Obama and sharing the misery: planner or fool?
I’ve been wanting to write about other things besides Obama. Truly, I have.
But I keep coming back to that topic because it seems vital to get it right—and now, before things slide out of control.
Speaking of sliding out of control, here’s a little musical interlude:
But I digress.
Now back to the main event: so, what’s up with Obama? (certainly not the stock market). Some middle-of-the-roaders who thought he was one of them seem shell-shocked. They need a support group, and maybe a twelve step program as well.
As for me, I’m disappointed but not surprised; I, along with many others, felt there were just too many signs that Obama would be taking a Leftist course despite his soothing centrist words and demeanor—although I’d still be happy if I turned out to be wrong.
I’ve found that it’s always good to believe that people mean what they say, even when they’re politicians. The problem with Obama is that, even more than most, his campaign was a combination of lofty but general rhetoric and contradictory specifics. He truly did try to be all things to all people, and succeeded with enough of them to get elected.
Sorting through all of that was difficult for most voters. What’s more, it required time and attention. But the signs that Obama would be one of the most liberal and even Leftist presidents in history were clear to those who were looking.
There was his voting record, for starters. In addition, his friends and close alliances, as well as many of his statements back when he wasn’t running for president (at least officially; I’m not sure there ever was a time he wasn’t running for president in some sense), indicated the same. Add to that his stint as a student of the Alinsky approach, as well as being a teacher of Alinsky’s methods, ample evidence of far Left leanings and a plan to put Alinsky techniques to work on the American public.
Seizing (and even deepening) a crisis and feelings of panic in the populace, and making use of those emotions to pass a liberal agenda, is pure Alinsky. The heart of that particular Alinsky suggestion is here:
[People] must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future.
There’s that word ubiquitous word “change” again. What had seemed so amorphous and featureless an idea (purposely vague) during the campaign, but which had Obamaphiles chanting in spellbound wonder, was most likely a focused and targeted page out of the Alinsky playbook rather than an accident.
What else was a plan, and what accidental?
Powerline’s John Hinderaker doesn’t know, and neither do I. Perhaps no one except Obama and his close associates do. I have never been much of a conspiracy theorist and I’m not one now. But the evidence pointing in the direction of Leftist intent and awareness, and purposeful deception about that fact, is becoming more compelling every day.
Hinderaker quotes those who set out the case that Obama is “deliberately damaging the economy and gutting the stock market…[to] make more people dependent on the government and pave the way for a far-left regime.” But then he draws back from concluding that they are correct. This is his reasoning:
Obama can’t possibly want to be a one-term failure. That’s what happened to Jimmy Carter, and Obama must know that it will happen to him, too, if his policies are perceived as dragging down the economy.
More likely the explanation is that Obama is an economic illiterate, and subscribes to the idea–which I think is rather common among Democrats–that what the government does has little impact on the economy.
John, I hope you’re right. But I think you’re wrong. I’m not sure that his goal is to deliberately damage the economy, but I sense that Obama doesn’t much care if he breaks that particular egg in order to make his welfare state omelet—in fact, it tends to go with the territory, as he must know.
And, if Obama is a true Leftist, as I believe he is, he (a) doesn’t mind if he only serves one term, if he guides America closer to a socialist destination; and/or (b) thinks that his policies will placate enough Americans, who will be grateful for the help and the money and who buy his line that the rich are the enemy, that they will actually give him a second term.
I don’t think Obama is an “economic illiterate,” despite the fact that he lacks business experience. As many people have pointed out, he is a smart man, and the basics aren’t all that hard to master. Also, it’s difficult to believe that, with economic advisers such as Larry Summers (who used to actually be a centrist, a real rather than a rhetorical one), he’s not being told the probable negative consequences of his economic proposals. And anyway, what’s the rush? Why not concentrate on getting the stimulus going first, if he cares about the current economic crisis, rather than just using it as an opportunity to turn America Left before it knows what hit it?
I can only come to the conclusion that Obama doesn’t care about the fallout for entrepreneurship or for productivity. His goal is his version of “economic fairness”—that is, equality of outcome rather than opportunity.
Once again, he warned us—at least those who were listening to the details. I wrote the following back in August of 2008 [emphasis mine]:
Some of Obama’s slightly-less-publicized statements are the ones that concern me most.
Case in point: in this WSJ column by William McGurn, the author points out that for Obama, taxes are not just about collecting revenue. What are they for? Fairness.
Obama was being quizzed on his proposal to raise the capital gains tax. When Charlie Gibson of ABC noted that the empirical evidence indicates that increasing the capital gains tax tends to lead to a decrease in actual revenue collected, Obama’s answer was, “Well, Charlie, what I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.”…
Obama’s brand of liberalism seems most interested in the appearance of fairness, and appears to view the economy as a zero-sum game. To help some people, you must take money away from others. The idea of a rising tide floating all boats””or of a capital gains cut stimulating the economy in a way that yes indeed, does benefit the rich but also benefits the entire financial system in a way that ultimately helps the middle class and even the poor””is often considered a nefarious and duplicitous scheme hatched by (who else?) the Republicans. That it often (though not always) conforms to reality is a mere detail, because the rich are by definition bad and need to be taken down a peg.
Obama has hit the ground running with his plan to undo the policies of the most “nefarious” Republican of all: Ronald Reagan. This is no accident, either—not that it’s something he overtly campaigned on. But he took advantage of the crisis—and has amplified it, I believe—the better to make good on a promise he made to himself back in the early 80s, when he was a lowly Alinskyesque community organizer (quoted from his 1995 book “Dreams from My Father”; emphasis mine):
Obama said he got into community organizing in Chicago in 1983 to “pronounce on the need for change. Change in the White House, where Reagan and his minions were carrying on their dirty deeds.”
Note that Obama is not voicing a mere disagreement with Reagan’s policies. He is characterizing them as evil. I believe that his entire public career has been an attempt to undo Reagan and establish the “trickle-up” economics of socialism, whatever happens to our economy in general. The fact that this might be the worst of all possible times in economic terms to do this is something he is ignoring, as well, because he feels the American people are emotionally ready for it. He must strike while that iron is hot.
It’s probably no accident, either, that Obama sent that Churchill bust back to England almost as soon as he became president. He doesn’t want the old man’s visage around staring at him and reminding him of quotes such as this
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
Some very interesting points. However, as a natural optimist, I am going with “incompetence”. It’s the best case scenario.
I will say: A person who believes government should provide for the people … will not be overconcerned with fixing the private economy. Why should he be? Government will provide.
Obama is too incompetent to realize either the extent to which tax revenues are about to shrink, or the disasterrous inflation which his proposed debt levels will spur(after the government if forced to start printing massive amounts of dollars to ease levels of government debt).
disastrous, natch
neo, I like your analysis. I don’t think he is specifically trying to engineer a stock market collapse. That’s not his aim; it’s just collateral damage. I think he really has a hard on for Reagan and his legacy. It grates at Obama and he wants to be The Man to smash Reagan’s legacy.
What’s troubling is that he has economic advisers and cabinet people who will not tell him that the welfare state that Obama envisions is financially insupportable. How long can their cognitive dissonance endure?
I still agree with Dick Morris’ assessment: Obama does not care if he’s a one term president. If he can accomplish what he wants in one term rather than not get most of it in two terms, he’ll take the one term.
It will be a disaster. Any sober mind can arrive at that likely conclusion. I DO think he will be a one term president and that most of the Middle Muddle will reject him in 2012. There is just no possible way that he and the Democrats can put that many people on the dole or hire into government jobs. It can not be done. Unemployment will still be high by 2012 and inflation will be percolating. And those are just the economic disasters to consider. The foreign policy ones will be near-catastrophic.
Greetings:
Today’s Question: What’s Black & White and Red all over?
My wife is convinced that someone is pulling his strings.
I am conflicted. I really do not know what to believe.
We do know that there is an astonishing level of incompetence. It seems to have infected everyone around him as well. (See Hillary’s ineptitude in the last couple of days). At some level the incompetence is reassuring, if it prevents him from implementing his agenda. At another level it is terrifying. It is especially terrifying because I seriously doubt that he will acknowledge his limitations.
“And those are just the economic disasters to consider. The foreign policy ones will be near-catastrophic.”
It’s already started there, too. All that talk about rebuilding our reputation with our allies. Then, he snubs our strongest one twice. First, the Churchill bust, then he snubs the PM! But I’m sure Achmadinijad will get the fealty he deserves.
http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/post/royalcello/vpost?id=3346147
The link also attempts to answer who might be “pulling his strings”.
Just a quote from the above link:
Was ‘Lady Macbeth’ behind Barack Obama’s snub of Gordon Brown?
Was ‘Lady Macbeth’ behind Barack Obama’s snub of Gordon Brown?
Posted By: James Delingpole at Mar 5, 2009 at 12:58:55 [General]
Posted in: Foreign Correspondents , Politics , Eagle Eye
Tags:View More | america, Barack Obama, Britain, Gordon Brown, Michelle Obama, USA
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On US radio’s Garrison show today, I was asked for my reaction as a true born Englishman to President Obama’s double insult – first the sending back of the Winston Churchill bust, then his snub to Gordon Brown. “Tough one. Really tough one,” I said, torn – as most of surely are – between delight at seeing Brown roundly humiliated, and dismay at having the special relationship so peremptorily, cruelly and bafflingly ruptured.
Michelle Obama’s dress sense may be impeccable, but what of her politics? (Photo: Getty)
Iain Martin is quite right here: no matter how utterly rubbish we have become as a nation in the Blair/Brown years, Britain’s friendship is something Obama will come to regret having dispensed with so lightly. This was not the act of a global statesman, but of a hormonal teenager dismissing her bestest of best BFs for no other reason than that she felt like it and she can, so there.
My vote is “incompetent”, too.
Whoops! Got more than just “a quote” there. I was just going for that last paragraph.
The Soviet Union is a case study of bizzaro world thinking in action. It would seem insane and “unsustainable” to send all your farmers into the gulags, but off they went and to shoot all your army officers just before a war, but down they went. And the regime lived happily ever after for another 60 years.
I say Obama is doing this with aforethought, malice and evil.
neo, don’t know if you already read Brooks op-ed from yesterday — since he is quoting from administration sources (which are up to something nefarious I’m sure, someone will say)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/opinion/06brooks.html?_r=3
Right now the front line in our defense against jihad terror is in the U.K. Our intelligence agency, the CIA (what remains of it) has agents working very hard inside Britain to spy on Islamic terror cells. We do this under the good graces and hospitality of MI5 and MI6. They want us there and need us there and we need to be there.
It is insane and rude, regardless of what we think of Gordon Brown (and I don’t like him at all), to treat Britain’s leadership in such a manner. It defeats our own interests.
The children and adolescents are in the romper room, but they don’t know that their romper room is the world.
I can only come to the conclusion that Obama doesn’t care about the fallout for entrepreneurship or for productivity. His goal is his version of “economic fairness”–that is, equality of outcome rather than opportunity.
I agree. I think with certain leftists there is a sense that they’d rather we all live modestly in mud huts than have any kind of economic disparity (or environmental impact, for that matter). It doesn’t matter that America’s general economic health sinks a bit into the abyss. What matters is that everyone lives with the closest amount of means possible except, of course, for government officials who would naturally receive perks. Here is the Democrat’s bizarre paradox: we want to improve the economy, but at the same time we must implement policies that will worsen it. It’s not about growth; it’s about redistribution.
Remember Biden’s warning that Obama would be “tested”?
http://formerspook.blogspot.com/
It’s no accident that North Korea has grown increasingly bold in its provocations toward the U.S. and our allies in the Far East. Sensing weakness and indecision in the Obama Administration, Kim Jong-il is quite willing to test the limits of our patience–and response options.
Less than two months into Mr. Obama’s term, Pyongyang has announced plans to launch another TD-2 (on a flight path that may carry it over Japan); vowed military against South Korea, and threatened to disrupt commercial air service along busy east Asia corridors.
The U.S. response? Nothing more than mild diplomatic warnings. No wonder Mr. Kim is feeling his oats.
I saw within 2 minutes of discovering he spent 20 years in Reverend Wrights church who Obama was.
I’m frankly confounded why its taken some people 2 years and some possibly never to figure this simple man out. Common sense is dead.
There is something different about Obama’s leftism. H self identifies as a pragmatist, and I wonder whether that is to avoid giving credit to anyone else for his ideas. He feels that his upbringing has given him a truly unique insight (as if we all come from the same old Leave It To Beaver, white toast, racist world) into the world’s problems. He can’t admit that his wonderful plans are are warmed over failures because that would challenge his Messiah self image.
He may hve absorbed Alinski techniques, but I don’t think he knows it. Deep down, he thinks he invented the world. If he is willing to sacrifice our economy, it won’t be for world socialism. It will to prove his own brilliance.
StevenH, I regularly read the delightful blogs of two intriguing women. This one and Bookwormroom.
Bookworm has one explanation for your puzzlement in her blog today. It is rather shocking, it is not complete, and it does not excuse, but it does partially explain. See “a small crack in the wall”.
Neo, I trust I am not over stepping by referring to Book’s blog?
Obama is simply a figurehead, the front-man for the Democrat Party, no more. He was selected for this because he’s good looking, good sounding, and an African-American to boot. In other words, electable. His role is to rubber-stamp what the party wants to do, loot the treasury and solidify power. Obama is not in charge any more than a spokesmodel is in charge of the company he or she fronts for.
“…certain leftists there is a sense that they’d rather we all live modestly in mud huts than have any kind of economic disparity…”
Except for themselves and their supporters, of course. There, any amount of disparity is ok because, well, you know, because they care.
The left has never understood where wealth comes from, except when it wants to confiscate it. But they don’t grasp the process of how it gets there in the first place. They always view the economy as a zero-sum game. PJ O’Rourke once explained the left’s picture of the economy as a pie with a limited number of slices. Increasing the size of the pie never occurs to them.
Regarding the UK, Churchill, and the snub to Gordon Brown, Baldilocks has a simple–and plausible–explanation at her site, which I summarize: O’s father was a Kenyan leftist. As such, there is a strong chance either he or his associates were involved in the Mau Mau Rebellion. Churchill as PM crushed this revolt with a very strong hand. Thus, O’s return of the Churchill bust and the shabby treatment of Brown are simply revenge for Churchill’s actions against the Mau Maus.
“But I keep coming back to that topic because it seems vital to get it right–and now, before things slide out of control.”
Ha, ha, ha, ha…. Great joke Neo!
Barry O is strutting like a petty tyrant bully with no manners, exhibited by his shabby treatment of the British Prime Minister.
waltj, interesting observation about Obonga’s revenge on the British. It is just pettiness in the extreme. Pettiness is one character flaw that I deeply detest. It is the hallmark of a small person with a small mind.
I still do not understand what his Columbia and Harvard professors saw in him. I’ve never listened to a speech of his and never intend to. I get the substance of what I need from reports of the speech. But most of all I watch what he does. As a former Leftist with a bad taste in my mouth from the stench of the rotting nourishment of deceitfulness they gorge themselves on, I will never trust what comes out of their mouths. I only listen to what they say for subtle “tells” of what’s really going on in their reptilian brains.
I don’t believe that this situation is amenable to rational analysis. Obama is a strange beast of which we know not. Try to figure out your pet parakeet – much easier. I’ll not trouble to list the historical Svengalis who have visited so much evil on this world. I’ve got a bolt hole – I’ll not mention where.
I don’t think it’s malice as such or stupidity as such. I think it’s well… faith.
You have to understand, I went to college with believing marxists and most of the teachers were that also.
Neo, I hate to say this, but it doesn’t matter how many economists he has on staff or whether economics are simple or not. Marxism is, at this point a religious faith.
The basic, unexamined, belief is that wealth can’t be created and it can’t be destroyed. It can only change hands. This justifies the whole silly idea of class warfare and the idea that those who are rich “stole” their wealth.
If Obama is a convinced Marxist, and his background points to this, then he doesn’t understand — can’t compute — the fact that he’s destroying wealth. To him that’s a null program. And of course he welcomes the destruction of the private sector, because he thinks LOGICALLY, if you buy the basic idea that wealth can’t be created or destroyed, that this means the wealth will APPEAR in the public sector. Ready for distributing.
This also applies to his foreign policy. By making the US poorer, he’s making the rest of the world richer and then they’ll stop hating us for stealing their fair share.
I would bet this is what he believes. My professors did.
Of course, the problem with this kind of religious belief is that it’s akin to thinking the sun revolves around the Earth. It’s a nice theory, but reality trumps it.
Or, to quote one of my favorite authors, “The Turtle MOVES”
P.
Oh, and weirdly, I’ve been obsessing on that Leonard Cohen song…
So you just fed my habit.
P.
It’s simple really, as to what is going on. Who held up the budget for the past year by creating a spending bill they they knew Bush wouldn’t sign? Nancy and Harry probably didn’t know initially that Obozo would be the one to take it, but they were fairly certain it would be a democrat. So they just messed with and held the economy, betting that eventually someone would take over who would sign their spending bills.
Once Obozo started to lock it all up, I would imagine there were several private meetings between Nancy and The Won and a few smart guys in the room. This wasn’t manufactured accidentally since January 20th, nor was it outlined since the November inauguration. As soon as the lefties that be knew that Hillary was out and O was in, they started thinking big. Really big. Why throw grenades back and forth between parties in the usual fashion, when you have a guy who is far left enough to be willing to nuclear? And make no mistake, they have nuked our economy.
Our country is Humpty-Dumpty, and I don’t think kings men from either side of the aisle are equipped to put this back together anytime soon.
Obama was touting the creation of jobs today at a ceremony for new police cadets in Ohio. He was claiming the stimulus bill made those jobs possible. What he may not know is those are public sector jobs which must be supported by taxes on the productivity of the private sector. Maybe he thinks we can all work for the government.
I do custom woodwork for mostly well to do customers. Like who else can afford a front door with 100 man hours in it that i’ve spent my whole adult life mastering to design and construct? These people and their money are on strike. Theres no other way to describe it.
Democrats see the trunk of the tree as unfairly big compared to all the increasingly skimpy branches. You set out to fix that problem and you kill the whole tree. Our tree is dying and all us lowly branches are the first to suffer.
No question in my mind that this is intentional. And to one of the commenters above, yes…he CAN get enough people on the dole to get re-elected. Roughly 8 million have already been added and are convinced it’s Bush, not Obama who put them there.
Sorry, neo…it’s already out-of-control.
A little over fifteen years ago Congress put some big taxes on luxury yachts to soak the rich. People quit buying them or bought them out of the country which shut down the U.S. boat building industry in New England. The liberal congressmen had a sudden conversion to reality and recanted. Now the aircraft industry and tourist destinations like Las Vegas are suffering as the rich are under attack. When will the Dems learn that rich people buy things and do things that employ workers? Hoover and FDR raised taxes punitively on the rich and choked off a recovery for ten years.
Honestly, why would our very own government want all of us to quit trying to “become” more every day? How can it possibly end up being good for anyone, much less everyone? Well, anyone outside the belt way.
Junior man that he was before election, Obama is not that foolish. The house and the senate are not that foolish. I submit, at the risk of being labeled a kook, that a plan is in motion. Nothing else fits all the slots.
Has anybody done any research into what Soros’ financial positions were last spring/summer? Was he out of the market sitting on a pile of cash just waiting for the market to tank so he could swoop in and buy a ton at fire sale prices?
He’s the Man in the Big Yellow Hat to Curious George (O). The puppet master.
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In my mind, many of you come up to the edge of the correct conclusion but cannot believe what you are contemplating because it is so antithetical to your past experiences. You cannot believe your eyes.
I believe that Obama is trying to destroy the Constitutional Republic as we know it, destroy the free market/capitalism as we know it, and replace it with a socialist/welfare state. He is seizing upon a natural contraction in our economy, a very unpopular previous president that was considered by many to be illegitimate from day one, and a feckless opponent in John McCain as a perfect storm to come to power and enact as broad and as deep of leftist reforms as possible.
He sees the United States as fundamentally flawed, as an evil force in the world. He seeks to change that. Whether he is intentionally trying to drive down the market is not the point. He is, but it is only a means to a larger end. His intention is to remove what he believes to be an unjust gulf between the haves and havenots. He is doing this through redistribution, yes, but he is also doing it through the destruction of wealth. As wealth is destroyed, people fall upon hard financial times and seek the safety net created by liberal government in order not to be thrown out on the street, in order not to be hungry, etc. It is a self-fulfilling and self-perpetuating prophecy. As he destroys, he creates demand for and reliance upon the vision of government that he subscribes to. Remember his words: “fairness” and “redistribution”.
There is so much going on all at once that it is hard to grasp the whole of it (that’s the intention, by the way…). Go back and review what you have learned about Barry Soetoro (have we ever had another president that changed his name?). Who were his parents? What did they believe? Where was he raised and what kind of environment did he come of age in? Who were his mentors? Where did he go to college? Who were his mentors there? What did he write that would give insight into his philosophies? With whom did he associate as an adult? See where I am going with this? When you have digested all of this, in my opinion, you can only conclude that what we have in Barack Obama a radical, a man not of the Democratic Party or Liberalism that we have been accustomed to in the mold of Truman or Kennedy. No, this is a follower of Frank Marshall Davis, an apostle of Alinsky, a friend of Soros.
I believe that our president is a truly dangerous man, far more dangerous than most of us realize.
Occam’s Razor suggests that the simplest explanation is Ignorance + Indifference + Incompetence + Indoctrination.
I don’t think you need add Intent.
So where are all the dirty, dirty leftists who used to post here?
We more or less chased them away. You don’t want them back, I hope.
Gray,
I can act like one!
Lights, camera, action – Take 1:
You guys suck. I care and you guys don’t care. All you care about is money. Give Obama a chance. The $800 Billion dollar package was just signed and has barely a chance to get going and you guys want to just bring on the hate and discontent.
By August you will see – this country will see unprecedented growth and prosperity and the poor will have jobs and houses and health care.
It’s about time we have somebody in office who cares about the little people!
—-
End Take
How’d I do everyone?? 🙂 Whew, that was fun!!
All socialists are con men, but not all con men are socialists. To which category Obama belongs? As Alinsky disciple, he knows quite well that the only way to introduce socialism into USA is by a back door, under disguise of something else, and under pretext of emergency. His remark about redistributing (or spreading wealth around) is quite telling.