Advising Obama: “if only Stalin knew”
There’s a growing strain of op-ed pieces that involve giving helpful advice to Obama on how to rescue his administration by tacking back towards the center.
Yesterday I mentioned Peggy Noonan’s, which contained the following apologia and guidance for the President:
[The Democrats and the DNC] are mocking and menacing concerned citizens. This only makes a hot situation hotter. Is this what the president wants? It couldn’t be. But then in an odd way he sometimes seems not to have fully absorbed the awesome stature of his office…You cannot allow your allies to call people protesting a health-care plan “extremists” and “right wing,” or bought, or Nazi-like, either. They’re citizens. They’re concerned. They deserve respect…
The president should call in his troops and his Congress and announce a rethinking. There are too many different bills, they’re all a thousand pages long, no one has time to read them, no one knows what’s going to be in the final one, the public is agitated, the nation’s in crisis, the timing is wrong, we’ll turn to it again””but not now. We’ll take a little longer, ponder every aspect, and make clear every complication.
You know what would happen if he did this? His numbers would go up.
Maybe earlier they would, but I’m not so sure anymore. Many people at this point would see any tacking to the center as a temporary and strategic move on Obama’s part and distrust it, although it would certainly be more welcome than the policies he’s pushing right now.
But the more basic error Noonan makes is that she assumes that the recent program of character assassination of the health care protestors isn’t what President Obama wants. There’s no evidence whatsoever to back that up, and plenty of evidence from his own mouth that he is fully on board with the program.
But Noonan (and certain others) who fell for Obama hard during the campaign now find themselves suffering the pangs that disappointed lovers often feel, and a similar reluctance to face the truth that they were hoodwinked and used by a con artist.
Happens all the time, I’m afraid. It happened during the Stalin years, as several commenters on the Noonan thread have pointed out (see this, for example). The phenomenon then was called “if only Stalin knew,” and was predicated on the belief that the bad stuff was happening outside of Stalin’s awareness and orchestrated by his underlings, and that if only Good Old Joe knew about it he’d stop it.
It seems laughable now. But as I said, hope dies hard. Very hard indeed. And this is especially true of many of those who voted for and supported Obama in the hope that he’d be the uniting and reasonable centrist he promised.
What was going on with them then, and what is going on now? If I wanted to be crude, I’d say that their bullshit detectors were and are seriously out of whack. Or, if I wanted to be more kind, I’d call it the need to believe in the goodness of this particular smooth-talking politician. Oh, and the fact that’s black, and that voting for him was a chance to strike a blow against racism in this country once and for all, didn’t hurt either in creating a false belief system based on wishful thinking about Obama.
Just today we have another piece cut from the same “if only Stalin knew” cloth as the others. It’s by Doug Schoen, who was an adviser to President Clinton who counseled Bill on his successful mid-course correction. As Schoen describes it:
When I first met with Mr. Clinton following the devastating 1994 mid-term election, he put it to me this way:
“I’m way out of position. I was elected as a centrist, and now I’m perceived as a liberal Democrat. I’ve got to change that, and I’ve got to put some space between myself and Congress.”
And change that we did — with a bold new agenda that included a balanced budget that protected Medicare and Medicaid, protection of the environment, frank acknowledgement of the limits of government, bi-partisan welfare reform and tough anti-crime legislation.
Mr. Obama still has time to avoid repeating the mistakes of the first Clinton term, but it will take a fundamental and near-term shift in ideology, approach and commitment to regain the momentum he earned after a campaign in which he promised policy objectives similar to those offered during the 1992 election.
Anything wrong with this picture? Plenty, in my opinion. It relies on what you might call the “old template,” the idea of Obama as a Clintonesque politician who is somewhat to the Left but more fundamentally a pragmatist who is flexible in his ideology and responsive to the wishes of the American people.
That was one of my hopes during the campaign, although I always considered it to be a long shot. But I abandoned that dream long ago; the evidence is too great that Obama is an ideologue who is deeply committed to a far Left agenda. Nearly every step he has taken as President reveals this fact, and those who don’t see it or at least strongly suspect it at this point are deeply into denial. That would include the advice-giving Mr. Schoen, who is a good Party apparatchik who doesn’t quite get what he’s dealing with:
Let’s be clear, the Republicans do not have any policies and they do not have any ideas. Their agenda is based totally on opposition to the Democrats and so far this is proving to be successful. But with a bipartisan, centrist agenda that emphasizes growth, low taxes, fiscal prudence and common sense policies, Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats can isolate Republicans — whose approval rating has fallen to a record low — while preventing the loss of 40-50 vulnerable Democratic House seats won during the last two Congressional elections, and as many as seven in the Senate.
Schoen offers good advice, advice that Clinton took and it propelled him to a second term. But Obama’s not listening. He already knows these simple and actually rather obvious facts, and is ignoring them. Obama has a very different agenda, although he doesn’t mind having people such as Schoen perpetuate the “if only Stalin knew” narrative to serve as cover.
Neo, I think you meant “hope dies hard” vice “does”
Denial is strong in those statements, or naked ignorance of what they are seeing, their prism is of a president who really want to do the right thing and be viewed as presidential, that is not what we have here.
Darrell: already fixed, but thanks! Spellcheck can’t do everything, apparently.
Darrell, I think you can extend that to most of the Dem leadership.
It would also be a great “teaching moment” in all this to clarify to the American people just how much of their destinty is in the hands of the “public service” unions.
Talk about Stalinists
wow i know several people: friends and family, who don’t see this as the dynamic cultural shift that it is, they still believe that conservatives are standing in the way of progress. It’s even more sad when I hear elderly people who depend on a government run health care provider that is toppling as we speak and will only be in more trouble a few yours from now with the added strain. However I say nothing nod my head in agreement and say yep. They won’t write letters, can’t or won’t make it to a townhall meeting therefore in my opinion there voices won’t be heard. It’s the people who our administration has referred to as racist mobs whose voices are being heard whether most agree or not. Everyone else is just puffin hot air.
Neo. I think that used to be known as “If only the Czar knew….”
Goes back a ways.
IMO, those who are disappointed in zero have another hurdle to face beyond admitting to themselves they made a mistake.
Many of them–in my acquaintacee–were so vile and insulting about McCain and Palin and anybody who didn’t support zero–and prior to that during the Bush admin, anybody who wasn’t doing BDS at max volume–that they have to climb down over a record of personal nastiness as well.
I gloat that it must be eating them alive inside.
Hattip, well put and yes I do, they all need to go.
Let’s see if Obama addresses the Kenneth Gladney incident. Barack did choose to play dumb on the tea party movement before the town hall meetings. Now that there is a DNC advert blaming the Republicans for the angry turnout it will be much more hypocritical to claim “Joe doesn’t know”. Especially after the Philly speech about getting tough and stifling the vocal opposition to just get the bill passed.
The denial is pretty deeply-seated. I showed an Obama-voting relation that chart of his projected deficits compared to the Bush deficits that Instapundit keeps running, and he simply refused to believe it. First, it had to be false because an ad with a picture of Ann Coulter in it happened to be running on the page where I found it. Next it had to be false because “he” (the unnamed someone who made the chart) must have faked the numbers and used worst-case numbers to make Obama look bad. Finally I found the Congressional Budget Office’s website to show him where the numbers came from. He stared at it for a while, mumbled, “They don’t know everything,” and changed the subject.
Heck, I’d adore it if some news-critter with an ounce of nerve called up Professor Gates and asked him for his opinion on the beating of Mr. Gladney… my god, the irony, the irony is so rich and dense it sinks into the earths’ core and emerges out the other side.
Reading of that “if Stalin only knew” meme got me to thinking of the crew that Obama has deliberately assembled around him to carry out his wishes and plans–you know, people like Robert Gibbs, his odious, nasty, “Baghdad Bob” type Press Secretary, Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s equally odious, foul mouthed, “take no prisoners” Chief of Staff, Rahm’s brother Ezekiel, an MD appointed as Health Policy Advisor to the Office of Management and Budget, and as a member of the “Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research,” the innocuous sounding government body that will decide which treatments all of us would be eligible for under a single payer system, Ezekiel advocates a “communitarian” approach to health care, that would deny the handicapped and older people health care in order to direct more health care resources to more socially valuable, younger, more productive people, or his science Czar, Dr. John Holdren, whose mentor views the population of the earth as a “pulsating mass of maggots” which Holdren advocated thinning out by using forced abortions of “people who contribute to social deterioration, ” secretly putting sterilizing drugs in the drinking water, and taking babies from unwed or teen mothers and giving them to others to raise, all to be administered by a dictatorial “Planetary Regime,” then there is Linda Douglas, the head of Obama’s new “informant” corps, not to mention politically connected Brian Deese, a 31 year old, who hasn’t graduated from Yale law yet, has no work experience and absolutely no auto industry experience–he has never set foot inside an auto assembly plant, yet, who is in the White House, playing a major role in restructuring GM.
These appointments and the assembling of this crew is no accident, these people are not acting on their own and/or behind Obama’s back, or without his knowledge and approval.
Not long ago I used to debate Fredhjr whether Obama was a Marxist. Aside from the technical aspects of that discussion, Obama as a Marxist just felt wrong to me. Marxist always conveyed to me the image of an effete campus radical very attuned to abstruse theoretical issues, which didn’t seem to be our man Obama.
Later in conversation with a conservative friend, I joked, “However, if you want to call Obama a Stalinist….” That made more sense to me.
I don’t expect Obama to start starving the kulaks any time soon, but there is a coldness about the man, a love of power, and the ability to inspire irrational loyalty that matches Obama to Stalin better than other historical figures IMO.
Obama is an ideologue, but not a careful precise one, and underneath it lies a naked lust for power and not much more.
Part of the denial is enabled by the media’s “fairness.” They always give Obama’s team plenty of time to spin and don’t follow-up wih tough questions. Even people like Karl Rove fall into the trap. He sometimes slips into talking about the effectiveness of Obama’s tactic rather than the correctness of his policies. If you don’t listen carefully, it sounds like the policy is approved. On the other hand, if Rove is too critical, he is simply seen as the dark force behind Bush who can never be fair to Obama.
Also, in an attempt to be seen as fair (or perhaps to reward Obama for good behaviour), conservative pundits will say that Obama is following a good policy in Afghanistan. What they should really be saying is that he doesn’t have a clue and has thus far allowed the military to procede because he has other priorities.
I suspect that Obama supporters see all this as vindication of their support.
If it weren’t for talk radio, conservative blogs and Fox News, we would have no idea what Obama was up to. That means that most Americans don’t know what Obama is doing. This could end badly.
“You cannot allow your allies to call people protesting a health-care plan “extremists” and “right wing,” or bought, or Nazi-like, either. They’re citizens. They’re concerned. They deserve respect”
Ah, but that is what the far left does. Those are right out of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. They will try to show themselves as morally and intellectually superior and taunt you, throw ad hominems at you, and, if necessary, intimidate you physically. That is their MO. Obama cannot lose face here so tacking back to the center is not an option for him.
I was at a Healthcare Reform townhall meeting with my Representative, Rick Larsen, today. The hall (150 people) was packed and there were at least 300 standing outside. They set up loudspeakers so those outside could hear the speech by Larsen and then questions from constituents. The questions were mostly by people opposed to HR3200. There were quite a few people with signs that read, “Single Payer Now!” but they were far outnumbered by those against Obamacare. There was little media there. No TV, and no reporters that I could see. (Maybe they were inside.) One thing that Larsen should have realized from this is that people are very suspicious and angry about the rush to “reform” our healthcare system. There were people if every age, race, and social class there. This was not a hired mob nor was anyone disrespectful to Rep. Larsen. There were a couple of signs with Obama’s picture with a Hitler mustache. Larsen criticised them, but people shouted out that it was free speech even if he found it repugnant. It was a very satisfying meeting because I believe that our Representative got a taste of what is going on at the grass roots.
We all have to remember that the most powerful weapon we have is our vote. We need to change the composition of Congress in 2010. Only that will stop Obama’s plans.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/25900.html
I know I said I was going to back off for a while, but I can’t help but wonder if part of what Obama was saying has to do with liberals as well as those he “hinted” at wanting to “shut up” so he could “fix this mess”.
Back to the bench.
R. Aubrey @4:45pm – I agree on both points.
“Kind Tzar” is a staple of Russian psyche, a long tradition that goes back to middle ages.
1)There are people even now, after all the exposure of the two “melt” decades (of 1955-1965 and 1985-1995) fully believing that Stalin was “kept in the dark” by criminals in his close circle. Putin propaganda encourages it to full extent.
2) My former boss once surprised me with incredibly hateful stream of dirty, disgusting insinuations concerning Palin; imagining his self-assurance, his confidence in his own righteousness I think he and people like him will have a hard time facing the reality of Obama’s inevitable downfall.
Jim G, thanks for the report, I have confidence too that they are seeing the real thing and are a little taken aback.
We must change the composition of congress as you say and throw out a hell of a lot of them republican and democrat, that is why I bought the domain names, rebootcongress2010 .com and .org, I need to get off my ass and get the site up and running soon, we have to do everything we can to spread the word IMO.
Mrs Whatsit Says:
” “They don’t know everything,” and changed the subject.”
Spoken by a know nothing. lol 🙂
expat Says:
“will say that Obama is following a good policy in Afghanistan. What they should really be saying is that he doesn’t have a clue and has thus far allowed the military to procede because he has other priorities.”
It’s better than micromanaging… when you don’t have a clue. Or sabotaging (which I have not seen). Anyway, so far this is not on my list of all things bad Obama.
If Obamacare fails, or is seen substantially to have failed, once Congress reconvenes, Obama is done. He’ll be a lame duck thereafter, because all House Dems and those Senate Dems up for re-election in 2010 will want to distance themselves from him.
The 2010 elections will almost certainly cost the Dems a number of seats; how many remains to be seen, but if it is a lot, then Obama will not recover.
His biggest worry has to be that he will then have outlived his usefulness to the Cause, which those pulling the strings may decide he can better serve as a symbol than as a President.
One other bright spot… since they’re trying to backdoor single payer with the public option… it will be easier to undo. Just privatize it / start selling the public policies to private companies after a republican wins.
I wonder what senior, moderate and intelligent Democrats are thinking. By senior I mean people over sixty, men and women who are beyond their power passions. Do they not see how ridiculously dangerous this whole thing is becoming? Are they not worried for their children and grandchildren? Either they do not see the weird, hardcore leftist nature of this administration and live in a cosy sleep, or they do see it and feel powerless to do anything.
This is as a nightmare to me. I see an enormous increase of fear, misery, suffering, hatred, civil strife coming, probably thousands and thousands killed, people put into camps, the whole nightmare scenario of the 20th century played out again, and completely unnecessary!
These older, mature, moderate and bright Democrats must know their history; they must recognise by now the dangerous power-hungry narcissism in Obama, they must see the out of control far left craziness of it all. They must also be detached enough to not let themselves be confused by egotistical hang-ups to the party, their former views etc.
You can go on and on about all kinds of political power plays, move against move etc, but ultimately this is all silly, irresponsible behaviour given the horrific social consequences it can produce.
Perhaps they see it and try behind closed doors. But it is also possible that they are so convinced of the goody goody character of America, that in their view such horrible European things could never happen there. I can imagine they would be horrified by the thought that they could no longer trust the mainstream media.
What is needed to wake these people up?
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks Europeans said to the Americans: ‘Welcome to the club’.
I hope that they need not say this again in a few years.
Thanks to Mr. Aubrey for making the point about the Tsar, and the Russian people thinking for centuries before the Revolution and Stalin that, if only the Tsar knew what was happening, he’d stop it.
Huxley correctly notes Obama’s love of sheer power, as others have here and there, but I think there has to be more to it–he loves power in service to something. If it were just power alone, it wouldn’t matter to him what track the train was on as long as he was driving it. But he cares very much what track this train is on. He wants the power to do some very particular things, and not just to be Boss.
Huxley also says that he doesn’t expect Obama to “start starving the kulaks anytime soon.” I’ve heard other people say something similar, and it always sounds to me like a last-ditch effort to say that “it can’t happen here.” Myself, I’m not so sure. What is this health care thing if not an active effort to starve the kulaks? Just replace “kulaks” with “elderly and infirm” and “starve” with “refuse to treat,” and then look at what you have in front of your eyes. I’ve said before–maybe in comments on this site, I lose track of how many times and places I’ve said it–that, while some people think we’re headed for a European-style social democracy, I think that by the time these guys are (this guy is) finished, we’re going to wish we could get a European-style social democracy, which will start to look pretty danged good to us by that time.
Never underestimate the horrors that might be ahead. I often remind myself that the horrors of Nazi Germany unfolded in the midst of what was, arguably, the most sophisticated, best-educated population in the world at the time. We are immune to exactly nothing .
Sorry for the switch to italics. I only meant to apply them to a few phrases. Haven’t figured out how to make the tags work yet, I guess! Electronically challenged, that’s me for sure.
I’m not sure that this is on topic, but thinking of the “if only the tsar” put me in mind of some kids I knew in college in the Sixties.
One was Linda Evans–not the movie star, I should say but the Weather Underground one–who dated a fraternity brother briefly.
She seemed spacey. Not connected. A couple of degrees out of phase. But not gobsmackingly so. Lots of kids in those days were incomplete.
I decided that her political views were shaped by the belief that soem powerful figure ran everything. If something bad was happening, either the powerful figure didn’t know about it, or he was pleased that it was going on. Some nefarious reason.
I figured they had been raised in a home where all was taken care of and their wants taken as needs. They had never seen anything that simply was a life sucks moment.
But.
When a life sucks moment happened to them, they sought to blame someone. So there is no random life sucking coming down on random dates. SOMEBODY is either doing it or allowing it to happen.
And nobody ever told The Kids they were wrong.
So any time they thought something, anybody who disagreed was evil. And those in power who didn’t fix anything The Kids didn’t like were evil.
Clearly, zero and his cohorts aren’t these folks. These folks are zero’s followers.
IMO, there is no way they can be reached. Their minds simply cannot accept the grown-up view of the world in which some things simply happen and sometimes you choose between a couple of unpleasant possibiities. And there is no such thing as a free lunch.
And the strictures laid down by the Gods of The Copybook Headings are seen as punitive, not instructive.
I can remember trying to make the case that hitting the ground at a high rate of speed is unfortunate, but if you step out of a tenth-story window, it will happen. Crying about how unjust it is has no effect. Trying to make a simple analogy.
They just stared at me.
The idea that certain acts have certain consequences without the aid of nasty capitalists simply does not register.
zero uses these people and, I think, they cannot be reached.
What really bothered me about Clinton were all his contemptuous acts (alleged and otherwise) toward women. I had no issue with him as President. Sure he lacked integrity, but in many ways he was brilliant. He also hated the right wing machine, perhaps rightly so, but he didn’t seem to have any personal contempt for conservatives. He hired many.
Obama’s quite different. His few overtures toward conservatives are thin displays designed to obfuscate. He doesn’t like conservatives. After all, he sat through 20 years of hatred toward them. He also doesn’t much like all those qualities that make the United States different from every other nation: the entrepreneurial spirit, the love of independence, self-determination, all those qualities that make us free.
Bill Clinton isn’t like that. No, Bill Clinton isn’t like that at all.
Darrell said, “……that is why I bought the domain names, rebootcongress2010 .com and .org, I need to get off my ass and get the site up and running soon, we have to do everything we can to spread the word IMO.”
Right on man! It is through getting the word out to voters that we can and must change the direction of what is going down. More power to you and anyone else who is getting involved.
I send an e-mail to 40-50 friends and relatives on a regular basis, trying to keep them apprised of the situation. Many of them send it on to 20-30 more people. It multiplies the effect. We can make a difference! In addition, I write my Congress critters at least once a week. They may be getting sick of me, but it’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. Get involved. The future of the country is at stake!
Vieux Charles Says:
“Bill Clinton isn’t like that. No, Bill Clinton isn’t like that at all.”
I hear you… back when he was president I ran in conservative and republican scenes and I don’t rememeber anyone hating the guy. I didn’t. I, actually, lost interest in politics because after he ran to center I thought everything was running well enough that I didn’t have to bother…
Some people are being total idiots. This kind of crap hurts us very badly.
Were these faxes actually sent by conservatives, or is someone trying to create a false image of conservatives?
Thomass,
I too am happy that Obama is letting the grown-ups handle Afghanistan. We are just in a bind because any acknowledgement that he is doing something right is another straw for the deniers to “cling” to.
Re Clinton: He likes America and that makes all the difference.
One must remember that Obama is, at heart, a narcissist. He will be incapable of changing, shifting towards the center as he needs to do in order stay in office. It is up to all of the rest of us to shift to his way of thinking.
He really isn’t a politician in the Clinton sense because Clinton was able to see how opinion was shifting against him and he changed his focus to regain support. Obama’s history in government (what little of it there is) shows a rigid authoritarian willing to do whatever it takes to get his way. He will find it difficult to actually make a shift like Clinton did because he believes he’s right and everyone else is wrong. It will be up to everyone else to make the shift, and that’s just not going to happen. If he can’t make the shift then he’ll be out in 2012.
wow i know several people: friends and family, who don’t see this as the dynamic cultural shift that it is, they still believe that conservatives are standing in the way of progress.
IMO, those who are disappointed in zero have another hurdle to face beyond admitting to themselves they made a mistake.
The denial is pretty deeply-seated.
I don’t see much “denial.” What I see is approval of overall policy with some rationalization in regards to Obama’s nastier tactical moves. Many folks in the US now want America to become a minor power, they want the US to be ‘taught a good lesson,’ they want the government to run their lives. The reasons for this are no doubt many, varied, both obvious and subtle, but it’s what I see.
Also, in an attempt to be seen as fair (or perhaps to reward Obama for good behaviour), conservative pundits will say that Obama is following a good policy in Afghanistan.
The smart pundits will see that Afghanistan does not possess the same strategic value to the US that Iraq does. They will see that the goal in Afghanistan should not be an over-arching transformation as is being instituted in Iraq.
The goal should be to simply keep Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven and training ground for those who would do us harm. That more modest goal should be far simpler and far less costly in terms of money and lives than the program in Iraq. Let the Afghanis remain tribal as long as they want.
Let the Afghan central government be confined to the urban centers(of which there are few) and the tribal chieftains rule the hinterlands if that is the way to keep a lid on terrorism training and basing in the area. Let Afghanistan be the backwater it is as long as it poses no threat.
If it weren’t for talk radio, conservative blogs and Fox News, we would have no idea what Obama was up to. That means that most Americans don’t know what Obama is doing. This could end badly.
That’s the way I see it, too.
I wonder what senior, moderate and intelligent Democrats are thinking.
They are probably approving of Obama. They probably think that Obama’s approach to healthcare will be beneficial to them — or at least not very harmful. A small dose of bitter medicine to make the nation be ‘well.’ If they get their news from the MSM like most other American citizens how could they think otherwise?
These older, mature, moderate and bright Democrats must know their history …
Alas, very few people read history. If they do, the history they peruse will probably be post-60s, Progressive meme-dominated revisionist claptrap.
Some people are being total idiots. This kind of crap hurts us very badly.
The commentor is talking about this:
The Secret Service may investigate a fax sent to a Democratic lawmaker that depicts President Barack Obama as the Joker and warns of “death to all Marxists.”
It’s all about trying to neutralize the joker poster that is so effective. Dodger can attest that this tactic was first perfected by the Marxists. There is an image that is devastating to Obama. Try to attach a dreadful, indefensible quality to it in order to discredit it. So the subliminal message becomes NOT Obama is death or Obama’s socialism means death to seniors, but rather we who created this image want to assassinate Obama.
I’ve encountered that too. Remarkable, isn’t it? A kind of national mortification of the flesh (“we had that coming”). Weird. I don’t understand the psychology, but I’m a layman.
It’s classic agitprop. Odds are the fax was sent from a Kinko’s in Texas by one Lucy Ramirez.
Some are denying the obvious, but they aren’t in denial. Rather, the cost of admitting what they want is higher than they are willing to bear.
Oblio,
True, and I include apologies to all those reviled.
Huxley said,“I don’t expect Obama to start starving the kulaks any time soon, but there is a coldness about the man, a love of power, and the ability to inspire irrational loyalty that matches Obama to Stalin better than other historical figures IMO.”
I think that that so-called ability is because just like the Clintons, he surrounds himself with sycophants and careerist ass-kissers. That way it’s easier to be the biggest man in the room.
“If Obamacare fails, or is seen substantially to have failed, once Congress reconvenes, Obama is done. He’ll be a lame duck thereafter, because all House Dems and those Senate Dems up for re-election in 2010 will want to distance themselves from him.”
Excellent observation OB. That’s why it’s all the more important that all of us do all we can to bring attention to this monstrosity of a bill and of an administration. That’s also why the dems are trying to fight back so desperately.
A great quote from comments on another site, “If you have been staying abreast of all the “astro-turfing,” to borrow the Pelosi-Bolshevik phrase, I think we have the stirrings of a major force to be reckoned with in the US.
Socialism, in the form Universal Health Care, Global Warming Alarmism, appeasement style foreign policy, state owned, regulated and operated anything is about to either kill America, or be killed once and for all by REAL Americans.
Question is, will it be fun to watch Obama and the SS Socialism ship sink or will it be one scary-ass nightmare?”
A thought occurred to me about zero’s supporters.
You will recall that it was not only the Ayers-style lefties who ignored or condoned the slaughters of civilians in SEA or Central America, or if they were Jews if it was lefties doing the killing.
It was every single liberal in the country. The self-proclaimed incredibly wonderful clergy and professors. The politicians. The dem voters. No tyranny was too awful for them if it was either lefty or an enemy of the US.
Is there any reason to think they are more concerned with freedom and law within the US than they were with the same overseas?
Problem is, there’s a whole, whole lot of them.
No need to apologize, Richard Aubrey! You were right on the money.
grackle: denial is not even the word.
The US has now a third-world style government. This government has put half of the population on an enemy-list of potential terrorists (official report released by Napolitano), while at the same time denying that there was a threat of Islamic terror. This government is clearly at war with (half of) its own people.
I would also say that indeed the war on terror is over: the enemy is now in the Whitehouse. The war is over: the US lost.
Obama is a Muslim Communist, the US has lost both the cold war and the war on terror.
Of course you don’t believe me: wait until the great crackdown on everything American will begin.
Christianity:outlawed. Guns: outlawed. Free speech: outlawed. Islam: protected by government force. Communist economy: all major industries. Conservative resistance: dead or in forced labor camps.
This is the goal of this traitor government, make no mistake. The only thing that can prevent this is the US military. The Obama gangster-government does not know whether it can count on its loyalty. Therefore they are now building up a ‘civilian security force” just as strong as the military. (Words of Obama himself). When that is ready there will nothing to stop them.
His soul-buddy gangster Chavez said a year ago that the US would be finished of soon. Apparently he had already a good talk with buddy-gangster Obama.
The vicious troll Bill Maher says that Americans are extremely stupid. They are indeed stupid to put up all these years with traitors as Maher, Moore, Streisand, Fonda, Obama and all the others, and now they will pay a huge price for this negligence.
What I said in the former post is all true, but the stupendous thing remains that this is the US, not Venezuela. How in earth is it possible that ‘Middle America’ combined with the solid US institutions does not make this weird kind of thing impossible?
Is this still the bill of the sixties, the luciferic, youthful rebellion against age-old common sense and wisdom?
Has the ‘great march through the institutions’ finally succeeded?
Has it at last produced its Luciferic Napoleon?
As the old saying goes:’Those who the Gods want to destroy they first make blind’.
grackle: denial is not even the word.
The US has now a third-world style government. This government has put half of the population on an enemy-list of potential terrorists (official report released by Napolitano), while at the same time denying that there was a threat of Islamic terror.
I see it a differently but my viewpoint is also fairly alarming. I see a real bad combination: a Progressive dominated Congress with a Democrat majority coupled with a President who is as openly Progressive as that end of the political spectrum can get and who at the same time seems as devoid of humanity and empathy as a serial killer. There is an emptiness in Obama that is as scary as looking over the edge of a high precipice. I think that is the reason that the joker poster seems so fundamentally apt to us and is so disturbing to those who yearn for him to be their Great Savior.
This government is clearly at war with (half of) its own people.
I would also say that indeed the war on terror is over: the enemy is now in the Whitehouse. The war is over: the US lost.
Obama is a Muslim Communist, the US has lost both the cold war and the war on terror. Of course you don’t believe me: wait until the great crackdown on everything American will begin.
The GOP lost an election. It’s happened before and it will probably happen again. The election was lost partly because of factionalism on the Right which is typified by the RINO nonsense, symbolized by the birthers and is characterized by a fixation on moral issues at the expense of issues of governance, demagoguery on immigration reform and other loser behavior. For me, one lost election doesn’t equate to total disaster.
There’s a Congressional election coming soon. The GOP has a chance to break the Progressive hold on Congress. If that happens Obama will be somewhat neutralized and it might make it easier to defeat him at the polls in his bid for a second term. My fear is that the GOP will again bite off its nose to spite its face despite the opportunity that the growing alarm over Progressive plans for healthcare affords the Party.
Christianity: outlawed. Guns: outlawed. Free speech: outlawed. Islam: protected by government force. Communist economy: all major industries. Conservative resistance: dead or in forced labor camps.
With all due respect I must disagree. Anything can happen in this old world but we still have elections and we still have the right to vote. Get back to me after elections are outlawed. BTW, they are going to have a bit of difficulty relieving me of my weapons. The people my part of the US sends to Congress feel the same way.
This is the goal of this traitor government, make no mistake. The only thing that can prevent this is the US military. The Obama gangster-government does not know whether it can count on its loyalty. Therefore they are now building up a ‘civilian security force” just as strong as the military. (Words of Obama himself). When that is ready there will nothing to stop them.
I’m not quite ready to call a government duly elected by the American people a “traitor government.” As for the civilian security force, the Marine Corps alone could kick any civilian security force’s scrawny butt. Add the Army Rangers and the Navy Seals and you have a sure-fire cure for any such group. The Air Force could sit along the sidelines and chuckle while they passed around the popcorn. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel.
His soul-buddy gangster Chavez said a year ago that the US would be finished of soon. Apparently he had already a good talk with buddy-gangster Obama.
Various idiots around the world have predicted the demise of America since the inception but we are still here and right now we are the strongest power on the globe.
The vicious troll Bill Maher says that Americans are extremely stupid. They are indeed stupid to put up all these years with traitors as Maher, Moore, Streisand, Fonda, Obama and all the others, and now they will pay a huge price for this negligence.
Many celebrities are idiots, granted, but I don’t see how the survival of the above(except for Obama) add up to a “huge price” for anyone. I think a case could be made for calling Jane Fonda a traitor. I’ve never forgiven her for her treatment of our POWs in North Vietnam and will not watch a movie with her in it. May she rot in hell. But putting them on a par with Obama trivializes Obama’s malevolent significance.
My bet (long shot) is that The President resigns before the end of his first term. It would be in keeping with his lack of experience and lack of humility to know his limits.
Just my $0.02
Most of people like Peggy Noonan will require a Road to Damascus moment to gain the clarity necessary to see the Real Obama.
Otherwise, they’ll never own up to having not only made a mistake but in making such a huge mistake with long-term and far-reaching consequences that will come to affect every living person on the planet.
To grackle: I deliberately put my statement in graphic terms, because I think only these stark descriptions can make people somewhat aware of what is happening. I cannot of course prove any of these stark predictions, but it is what my gut tells me.
I have studied both the Nazi-tyranny and the Soviet-tyranny for decades and am deeply convinced that it is far easier to go from freedom to tyranny than viceversa. Once you get in tyranny God knows what is going to happen. Especially during the rise of Nazism all warning voices were dismissed with similar arguments as today. We still have elections, the rule of law, the army etc. Almost everyone thought Churchill was a nutjob with his warnings. I hope history will prove me wrong but I prefer to be safe than to be sorry.
The military: Hitler knew he could not relie on the German army, so he created his own private forces: the SA and the SS. These private forces made it possible to eliminate and intimidate in secret and half in secret the vast majority of his political enemies. Once these voices were silenced he could pursue his fanatical agenda without the regular army knowing much more than rumors. When most opposition voices are silenced in the US, this government can get away with much without the regular military even involved. Without this private army this is not possible.
Tyranny is first and foremost a matter of lying and getting away with lying. People often don’t realise this: once the Lie becomes in power, everything becomes different. For this reason it particularly worries me the way this government speaks about the voices of opposition, the baffling servility of the greater part of the press and the threats about silencing talkradio and even regulating the internet.
Think about this: once they have silenced the opposition on Fox, talkradio and the internet, we will not be able to know at all what is happening. They can do anything. From organising elections that are completely unfair, to creating a violent incident legitimizing martial law and cancelling elections. And with private thug-armies they can prevent anyone to speak up in a publicly relevant way.
Remember the ferocious determination and anger with which Obama spoke about the opposition that should ‘not do a lot of talking’.
Traitor: I use this stark term to simply indicate that this government and the people I mentioned almost always refuse to side with their own people. And they do. Here in Europe you have not this phenomenon of very privileged people trying to humiliate their own people at every turn and people regarding this as normal behaviour. I find this behaviour disgusting. But in the US this phenomenon is amazingly widespread among the elites, and I think it demoralizes the population and its belief in itself greatly. Which of course facilitates the tendency to surrender to a dictating government.
Guns: when they find a legal way (and as I learned they are thinking of lots of ways) of outlawing (most) private guns, it is almost certain the military will accept this. You will have a number of Waco-incidents, but when they control the press nobody will learn much about it other then in a highly spinned way. The private goons will go after the resistant gunowners with great pleasure, knowing that they have the law behind them. Of course in that case very many US gunowners will fight to the death, but it will be their death.
The US Left: what particularly shocks me is the amount of hatred on the side of the American left against conservatives, who have done nothing wrong, save not sharing their worldview. This hatred is so deep, so shocking, and so irrational, that it reminds me about the prewar hatred against the Jews in Germany. The Nazis hated the Jews in a shockingly intens way, and the hatred I see in the US against conservatives, especially Christian conservatives coming from the Left is very similar. You often feel they literally want to murder them all. I find it scary. I remember the answer a Rabbi gave to the question of why the Holocaust happened :’Endless hatred’.
When I look at this far left government I literally feel the hatred of the Leftist block behind it.
.
Excellent post. I just hope that enough people wake up soon enough to prevent more lasting and permanent damage to our country. But you are right, hope dies hard.
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To grackle: I deliberately put my statement in graphic terms, because I think only these stark descriptions can make people somewhat aware of what is happening. I cannot of course prove any of these stark predictions, but it is what my gut tells me.
I have studied both the Nazi-tyranny and the Soviet-tyranny for decades and am deeply convinced that it is far easier to go from freedom to tyranny than viceversa. Once you get in tyranny God knows what is going to happen. Especially during the rise of Nazism all warning voices were dismissed with similar arguments as today. We still have elections, the rule of law, the army etc. Almost everyone thought Churchill was a nutjob with his warnings. I hope history will prove me wrong but I prefer to be safe than to be sorry.
I too, have read some books about the Nazis and the Soviets. And my “gut” tells me America is not yet there — not even close. There is also a story I read called “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” Warnings need to have a firm grounding in reality or else if the real thing begins to happen valid warnings may be ignored. Early hyperbole only serves to lull the populace.
Joe Citizen: Oh, it’s only those nut-jobs again. You know, Ethel, the ones who claim President Obama is a foreigner. The “Birthers” I think they call themselves.
Ethel Citizen: Oh, so it’s THEM! My God, don’t they EVER stop with the nonsense!
The military: Hitler knew he could not relie on the German army, so he created his own private forces: the SA and the SS. These private forces made it possible to eliminate and intimidate in secret and half in secret the vast majority of his political enemies. Once these voices were silenced he could pursue his fanatical agenda without the regular army knowing much more than rumors. When most opposition voices are silenced in the US, this government can get away with much without the regular military even involved. Without this private army this is not possible.
There’s many significant differences between the Germany of post-WW1 and the US of today. One fundamental difference is that Americans are just not as compliant and accepting of authority as the Germans of that time in history. We never have been – and this characteristic has been remarked upon by outside observers since the beginning of our history.
The President of the United States, the most powerful man on earth, recently had to sit down and have a beer with an ordinary citizen in order to quiet a furious nationwide reaction to the President’s shoddy treatment of that ordinary citizen.
Tyranny is first and foremost a matter of lying and getting away with lying. People often don’t realise this: once the Lie becomes in power, everything becomes different. For this reason it particularly worries me the way this government speaks about the voices of opposition, the baffling servility of the greater part of the press and the threats about silencing talkradio and even regulating the internet.
Measured warnings with a calm tone are fine. But arguments must be based on reality or the argument is perceived as false and weak. The commentor’s next words serve to illustrate my point:
Think about this: once they have silenced the opposition on Fox, talkradio and the internet, we will not be able to know at all what is happening. They can do anything. From organising elections that are completely unfair, to creating a violent incident legitimizing martial law and cancelling elections. And with private thug-armies they can prevent anyone to speak up in a publicly relevant way.
The commentor, both here and in earlier comment, adopts a tone and a style of rhetoric as if the actions he fears, that I also fear to some extent, are inevitable — as if they are bound to happen. None of what the commentor fears is fore-ordained; to act as if it is is to cross a line from legitimate, thoughtful warning to ‘the sky is falling’ hyperbole
Remember the ferocious determination and anger with which Obama spoke about the opposition that should ‘not do a lot of talking’.
Obama does his cause no good with such arrogant statements, such exhibitions of anger. I wish he would make more of them. It allows America to see him without the public mask.
Traitor: I use this stark term to simply indicate that this government and the people I mentioned almost always refuse to side with their own people.
Like it or not, the government we have now in Washington, DC, was duly elected by the people of the United States. To call that government and those voters “traitor” only serves to weaken and sully the image of those who are opposed to Obama.
We have to convince a certain amount of those voters to switch their votes in the next Presidential election or we will be faced with 4 more years of Obama. To call them traitorous is unlikely to further that aim — in fact it would probably accomplish the opposite.
And they do. Here in Europe you have not this phenomenon of very privileged people trying to humiliate their own people at every turn and people regarding this as normal behaviour. I find this behaviour disgusting. But in the US this phenomenon is amazingly widespread among the elites, and I think it demoralizes the population and its belief in itself greatly. Which of course facilitates the tendency to surrender to a dictating government.
I’m not sure of the meaning in the above and so will withhold response. Here in Europe you have not this phenomenon …??
Guns: when they find a legal way (and as I learned they are thinking of lots of ways) of outlawing (most) private guns, it is almost certain the military will accept this. You will have a number of Waco-incidents, but when they control the press nobody will learn much about it other then in a highly spinned way. The private goons will go after the resistant gunowners with great pleasure, knowing that they have the law behind them. Of course in that case very many US gunowners will fight to the death, but it will be their death.
Actually the trend in recent years has been “pro-gun.” State after state has enacted concealed carry laws. Progressives would love to reverse this but I see very little danger of this happening at this point in time. Even Washington, DC, has had to back off from some very severe restrictions on gun ownership.
The US Left: what particularly shocks me is the amount of hatred on the side of the American left against conservatives, who have done nothing wrong, save not sharing their worldview. This hatred is so deep, so shocking, and so irrational, that it reminds me about the prewar hatred against the Jews in Germany. The Nazis hated the Jews in a shockingly intens way, and the hatred I see in the US against conservatives, especially Christian conservatives coming from the Left is very similar. You often feel they literally want to murder them all. I find it scary. I remember the answer a Rabbi gave to the question of why the Holocaust happened :’Endless hatred’. When I look at this far left government I literally feel the hatred of the Leftist block behind it
Just to be fair the Left is not the only side of the political spectrum that has haters in its ranks. It seems to me that BOTH sides tolerate hate in their midst much too much. My feeling is that it is a bit more prevalent on the Left but not to the high degree that is implied by the commentor.
The reaction recently from some elements on the Right to the murder of the abortion doctor in his church was disheartening to me. To condone this sort of thing is to damage the cause of the opposition to Obama and the Progressives. The anti-abortion cause was weakened by that murder. Have there been any murders of conservatives by liberals lately?
Grackle: Well, I hope you are right that my warnings are hyperbole. It depents which sources you are willing to trust on the different topics I mentioned. Most of the sources on the right agree that the US is taken in the direction of soft statist tyranny. Non maintains that there is acute danger of a hard tyranny. The divide is between the assesment of the dangers of the somewhat further future. One part maintains (as you seem to do) that there is no emergency, just focus on the next election, do the right thing etc. The other part maintains that there is an emergency, because the changes might become irreversible and more and more advancing, due to the clever tactics of the Left. All this is of course very foggy and difficult to judge. Is Obama just a somewhat more radical Clinton, or something very different? Ultimately, I admit, I have nothing to rely on but my instincts.
One thing I would say however: I hope you are right about ‘Americans are just not as compliant and accepting of authority’. I sure hope that this is still true after the reported decades of leftist brainwashing in education, media etc. But I doubt it.
Is this not the essence of the problem: that the rugged American individualism and nonconformism has severely weakened?
Upon reading Neo’s comments in this thread, I am struck by how congruent they are to mine. Now that wouldn’t be unusual if we were both liberals, or even progressives. The use of and adherence to narratives in those environs is well documented enabling them to knee-jerk like the Rockettes. On the other end of the political spectrum and in the middle…not so much.
As a youth, I was educated to believe that reasonable people, regardless of their background, would, if they expended the effort to gather the necessary factual information, reach the same logical conclusion on any given point. Take a moment to examine that last sentence. One would think, if I were going to use that sentence as the foundation for my comment, that I would proceed to discuss the concept of “reasonable people”; or “logical conclusion”. Most of the discussion of today’s political issues takes place around those two factors. Gathering information being taken for granted.
For example (it’s Sunday and I have the time) I might take off on “reasonable people“. I am struck by how reasonable it is to lib/progs to question President Bush looking at his watch during a debate and to find great significance therein, while declaiming that President Obama’s inappropriate bows are the equivalent of him clearing his throat or glancing at his nails.
Or I might do “Logical conclusion“. When given the choice, seeing the logic of choosing to try Gitmo types in a standard criminal action in New York City instead of a military tribunal in Gitmo.
See what I mean?
However, to me, the most relevant discussion of that sentence lies in examining “gather necessary factual information”.
This is where Neo comes in. Her background is very different from mine. I’m Western, she’s Eastern. She’s Jewish, I’m Protestant, she’s a psychologist (although a law school grad), I’m a law school grad, computer science degreed financial planning type, I’m a pre-Boomer, she’s a Boomer. Note that in this day and age that I have not mentioned her gender, although that apparently is still appropriately meaningful (at least to one of our Supreme Court Justices). Well, maybe not so meaningful, I’ve lost track of that narrative.
But, I digress.
So, I am given to believe that the administration is interested in communicating to me (an Independent) in order to gain my support in upcoming elections. How do they do it? By giving me narratives. Wrong! My decisions will be made on the basis of factual information.
For example: I know pretty well from the lib/prog narrative what I am supposed to think of Sarah Palin. When she speaks I am authorized to select from the following: ignorant, uncouth, ill-educated, rural, untrained, poorly prepared, inarticulate, far right, Pentecostal, well, I could go on. Anything, but never simply examine what she has said and compare it to my own information and experience along with pointers from pundits. Well, guess what? The narrative does not stand up to logical scrutiny very well. Of course, with lib/progs that is not a problem because they are frightened to death to vary from the given narrative and will cling to it in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. “Facts? We don’t need no …!” To do otherwise than rely on the narrative would cut them off from the NYT and leave them out there to think for themselves…horrors! But, I digress.
For example: I am not sure what to think of Sarah Palin; I am undecided. I need more factual information. But I have enough factual information for me to eschew the proffered narrative.
Now, any thinking person (getting back to Neo) now knows that the narrative sold to 53% of American voters about President Obama is (to borrow a phrase) bullshit. What are the facts? We are, God help us, still learning. However, the narrative is still operative for the 49% who still love “the One”. What will it take for them to wise up? Unfortunately, nothing will work..they have sold their souls to the narrative and are so frightened of the alternative that they will cling and cling and go down with the NYT.
I have not yet signed on to the theory of the lib/prog “need to believe in goodness”. I am still stuck in their need to have a pre-digested narrative to tell them what to think and sometimes why (“if we really must learn a “why”, for heavens sake…don’t these people (my chosen lib/prog advisors) know how busy I am?). The lazy class is going get us all killed. But, I digress.
So, even though we are quite different, I seem to agree with where Neo is coming out after processing the facts. It is, after all, only logical. And let me take a moment to thank heavens for Faux News, cable (talk radio, not so much, but historically a precursor, so OK). And the Internet. If not for them we would still be knoding away to Katie Kouric telling us that things are well in hand in the Republic with “The One” in charge.
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