Some prescient comments here predicting Obama’s course of tyranny
Every now and then while searching for something on the blog I come across an old thread and start reading, including the comments.
Thus, this post. Obama’s campaign year was 2008 and then of course his election, while early 2009 represented the first months of the Obama administration. If we’re trying to recall exactly what we said and how we felt back then, memory can play tricks. So I thought it would be an instructive exercise for me to post some of those comments and illustrate some of what was being said on this blog.
Here’s one by a commenter who used to be very active here, “southern james,” written about a week before the election of 2008. It turns out that not only is he describing the 2008 election, but also the 2012 one and beyond (including some conversations I’ve had with people recently):
…“The One” isn’t going to be swept into office by “far leftists” (of course he’ll get a huge assist)…
But of the millions upon millions who vote for this disaster, the HUGE ENORMOUS and vast majority of them are going to be well meaning, uncomplicated souls, who are not particularly educated; who don’t follow politics very much; who never read political blogs; what little daily news they do glean comes from short pops of CNN or CBS or ABC or NBC…
And they have been oblivious to all the non-stop, 24/7 propaganda that has been pounded into their heads. For example, they see Sarah get mocked and ridiculed on the comedy channels and late night talk shows and SNL”¦and they see biased edited snippets of her stumbling through a hostile interview filled with questions a Dem would never get challenged with”¦and so I overhear my secretaries say”¦”she doesn’t seem too smart, does she””¦..(and they haven’t been exposed to Biden AT ALL!)”¦”¦and then”¦ “Now Obama, HE just SEEMS so calm and smart, and you know ”“ we need a change from Bush, and people say McCain is a lot like Bush.” (without even realizing where they have been hearing that”¦”¦over and over and over and over again)
They do not understand what “Socialism” or “Marxism” even is ”“ just that it has always sounded kind of icky ”“ wasn’t that back, like, in you know, Russia or whatever?? ”“ “But, then Ed from the loading dock was talking to Lois, our receptionist the other day, and he really follows this politics stuff you know”¦ and HE was sayin, ”˜if someone is in the Army that’s socialism, and so is the Post Office, so this is just some McCain thing to scare people about Obama’, and so, you know, like, I don’t see what is so bad about 95% of us getting a tax cut ”“ hardly anybody makes over $250,000 anyhow and they can afford it. And anyway, we need a change and we need to end that war, and who wants more of Bush anyway! This economy is all his fault, right? And I’ve heard that McCain is just like Bush, and that Sarah ”“ she’s kind of scary because she just doesn’t seem too smart ”“ and my cousin Dan said she thinks Dinosaurs walked on the earth with humans!! Can you believe it?!!”
It is really that simplistic and basic. People on sites like THIS, think deeply and thoughtfully”¦”¦But “The One” is going to get tens of millions of votes from perfectly nice ignoramuses like my two secretaries, or the guy who bags your groceries, or changes your oil, whose political discussions are at about the level I just illustrated above.
I’m not saying most of the voters on the other side are not the exact same way. I’m saying, you have to appeal to simplistic gut emotions.
In fact, you might want to read the entire thread that comment came from. I was surprised at how prescient and insightful many of the comments were, even way back then. The post isn’t half-bad, either.
Here’s a comment from “FredHJr,” who needs no introduction to most of the readers here. It was made in March of 2009, two months into Obama’s tenure as president:
THE core of Obama support is the under-30 voter, urban, and single female. The cities and the universities are solidly supportive of him.
Never underestimate the power of large numbers of kids who are indoctrinated, poorly educated (even if they have degrees or on their way to getting them), and lacking in a lot of life experience. ACORN really signed these people up big time. Also, ACORN did massive work in the ghettos of minorities and illegal immigrants.
It was not the economy that did in George Bush and his party. Why? Because Obama’s popularity was already solid long before the economy was even on the radar screen. It was the war. The very day after 9/11 the Left was already hard at work building the anti-war coalitions, and on college and university campuses this was already up and running. Then, the MSM went to work on George Bush and his party, selling the alternate reality. Everything else, which was substantial, was ancillary to that major theme: the war. Guantanamo, “torture,” electronic eavesdropping, the Patriot Act, etc. No effort was spared to create an atmosphere where George Bush and his party were made to look buffoonish or criminal. In truth, sometimes George Bush did make mistakes and he was especially wrong on the issue of illegal immigration. Thus, you had a considerable minority of Republicans who already were inclined to simply not vote.
I have a hard time assigning malevolent motives to most of the kids. However, to most of their teachers and professors I have an easy time assigning malevolent motives, simply because I got to know that culture very, very well and noted their revolutionary intent.
Antonio Gramsci really did have the right blueprint. Lenin and Stalin did not. By the time Andropov and Gorbachev were true disciples of Gramsci, it was too late for the Soviet Union. But Gramsci’s work has been an astounding success.
About a week later I wrote the following (it was April Fools’ Day, but the post and the comments were very serious):
Although I remain open to evidence to the contrary, for now my working hypothesis is that Obama is a man of the Left, that he is insufficiently devoted to the age-old American idea of liberty but is instead a committed statist, and that the mind-numbing pace of his change is deliberate and has been effective so far…
…[Obama] knows that those [voters] more in the middle will not be noticing much, until the deeds are done. And he is counting on them to look away and hope for the best. The question is whether his pace is fast enough, and whether they will catch on””and whether they will then understand what is happening, or care. Or will the predictions of the Grand Inquisitor come to pass in this country, as they have in so many others?
From “Roy Lofquist” on April 1, 2009:
Nobody has mentioned one of the most blatant and disturbing of his power grabs ”“ the appointment of Czars and commissions. These take powers that are normally lodged in the Cabinet, which is subject to Senate confirmation, and given to his own selected people.
Senator Byrd sent a letter to Obama complaining specifically about this, proclaiming that this looked like an attempt to subvert the Congress’ overview authority.
Oh, I bet Obama really paid attention to that letter—not. It was probably a relief to him when Byrd died about a year later, however.
The following comment by “southern james” is great; he writes about recognizing Cuba, and thinks it will happen in Obama’s second term. Well, Obama waited till the 2014 elections, but nevertheless I would say touché, southern james!:
The blistering pace of new sh”“t cooked up out of thin air, thrown out on virtually a daily basis just won’t let up. This morning’s misdirection “look ”“ over there!!” is an announcement that it APPEARS that fully open travel and open relations with Cuba is suddenly, for some unknown and unexplained reason, going to be pushed and pushed hard, to happen NOW.
NOW! Not after a period of measured and well thought-out, intelligent debate and consideration. But”¦right now. Crammed down our throats. Intantly. Like the stimulus bill.
Why isn’t anyone in the main stream press asking “Why?” or “Why Now,” with everything else on our plates? What’s the rush? Can this topic not wait until we have G-20, N Korea, General Motors, etc, etc, etc, issues resolved?
So it happens”¦unless”¦there is a whole lot of outcry. And then”¦.it gets quietly withdrawn. For now. For the moment. But the waters get tested ”“ the concept gets floated ”“ and notes are taken on how to approach it again next year, or the year after, or perhaps right after the re-election. And, just as when the idea of making Vets pay for their own medical care for their injuries idea went “poof” ”“ as far as Pravda arm of the Obama Admin is concerned (aka the MSM) ”“ it never occurred at all.
Can you even begin to imagine the flurry of sh”“t that will get done via executive orders/pardons, etc., when (if?) this guy finally becomes a lame duck? It will make Bill Clintons actions like the Marc Rich et al nonsense look like a Siesta in comparison.
I really don’t WANT to get all paranoid, and become a conservative version of those left wing moonbats who were convinced that Bush/Rove/Cheney only went to Iraq to enrich their oil buddies; 911 was “an inside job”; the Neocons are going to impose a christianist theocracy, etc. I’m fighting it. I’m fighting it hard. But I’m starting to lose.
Yes, we’ve been talking about this stuff for a long, long time. And although it’s scant comfort—and Cassandra-like, it hasn’t done a particle of good in terms of preventing any of it from happening—this is a blog, and this is what we do. Recognizing the problem of who the left is and the actions it’s taking and why is the first step, after all.
“Recognizing the problem of who the left is and the actions it’s taking and why is the first step, after all.”
The Left, and Muslims, are about all there is in the world that believe, truly believe, in anything. The Left, and Muslims, wouldn’t be near the problem they are if each had been opposed by belief, true belief – in something, something transcendent. It does no good to fight materialists by upping the ante — mine’s bigger than yours. It does no good to fight temporal religiosity with secular religiosity. That way is pick your poison. We have, to all intents and purposes, unilaterally disarmed ourselves. We bring a smart phone to a gunfight. Good luck to us all.
Lots of smart comments here.
The activist game is the only social/cultural political game there is.
Oops. Said my own axiom wrong.
The activist game is the only
social/cultural politicalsocial cultural/political game there is.“The Left, and Muslims, are about all there is in the world that believe, truly believe, in anything.”
The hard-core Left and fundamentalist Muslims are totalitarian fanatics. An opposing fanaticism is not a requisite in order to fight fanaticism. A truth Hitler learned to his regret. Clarity as to the nature of the threat is what is needed, which is why the Left fights so hard to conceal the truth and why the accusation of Islamophobia is Islam’s first defense.
Enough liberal frogs simply haven’t been “mugged by reality”… yet.
southern james is right, of the 65+ million who voted for Obama, the vast majority of them are “well meaning, uncomplicated souls, not particularly educated; who don’t follow politics very much; who never read political blogs; what little daily news they do glean comes from short pops of CNN or CBS or ABC or NBC…” and thus their votes were predictable.
However, southern james evidently fails to appreciate our society’s core presumption of individual liberty. Of just how deeply that belief lies within the body politic.
Liberals are fond of restricting other people’s liberty with whom they disagree but when their liberty is curtailed, it’s another story.
Totalitarian philosophies cannot abide liberty, which is why, sooner or later, the Left’s true nature will emerge. When it does, no one is as unforgiving as they who’ve been played for the fool.
The disappointment for me as a reader of Neo’s blog has been the encouraging promise of the correct diagnoses by Neo and her readers, such as the comments quoted, yet followed by the disappointment of their aversion to the correct prescription and corrective action.
It’s frustrating that Neo and her readers limit their prescriptions to the GOP despite that their own diagnoses indicate that electoral politics are insufficient on their face to effectively counter the ‘Gramscian march’ of the Left.
“The hard-core Left and fundamentalist Muslims are totalitarian fanatics. An opposing fanaticism is not a requisite in order to fight fanaticism.”
A belief in the transcendental is fanaticism? Who here is the fanatic?
Both Leftists and Islamists act the fanatic but their belief is hardly fanaticism. Take for example, that each believes in ‘freedom’. The definition, in the first instance, can be found in the Frankfurt School’s lexicon. In the second instance it can be found in the Hadiths. They would, both of them, the Leftist and the Muslim, say to you “freedom doesn’t mean what you think it means”. How would you answer? Perhaps, “we will agree to disagree”? They won’t agree.
Unless you know, unless you believe, (as the Founders did) that freedom comes from God; that the conception of that freedom was the gift to all humans of free will, then you and all the rest who will parry and thrust over abstracts have lost.
Fight the Godless Left with God. Fight the Prophet with Jesus Christ. Both ideologies dismiss God, and not because of orneriness or agnostic disbelief, but because they hate and fear Him. That very hate and fear should inform anyone willing to fight of whom to fight with.
Eric,
How do I and others like me change the Gramscian march that is the focus of academia, the msm, and hollywood? We can’t except on a one on one basis. I doubt we have the time to influence 100,000,000 Kool-aid drinks to put down the cup. The only way at the ballot box is to target the few million swing voters who are largely people we don’t know, or at least I don’t know. I will continue to vote, continue to support candidates I can place some belief in, and on the other hand I will teach my grandchildren well (having already taught my children).
There are tens of millions of conservative Americans who believe in something larger than themselves. While I personally believe in a transcendent God and, agree that the founder’s assertion of unalienable rights necessarily rests upon the premise that unalienable rights can only logically extend from a transcendent divinity…
I disagree however, that such a belief is necessary to vigorously oppose the fanaticism of totalitarian ideologies.
At base, totalitarian ideologies rest upon the desire to dominate and control and there will always be men and women willing to fight to the death in opposition to attempts to dominate and control without the ‘consent of the governed’. Arguably, war boils down to the (so far) eternal struggle between those who lust for control and those who will not be controlled.
IMO, it is not accidental that such totalitarian efforts are the ultimate in denial of God’s nature. God does not compel but invites, while supporting the reality that our actions have consequences.
Nor can I agree that the Left and those of ISIS’ ilk are not fanatics. As ALL totalitarians are fanatics. Fanaticism being a prerequisite to the embrace of totalitarian ‘philosophies’. Which is why truth is the first sacrifice upon ideology’s altar.
GB,
That is why I, and my well taught children, continue to reload, cast out own bullets, etc. We are the Americans they seek to disarm. £_€¥ them and the horse they stole to rode in on. They think it will be a cake walk, but have no knowledge of topography or how true is our aim. We have studied how to negate their tech, we know how to be far more knowledgeable about their personal situation than external enemies. They are fools. 3 to 7% is enough.
My husband has a weapon, about 2 years ago there was a random home invasion in our town. Wife was raped & her husband a doctor brutally assaulted, they were robbed. The MD survived but is horribly injured
his wife, sadly took her own life, she was South American & there is a *stigma* about rape. The small town freebee newspaper commented that the C of P was swamped with people who were going to get armed, to his credit he never commented on arming despite the tenor of the small town rag
that *arming needs to be strongly discouraged*.
BTW they got the perps, they were just out of prison having been placed there for empty home invasion robberies !
Let’s take George Will as an example.
I wonder, genuinely wonder, if he (a highly intelligent man and intellectually sympathetic) actually knows about, thinks about, is able to process the “prescient” (and ongoing) insights expressed in this post and the links and comments.
Or take Krauthammer (ditto).
There are (and apparently have been) many on this site from a wide variety of perspectives who nonetheless understand in common the Darkness At Noon/1984/Brave New World/etc aspect of BO and the leftist cultural hegemony.
I truly do not get this. Daniel Greenfield and Fernandez understand and brilliantly discuss it. They are exceptions.
Steyn and Rush get it, but then they both (very weirdly) simultaneously and without precedence defend Trump, a guy who must be regarded as very possibly a trojan horse, who logically must be cautiously regarded as doing the same dreary leftist chump-baiting BO has done in their own respective ways.
Throw in VDH, which amazes me.
(It is entirely coincidental, I realize, but in the course of defending Trump, VDH and Steyn each did something I had never seen before from either, committing a language error.
VDH misused the trite, mindless “begs the question” error, and Steyn misused the word “bemused,” in the way it is tritely misused [and I always need to look up a word Steyn uses in his delightful Buckleyite knowledge of vocabulary]).
It is puzzling.
Is there some strange astral force which blinds the Wills and Krauthammers from filling in the last seven per cent of what is in front of them?
Tonawanda,
Its easy to believe from the beltway that there is a solution beyond the msm influenced ballot box. The concept of 3 to 7% prepping to fall back on the cartridge box if need be, is outside their comfort zone. On a personal level in my rural setting, I know which houses to burn down at 2 am. They never learn that there are unintended consequences and those who are ready to meet oppression with fire and lead. This, should it come to pass, will not end well.
Tonawanda:
I think George Will and Krauthammer have been around DC too long. To them, politics is somewhat of a game, and although they are both very smart what is needed here isn’t smartness exactly. I think they are just too close to the “business as usual” and “it can’t happen here” mentality, as well as having a need to keep going to cocktail parties and not be ostracized.
As far as Levin and Limbaugh go, I think it’s business for them. Yes, they are conservatives and they care about the fate of the country, but they are also egotistical radio talk show hosts of some renown with a huge following of angry people who like Trump. Levin in particular has been whipping people up into an anti-GOP frenzy for many years. So how could he not like Trump at this point?
Steyn I don’t understand. Nor VDH. I haven’t read either of them on the subject of Trump yet.
Here’s David Cole on the subject of Levin and Trump:
neo: the Cole quote is so telling, but telling of what?
Your point about egos and audiences regarding Rush and Levin is a good one, though its does not seem (to me) it could be a complete one (although maybe it is).
Here are two highly insightful, trustworthy guys with great integrity, doing something bizarre which raises genuine questions about their own trustworthiness. To boot, the thing they are doing ironically relates to the anger and mistrust felt by conservatives (allegedly channeled by Trump). And yet they are bizarrely risking and advocating for more mistrust and more anger.
I follow Levin generally but do not listen to him. Rush I listen to.
Rush has been extremely circumspect but highly definite about Trump, if that makes sense. For instance, Rush “casually” discussed his personal relationship with Trump (they are not close but Rush knows him).
When Rush did that, he seemed to be playacting (to me), in the sense that his casual, “oh by the way” tone was intended to mask two Very Important Points he wanted his listeners to know: 1) Rush has an arm’s length relationship with Trump, and 2) Trump is a genuine, sincere person and what you see is what you get.
Another: Rush had on an 18 year old caller who challenged Rush on why Rush had made no critical comments on Trump given all the good reasons for suspecting Trump’s good faith. Rush was stymied for a few seconds and then quite disingenuously challenged the caller to cite anything negative Rush had said about any of the other Republican candidates. That shut the caller up.
What the caller should have replied is that none of the other candidates had such a wildly suspicious political background and history (for instance, all the Levin reasons circa 2011).
The caller should have asked Rush to give the caller one reason why anyone should take Trump at his present word, one reason why it was not simple prudence to mistrust Trump, one reason why Rush himself is so confident he is not being a Trump chump.
Getting back to the larger point, I believe parker @ 12:35 AM is absolutely right. Many folks (probably more than any of us imagine, I guess) are making sure they can “fall back on the cartridge box if need be.”
Part of the reason is the inability or reluctance of the Wills and Krauthammers – – the “official” tribunes of the non-left – – to recognize what is happening and has been happening for a long time. Really, who speaks for us?
The Rush/Levin/Trump thing is very much related. There are always honest if subtle ways to handle things without bamboozling (for instance, exactly what Cruz is doing regarding Trump, explicitly refusing to criticize but not defending). What Rush and Levin are doing does not compute with me.
It is the first time with me for either. I will continue to respect them and trust them and their instincts (with an asterisk).
The wishful part of me is hoping that Rush and Levin Know Something Good which I don’t know. But in the meanwhile they seem to be headed down a destructive path.
“I disagree however, that such a belief is necessary to vigorously oppose the fanaticism of totalitarian ideologies… there will always be men and women willing to fight to the death in opposition to attempts to dominate and control”
And your belief is justified by what evidence? Point it out to me.
The last time Islam was opposed in Europe successfully was in 1683. You will note that it was not the secularists and the philosophes of the next big thing — The Enlightenment – who came to the aid of Vienna, but Christian men. And yes, there will always be men and women willing to fight to the death in opposition… but can you muster so much as a brigade of such – even merely in the public square of opinion?
It’s also odd that you should end your comment with:
“Which is why truth is the first sacrifice upon ideology’s altar.”
To quote Pilate, what is truth? Leftists and Islamists believe truth to be on their side. If it is not the truth of God and Christianity, then it competes against fanaticism with what precisely? Reason? Against fanaticism? Compromise? With fanaticism? Appeal to a common humanity? Against fanaticism? Kumbaya?
There is no defeating fanaticism with anything but Christian truth. Fight at your own peril without it.