Krauthammer — accurate but depressing warning about Obama’s ability to transform America irrevocably
Bookworm on Jul 15 2010 at 11:34 pm | Filed under: Barack Obama
If you’d like to be depressed, read Krauthammer’s latest. Sadly, it sounds accurate in every respect. Honest to God, I don’t know if America can recover from this, or if we’re going to l0ok like England 20 years from now. If that’s the case, I want a rock to crawl under. England’s very ugly. Didn’t used to be, but really is now.
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25 Responses to “Krauthammer — accurate but depressing warning about Obama’s ability to transform America irrevocably”
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No, sadly, we will not recover from this. Neither will England. Both of our nations will hit the financial wall of bankruptcy because there is no way now that we will ever be able to crawl out from our massive debt and entitlement obligations. The real revolution will come when people realize that there will be no pension or Obamacare checks because there isn’t any money. The Republicans /conservatives might take back the government (I have my doubts, given the Dems’ totalitarian mindset) but it is they /we that will be blamed for the conditions created by the Obama regime.
Of course, these will be the older people that will be most affected and many of them (us) will have to accept that it was their votes that made all this possible. They (we) will simply have to accept that it will be our place to die younger and relieve our country of its healthcare and debt burdens. The younger people, however, will never again enjoy a quality of life as they have enjoyed thus far today and what little disposable income they ever hoped to accumulate with be taxed away. They will be working serfs subject to the liege lords of the corrupt Liberal Elite. Will these younglings have the capacity to revolt?
What really worries me is what people aren’t yet talking about, which is “debt capacity”. The U.S. and the U.K. were able to ramp-up for war because, as bad as the Great Depression was, our countries still had the capacity to borrow funds for defense by increasing our debt load. The Roosevelt Administration did not have to contend with an out of control national debt and entitlements obligations when it began selling war bonds. In other words, we still had the capacity to increase our debt. The coming perfect storm of uncontrolled and burgeoning government spending, crippled industry, and unmet health and retirement obligations will cripple our ability to raise additional monies when we truly need them for our survival. Our enemies know this.
Sure enough, war is coming as weakness and misery embolden others to attack. It is in the nature of mankind, something that the Left has always refused to understand. The Obama Administration…or more accurately the society that gave rise to someone like Obama…is not only destroying our ability to generate wealth but also paving our path to war. Sad times indeed.
In response to Danny Lemieux, I would like to say no, all is not lost. Unless you let it go.
The attitude I see among conservatives is frankly astounding; never have I encountered a group more eager to surrender. Forget fighting the good fight. Forget the American Dream. Just lie down and rot. THAT IS WHAT YOU ARE TELLING YOURSELVES AND ANYONE LISTENING.
I’m not even twenty years old yet, my country is in the worst shape it’s been in since the Depression, and all you can say is “sorry kids, we didn’t feel like standing up to the bullies”? That’s it!?
I never fully understood the saying “civilizations don’t die, they commit suicide” until now. Some conservatives almost sound like they’re looking forward to oblivion!
Do you know why the progressives have taken over the country? It’s because they fight. They fight, and they never give up. They can wait decades and still have the passion to fight till the end of time, because they BELIEVE IN THEIR CAUSE.
Conservatives, on the other hand, just glower and moan and play Cassandra while never lifting a finger to defend themselves. Newsflash, guys: You can’t win an ideological battle if the extent of your philosophy is a death-knell!
So, it looks like the younger generation can expect no help from our elders. You want to abandon us, fine. We want your support, and all you can do is tell us how horrible our lives will be. While the rest of you hobble off to the crypts, we’ll be on the battlefield. I had hoped you’d have the decency to aid us, but who needs you? You work for the enemy! You fall over yourselves to let them win!
So go on, curse the darkness. I WILL LIGHT CANDLES.
The strictly economic concerns are, in my mind, secondary to the cultural and policy concerns. If the American productivity-growth engine were left intact, or even improved, then we would quite likely be able to grow our way out of the debt situation. But it is not being left intact: the war on all practical energy sources, mindless legislation such as CPSIA, unwise tax policies, etc etc will make it very dificult to even sustain present levels of productivity. Attitudes of entitlement promulgated by “self-esteem” programs will have a less measurable but equally devastating impact on national productivity and competitiveness.
According to the writer Thomas Pynchon, European gansters like to conduct a hit by shooting the victim in three places: head, heart, and stomach. Something similar is being done to this country.
Zurvan…I don’t think Book, or Danny, or very many of the other commenters here are recommending defeatism. But there is no point in kidding ourselves about the seriousness of the situation.
It is well to keep in mind some lines from the Maldon manuscript:
“Mind must be the stronger, heart the bolder,
courage must be the greater, as our might lessens”
Societies have faced hopeless-looking situations before and turned them around. During the 1930s, many Americans thought that the only choice was between Communist dictatorship and Fascist dictatorship. In 1940, many people around the world thought the Nazi blitzkrieg was unstoppable. Throughout most of the Cold War era, the Soviet regime was viewed by almost everyone as a permanant fixture.
Here’s the French author George Bernanos, then living in Brazil, writing in the very dark time of December 1940:
No one knows better than I do that, in the course of centuries, all the great stories of the world end by becoming children’s tales. But this particular one (the story of England’s resistance–ed) has started its life as such, has become a children’s tale on the very threshold of its existence. It mean that we can at once recognize in it the threefold visible sign of its nature. it has deceived the anticipations of the wise, it has humiliated the weak-hearted, it has staggered the fools. Last June all these folk from one end of the world to the other, no matter what the color of their skins, were shaking their heads. Never had they been so old, never had they been so proud of being old. All the figures that they had swallowed in the course of their miserable lives as a safeguard against the highly improbable activity of their emotions had choked the channels of circulation..They were ready to prove that with the Armistice of Rethondes the continuance of the war had become a mathematical impossibility…Some chuckled with satisfaction at the thought, but they were not the most dangerous…Others threatened us with the infection of pity…”Alone against the world,” they said. “Why, what is that but a tale for children?” And that is precisely what it was–a tale for children. Hurrah for the children of England!
Men of England, at this very moment you are writing what public speakers like to describe in their jargon as one of the “greatest pages of history”….At this moment you English are writing one of the greatest pages of history, but I am quite sure that when you started, you meant it as a fairy tale for children. “Once upon a time there was a little island, and in that island there was a people in arms against the world…” Faced with such an opening as that, what old cunning fox of politics or business would not have shrugged his shoulders and closed the book?
Krauthammer’s good, but sometimes wanders off the reservation. Remember folks, this is a guy who supported McCain from early on in the primaries… how did that work out?
The almost-inviolable rule of politics is that presidents are only re-elected if the economy grows X% during their term. Ain’t gonna happen here, folks, unless he can completely ACORN the election, or something similar. All of these analyses we see of isolated economic factors, and how they “typically” recover at such-and-such a point, neglect the fact that most other indicators are usually in reasonable ranges; that policy is at least halfway sensible; and that the government is still a less important player overall than the “animal spirits” of individual actors in the free market. All of these things have now changed, and there is precious little to motivate the creators of jobs to do that in the near future. Barack wanted a crisis, and he’s getting it, but he has no clue how to pull out of it when needed.
We can explain the evils of statist economics to the moderates, independents and generally uninformed until we are blue in the face, but it takes someone like Barack to really show them in a way that they will understand. They’re beginning to understand. Self-identified conservatives now outnumber self-identified liberals by 2:1; Sarah Palin, in spite of much vilification from the same press that has drooled over Barack, now polls even with him in a left-biased poll; and an increasing number of voters “don’t remember” whom they voted for in 2008 (i.e. are too embarrassed to admit). This is all before we factor in an adverse supply shock in the oil market from war in the Middle East, mass defection of campaign contributions from the opportunists in the business community, and the resurgent insurgents for Hillary.
Ronaldus Magnus ran in 1984 on the question, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” Krauthammer has forgotten this important question, and that its answer changes history.
One potential for change is the new emphasis on governors. If Christie can stop the growth of property taxes and quiet the teachers’ unions, perhaps the next state will say, “Why not us?” Scott Ott at PJTV had a show this week about 2 men in Detroit who are taking initiative to keep the vacant lots mowed without any city involvement. These are the stories that need to get out–ones that make people think.
At Least Obama has demonstrated that when politicians refuse to pay attention to polls, they can get a lot done.
Zurvan, first you need to define the problem. Then you devise the solutions.
Right now, economic realities are the problem. Economics is not ideology. It is because the Left is blinded by ideology that they cannot /will not address economic facts. As Book says in her subhead, Lefties confuse ideological conclusions with facts.
Once we reach agreement on what the economic goals should be, the challenge will then be how to get “buy-in” from our fellow-citizens on why and how to get there, despite the pain that will need to be applied. Perhaps Gov. Christie will help show us the way.
Would someone here like to take a stab at this part of the Financial Reform Bill. I currently look like a bobble head as my skull rocks from side to side in utter disbelief. Diversity czars !
….Office of Minority and Women Inclusion, would take over from any existing diversity or civil rights office already working at the agencies in question.
It would also be responsible for making sure that each of the major federal financial regulators is hiring enough minorities and women, and contracting with enough minority-owned and women-owned businesses.
However, each individual diversity czar is responsible for defining exactly how many minorities, women, and minority- and women-owned businesses are satisfactory.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/69215
DANNY – I think we are entering the last stage of decline (dependence) which is supposed to lead to bondage. Do you (or anyone who has commented thus far) have much belief that if the Rs take over in House and Senate, they will actually implement any of the repeals/changes/non-funding to currently passed legislation that would undo the Democrat’s gutting of liberty? Another way of asking, will they be guided by political expediency or conservative philosophy? Conservatives are supposedly on the negative side of the spectrum, and I’m trying to figure out if I’m just being negative or, as you are, accurately reading history.
Does anyone know, if Snow, Collins and Brown were the only R’s -reprehensible, who voted in favor of the bill?
Without spending a single dime, the Obama administration did more yesterday to create jobs for the U.S. economy than it has throughout its entire existence. With the single stroke of a pen, President Barack Obama signed the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill that set in motion 243 new formal rule-makings by 11 different federal agencies. Each of the 243 rule-makings will employ hundreds of banking lobbyists as they try to shape what the final actual laws will look like. And when the rules are finally written, thousands of lawyers will bill millions of hours as the richest incumbent financial firms that caused the last crisis figure out how to game the new system.
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/07/16/morning-bell-the-lawyers-and-lobbyists-full-employment-act/#comment-submit
Sadie – Yes, I believe they are. To think that the perps (Dodd/Frank) themselves are the ones who then with much huffing and puffing designed the consumer ‘protection’ bill must make them laugh themselves to sleep every night.
Marguerite, I don’t know. There are bright rays of hope (Rep. Jim Ryan, R-WI).
But we have to proceed in the good fight, one step at a time even if it looks as if hope is lost. I don’t want to live in the kind of world the Leftists envision, so there is no choice but fight on.
It has not gone unnoticed that Dodd/Frank, of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac fame/shame was not part of the reform.
In the new upside down, inside out, opposite-day of demonic legislation, the worst of the worst are rewarded.
The ‘war on terror’ comes in all forms – I just didn’t anticipate it would come from within. Well, that’s not entirely true. Forty years ago, as we slipped into a political coma I sensed that the feds would find a way to legislate us into submission. Dhimmicrats come in all forms including Republicans and Independents.
The salt in the wound is that we, by taxation, are funding the Folly Bourgeois. The genesis of the country started with ‘no taxation without representation’ and now we have no representation.
>> I had hoped you’d have the decency to aid us, but who needs you? You work for the enemy!>>
Heh…is that all it took for you youngsters to get up and fight??
We should’ve quit sooner…!!!
Zurvan is going to fight, Suek. He doesn’t know how he’s going to fight. He doesn’t know against what he is going to fight. He doesn’t know what outcome he wants from the fight. Ready, fire, aim!
Ah to be young again.
But I truly appreciate Zurvan’s zest. It is the tendency of the old to ruminate and the young to act. The problem is that, so often, the young forget to ruminate and act foolishly. It’s up to us to be generals and provide real guidance, so that the troops with the energy and idealism have somewhere to go.
I’ll be running a short post later this afternoon to see if I can get a little symposium going, with reader ideas about how to act.
I’m stunningly bad at solutions, even though I’m good at spotting problems. I have the same problem with fashion and interior decoration. I can always tell when things are wrong; I just can’t figure out how to put them right.
[...] Yesterday, weary and depressed, I linked to Charles Krauthammer’s most recent post, one that has him posit a Machiavellian Obama who has succeeded in laying the groundwork, not only for the transformation and, inevitably destruction of America, but also for his own reelection, so that he can cement his gains irrevocably. A youthful reader, Zurvan, was appalled by the pessimism we old folks showed, both in my post and in the comments to my post: …. I would like to say no, all is not lost. Unless you let it go. [...]
One part of the solution is to recognize that people are going to get hurt, no matter what, and accept that.
We’re nowhere hear the depths of the fiscal crisis. It’s just beginning. And yet we can already see, all around us, that there is great damage, and millions of people are being hurt! The Republicans evidence no outrage, no emotion; they’re playing a political game of sitting on their heels, and are silent. While millions suffer. Where is the outrage?
Yet if conservatives gain power and IF they reform entitlements, people will suffer. You can be sure that the outrage as the suffering is pointed out, by the Democrats, example by example by example, will be loud and furious. It has tended to work in the past. Millions suffer NOW and no one cares. If our efforts work, far far fewer will suffer, and for most of us life becomes better; yet no one will notice because the Democrats will win the tactical game by more effectively pointing out the (smaller amount) of suffering.
Look at unemployment insurance. From the very first time the Democrats extended the benefit, the program was bastardized, and became something it was never intended to be. The situation is now unprecedented. The extensions must end, yet ending the extensions WILL cause a lot of pain and suffering. But it has to happen!
How do you handle this politically? I don’t think the Republicans are ready for the battles to come.
‘One part of the solution is to recognize that people are going to get hurt, no matter what, and accept that.’ There have always been smarmy legislators, and greedy takers with their hands out who benefit from their smarm and believe they have a right to a house (or food, or a living, etc) paid for by someone else. But when more of the responsible are hurt than the greedy takers, then something is rotton in Denmark and we have certainly reached that point. I accept that people are going to be hurt in order to right this ship. But it is punishing the responsible to allow the irresponsible to go free and that is not a script for the long-term life of a free republic. In my original post, I asked if the Republicans would do the right thing if they won the majority. I don’t think they are up to it because they fear the LSM who will blame the hurt on the right. We need more who speak the truth, like Paul Ryan when he looked straight at the President and called his financial program the lying crap it is.
You need a propaganda arm extensive and powerful enough to counteract the Left’s crocodile tears, while at the same time bringing to the country’s attention real misery and injustice.
In the end, the Amber Alert didn’t come about because people read about a child’s abduction in words. It came about through propaganda, visual and audio.
Propaganda is the weapon the Left has used almost unilaterally against us, without fetters or limits. It is far past time to push them back on their heels, using their own favored tools.
<B> They’re beginning to understand.</b>
Like I said and like various Soviet defectors have said, the useful idiots will only understand when the boot crashes on their bottoms.
Btw, if you wish to fight as the vanguard of the younger generation, then I recommend that you learn how to. Whether it is blades from iaijutsu or kenjutsu, boxing, martial arts, street fighting, or whatever you want to call it, learn it. Find some wisdom from the ages and apply it to modern times.
Ymar said,
Btw, if you wish to fight as the vanguard of the younger generation, then I recommend that you learn how to. Whether it is blades from iaijutsu or kenjutsu, boxing, martial arts, street fighting, or whatever you want to call it, learn it. Find some wisdom from the ages and apply it to modern times.
We have to elect conservatives who want to fight and, as Ymar points out, know *how* to fight. Have the wisdom of knowing how to fight and win. But the key first thing is that they have to want to fight the fight with a visceral passion and certitude. Fire in their eyes, fire in their belly, passion and commitment, an eagerness and readiness to hurl themselves into the fray with utter abandon.
My Congressman here in northern Texas is a conservative and a nice enough fellow, but he certainly is no fighter. He’s a good guy but just way too nice. He will appease and compromise with even the current crew of far-leftists in control in Congress. He is NOT good enough.
Right now I’m not all convinced that the institutional GOP members even want to fight. They’ve got a history of merely wanting to be the majority: to be nothing more than in power, in charge, and comfortable. They can talk the talk, but they can’t walk the walk. That won’t change the path of decline that America is currently on – hurtling downward on. That won’t save us.
Republicans today are unlike Abraham Lincoln’s party of radical Republicans who wanted to end slavery and make real changes to the Union.
Bush was the best of the pack, in the camp of Republicans that got power, but even he was wishy washy on a lot of things concerning both external and internal enemies. Not nearly ruthless enough.
You just can’t find these people in positions of high political office, because the Left carefully weeds them out.
[...] young commenter named Zurvan on the conservative blog Bookworm Room responded to this rather passionately as [...]