and his tuition was paid by someone from the Muslim world. We forget with the fall of the USSR and their conflicts with Muslims in Afghanistan that many of the Muslim states were once Soviet clients in their proxy war with US-backed Israel, and at the time Comrade Obama was in Indonesia, there was a significant Soviet backed challenge to the government, which like so many in the “non-aligned” nations tried to get all it could from both the US and the Soviets. Hopefully one day the true story of Comrade Obama will be writter and he will be able to read it from his prison cell.
For all of Obama’s unique combination of the idiosyncratic aspects of his personality, formed political beliefs/ideology and operating style (of which. many have already accurately analyzed and commented upon here and elsewhere) he remains, at bottom basically a leftist with many of the shared characteristics of his fellow travelers. Prominent among them is the utopian’s penchant for magical thinking, and avoidance/denial of reality–anything which disturbs his world-view. As the British “philosopher” and mathematician Bertrand Russell once exclaimed when informed by his graduate students that their research showed that his views and theories on the proper workings of civic society were at odds with the facts “on the ground” as practiced by real people in the real world; “So much worse for the facts, then.”
Obama don’t need no stinkin’ facts, why would he bother when he has his beautiful mind to guide him and his leftist ideological stat to steer by? Worse, however–to which others here have already alluded–is that his detachment from reality is shared by so many of his fellow utopians. Are his beliefs and expectations that far removed from those of the likes of George Mitchell and his fellow democrats when they voted for a 10% luxury tax on yachts and expensive cars fully believing in their delusions that it would both a) raise revenues and b) not devastate the New England yacht industry to the harm of thousands of blue-collar workers who would lose their jobs as the rich took their discretionary income elsewhere? And when the revenues not only failed to materialize but actually shrunk, and when the extent of the job losses became undeniably apparent, did Mitchel’s reputation suffer? Was Mitchel’s personal income, pension or net-worth negatively affected? To even ask the question is to answer it.. Ordinary people drown in utopians’ Imaginarium’s while the utopians simply take up residence in the next Imaginarium.
I posted this elsewhere at PJ Media, forgive me if you have seen it before but I am trying to get this list to go viral before Nov. 2012. This is a list of Obama’s accomplishments complied by Rabbi Dov Fischer with a few I thought of. Can anyone think of extra achievements?
1. Obamacare — Attempting to federalize local state rights, extending federal control over massive components of the national bourse, extending federal control over individuals’ lives in violation of the Constitution’s Commerce Clause. Cynically lining up supporters in white doctors’ robes, while refusing to consult with much more prominent and predominant medical groups who oppose. Lying about the program’s cost and tax burden by subterfuging it with exorbitant taxes that begin several years into its anticipated roll-out. Robbing $500 billion from Medicare that will destroy access for seniors, while lying about the Ryan proposal that would not affect people over 55.
2. The catastrophic $850 billion stimulus. $700,000 to develop a robot that tells jokes. $3.4 million for an underground tunnel for turtles to cross the road in Florida. $1 million to help smokers kick the habit by giving them Blackberry “smartphones.” $2.6 million for Chinese prostitutes in China to drink responsibly. Lying to Americans by claiming the money was going to “shovel-ready jobs” — and then joking about the falsehood. Lying by hiding the amounts transferred to favored liberal projects unrelated to job growth or economic stimulation.
3. Chronically high, persistent unemployment — His own staff said that he would bring it under 8% ; yet it remains over 9% thirty months into his one term, with real unemployment actually exceeding 15% as huge numbers of unemployed Americans withdraw from searching hopelessly for jobs. Lying about a Summer of Recovery (2010).
4. Gas prices — Now exceeding $4.50 a gallon in California, while he bars exploration in ANWR, restricts licenses to explore along the Atlantic coast or in the Gulf, but exports American dollars to help Brazil explore for oil in the Gulf even as Obama promises that America then will buy that oil from Brazil. (See also #82.)
5. Failure to pass a budget. The abject failure by the Chief Executive to get any kind of budget adopted for 2010.
6. Multi-trillion debt free-fall. Turning the disastrous Bush deficits into a multi-trillion-dollar economic free-fall, now leaving the nation with a debt exceeding $14.3 trillion . . . and pressing for authorization to increase the free-fall. His own latest mad deficit proposal was demolished in a House vote 97-318, as his own Democrats abandoned him in droves.
7. The seizure of GM and Chrysler. The illegal transfer of bondholder wealth to unions, imposing his views on parts of the American auto industry, artificially trying to jump-start his favored companies with “Cash for Clunkers,” only to find that American tax dollars were used instead by people buying preferred Japanese cars to acquire them cheaper while being forced to destroy throughly sound used cars.
8. Dodd-Frank.
9. Unremitting hostility to Israel. Destroying the Mideast process by imposing unilateral burdens on Israel, forcing Israel to cease construction of Jewish homes, even in Jerusalem, thus compelling Abbas to harden several positions, all while publicly snubbing Prime Minister Netanyahu in the basement of the White House (the first visit) and trying to snub him on the second visit with a horrible policy speech as Netanyahu was flying en route to America.
10. Failure to support Iran’s Green Revolution. A complete silence and abandonment of leadership when Iranians risked their lives for freedom, while backing the Moslem Brotherhood uprising in Egypt.
11. Failure to support the Syrian people’s revolution against Assad. Utter failure to lead until it was impossible to overlook the massacres by a dictator who actively finances and supports Iran and Hezbollah, America’s sworn enemies in Iraq and South Lebanon.
12. The Libyan Fiasco. Entering Libya while failing to consult Congress. No sense of whether we are supporting people just as bad as Qaddafi. Remaining in the war more than 90 days without obtaining Congressional approval. Lying about violating the War Powers Act by claiming there are no “hostilities” in Libya.
13. The Gulf oil disaster. Bumbling in handling the Gulf oil disaster — refusing aid from countries with oil-cleaning vessels, failing to accept offers of boom to corral the spill, bringing in underwater filmmaker James Cameron as an expert.
14. Closing down oil exploration. The unnecessary moritorium on permitting oil exploration in the aftermath of the Gulf oil disaster, contributing to a massive explosion of oil prices, even leading a federal court to overturn him.
15. EPA interference. The shutdown of Shell’s Arctic oil exploration by EPA
16. Cap-and-Trade Fiasco. The push in Congress for a disastrous “cap-and-trade” plan that would stymie the coal, electric, and natural gas industries, while enormously raising Americans’ home fuel prices, leading even his own party’s U.S. Senator from West Virginia to film a TV promise to voters that he will shoot the proposal full of holes.
17. Use of federal agencies to bypass Congressional oversight. The attempt, after Congress refused to adopt his cap-and-trade nonsense, to bypass Congressional opposition and impose cap-and-trade undemocratically via the EPA.
18. Use of FCC initially to restrict free speech. The push for unconstitutional restrictions on free speech on his political enemies on Talk Radio while assuring protections for unions to spend money on campaigns via The Disclose Act.
19. The Disclose Act and cherry-picking. The attempt to unconstitutionally impose The Disclose Act on his political opponents but not unions via Executive Order.
20. Czars to bypass Congressional oversight. The use of unaccountable “czars” who effectively run huge segments of the American Government without being accountable to Congress and who are protected from Congressional subpoena power.
21. Boorish shaming of Supreme Court justices. The embarrassing and arrogant verbal assault on the Supreme Court while Court Justices courteously attended the first State of the Union address, sitting in front of him, leading most to boycott the subsequent State of Union addresses.
22. Boorish attempt to shame Paul Ryan. The similarly embarrassing and arrogant verbal assault on Rep. Paul Ryan when addressing the federal budget, with Ryan having been invited personally by Obama to attend the speech and sit in front of him.
23. Boorish attempt to shame John McCain. The insulting, embarrassing, and arrogant gloating at John McCain during the televised sham negotiation over Obamacare, when he responded to McCain not substantively but by saying that Obama had won and McCain had lost the election — so there!
24. Refusal to prosecute Black Panthers for Voter Intimidation. Obama’s and Attorney-General Eric Holder’s politicization of the Department of Justice, including refusing to prosecute the Black Panther voter-intimidation case in Philadelphia.
25. Marriage Act. Obama’s and Holder’s refusal to defend the Federal Defense of Marriage Act, an act of Congress.
26. Lies, Lies, Lies. The regular use of straw-man demonizations to try winning support for his unpopular legislation, like accusing doctors of performing unnecessary surgery so that they can enrich themselves by imposing misery on their patients.
27. Throwing his grandmother under the bus. Using his grandmother as a foil to win points, calling her a racist like “typical white people.”
28. Bowing to the Saudi King and the Japanese emperor. Literally.
29. Treating our British alliance contemptuously. Shamefully returning to Great Britain the bust of Winston Churchill that they had given us and that had reposed in the White House, while insulting the Queen and the Prime Minister with inane gifts like DVDs. The subsequent fiasco while toasting the Queen, continuing to talk during the playing of the British National Anthem.
30. Violating and abrogating long-standing promises to our allies. Removing the missile shield from Poland and the Czech Republic to placate Putin.
31. Standing with the aspiring Honduran dictator. Backing the would-be dictator of Honduras when that nation’s duly convoked Supreme Court had removed him from office in careful compliance with law.
32. FTAs with allies. Failure to push for quick ratification of free trade agreements with Columbia, Panama and South Korea.
33. Amateurish handling of Afghanistan military effort. The painfully over-extended indecision, for months, whether to authorize a military surge into Afghanistan, then exacerbating the indecision by announcing to our enemies a date-certain withdrawal timeline — a time coordinated with his reelection bid.
34. Incoherence on how to handle the anti-Mubarak uprising in Egypt. Dispatching Frank Wizner as his emissary, then rejecting Wizner’s advice.
35. Radicalizing the NLRB outside Congressional purview. Appointing [Harold] Craig Becker, a radical unionist, to the NLRB through a recess appointment that otherwise never would have passed Congress.
36. Radicalizing FCC outside Congressional purview. Appointing FCC commissioners who are pursuing “net neutrality” without Congressional authorization.
37. Ecology gone wild in California. Wiping out much of the agricultural economy of California’s Central Valley by restricting full water deliveries to protect a small Delta Smelt fish
38. Gitmo debacles. Promising to close the Guantanamo Bay facility that interns terrorists, trying to close it, failing to close it, refusing to concede his error or assure that “Gitmo” will remain open.
39. Civil trials for terrorists debacles. Promising to move terrorist trials to civilian courts, then trying to prosecute Khalid Sheik Mohammed in Downtown New York, only to be opposed even by the two ultra-liberal Democrat U.S. Senators of New York, then pressing to try another terrorist, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, in civilian court, resulting in the terrorist being acquitted on 284 of 285 counts.
40. Napolitano out of touch. The shameful failure of Obama’s Homeland Security chief, Janet Napolitano, to appreciate the Obama Administration’s security failures in the face of the near-catastrophe of the “underwear bomber” in the skies over Detroit, as she insisted “the system worked.”
41. Student loans. Government takeover of the student loan program
42. Border security. Cancellation of the “virtual border fence” project with no replacement, while deploying National Guard troops to do paper work at desk jobs and provide office assistance rather than stand armed along the border.
43. The “Beer Summit.” In the aftermath of wrongly castigating and erroneously pre-judging fault regarding the Cambridge Police Department, tying up the country with a foolish spectacle on the White House lawn.
44. Immigration and Arizona. The Department of Justice’s attack on Arizona for that state’s exercise of its sovereign legislative authority on the issue of citizen identification rules. Failure of his own federal government to execute the law on immigration.
45. The attack on Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Attacking the Wisconsin governor and his state legislature for exercising their sovereign legislative authority on public employment issues, while Obama failed to acknowledge that the new Wisconsin rules are comparable to those that always have applied to federal employees.
46. Lying to McCain on their deal over campaign fundraising. Violating his pledge to John McCain to abide by McCain-Feingold limits for funding his Presidential campaign.
47. Downplaying American exceptionalism. Apology tours.
48. Implying that the Minnesota bridge collapse was the result of lack of infrastructure funding
49. Chicago Olympics fiasco. Shamefully inserting himself into a botched campaign to bring Olympic Games to Chicago, thereby exposing the Presidency of the United States to ridicule and formal rejection, and demonstrating early-on his overconfident sense of himself and his unpreparedness for the seriousness of his office.
50. Hypocritical attack on D.C. public school voucher effort. The attack on a voucher program for Washington, D.C. schools, even as his own children are protected from the educational failures that curse the Washington populace.
51. Associating with the murky. Associations with convicted unrepentant domestic terrorists and eccentric haters of America: the Reverend Wright, William Ayres, Van Jones.
52. Anita Dunn. Her war against Fox News and her boastfulness that the Obama White House has the “courage to speak truth to Power” — when it is the White House, not a cable TV station, that is “Power”; and her speech to schoolchildren, as a White House representative, sharing with the young and impressionable her idolization and admiration of mass-murderer Mao Tse-Tung.
53. ACORN.
54. SEIU. Having Andrew Stern, President of SEIU, as the man who has visited the White House more than any other person during the Obama term.
55. Teleprompters / White House for Dummies. A reliance on teleprompters to protect him from stumbling and bumbling speeches when, without scripting, he has spoken of his visits to America’s “57 states,” has denigrated the handicapped, could not pronounce “corpsman,” moronically said that Austrians speak “Austrian,” referred to deceased war heroes adding that many were in the audience he was addressing, and has made more gaffes than Dan Quayle.
56. Arrogance and Haughtiness. An extreme level of personal nose-in-the-air arrogance and lack of graciousness, from physical comportment to the way he addresses others. The Roman columns. The arrogant temerity to tell Americans, God-like, that history will record his coronation as the moment that the rivers stopped rising and the planet healed.
57. Chicago Corruption. The house he corruptly acquired through Tony Rezko.
58. The artificial shifting dialects. Affecting an artificial accent when speaking to unions, and to others with whom he allies in his “class wars,” that belies his having grown up in Hawaii, reared by a Caucasian grandmother, his having spent years being schooled in Indonesia, and later attending school at Occidental College in California, Columbia University, and Harvard Law School.
59. Lack of transparency. Refusing to share his academic records or the sources through which he paid for private college and law school, despite his pre-election calls for transparency.
60. Failure to lead on immigration. Not confronting the immigration issue when he dominantly controlled both the House and a filibuster-proof Senate, then mocking the GOP on immigration, saying they would not be happy with “alligators and moats” — when all they want is secure borders.
61. Fiscal irresponsibility on foreign relations with Egypt. Forgiving billions of dollars in Egyptian and related Mideast debt when we are past the 14.3 trillion debt line.
62. Wasting billions on corrupt “Palestine” agencies. Pumping billions more into the discredited United Nations Relief & Works Agency (UNRWA) and the Palestinian Authority that merged with the terrorist Hamas.
63. Radical judicial appointments. Nominating a radical leftist, Professor Goodwin Liu, for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit despite Liu’s contempt for constitutional imperatives towards limited government.
64. Acceding to political bribery by cherry-picking waivers to Obamacare for favored donors. Forcing Obamacare down the throats of small businesses across America that cannot afford it . . . then approving politically correct and electoral pay-off waivers for his friends, donors, and rich boutique businesses. Granting 20% of all the country’s Obamacare waivers in Pelosi’s San Francisco district. Buying off votes from Ben Nelson of Nebraska (the Cornhusker Deal), Mary Landrieu (the Louisiana Purchase) to pass Obamacare.
65. Using the White House to crush political opposition. Trying to force donors to his political opponents to reveal their contributions. Using the White House official website asking supporters to report to the Government instances of people criticizing Government policies.
66. Attempting to crush media opposition. Punishing a Boston newspaper whose editorial attacked him, having his White House conduct a war against Fox News, claiming they are an entertainment, not a news organization, and then boycotting Fox until that strategy backfired.
67. Encouraging cultural decline. Inviting “Common,” a “poet” with disgusting lyrics of hate, to entertain at the White House
68. The Louis XVI Factor. Vacations and high-profile golf during the Gulf oil crisis, prompting even Democrat strategist and Presidential advisor James Carville to erupt in fury. More high-profile golf at Cape Cod while the country was losing its AAA credit rating for the first time.
69. The Marie Antoinette Factor. Michelle high-profile huge trips abroad, a la Eva Peron, with family friends and their children partying on the public payroll, at 5-star hotels in places like Spain.
70. Al Sharpton. Launching his national presidential reelection campaign with a speech to Al Sharpton’s base.
71. Secrecy in Legislation. Failing to honor his pledge to conduct transparent governance, crafting Obamacare with Democrats behind closed doors barred to Republicans, leaving Obamacare as a massive document so convoluted that Nancy Pelosi had to tell the media: “But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”
72. A philosophy of redistributing other people’s money. Trying to persuade “Joe the Plumber” that it is a beneficial national economic goal to “redistribute the wealth.”
73. Cynically blaming Republicans and Talk Radio for the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Blaming their rhetoric, while failing to address Democrat use of vile and violent language to describe Republicans and the Tea Party.
74. Lying about a family connection to the Holocaust. Lying and falsely telling Americans that his grandfather was among those who liberated Auschwitz when, in fact, no American troops liberated Auschwitz.
75. Failing to grasp the Israel narrative. Describing Israel’s right to exist as premised on the Holocaust, thus missing the entire point of a Jewish country built on the land where Jews have lived since Biblical times.
76. Lying about a family connection to the Civil Rights movement. Telling Americans that his birth happened because his parents became amorous as a result of the 1965 Selma Civil Rights March — even though he was born in 1961.
77. Collapse of the housing market. American housing prices lowest since 2002.
78. Manipulating legislation by forcing votes on massive documents. Racing massive thousand-page legislation packages through Congress without allowing Congress or the American People time to read, comprehend, and absorb the bill — and thus breaking a major campaign promise.
79. The Credit Rating downgrade. Presiding over the first credit-rating downgrade in American history.
80. Timing military campaigns to coincide with election campaigns. Manipulating and sacrificing the lives of American soldiers, basing a withdrawal from Afghanistan not on strategic national security considerations but timed instead to coincide with the start of the 2012 Democrat Presidential Convention.
81. NLRB. Stacking the National Labor Relations Board with left-focused political hacks who are attempting to prevent America’s leading exporter, Boeing, from building a $1 billion manufacturing plant in South Carolina because that state permits employment of non-union labor.
82. Cynically manipulating the national Strategic Oil Reserve. Releasing 30 million barrels of oil from the United States Strategic Petroleum Reserve in order to obtain the temporary political goal of lowering gasoline prices that have skyrocketed in the face of his severe restrictions on permitting exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, along the Atlantic coast, and in Alaska in his obsessive pursuit of “green jobs.”
83. “Operation Fast and Furious” debacle. Allowing Mexican drug lords to access illegal firearms, then losing track of the firearms while the drug cartels used the illegal firearms for crime including murdering Americans.
84. Lying, lying, and more lying to voters. Trying to create class warfare by telling people that Republicans’ refusal to raise taxes will cause youngsters to be unable to finance their college educations, while causing seniors to lose health care and social security payments. Failing to admit honestly that Congress extended the Bush tax cuts and refused to increase taxes even when Democrats had a filibuster-proof Senate and veto-proof control of both Congressional chambers.
85. Investigating CIA patriots. The Holder investigation into CIA operatives’ interrogations of suspected Al Qaeda terrorists and their use of methods that had been approved in advance by the Justice Department.
Here are some my additions:
86. the Solyndra scandal.
87. Noncompliance by Eric Holder and the White House for information relating to various investigations.
88. Requesting help from an anti-American terrorist group, Pakistan’s ISI to negotiate with the Al-Qaeda supporting Haqqani network.
89. Bankrolling failed green manufacturing schemes in Finland and Spain, to the tune of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.
90. having an Islamist Turkish government, that openly engaged in a terrorist attack on Israel, join an anti-terrorism task force.
OOps, I forgot to sign my handle, tis I Bob From Virginia who posted Rab Dov’s list of Obamachievements.
That is a great list, Bob. I wish the Pub candidates would get their hands on it & start using it.
Anonymous… Excellent list! And to think there are millions who still think Obama really cares about America and wants the best for Her…
God help us.
# 8 lists “Dodd-Frank.” I would encourage anyone who can, to try and read the part of the book Confidence Men, where the author Ron Suskind discusses the machinations that went on in both houses of Congress as they ground out this bill that was supposed to “fix” the problems leading to the financial meltdown.
In the book are various photos, and one is the picture taken when Obama signed the bill. Standing behind him are the Usual Suspects, looking on in a proprietary way. The caption under the photo says that the legislation left things pretty much the way they were in 2007.
You have got to be kidding me… How about the imaginarium of GOP, trickle-down, neo-liberal fiscal policy? You are the one deluding yourself. Here is a list of recent US Federal Budgets:
2012 United States federal budget – $3.7 trillion
2011 United States federal budget – $3.8 trillion
2010 United States federal budget – $3.6 trillion
2009 United States federal budget – $3.1 trillion
2008 United States federal budget – $2.9 trillion
2007 United States federal budget – $2.8 trillion
2006 United States federal budget – $2.7 trillion
2005 United States federal budget – $2.4 trillion
2004 United States federal budget – $2.3 trillion
2003 United States federal budget – $2.2 trillion
2002 United States federal budget – $2.0 trillion
2001 United States federal budget – $1.9 trillion
2000 United States federal budget – $1.8 trillion
1999 United States federal budget – $1.7 trillion
1998 United States federal budget – $1.7 trillion
1997 United States federal budget – $1.6 trillion
1996 United States federal budget – $1.6 trillion
You see, It’s not like Obama spent significantly more than his predecessors. In fact, the increases in 2010 and 2011 when combined just happen to cover the stimulus package. The rest of the outlays were right in line with GW Bush budgets. These are facts.
What is causing the deficit to increase is the fact that stimulus spending was occurring to increase demand and stop job losses and tax revenue was decreasing because unemployment was severely (and continues to severely) eroding the tax base.
You can disagree with the idea of increasing government spending during a recession but you can’t say Obama has been any more irresponsible than other presidents. You’d also be wrong – no country has ever cut spending and come out of a recession any quicker. Smart countries run deficits and increase spending during recessions.
If you look at historical budgets and deficits over the last 100 years, you’ll see relatively balanced budgets that only ran huge deficits during times of depression or war. Since after WWII, this country has grown, the middle class has grown and we created a social safety net with a mechanism to pay for it. That all changed when Reagan was elected. Starting with Reagan, huge deficits and increasing debt were the norm.
Tax cuts and loopholes and trickle down economics didn’t help out anyone but the rich, and stagnated middle class wages, and created huge national debts… Nice Job.
It wasn’t social security, or medicare that was breaking the system. It’s what the GOP has been doing since Reagan to run the country into the ground and force Americans to abandon the social safety net that freed up middle class income and created the largest, upwardly mobile consumer class the world has ever known. And if given the chance in 2012, they’ll put the final nail in the coffin of the American experiment and we will shrivel up and die – our coffers sucked dry by the 1%.
You’re the one living in a fantasy land.
“Smart countries run deficits and increase spending during recessions”
name some please and after that fails find a copy of “economics for dummies”–(road to serfdom or capitalism and freedom would suffice as well) but, of course, this only benefits the “1%” blah blah blah
unless, of course, you are benefiting from the current state of economic failure
agreed ..smart countries don’t get themselves into these situations.
Lets look at the debt clock, genius. Prior to Rat takeover in 06, under 6T. Just yesterday over 15T. Lets just keep going on our progressive trip to destruction.
The Rat takeover in 06, huh? That didn’t affect anything until after 06 (they took office in 07) and if you look at his annual spending, the congress didn’t cause such a huge increase in 07 compare to what’s from before.
The difference is revenue and is based in the ill-fated Bush tax cuts, which like Reagan, try to “starve the beast” but fail to follow through and actually cut the spending after raising the taxes. We simply stopped taking in the money we needed and “deficits don’t matter”.
I would also like to mention that by the 2nd Bush term he was spending more that a $1 trillion/year more than clinton.
Mr. Tedious Klaptrap Sylvestry listed budgets for 2011 and 2010. I thought there weren’t any budgets produced the last couple of years and I’m not the only one:
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/05/20/senate-democrats-still-not-letting-anyone-see-their-budget/
What is much more destructive to a country than spending or taxing, is loss of confidence. When business sees Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and TKS, it shudders to its soul. The reason we are in turmoil is because of the left’s ideology, PLAIN AND SIMPLE. Quote all the Reagonomic figures and the convoluted trickle-down alleged failures you want, but it doesn’t remove the fact that we are a Free Republic, built on capitalism, and the Democrat Party has been trying to destroy it since Wilson. And yes I just called the Democratic Party un-American!
Bush was fighting two wars. Wars are expensive. You can disagree with the original reason for the wars, but once the wars start you have to spend the money to fight them.
Obama comes into office pledged to stop two wars and still ended up spending 33% more (that’s $3.7 billion / $2.8 billion) than Bush did. U.S. involvement in Iraq is pretty much over; U.S. involvement in Afghanistan will be over by 2012. So how come Obama can’t reduce Federal spending down to pre-2001 levels?
I don’t want to restart the fight over Reagan again.
I don’t know how old you are, but I lived through the Carter years and the subsequent Reagan years–and my personal experience was that I did much better under Reagan than under Carter. And no, I’m not part of that nebulous “1%”.
Were you around back then?
Well, here’s an interesting bit of trivia. Using TKS’s statistics and then tacking on the statistics of tax revenues during the same time period and noting who controlled the purse strings (Congress, not the President, for those of you who fail to understand how this works) an interesting pattern emerges.
While there was a Republican majority in both houses of Congress the disparity between the Budget (expenditures) and Revenues (taxes) crept up each year but at a fairly reasonable rate not exceeding 13% until the last year of Bush’s presidency. As soon as Obama’s administration started, with his overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress, the disparity between the budget and revenue shot up to 32% in 2009, 40% in 2010, 43% in 2011, and blissfully dropping to 29% (yeah, right!) in 2012.
2012 US budget – $3.7 trillion — US Tax Revenue $2.627 trillion (estimated)
2011 US budget – $3.8 trillion — US Tax Revenue $2.173 trillion (estimated)
Obama Admin w/ Dem majority in Senate, Rep majority in House
2010 US budget – $3.6 trillion — US Tax Revenue $2.162 trillion
2009 US budget – $3.1 trillion — US Tax Revenue $2.105 trillion
Start of Obama Admin w/ Dem majority in Senate & House
2008 US budget – $2.9 trillion — US Tax Revenue $2.523 trillion
2007 US budget – $2.8 trillion — US Tax Revenue $2.568 trillion
Bush Admin w/ Dem majority in Senate & House
2006 US budget – $2.7 trillion — US Tax Revenue $2.406 trillion
2005 US budget – $2.4 trillion — US Tax Revenue $2.153 trillion
Bush Admin w/ Rep majority in Senate & House
2004 US budget – $2.3 trillion — US Tax Revenue $1.880 trillion
2003 US budget – $2.2 trillion — US Tax Revenue $1.782 trillion
Bush Admin w/ Rep majority in Senate & House
2002 US budget – $2.0 trillion — US Tax Revenue $1.853 trillion
2001 US budget – $1.9 trillion — US Tax Revenue $1.991 trillion
Start of Bush Admin w/ Dem majority in Senate & Rep majority in House
2000 US budget – $1.8 trillion — US Tax Revenue $2.025 trillion
1999 US budget – $1.7 trillion — US Tax Revenue $1.827 trillion
Clinton Admin w/ Rep majority in Senate & House
1998 US budget – $1.7 trillion — US Tax Revenue $1.721 trillion
1997 US budget – $1.6 trillion — US Tax Revenue $1.579 trillion
Clinton Admin w/ Rep majority in Senate & House
1996 US budget – $1.6 trillion — US Tax Revenue $1.453 trillion
Clinton Admin with Rep majority in Senate & House
Tax Revenue Source – http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=203
It is quite normal to run deficits during a war (for the most part, two wars) which, regardless of your opinion of it we were fighting since 2003. I cannot find fault with GWB or BHO for military expenditures during this time. Shortchanging the military during active conflict kills Americans.
The surge in deficit spending cannot, however, be explained with military expenses. The simple fact is that Democratically controlled Congresses spend more money than is reasonable and acceptable. We do not have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem.
GWB has already admitted that he should not have caved to a Democratically controlled Congress and spent so much on social programs that have shown little to no true progress in the years that we’ve been supporting them. BHO’s response to ridiculous levels of Democratically fueled spending is to double-down the pace of spending on those very same programs that are demonstrable failures.
Every President and every Congress (as a whole) are responsible for the mess we’re in. (Funny how liberals fail to add Jimmy Carter and the mess he presided over into the mix, but I digress.) Being disingenuous about how Republican policies of Reagan and Bush created this mess when the facts show that Obama has outstripped their combined contribution to the deficit is not helpful and is completely disillusioned. The first step in solving a problem is recognizing that you have a problem. Then you address the problem and come up with solutions, and the solution cannot be more of the same actions that lead you to the current situation. The Democrats keep ratcheting up the spending levels although they KNOW that the money isn’t there, far more so than those evil Republicans have been wont to do.
Bottom line – Stop whining about the past and start making adult decisions about the future. Overspending, not undertaxing, got us into this mess. It will not be solved by spending more. Personal and national responsibility is what is lacking. It’s time to stop finger-pointing and start sucking it up.
Obviously you cannot read. Mr. Hansen put it down so well that even a democrat can read it.
Obama is bad for this country. If you support him, then you are also bad for this country.
Dude:
You just gave us a list that shows ballooning budgets under Democrats (starting with 2007 — they held Congress) until now. Why did you do such a stupid thing? Look at your own list: it shows an accellerating rate of budget increase.
The stimulus was reckless, incompetent “Keynesianism.”
Also, if the GOP was also irresponsible, so what? Do you think that any of this thread is really defending that? More to the point is that whatever the GOP did, the Democrats decided to do much, much worse.
The most psychologically screwed up president ever.
If we reflect upon which presidents had the most dysfunctional family lives while growing up, we see a commonality of outcomes in the adult.
Unpackage that remark? I think that GW Bush and his religious zealotry was far more disturbing.
it’s disturbing that a man who believes in his G-d can be castigated for it and called a fanatic.just seems like just more of the same progressive nonsense.oh yes a muslim is allowed to believe in allah.
Apparently, TKS, according to you, being religious = being a zealot.
Not one–NOT ONE–of America’s presidents has been an atheist. (Except for Obama, who wears his Christianity on his sleeve while not believing a word of it.)
FDR led America in a prayer on D-Day, did you know that?
Sorry to disappoint you.
Does Mr. Bush have to be part of your defense? I do understand that he is the only excuse your ilk has left but it has been three years, and you are delirious. For the record, GW was a religious man but never forced it down your throat, unlike the atheists that force down our throat that religion is a farce. I suspect you are one of them you hypocrite
Where would we be without VDH and PJM? Wait, I can hear net neutrality coming in the background….
VDH says so well that which could be said in one sentence.
“Obama doesn’t care – he won.”
Like it or not Newt is the only Repub candidate who is capable of ending Obama’s corruption.
A painful tragedy which we will have to live out. In a sense he is like one of the OWS in his confusion but unlike them, having power, he can be more accurately described as a loose cannon, which represents danger to all on board our ship.
VDH:
You have the highest literary density, measured in “insights-per-word”, of any writer out there.
New metric: the “Hanson Unit”
Just a simple question from an 63 yr. old woman. How did a complete nobody like Obama get to be President? Who or what is behind him? That’s the real question.
If you step back and look at the last 3-4 years I get the feeling that we are living in the pages of the latest blockbuster novel of the year. All the elements are there. Find the author and all questions will be answered.
Complete nobody? Sorry Marlene, respectfully, but your question doesn’t come close to being adequate. It should read, how did anyone with so many glaring negatives, so many obvious flaws that should have disqualified him from serious consideration for any public office, get to be President?
The answer is a sad commentary on the 2008 American electorate. My personal opinion is that he won because he was sexier than John McCain.
The whole thing seems less like a blockbuster novel than a Twilight Zone episode.
“My personal opinion is that he won because he was sexier than John McCain.”
A lot of credit has to go to the MSM which deliberately created an inaccurate picture of Obama by supressing many facts & emphasizing others with the goal in mind of promoting his candidacy. Most people don’t pay much attention to politics, so they were putty in the MSM’s hands. Think too how much people cave into the double standards: Getting all twisted up about Palin’s lack of experience while ignoring Obama’s case of the exact same thing. Amazing.
Obama got to be President (instead of Hillary) for one reason:
The liberal base of the Dem Party revolted against Hillary because she had voted in favor of the Iraq War. Whereas Obama ran in 2008 as an antiwar candidate. The Left would have gone with Dennis Kucinich or any other antiwar candidate rather than back a mainstream Democrat who had supported it.
The left could not look past their obsessive hatred of the Iraq War to consider any other issues, such as the economy.
The “netroots” of Daily KOS got started that way originally–as an antiwar movement.
Day after day, you speak historically wise words. Would you be willing to run for president? Gingrich is also an historian and speaks wise words. It will take an able orator, one who knows the rules of good debate to talk down the president after the media has labeled him an eloquent speaker, which I vehemently contest. I saw his short speech and question period from Hawaiian and it was shamefully delivered…full of painfully extended “ah’s”, and’s and but’s”, restarts and generally bad speech habits. Gingrich speaks with deliberation and true eloquence and can extemporaneously argue a point with great logic. Let’s forgive him for being human, making big fees and speaking his mind and support him for the nomination. He will be able to do far more good that harm. (Perhaps our oath of office should include the phrase from the Hypocritical oath, “First do no harm”…)
“(Perhaps our oath of office should include the phrase from the Hypocritical oath, “First do no harm”…)”
–
Please! You mean the Hippocratic Oath, meaning the oath first administered by the Greek Hippocrates to his medical students about 2500 years ago. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath.)
The only thing I can think of that might earn the name “Hypocritical Oath” is any promise ever made by a leftist.
Sooooo?
Where is your sense of humor…haven’t you ever heard of ‘a play on words’? Why do you think it was parenthesis?
One quibble about an excellent piece, Dr. Hanson: Holder’s thugs weren’t selling automatic weapons to the drug cartels. They can get fully automatic AK platform military grade weapons by the case for $100 or less, probably from the same guys who sell them cocaine by the ton. Holder’s thugs were PLANTING gunstore-bought US legal semi-automatic weapons that cost from $500 to $3000 each in Mexico as a part of their propaganda campaign asserting that the primary weapons source in the Mexican drug wars was unscrupulous US gun dealers. The drug cartels are lots of things but they’re not stupid; why would they pay many multiples of the price of a military fully automatic weapon to buy an inferior US-legal weapon. It was all a part of a propaganda campaign. Fortunately, a few patriotic officers blew the whistle on them, but unfortunately only those who watch FOX or get their news from the internet know anything about it.
Dr. Hanson; You are using the term “law professor” very loosely, in this instance. You illustrate Obama’s inadequacies more accurately than any other author I know.
Obama’s dichotomies are on full display with his demonizing the accomplished, and praising the nomads.
Does Barrack believe he will go down in history as a leader of the 21st century nomads? I’m betting he does.
He speaks with the same erroneous diction and dialog as his followers to gain their sympathy. But, this is not all fake.
Obama’s been just as willfully blind to reality as all his followers. And with the support he has received his entire life, why would he ever change? For proof of his career as a consummate liar, read his Wikipedia profile.
In a very real sense, Obama is right about us; America has become spiritless. Our forefathers would have taken up arms long ago.
I’d say Obama is entering his “swan song” stage; A grandiose and agonizing performance that is a prelude for his collapse.
This may be the greatest column on the Obama Administration.
Don’t forget that in the Imaginarium, the only reason that any of this is a problem was because Obama was too busy getting the policy “right” and did not put enough effort into selling it to the public.
The Democrat way of winning debates is mostly argument by assertion. Obama says “we reduced the deficit” so it’s true. Anything you might have heard otherwise is “just from right-wing blogs”.
This type of debate is well represented by Biden. I remember his debate with Sarah Palin. Old Joe just spent all his time citing numbers – strings and strings of numbers. Even if she had had all of the references at hand and could talk as fast as those announcers giving disclaimers at the end of medicine ads, there would have been no way to respond. Even the media pointed out after the debate how wrong Biden’s numbers were – it didn’t matter. The public perceived that he seemed to have a “grasp of the issues” and declared Sarah the loser.
I have often wondered – how would I approach a debate with someone like that? Would I (1) just have hundreds of numbers of my own to cite (a war of who can cite the most numbers without responding to the other), or (2) just ignore the onslaught and try to make my own points, (3) try to identify and refute the major number in the list given to me, or (4) start every response with “there he goes again” or “Joe, you ignorant slut” (as on SNL). :-)
(1) might work if the media was neutral (not). (2) and (3) play right into their hands, and (4) can only be pulled off by someone with a lot of personal charisma and articulate enough to follow the sarcastic line with a good argument that earns the right to say it (or he/she would just come off as mean or childish).
What would you do? Which candidate do you all think might be the best at responding to this post-modern “stream of unrelated and often contradictory items” political dialog?
Gingrich
Mr. Hanson, this is by far the best article I have ever read about the hypocrisy of Barack Obama and Liberal America. The Republican Party should frame it and send it to every voter in America. Of course, the radicals wouldnt listen to it anyway, but I would bet those Americans currently on the fence over this farce of a President and those who already have figured that out will relish this as a battle cry for the defeat of this man and the depiscable people that currently hold the banner of the Democratic party.
and the despicable ones too. I dont want to be mistaken for Al Sharpton, geeze
Imaginarium: AKA “psychopathy”.
Obama reminds me of a super-spoiled kid who grew always coddled and shielded by well-meaning but misguided adults. In his adulthood, he is more like one of the moderately deranged Roman Emperors – not quite a Nero or Caligula, but towards that side. It helps explain the Greco-Roman styrofoam columns!
I cannot believe it! VDH has yet again put it in words than even a democrat can understand! I have read VDH for several years, but this has got to be #1.. numero uno… Top Dog…. Best of the Best.
Thank you Mr. H, its going to my FACEBOOK right now.
One small caveat…the dumbing-down of the American population. The “families” on the gov’t dole are reproducing at a quicker and more abundant rate (more kids equals more handouts) than the families who assume the responsibility of being the provider. Couple that with a southern border that is open to any immigrant who wants to jump into the melting pot of America most of whom have no intention of assimilating and will ignorantly fall into the liberal mind-set of “gimmee free stuff”. Top it off with an administration that bases its success on adding and multiplying to the pool of dependent citizens.
There are many things that are easy to change; but a reinforced thought process, especially one of dependency, is not one.
VDH- Some Republican candidate should recite this column, verbatim, as a campaign speech (with attribution). What an excellent recapitulation of the Obama Saga and the failures of Obamaism.
Thanks.
Obama believes that a capitalist will sell you the rope you use to hang him. Obama has gone a step further – he has persuaded the capitalist to donate the rope.
James Angleton proved the KGB had penetrated the state department, CIA and FBI. I suspect they also took over ABC, CBS, NBC, the NY Times, LA Times, WaPo, most of Hollywood, and faculty lounges across the country.
Excellent article again by Mr. Hansen. It should be a must read for everyone.
You may think I am crazy (and maybe I am) but the day after my father died in early 2009 I was wondering whether his “spirit,” now freed from the confines of his body, knew answers that were hidden from the rest of us. I swear I then heard his voice say, “Watch out for Obama. He’s as bad as they come.” I was startled, of course, but also found it funny because back then Obama had just taken office and it still looked possible he would turn out to be OK. No doubt I simply imagined it, but even so that warning continues to haunt me, as it proves to be more accurate every day. Weird.
I love stories like this! I’ve had similar experiences. (not about Obama though haha.)
“…Obama had just taken office and it still looked possible he would turn out to be OK.”
You seriously thought this? Refresh my memory. I don’t remember this period of time.
I’ll never understand. Wasn’t it obvious that this guy was big-time trouble from the get-go? Shoot, from before the get-go.
VDH writes interesting books.
This is a bit off-topic – or at least sideways to it – but does anyone know where I could find the rebuttal to the idea that simply taxing the rich and selling off the corporate jets would make a huge impact on the debt crisis?
I’m thinking of specific items that were here at PJM this summer. I seem to remember there being a video and an article that referred to the video but the article may not have been written by the same person who did the video. The video might have been done by Andrew Klavan, Bill Whittle, or maybe someone else altogether. I simply don’t remember. I’ve tried looking for them but I don’t remember enough about them to enable me to come up with a good search strategy.
Essentially, the video looked at the impact of getting rid of the Bush tax cuts and found them negligible. Then all corporate jets were sold off and again, the impact was negligible. Additional items were added to the list until finally just about every conceivable expense except for entitlements were stopped and it still only barely made up the budget shortfall for a single year.
I would love to see that video again if anyone can help me track it down.
The imaginarium is necessary because Obama only ever wanted to BE the President, not actually DO the job of the President of the United States. The imaginarium gives him something to occupy his time until his shift ends at 4:00 and he can watch ESPN. He is the only person in history who after four years actually in the office STILL won’t be qualified to do his job.
In a series of outstanding comments, that I have profited from reading, this is one of the best! Bravo!
I only wish you were right. He’s doing exactly what his makers brought him up to do and is well along with the “fundamental transformation” of the US.
when you are the president who buys the coke? the secret service ??
Watching the destruction of a once wonderful place – while masses ponder ‘what to do?’
It brings to mind a simple word – buck up it’s time for a ‘Coup’!
SEMI automatic weapons- get it right or you sound like some bimbo on the evening news wetting her pants about firearms.
eon – a really excellent commentary on the totalitarian nature of Plato’s Republic (as well as Hegel and Marx) is Karl Popper’s ‘The Open Society and Its Enemies’. I can’t praise it enough.
As for Obama, he long ago, in my view, moved out of direct contact with the real world and into a fictive one of which he alone is the Controlling Author. Obama cannot handle direct interactions with people or real events; he has to feel that he alone controls it all – and he can only achieve such power in an imaginary fictive world that he authors.
Since his world is totally imaginary and he feels no compunction to connect it to, and reference it to, hard objective reality – then he has no ability to differentiate fact and fiction. He’s a pathological liar; his words have an agenda of manipulating you into his control; they are not meant to represent objective reality. So, his hourly and daily contradictory statements may stun us who compare his A-statement with the contrary Not-A statement made one day later…but, to Obama, both statements are valid. [Validity is not the same as truthfulness]. They are both valid because they have a similar agenda: to manipulate you into his control.
Add this pathological psychology to an upbringing that embedded in him a deep visceral hatred of America, of whites, of capitalism, of individual enterprise and a support for the elitism of socialism – and what we have is an extremely dangerous demagogue. As Obama feels that he loses control over that ‘outside world’, as his fictive narrative moves further from the real world, Obama will feel more threatened by Others in the outside world.
Consider his contempt for Congress, and his constant rhetoric isolating himself from Congress (the people) and setting himself up as Pure and Noble in intent, dragged down by the ‘pollution of everyday life, ie, Congress’. That’s a clear outline of how someone as psychologically aberrant as Obama sees that outside real world: as corrupt and polluted.
Consider his moving more and more into governance outside of Congress, by executive fiat; consider his expanding need to feel in control and powerful. He’ll react to onslaughts from that outside world in a vicious and hostile manner and I wouldn’t put it past him that this reaction would include inciting civil war and a freeze on elections – to maintain his power.
I spent an afternoon on my boat with my stepson and his friend who, like Obama, had parents of different races and difficulty coping with reality. But, he could punch. And if it were you that he punched, your lights were out. This ‘ability’ would serve him well, or sort of, throughout much of his life.
Well-away from the dock, he decided he wanted a cigarette and my stepson had brought them, but forgot a lighter. It was funny to watch the agitation turn to more serious debate over who was the dummy who forgot the lighter or matches. This went on for a while when I decided to try something- I put a wire between the two battery poles and it glowed red-hot, where I lit the cigarette and handed it to “Darren”. He was ‘blown away’ and everyone was happy. Later, he tried to light one and burned his finger on the wire- a couple of times; he must have missed where I used pliers to hold the wire the first time.
Unlike Darren, Obama learned to use The Collectively Disgruntled the way Darren used his fists. Both could get things done that might otherwise require a little effort to solve a problem standing between them and their desires. My friend Darren is currently housed at Pelican Bay. To the best of my knowledge, he never lost a fight to anyone. From what I can tell, Mr. Obama sailed smoothly from Chicago to Washington, D.C. without the setbacks that your typical politician my endure throughout their career.
What these two have in common is a poor fatherly influence (often none) and a reliance on an ‘ability’ learned early that helped them cope with whatever reality threw at them. Darren knocked his problems out, mostly. Obama organizes those around him to act as his ‘fists’ and lets them do the punching. Had either of these two had a father of any significance, they’d probably have found a way to cope with reality in ways that didn’t include taking a hammer to it. Pelican Bay and the White House are two, very different places but it’s interesting how as pinnacle destinations, they can each be reached by people of little creativity but a focused application of a primal instinct.
That’s who we have in the White House, one who golfs and vacations lavishly without a care, why? Because he is the Champ. Put a belt on him.
Bravo!
His trainers and handlers beam with pride and wealth.
Obama eats out Michelle Obama? That’s just gross and unPresident-like. Stop tossing her salad Mr. Manchurian Candidate and go back to smoking cigarettes in Chicago with your own people
Dr. Hanson – Our Cicero.
To comprehend the megalomaniacal Imaginarium of Barack Obama, you have to enter the thick fog of Barry’s muddled dreams of his many fathers: the one from Africa he never knew, who ran out on him and his mother when he was born; the pornographer, a friend of the family who molested him as a boy in his teens; and the one who, like a father to him, finished the job, polishing the young man up in a church in Chicago.
As usual, Professor Hanson is spot on. However, the problem is not just one President, but rather the overreaching power of the federal government which permits Obama and his kind to engage in such destruction. To permanently end this leftist destruction of our Nation, we must return the federal government to its original constitutional limits. Given the deep entrenchment of the 70 plus year old Supreme Court decisions distorting the Constitution to allow this unconstitutional expansion, the only sure solution is to amend the Constitution to restate those original constitutional limits on the size and power of the federal government.
Of course, Congress will never pass amendments limiting its own power. Therefore we need to bypass Congress as originally contemplated by the framers when they provided for the initiation of constitutional amendments by the States as well as Congress. Unfortunately the framers ignored James Madison’s advice and required that the States go through a constitutional convention to initiate a constitutional amendment. Such a convention is fraught with unanswered issues and has never been called, and will never be called. Therefore, we need to take a step back, go back to the drawing board, and amend the Constitution to conform with Madison’s view that States should be able to initiate constitutional amendments without going through the cumbersome hurdle of a convention. This would open a path for constitutional measures to enable us to get control of the leviathan that our national government has become. See http://www.timelyrenewed.com.
Yeah, right! I’m just livin’ to have a Constitutional Convention. Let’s televise it all and let the viewers vote like on “Idol.” Hey, 53% of the res publica in this Country just voted to elect an open, avowed communist President, and you want to let those idiots have at the US Constitution? I don’t think so!
Art, I am in agreement with you. Correct me please, if I am wrong, but my understanding is that when there is an attempt to amend the Constitution, for a given issue, there is a risk in that, the entire document is open to amending and existing protections can be changed, and entirely new things can be added.
As I understand it and with the caveat that I’m not a Hahvud educated Constitutional scholar like Teh Won, there would be no such danger from a singular amendment properly passed out of Congress and submitted to the States. A Convention on the other hand could do pretty much what it pleased. The Constitution itself is a product of a Convention to examine and perhaps amend the Articles of Confederation. The Articles were pitched in the dustbin and the Constitution sprung fully clothed.
Thanks.
Bravo, Mr. Hansen! What a brilliant way to point out the hypocrisy and corruption of the left. With ease, this fraud of a President says its all about Jobs while killing any possibility for any segment of the business world to create them – from taxing tanning beds to over regulating the coal industry to ensure their demise.
Obama is no different than any other leftie. Take for instance, these women’s rights groups such as Code Pink who support Islamic extremists and in so doing sanction Shria Law…or these occupiers who hate corporate America but come to these events armed with IPADS and IPHONES…or Nancy Pelosi who loves big labor, but not if they are working on her farms….or Obama shutting down offshore drilling in the Gulf and Alaska over environmental concerns while giving Brazil $3 million of our tax dollars to do the same damn thing.
The list is endless.
Great essay. Here is one more event for the imaginarium: Headline from my local paper “Obama announces Boeing’s biggest deal” While in Bali, Obama stood watch that’s the term used) as executives of Boeing and Lion Air signed a deal that amounts to Boeing’s largest commercial plane order.
At the same time, here at home, this guy’s National Labor Relations Board has told Boeing not to open the new plant they built is South Carolina to build the 787. Why? Because SC is a right-to-work state.
The last great liberal “triumph”, was the War on Poverty. It was going to end to end poverty in our life time. It has cost America 15 Trillion dollars in direct costs, let alone the indirect costs and lost opportunity costs. How has worked out ?? Well now poverty is now an entrenched permanent government program with several generations of Americans that no nothing but being on the government dole, and, the number of impoverished has actually increased. And though as if that was not bad enough, the true cost is the utter destruction of the inner city Black family.
Thank you liberals , you’re doing a great job.
It would be a start if Newt Gingrich could use this column and fashion a booming speech to the country on the actual results of Barack Obama’s quest to transform America into a socialist country through the distribution of wealth and “social justice”. Gingrich because he is the most hard hitting orator of the current lot. Americans have been told that jobs are not growing because of the lack of a jobs plan,the mysteriously bad economy and of course, the greed of the millionaires, billionaires, and the obstruction of the Republicans. But the fact is that real jobs are lost as a result of direct policies and decisions of this Administration. It is nice to argue the theory, it is better to present the facts. Barack Obama never presents facts. What is so difficult to understand that Obama’s “alternative energy” plan has resulted in the loss of at least 220,000 new jobs this month alone (pipeline and shale) and 1/2 billionUSD to Solyndra alone, and a gain to Obama of donors and environmentalist votes. I am beginning to think that it does come down to a failure to communicate — simply, effectiely and truthfully — with numbers and facts.
Imaginarium, Sparta, Epitêles… May we call upon you Mr. Hanson to next remark on Dancing Boys of Afghanistan and PSU, firefights in fields of marijuana and Fast and Furious, Agent 202 and libertarian isolationism, anchor babies eroding borders and FET at the tip of the spear giving that last full measure of devotion…
Maybe you could just spare some historical thoughts on returning armies, please.
Democrat Extremism in the Defense of Extremism
Barry Goldwater’s line from his 1964 Republican presidential nomination acceptance speech is often misquoted and more often intentionally misinterpreted.
What Goldwater actually said was, “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!” What the founder of modern conservatism and inspiration for Ronald Reagan meant was that Americans should value their freedoms enough to struggle for them, as long as those liberties were virtuous.
Lyndon Johnson refused to debate Goldwater during the ’64 campaign for the presidency. Instead, with no substantive basis, Democrats painted the senator from Arizona as an extremist of the worst kind who would start World War III and deploy nuclear weapons in Viet Nam.
Toward that end of smearing Goldwater, Democrats deployed the most infamous, extremist advertisement in national political history, a picture of a young girl picking daisies with an atomic explosion in the background.
The ad also featured Johnson saying, “These are the stakes. To make a world in which all of God’s children will live, or to do into the dark. We must either love each other or we must die” and concluded by showing “Vote for President Johnson on November 3rd.”
The ad ran only once but once was sufficient. Mission accomplished. Johnson defeated Goldwater in a landslide and went on to send 63,000 American soldiers to their deaths in ‘Nam.
If we define extreme as the outer limits, most removed from the center, beyond the average sense of moderation, that one minute ad was the epitome, not only a bald-faced lie but a distortion which helped cause those needless fatalities.
Having learned the effectiveness of lies and distortions though not their immorality, many statements and actions by liberals and indeed by today’s Democrat Party must be labelled extremist yet, practicing the same underhanded techniques as those employed against Goldwater, they succeed in establishing them as truth thanks to a complicit media.
There have been so many examples of extremist Democrat rhetoric and actions during the brief reign of President Barack Hussein Obama rivaling the venom of the Goldwater campaign that it’s impossible to detail them all in the limited space available here.
Virtually all of them, from MSNBC commentators wishing death for conservatives, to union thugs visiting mayhem on opponents, to administration functionaries preaching racial hatred and defying authority, to the Wall Street Occupiers creating social chaos, are designed with one goal in mind: re-electing the president.
The thinking seems to be that anything, any words or activities that serve to subvert the American value system, also serve to undermine the Republican Party and to insure four more years of the extremist, socialist domestic policies and foreign policies which cater to the most extreme elements in America.
Why else would Obama and other Democrats wink at their vile MSNBC lackeys, their invective-spewing unionists, their un-elected officials making a farce of law, and endorse the OWS anarchists?
Thanks to liberal brainwashing as to the rightness and entitlement to legal abortion and residency in the White House of the most pro-abortion president in history, there is no more contentious issue on the American scene today.
For Democrats, the abortion issue fills their needs to appear sensitive, at the same time they conceal their gross insensitivity to life. It enables them to lock-in a powerful segment of the electorate, at the same time it constitutes an infringement on the rights of the pre-born. It affords them the opportunity to claim a sense of superiority, at the same time it satisfies the contemporary fixation on selfishness.
As such, the liberal sacrament of abortion has become the domestic foundation of the Democrat Party. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=6007.)
Unfortunately Mitt Romney, the heir apparent, is just a flim flam man himself. His constant selling of the Olympic games as his biggest success is an example of his disconnect. Huge national economies cannot be centrally managed like an Olympic planning committee. Romney may end up being as dangerous a fool as Obama.
Obama is only a symptom of a disease as Dennis Prager so eloquently puts it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNUc8nuo7HI
VDH I am saving this EXCELLENT article in one of my favorite history books:
http://www.amazon.com/10-Books-That-Screwed-World/dp/1596980559/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321576404&sr=1-1
Guess in 2012 we’ll find out if the disease is metastatic or benign.
And if history will repeat itself. God save America! Oh, Happy Thanksgiving.
Just curious. Where has all the money gone? Couldn’t Xer-0 have just given us all a house and a years worth of beans?
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