We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
Obama – looking bad already This sounds horribly familiar:
Obama has never run anything other than his presidential campaign. He doesn’t know the difference between governing and campaigning and he’s sticking with what he knows.
Which sounds exactly like Britain’s Labour government from 1997 until now. The difference being that in 1997 the British economy was in fairly good shape, which meant that the then British government had a decade during which to learn how to govern. It never did, but it might have. Now the world economy is in a terrible state, and Obama has no time at all.
Does the USA as a whole already have a bad feeling about Obama? Or is it just the people in the USA who detest him already, telling each other that they have a bad feeling about him? From over here, it’s a bit hard to tell.
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
Does the USA as a whole already have a bad feeling about Obama?
Hard to tell, the guy has only been in office 60 some days, the colleges have educated a couple of generations of servile thinkers, and the MSM continue their support. Don’t discount the power of the MSM, many folks get all of what news they get from outlets like CNN and magazines like Newsweek. But I do sense a hardening of opposition and don’t think Obama has much more time to turn things around before folks conclude he isn’t up to the job.
All that is just beginning, though. Folks are willing to give the new president some lee way and will tell you he inherited a terrible mess. And the corruption scandals of the Democrats, hidden all these years by the MSM, are only now making their way into public awareness. Much will depend on the opposition getting organized and the continued decline of the MSM.
And at the moment, the GOP are retty clueless about what to do. The demonstrations, the extensive coverage on blogs? Not much in the public eye.
Furthermore, the slightly-aware public are being whipped into outrage at those evil fat-cat Wall Street types and their outrageous salaries and retention bonuses.
At the moment, the media’s keeping a pretty tight lid on the tax protests and maverick journalists.
The GOP are, predictably, incapable of exploiting their opportunity, presumably because while they’d love to capitalize on the Dems’ behavior, they haven’t figured out how they can do that without pulling down the whole corrupt, incompetent edifice and eliminating their own chance at a turn at the trough.
So whatever pushback we are likely to see in the short term will be grass-roots issues-activism. I live in the next town over from the AIG Office where the staff are receiving death threats. This area is Democrat Central, and there are a LOT of unhappy people – from both ends of the ideological spectrum.
“From over here, it’s a bit hard to tell.”
Frankly, from over here it is, too.
I have concluded that O really does intend to impose something like Leninism.
He is doing what I expected given his record. Others thought they saw something else. Many still do, some always will.
And I may be wrong, but why write what I don’t believe.
O spent his adult life in corrupt politics and focused on routing tax money into organizing street thugs to control politics and intimidate anyone who disagreed.
This very day he is talking about controlling all private salaries. The AIG bonuses being the excuse du jour.
Meanwhile a video shows the DNC training “visitors” who will come to my home and solicit my pledge to support Obama and his programs.
Or is that video a fake? The other side plays dirty too.
I hope the “visitors” come with their NeoNazi uniforms pressed and their boots polished. I so hate to be stomped by unkempt thugs.
But probably they will just put me on a list for surveillance. Classification: an old coot who will soon die and doesn’t merit drastic measures.
The pledge to Obama business sounds similar to the very real union “card check” proposal. That would allow unions to have friendly discussions with any worker who doesn’t want a union shop.
Even this vile Congress isn’t yet ready to impose card check on US workers. Dems badly want to, and so does Obama. So far they lack the nerve.
They will quietly pass card check when people are sufficiently distracted. And give the bill a very nice name too.
The other parts of the takeover will come when student organizers seize the universities and impose correct ideas on faculty and curricula. Then they can work through the student admission records to see who needs attention.
O wants to nationalize health care. I buy my own and it is excellent. He will put an end to such evil.
The bailout money going to the state and the attached conditions herald the end of meaningful local government.
Gun seizures are certain. The Constitution means what the judges say it means. And there will soon be new judges.
Everything trial balloon this administration releases – mandatory national service, federalized medicine and industry and banks, his private army running the census, the Fairness Doctrine, ideas for federal funding of media – shouts what he intends.
Also he can destroy the currency with huge deficits. That sounds odd as a political tactic. But it would end all the influence of wealth and make everyone serfs of the government. Or more accurately the slaves of a one-party state.
Yet a one-party state can’t retain power if elections are honest and opposition is allowed. Gee, what is the implication of that?
The guy is a statist. Government – run by him and his party – is to be all powerful. No limit. And those who even think of limits are evil. They will be taught better.
The public anger has not been “whipped up”, it is real and genuine. I could not give a fig about these Wall Street bankers who have ruthlessly waged war against the working class.
If auto-workers contracts can be altered, so can bankers. To suggest anything else is hypocrisy.
Wall Street has contributed little to the US economy; the average American has steadily become poorer during the past decade.
Bush and the Republicans gave tax breaks and welfare handouts to US corporations, supposedly in return for them providing jobs to Americans. What in fact happened was they took the taxpayers money and sent the jobs overseas.
Strangely, many so-called Conservatives who complain about Obama’s spending were extremely quiet about the growth of Corporate Welfare under Bush, in particular the Pentagon’s disgraceful ponzi schemes, which have screwed the US taxpayer out of trillions.
The Iraq war, vastly over-budget due to the Pentagon’s utterly disgraceful and traitorous fiscal incompetence, had already plunged America into debt before the Masters of the Universe destroyed the entire economy.
Whatever Mr Obama’s merits or lack of them, it is a rather silly of Tim Shipman to say he has ‘only’ run a presidential campaign. That’s a massive logistical and strategic task involving building a national organisation in a couple of years and merging it at some point with the party’s. No elected president should be written off as unfit to manage government if they’ve done that.
On Brian’s parallel between Obama and New Labour as permanent campaign machines that can’t do anything else, time will tell about Mr Obama… maybe. There are some good reasons to believe it won’t:
(1) The permanent campaign is not a figment of leftist ideology. It is an evolutionary response by politicians to the age of media democracy. They are all at it, even in non- and semi- democratic regimes.
(2) The US political culture and context is profoundly different from the British one. This is ignored by ideologues from both sides of the Atlantic and all corners of the political ring. Democrats <> Labour and Republicans <> Conservatives. Not nearly.
It is not just that the centre of gravity of US politics is in a different place: closest to the Cornerstone group traditionalist right in the Tory party in my estimation, but not really very like that. The differences separating conservatives, moderates and liberals in the US are on skew lines with those separating Tories, centrists and socialists, and the dimensions of the clusters of attitudes are different. What’s more, party doesn’t mean the same thing, and nor does office.
(3) Permanent campaign machines are also a mechanism of government: they merge legislative and political strategy in a coherent way. They neither switch to being a different sort of thing in office, nor do they just continue with propaganda and ignore the levers of power.
It is just wrong to assert New Labour never learned to govern. It was an effective government from the beginning. It is just that what it has been doing is not what you and I regard as the legitimate functions of government. By rapid stages it has wrought a revolution that has recast British public life in its soft-fascist image. The bewildering rhetoric and frenetic political and administrative manoeuvring produced a decisive shift, without most potential opponents even realising what was happening, and neutralising any way to do anything about it. It’s the political equivalent of the Ali Shuffle.
More to come tomorrow.
Sorry, that came out as nonsense because html interprets the first part of “not equals” as you would type it as the opening of a tag. I should remember I’m not typing and that there are glorious typographical resources in unicode. Read:
This is ignored by ideologues from both sides of the Atlantic and all corners of the political ring. Democrats ≠ Labour and Republicans ≠ Conservatives. Not nearly.
We (in U S) do have to accept that Congress, and its degree of factional monopliy, has more effect than the actions (or inactions) of the person serving as President.
There are limits to what a President can do.
However, what he does (and does not) do is usually indicative of how, and to what ends, he will use his power or influence – and reveal also his motivations.
That said, O’s main activities appear to be directed toward “image building,” not control or limitation of the of the legislative juggernaut – now made up of newly emergent coalitions (most with what Bastiat phrased as the aim of living off the state at the expense of others; getting more “services” out than the production they put in). Thus, he will seek to predispose the public avoid responsibility being assigned to him for what inevitably goes wrong.
We are, as noted, well on the road to the
NEW TOTALITARIANISM. O does want to project the image and persona of the one who should direct it. But, he can not create it, only sieze it if enough of the electorate can be convinced he is the appropriate one.
He seems to be choosing that task rather than the on-the-job- training for which he was elected.
What is being overlooked is the tendency of the the U S populace at all levels to tire quickly of constant appearances, speaches, and media adulations (for adulation’s sake – “we made you, thus you are adorable in all you do!”).
Such effectiveness as O might have been able to achieve, at the job, is swiftly being diminshed by his concentration on his other objective, to be accepted as the “natural” leader of the NEW TOTALITARIANISM.
Though it seems that is where the U S is headed, it is too soon for that role to be available to the best of demagogues, which he is not.
If Polling is to be given some credence, then the Democrats troubles are real. For the time being, anyway, Obama will enjoy some insulation, with the Dems in Congress taking the heat.
LINK(Link)
I agree with Glenn Reynolds, re: the “Tea Parties”, while they aren’t getting national coverage, they are getting covered by local media and that is most important right now.
K has done a good job of connecting the dots. His post (as well some more in other threads here) is forcing me to reconsider whether I think Obama is truly an “empty suit”.
Guy, while a appreciate the points you make, and agree that running a presidential campaign is a huge task, I think you give Obama far too much credit for that. He hired a professional campaign staff who have years of experience in doing all the necessary “stuff”. At most you can give him credit for hiring well (a skill which clearly has not translated into his cabinet selections, so possibly he wasn’t even responsible for that), and providing overall direction to the campaign strategy (again, I’ve seen no evidence of that; every time he tried to extemporize his message went off-track, which leads me to think that his handlers were devising his strategy as well as managing the campaign).
Obama was an actor, quite literally reading the lines someone else wrote for him. Behind the scenes are producers, directors, editors, writers, a small army of the real heroes of his election. But he got the Oscar. It remains to be seen whether they were using him (to elect a Manchurian candidate) or he was using them (as dupes enabling his ascention to the throne). Neither is likely to lead to a happy outcome.
If there is a subject about which Obama is not wholly ignorant then I have yet to discover what it is. This, of course does nothing to hurt him since his base is economically and politically illiterate. They are mainly people with no education and people with too much “education.” We have reached a tipping point where, at least temporarily, the number of people who see robbing their neighbors as the path to wealth outnumbers those who see hard work as the correct way to go.
Obama would not lose the black vote even if he ate a live puppy on national television. The democrats own that as surely as they owned the plantations during the Civil War. The same goes for the “hip” vote who equate criticism of a black man with criticism of black men. Among independents though his support is tanking. Obama’s popularity is behind that of George Bush at the same time during his presidency — and for good reason.
I am not sure if the press quit carrying his water for him if Obama would even exist. He seems to be a creation of a certain liberal mindset that projects onto him what they wish him to be. He can’t speak without a teleprompter and he can’t think well enough or deeply enough to make a decision about anything without contradicting himself almost immediately. Whether he survives as president will mostly come down to whether the press eventually turns on him and starts treating him as a man rather than a god. Right now they are suppressing news about the Tea Party protests attended by thousands that are occurring all over the nation amongst people who have never been mad enough to protest anything while they play up 40 people who have been paid to be there standing outside the corporate offices of AIG as if the latter is somehow more significant of public opinion.
Obama is unwise and tone deaf enough that he will continue to overreach until eventually he steps in something he can’t scrape off and the press can’t ignore. Jimmy Carter has nothing on this guy. Just take every report you hear filtering into Europe and assume it is ten times worse.
Oh, and the amount of scandal that is coming to light amongst the Democratic party and Obama’s nominees is of a scale I have never witnessed before. Americans loathe high handedness and these guys don’t have the good sense to even act ashamed. In the end, I think it is their arrogance that will do them in. Bush survived two terms by being humble in the face of criticism and being willing to make fun of himself even while pursuing controversial policies. Obama is more of a thin skinned scold.
K:
Not odd at all, it is straight out of Lenin’s book.
The question in this thread was, does the USA as a whole already have a bad feeling about Obama? The clear answer to that is no.
Of the population who even bothers about politics, half of them are firmly in the ‘change we can believe in’ camp, and the other half, are not.
Here’s an example of a democratic apologist who, while criticizing Obama’s policy, in the last paragraph, captures the real emerging concern of the Hope crowd: that Barry screws up so bad he cant get back in office again:
(Link)
To me, it is obvious every action Obama has taken are utterly disasterous for the country; when I try to discuss the issues with my Obama-friendly associates, their eyes glaze over and all they are thinking is, ‘at least he isnt Bush.’
IN my neck of the woods, everybody seems to know, Bambi is in way over his head. When Democrats locally scurry away and don’t want to talk, like the ones I was with yesterday, it is becoming obvious to near everyone they made a terrible mistake.
All you have to do is halve their retirement accounts to get their attention. They quickly lose the BDS thing.
I don’t know, cracks are appearing in the MSM, Reuter’s headline: Resistance grows to Obama’s bigger government
LINK(Link)
More even than Internal Affairs i see the Foreign Affairs being pretty disastrous. The Iranian Mullahs already answered to Bambi in typical fashion, Russians after the pathetic and kitch “Reset”, have made to know trough Media they are considering to go with transfer of S-300 to Iran…Mrs Clinton one of figures in this disaster made a trip to Asia and ddin’t stopped by China….Just a small sample, you British already know the Brown DVD saga…
The Labour government elected in 1997 did some bad things at once (such as the massive tax increase on private pension funds – which has had a compound effect over the years), but was fairly moderate overall.
So moderate that I was accused (by various libertarians) of “not getting it” about the new free market Labour party. They were not free market – they were worse than John Major, and he was bad enough.
However, they were fairly moderate (more James Callaghan than Harold Laski – although, unlike Callaghan they did not actually cut government spending).
As such they were nothing whatever like Comrade Barack Obama.
He has run things – for example he was the main man in the ACORN training program for years.
His policies are well thought out – they take the wild spending of Bushbrain and multiply it by a high factor.
And, unlike Bush, Barack Obama knows exactly what the policy of endless printing and spending will do to the American economy.
“There is no more sure and subtle way to overthrow the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency, for to do so puts all the hidden strength of economic law on the side of destruction – and does so in a way that not one man in a million can clearly recognise or diagnose.”
President Obama is an enemy to be repected – he was trained from his most early childhood, and onward over his whole life.
He is a dedicated and sincere enemy of the West in general and the United States in particular, and (I believe) a brave enemy who would gladly give his life if by doing so he helped destroy capitalism.
To compare him to someone like Tony Blair is absurd.
He
I should have typed that Comrade (now “President”, an astonishing achievement, even given the state of the mainstream media and the “education system” – in previous generations getting an agent of influence near the Oval Office was a dream of the enemy, now the man behind the desk is one of them), is an enemy to be “respected” – I missed out the “s”, my apologies.
There was a comment from Relugus above.
Something about conservatives who denounced Obama’s spending not denouncing that of Bush.
Without names it is hard to tell which “conservatives” Relugus is talking about.
I doubt he means people like Senator De Mint or Governor Stanford. Or many others I could name.
As for Wall Street.
Is it really only Ann Coulter who reads who these executives actually give their money to?
They give money to your political allies Relugus.
Why do you thing that when banks organize events out in Hollywood (not exactly a conservative place) they invite C. Crow and “Earth, Wind and Fire” to provide the music?
Do you think I would do that?
No Rel.
These bankers and others such were “good students” at college – eating every bit of shit their lecturers fed them, and then they went off and got good jobs in corporations.
Many things they are – conservatives they are not.
On the subject of Obama “sticking with what he knows” this OpEd in the WSJ by Governor Mark Sanford, SC, sheds an interesting light:
Read the rest of the article on why Gov Sanford wants a waiver from restrictions on stimulus money for his state, and you begin to see that the perpetual campaign is a tactic towards the totalitarian government sought by the Obama gang.
The two events – the (region 1) DVDs and the “button” were toe-curling. The fact that Clinton allowed herself to be a part of it makes me wonder if she is also in possession of a demagnetized political compass. The administration came across like a bunch of dorks.
Bod: The GOP are, predictably, incapable of exploiting their opportunity, presumably because while they’d love to capitalize on the Dems’ behavior, they haven’t figured out how they can do that without pulling down the whole corrupt, incompetent edifice and eliminating their own chance at a turn at the trough.
And who said that the Republicans were not like the Tories…?
Relugus: If auto-workers contracts can be altered, so can bankers. To suggest anything else is hypocrisy.
To suggest it is to say that two wrongs make a right. Contract is a core element of the Rule of Law.
“Mrs Clinton one of figures in this disaster made a trip to Asia and ddin’t stopped by China”
Sorry it should be: it didn’t stopped by India.
“The fact that Clinton allowed herself to be a part of it makes me wonder if she is also in possession of a demagnetized political compass. The administration came across like a bunch of dorks.”
Well i never understood where, why Clinton got any eputation. Even her disastrous husband that let Al-Qaeda grow in “Peace” times is a bit better than her.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20325.html
“The leading liberal voices of the New York Times editorial pages all criticized—and, in some cases, clobbered—President Obama on Sunday for his handling of the economy and national security.
It’s not unusual for Barack Obama to take a little friendly fire from the Times. But it’s perhaps unprecedented for him to get hit on the same day by columnists Frank Rich, Thomas Friedman and Maureen Dowd—and in the paper’s lead editorial. Their critique punctuated a weekend that started with a widely circulated blog post by Paul Krugman that said the president’s yet to be announced bank rescue plan would almost certainly fail.”…
It is silly to complain that someone unhappy with O didn’t also denounce the Bush spending. No comment can be infinitely long. When Bush is not mentioned it implies nothing about how I regard him
The recent Bush made serious mistakes. Perhaps the worst was in allowing any bailouts at all.
And simply mailing money to people, the so-called rebate of last year, was utterly inane.
IMO Bush figured Paulson knew best and took his advice. Well, Paulson didn’t know best. He did know a lot of banker buddies. He knew what was best for them.
The bailout policies are near disaster. They must collapse unless the debt is to be monetized. But wait, the Federal Reserve just created a trillion dollars to buy up Treasury Bonds.
Next stop, Zimbabwe on the Potomac.
No matter what affliction is mentioned: big banks, money markets, hedge funds, public employee pension losses, auto companies, declining casino revenues, state budget deficits, or defaults on mortgages, the prescription is the same; spend another trillion and glibly promise the rich guys can be taxed for it.
Enough about the bailout side. (Admittedly bailouts are partly guarantees and may not all become losses.)
On the fiscal side education spending is being boosted considerably. So are construction and earmarks. We are promised energy independence without effort, a modern national energy grid, and an end to global warming – or is it climate change?
Today, virtually every state and local government is spending more money now than in 2008. And doing so despite falling revenues. California state government actually added employees last year as their deficit approached a billion a week.
It is impossible to account for those finances. Most government numbers are half truths and have been for decades.
Medicine and probably medical suppliers and drug companies are to be yoked for the public interest. And car companies are to produce magic vehicles.
And, with very few exceptions, our entire political establishment makes no objection to any of this.
I suppose someone will now complain that I haven’t included my views on the Naval Treaty of 1924.
You won’t read about it in the press, but I sense a degree of dissatisfaction with Obama that surprises me a little: I live in a VERY Democrat-heavy part of the country, and many of the people who were swooning over him a few months ago seem much more anxious.
The problem is that the Democrats and Republicans have only superficial, rhetorical differences, and rather form 2 sides of the same status quo. Most Americans take fairly libertarian views of the size of government, and fairly tolerant, “liberal” views with regard to social issues. As such, they don’t really have a voting option in the political mainstream. Election day is a choice between the socially-tolerant fascists on the left and the socially-intolerant fascists on the right.
The Employee Free Choice Act should be called “The Employee Right For Intimidation” act!
http://tinyurl.com/ddjzcr
mB
The Hillabeast is where she is due to paying attention to LBJ’s maxim: ‘I’d rather have him inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.’ (Referring to J E Hoover at the time, iirc)
Couple of observations to add to Nick there….
I live in Washington DC, the only black majority city on earth outside of Africa. Things I am observing —
I am seeing very little Obama shirts, hats, etc, being worn or sold. Oh, they still are there, but not nearly what they were a month ago and back. Now it is natural post-inaug for that to retreat, but the scale of the retreat is telling. You cannot believe that if Obama were triumphing, people would not still be wearing him.
The willingness of many, blacks in particular, but many others, to go to bat for Obama in 2008 was overwhelming. I am GOP and I love to mix it up, so I encountered many many many an argument with his troops over Obama vs. Bush/McCain. Many were and are friends, and it was largely good-natured (because I excel at keeping it that way, frankly).
Well, these people have fallen silent. I am too merciful to needle them over it, but when I do, all they have is “Bush, Bush, Bush”, and you can tell by their furtive eyes that even they know how lame a response that is, and that it is lamer today than it was yesterday, and will be lamer tomorrow than today. I genuinely sense an unadmitted shock on their part, as they are unable to reconcile the depth of their emotional investment in him with what they are seeing unfold before their eyes.
It occurs to me as I write this that the failure of the GOP to have a leader right now might actully be a benefit to Republicans. If they did have a leader, all Democrats would have to do is talk about “how awful that GOP leader is” (like they would do with Palin if she wasn’t safely in refrigeration up there), the media would of course marcha long like soldiers, and Obama supporters could continue to smokescreen their man’s incompetence by targeting the GOP leader.
But there isn’t one. So they are lost. They tried it with Rush Limbaugh (big conservative radio guy) and he ate ’em for lunch, so they backed off.
So, as you asked, I think, for observations from the States, the primary thing to observe is the silence of the non-politicized Obama supporters. They know if they bring him up they could get chopped to pieces, so people who couldn’t shut up about him four and six months ago lie with their heads down, at a loss as to what to do.
I can only hope the sheer massiveness of the scales falling from their eyes leaves an impact, particularily on the young, who once prided themselves on their cynicism and disdain for the alleged “brainwashing” by their elders, and who now look like a bunch of college-educated kindergardners led over the cliff by a siren-cloud of pretty words and unicorns.
(apologies if this is a dupe)
Couple of observations to add to Nick there….
I live in Washington DC, the only black majority city on earth outside of Africa. Things I am observing —
I am seeing very little Obama shirts, hats, etc, being worn or sold. Oh, they still are there, but not nearly what they were a month ago and back. Now it is natural post-inaug for that to retreat, but the scale of the retreat is telling. You cannot believe that if Obama were triumphing, people would not still be wearing him.
The willingness of many, blacks in particular, but many others, to go to bat for Obama in 2008 was overwhelming. I am GOP and I love to mix it up, so I encountered many many many an argument with his troops over Obama vs. Bush/McCain. Many were and are friends, and it was largely good-natured (because I excel at keeping it that way, frankly).
Well, these people have fallen silent. I am too merciful to needle them over it, but when I do, all they have is “Bush, Bush, Bush”, and you can tell by their furtive eyes that even they know how lame a response that is, and that it is lamer today than it was yesterday, and will be lamer tomorrow than today. I genuinely sense an unadmitted shock on their part, as they are unable to reconcile the depth of their emotional investment in him with what they are seeing unfold before their eyes.
It occurs to me as I write this that the failure of the GOP to have a leader right now might actully be a benefit to Republicans. If they did have a leader, all Democrats would have to do is talk about “how awful that GOP leader is” (like they would do with Palin if she wasn’t safely in refrigeration up there), the media would of course marcha long like soldiers, and Obama supporters could continue to smokescreen their man’s incompetence by targeting the GOP leader.
But there isn’t one. So they are lost. They tried it with Rush Limbaugh (big conservative radio guy) and he ate ’em for lunch, so they backed off.
So, as you asked, I think, for observations from the States, the primary thing to observe is the silence of the non-politicized Obama supporters. They know if they bring him up they could get chopped to pieces, so people who couldn’t shut up about him four and six months ago lie with their heads down, at a loss as to what to do.
I can only hope the sheer massiveness of the scales falling from their eyes leaves an impact, particularily on the young, who once prided themselves on their cynicism and disdain for the alleged “brainwashing” by their elders, and who now look like a bunch of college-educated kindergardners led over the cliff by a siren-cloud of pretty words and unicorns.
Would it be possible to have a “card check” run by the anti union workers (or even employers) to mark that they DO NOT want a union?
Let’s all calmly recall a lesson from the Jimmy Carter years: that even in tough economic times, America can survive four years without a president.
Insomuch as the so-called “right” is dithering about and still clueless about “what” it is to do not realizing this is an epic Opportunity (which is painful to watch, it is patently obvious what it can do to turn around the right’s chances, starting with, hmm, stop loading spending bills up with earmarks, let the lefties do that?) there has been a rather concrete way to see that the “honeymoon” is close to being over over here Obamamania-wise, the number of bumper stickers on cars.
Normally it takes many months for people to take those annoying election stickers off (particularly for leftists, they LOVE brandishing their bumper-stickers so to make sure everyone in town knows their socio-political opinions), and this last election there was a sheer multitude of pro-Obama stickers — but the inauguration a mere few weeks ago may as well have been a year or two ago, look around now in the USA, oddly few pro-Obama stickers… formerly quite smugly in-your-face proudly-open supporters of Team O are considerably more tight lipped now about what “The One” has done, hmmm. Seems every new trillion dollar bailout/stimulus/injection/jolting/toxic assets fund, etc. they pass without any critical analysis (or just end-run it via the FED, thus no real disclosure or transparency at all), and that seems near weekly nowadays, the fewer bumper stickers. The lefties are trying hard to pass the buck off to AIG and “big business” of course, so hope’n’change is now hate’n’blame, but wasting mere millions pales compared to wasting trillions, even a few leftists can sum that up correctly. I see more people becoming interested in “tea parties” now instead, although they are mostly the formerly inactive conservatives/moderates (who stayed home the last election) starting to feel some fire in their bellies again, where the “youth vote”, formerly swooning shamefully and ever blindly for Team O, now are increasingly shocked and dismayed, for they are starting to see the Baby Boomer leftists are fully intent on sticking Them with the tab.
Its not easy to agree with all that Obama does especially considering the disaster that preceded him. Still, I am surprised that most commenters here are too sure about what the outcomes of his presidency will be and reading it after only 60 days! Stem cell reversals and Guantanamo are positives in my view. The response to the economic mess crisis in this ideologically-driven political moments would never have been done without annoying many people. And I do not think that it can be credibly stated that Obama is thin skinned.
I have several friends who consider themselves “independent” who have admitted that while they still wouldn’t have voted for McCain (Or Bob Barr like myself) — are starting to feel they are not really getting what that had hoped for with Obama, and are even a little freaked out by some of the stuff coming out of Washington these days. I’m finding that there are still people who in their gut know that the Federal Government buying shares in Banks, dictating bonuses in the private sector, and throwing endless amount of money around isn’t a a good thing. They are starting to realize that the Democrats didn’t have them in mind when they were talking about helping the “middle class”
@owinock
A few days after he endorsed stem cell funding, the budget he passed continued to restrict it.
and he is not closing Guantanamo. All he did was to direct a study of how to close it and search for an alternative. a rose by any other name …
You have to hand it to Bush, he was wrong on a lot of what he did, but he stood by his convictions. He didn’t wave in the breeze with the polls like Clinton did or Obama will likely do if he hasn’t already. He didn’t care if people liked him and consequently most people didn’t. Of course the majority was made up of people who expect empty rhetoric that makes them feel better while others were dismayed at the nuts and bolts of failed policies.
————————————-
As far as the whole country feeling bad about Obama – I don’t know how things are over there but we have a solid two party system complete with the useful idiots they need to thrive. Regardless of what Bush did that was dyed in the wool socialist (and was slightly left of JFK) he still had the “Stosh and Stella” crowd behind him no matter what. And Obama will have the “mulit-cultural, koombyaah” crowd behind him to the end. As for the undecideds/swing voters, they are typically as ill informed as ever and will likely gravitate back toward the “alternative” but not out of some specific forward-thinking policy but out of not getting much out of the option then currently if front of them.
So basically the 50% of the population that bothers to vote is still made up two parts, 1/3 each, of pre-conditioned idiots who will follow their party off a cliff, and the idiots who vacilate in between like there’s a real choice to be made. So to discern whether there is a bad feeling about Obama is hard to tell – 1/3 (of voters) follow blindly, 1/3 reject blindly, and 1/3 spin around dizzily. The other 50% gave up as a bad job long ago and are buying MRE’s and ammo to fight whoever comes to the door.
The realization that Obama is hopeless [sic] has come by degree.
First to wake up were the stupid conservatives who convinced themselves (and, to their shame, others) that Obama was not going to be a radical leftist as President. Those people include idiots like Christopher Buckley.
The second group was the “moderate Democrats” (especially those in Congress, who realized that their hope (that Obama was going to govern from a postion like their own) was likewise blown to pieces.
The third group (and this is taking place as we speak) are actually liberals like the NYT Reptiles, who are discovering that it’s all very well to advocate radical liberal policy when you’re not in power, but that the results of doing so are more likely to be ruinous than helpful.
Finally, public opinion: while most people wouldn’t recognize sound economic policy if you fed it to them with eggs ‘n chips, they do know that massive government over-spending is not the best way to attack most economic and financial problems — and as the scale of the spending/bailouts gets greater and greater, so is their resistance starting to ramp up.
For this reason, the AIG bonus uproar was A Good Thing, and while it proved a valuable sideshow for the Left (attacking bloated plutocrats is always A Good Thing for them), what it made Joe Sixpack realize was that the money was being pissed away, and in unimaginable quantities.
Few people understand what a trillion dollars represents, and not many more even understand a billion dollars. But “millions” are understood by almost everyone — thanks, perhaps, to the much-maligned lotteries which bring millions to the grasp of a fortunate few — and when people saw that individuals were getting paid millions of taxpayer dollars, for apparently not much work (and even as a reward for failure), that began to strike home, and tell everyone what was going on.
Like I said, people are mostly ignorant of macro-economics — but they do understand basic finance. In everyday terms: everyone knows that, as a long-term strategy, paying your MasterCard bill with your AmEx card is stupid. But as people figure out that this is precisely what governments are doing, their ire is beginning to grow.
Hubba hubba.
This subject has come up elsewhere, in a slightly different form. If you are interested, go over to BELMONT CLUB where the thread count has passed 120 in the last few hours.
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2009/03/22/the-pits/#comments
And yes, my couple of pence worth is there.
Keeping in mind the BELMONT CLUB is by its nature one of the more serious forums, I think the revealed mood is noteworthy.
Now, I see a growing split in our country. There are the devotees of The Lightworker. Nothing will change them. There is truth in K’s post of 22 March 0616 hrs. And yes, there is the pledge. It is on their website. And having had AFSCME [American government employee union] thugs brazenly walk into my house uninvited during the campaign [and leave hurriedly in fear of an application of our Second Amendment] I am more than sure that jackboots are in the future that Obama plans.
K’s comments about what is happening to our electoral system are also spot on. There is serious concern as to whether an honest election is possible anymore. For Brit readers, we have an organization called ACORN that is known primarily for voter registration fraud. In the Intergenerational Theft Bill aka the Stimulus, ACORN got $4 BILLION. There is reason that ammunition is in short supply in this country.
The passage of an ex-post facto statute tarring all employees of financial firms and taxing their “bonuses” at 90% bodes ill for many things in the future. Those “bonuses” are actually retention pay, because as AIG went south, their staff started bailing out. These are mostly mid-level people from the non-investment divisions of AIG. The bailout is predicated on the theory that if AIG’s bad investments were not carefully unwound; the whole economy would collapse. These are the people doing the unwinding. If this bill passes and is signed, the Federales will get the money back along with letters of resignation. I assume that our chief tax cheat, Timothy Geithner will take over the unwinding himself, since they cannot find anyone not under indictment to take ANY of the 17 management positions below Treasury Secretary.
The problem is that if any one group can be singled out for a 90% tax rate, regardless of whether their pay was from a legal contract, approved by Congress and signed by the occupant of the White House; then there is no contract safe from political interference. And down that road lies an economic collapse. And political mayhem.
Subotai Bahadur
Subotal: Thanks for the kind words.
IMO honest elections with contending parties are not compatible with the sort of state O seems to want. Thus a stress is created.
Labels are too fluid, but I would say he seems to want a government form akin to the Fascism of Mussolini in the 1920s. Or the first pattern of the Lenin regime.
That would include total state authority in directing businesses, a tame and somewhat intimidated population, a very tame and quite intimidated media, displays and ceremonies and speeches, and one party rule in fact if not in name.
Mussolini by many accounts was quite popular in his first decade of rule and widely admired as a model of the paternal leader.
i.e. a man who got things done in a nation that badly needed things done.
Of course O doesn’t have such control yet and most people do not want it. So by necessity he acts to promote his goals while also concealing them.
That last sentence tells us why it is so difficult to label this man we have elected.
Back to the present. I see no escape from inflation and a totally debauched currency unless the present deficit policies are ended. Let’s be clear and frank; we are printing money because the government can no longer obtain it from taxes or borrowing.
But hyperinflation would normally lead to the ouster of the Democrats in the 2010 elections. Or at most in 2012.
So O and the Democrats will study how to retain power after those elections. I sense it will seem convenient to control the elections. But how?
McCain and the hapless GOP are O’s best asset. No one really thinks they would govern well either. And it is pretty hard to advocate tossing O out when Biden and then Pelosi are next in line.
Well, that is pretty how I see O and his cohorts Mind reading is difficult so I can only try to image what he is doing. And the consequences.
K.
Perhaps this plays a part in the plan.
A small bulletin re: the above.
Today the Obama administration is calling on Congress to give it authority to seize ANY business that it deems to be vital to the functioning of the economy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/23/AR2009032302830_pf.html
In the name of the Workers and Peasants, one assumes. My Kulak neighbors who closed down their small businesses starting the morning of November 5, were prescient.
In the next day or so, the Senate will vote on the new Obama-Jugend act that sets the stage for mandatory national service in a politically controlled paramilitary force outside the aegis of the military. In theory, failure to submit to what the bill [HR 1388 in the House, two competing versions in the Senate] literally calls “Mandatory Volunteer Service” would bar you from future government benefits. Given where we are going, that would seem to include ration cards and medical care soon.
And Hussein Pasha plans a nationwide speech tomorrow night.
Things are moving faster than expected.
There is an old song that is out in many versions, the first two lines of which are:
The Night of Fire is yet to come,
The Tyrant’s shadow on the years,
I will leave it to those interested to find the next two lines.
If it comes to that, may we give a better account of ourselves than our Brit cousins.
Subotai Bahadur
Subotai, I am interested, and I found the next two lines[1] in your post on Pajamas Media, but I can’t find the original source. You indicated that the title of the song is “Jefferson and Liberty”, but the only song I can find with that name has entirely different lyrics. Can you give me a source for your version? (I’d like to see the whole thing, and preferably the tune as well.)
Thanks.
[1] “Demands we kneel or take the gun,
And go shed blood instead of our tears.”
Laird,
What you found were the original lyrics. It has been both “folked” and “filked” quite a number of times over the years. The version I use came mostly from a variant created by Leslie Fish [interesting sort, anarchist, fond of firearms and pointy sharp things. Met her in passing a long time ago]. I adopted it , changing one word in one verse, and used the intro [fife and drum] as my bump music in the pre-9/11 days when I was doing talk radio as a sideline. It was put out on an album long ago by a now defunct publishing/recording house called Off Centaur. As far as I can find out, it is not available anymore, unless you can find an old tape titled “It’s Sister Jenny’s Turn to Throw the Bomb“, cut one on side B.
If I had a way to contact you, I’d send the lyrics. I fear I do not have the technology to copy a tape onto CD.
Subotai Bahadur
Here.
lminor@nautiluscapital.com
Is it the same tune as “Jefferson and Liberty”?
Thanks, Mid.
I can’t find Dean Ahmad’s Thomas Jefferson online, but it was better than the Leslie Fish lyrics; there’d have to be a mighty good tune for the latter to be better overall. I might by some miracle have a copy in a box somewhere, with Craig Franklin and him singing it, but if so it’d take forever to find.
Meanwhile, Obama’s doing his best to, um, service the country….
The conservative who shocked me was Prof Epstein (of “Takings”).
He said various things like “I do not agree with Barack Obama but he is a nice man and he is not an extremist ……” which the left used with glee.
Looking at it I thought “well perhaps I am wrong about Obama”.
But then someone (Sean Hannity I think) found film of Richard Epstein saying that “Bill” Ayers was a nice man “gentle” and “careing” and so on.
It seems that there are some conservatives (and libertarians) out there who simply can not judge character.
Or rather they judge it by the “nice quiet gentle way of speaking and restrained body language” that people like Obama are taught to use – rather than their assoiciation and activities, or even (in the case of Ayers) the bombs they set off.