Obama and his inner circle: the alter egos
This piece about the influence of Obama’s inner circle of Chicago-based advisers is good. But like many articles on the subject, it somewhat misses the point. Axelrod, Gibbs, Jarrett, and Emanuel are not just random aides who have led Obama astray. They are not merely advisers; they are alter egos.
It is no accident that they are all fairly distasteful people, as well, as was mentor Rev. Wright. Although Obama is the attractive head man with the smooth style, do not forget that these four have not been randomly assigned to him: he has chosen them, and done so because they express exactly what he wants them to express.
These advisers are Obama’s true face. For the most part (the possible exception is Rahm Emanuel, who does not go back as far with Obama, although Rahm is a long-term friend of Axelrod’s) Obama cannot get rid himself of them because there is no one who can adequately replace them—no one he trusts and knows as well, and who knows him equally well (with the possible exception of his wife).
Here’s a longer and truly fascinating article on the subject from the Financial Times, loaded with insights into the inner workings of this inner circle:
In dozens of interviews with his closest allies and friends in Washington ”“ most of them given unattributably in order to protect their access to the Oval Office ”“ each observes that the president draws on the advice of a very tight circle. The inner core consists of just four people ”“ Rahm Emanuel, the pugnacious chief of staff; David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett, his senior advisers; and Robert Gibbs, his communications chief.
Note the fear that access will be denied. It’s real; remember the war on Fox? Note this as well [emphasis mine]:
The president, who is the first to keep a BlackBerry, rarely holds a meeting, including on national security, without some or all of them present.
All of these people are Chicago connections. All were closely allied personally with Obama and/or with his campaign almost from the start (except for Emanuel, who ultimately defected from the Clintons to endorse Obama; he was an adviser to Bill during his presidency). As a former House member, Emanuel is the only one of them with any national-level non-campaign political experience of his own.
The others are strictly local and/or strictly concerned with the perpetual campaign (Gibbs was allied with Obama’s 2004 campaign as well, Jarrett goes back to 1991 in close association with both Obamas, and Axelrod, the director of Obama’s presidential campaign, began his relationship with him in 1992). I believe it is unprecedented for a president to have so many campaign advisers this closely involved in governing—or what passes for governing these days.
Larry Podesta (one of the few who are secure enough to go on record in the Financial Times piece) says, ““It is a very tight inner circle and that has its advantages. But I would like to see the president make more use of other people in his administration, particularly his cabinet.” So, Obama’s Cabinet is marginalized? One suspects they are there merely for window-dressing:
“Every event is treated like a twist in an election campaign and no one except the inner circle can be trusted to defend the president,” says an exasperated outside adviser.
It is either Gibbs or Axelrod who usually acts as the public spokesman—two of the most off-putting and least telegenic creatures ever. Is it any wonder then, that Obama the “great communicator” has failed to sell his program, with these two as his shills?
More:
Administration insiders say the famously irascible Mr Emanuel treats cabinet principals like minions. “I am not sure the president realises how much he is humiliating some of the big figures he spent so much trouble recruiting into his cabinet,” says the head of a presidential advisory board who visits the Oval Office frequently. “If you want people to trust you, you must first place trust in them.”
That’s a variant of the “if only Stalin knew” argument. But it’s difficult to believe that Obama is unaware of what’s going on; to subscribe to that theory, one would have to consider Obama tone deaf to human interactions. That’s possible, of course. But it’s more likely that Emanuel serves his purposes; power and intimidation, even of allies, is part of the deal.
More about Rahm Emanuel’s delicate touch:
We are treated as though we are children,” says the head of a large organisation that raised millions of dollars for Mr Obama’s campaign. “Our advice is never sought. We are only told: ”˜This is the message, please get it out.’ I am not sure whether the president fully realises that when the chief of staff speaks, people assume he is speaking for the president.”
Note the continual statement of uncertainty about what the elusive Obama really thinks and really knows. As I stated earlier, I think Obama knows full well, although he may not appreciate the depth of people’s negative reactions. But it’s not as though prior to this particular gig, Rahm Emanuel was known for his kind and gentle way of treating people.
In truth, this is a pattern for Obama. Since the very beginning of Obama’s political career, he has always relied on thugs to carry out his dirty work (see this and this).
There’s more:
The same can be observed in foreign policy. On Mr Obama’s November trip to China, members of the cabinet such as the Nobel prizewinning Stephen Chu, energy secretary, were left cooling their heels while Mr Gibbs, Mr Axelrod and Ms Jarrett were constantly at the president’s side…none of Mr Obama’s inner circle had any background in China. “We were about 40 vans down in the motorcade and got barely any time with the president,” says a senior official with extensive knowledge of the region. “It was like the Obama campaign was visiting China.”
This explains a great deal. And it makes sense, too, in terms of Obama’s belief system: remember back during the campaign, when Obama talked about his trips as a young man to Pakistan and his time as a child in Indonesia, and asserted that these experiences gave him a leg up in foreign affairs over all those other supposed experts?. Now he is playing out that arrogance, to the detriment of us all.
An outside adviser adds: “I don’t understand how the president could launch healthcare reform and an Arab-Israeli peace process ”“ two goals that have eluded US presidents for generations ”“ without having done better scenario planning. Either would be historic. But to launch them at the same time?”
Can’t understand it? The answer lies in one word: hubris.
As for the possibility of Obama’s changing this disastrous course of action:
“There is an old joke,” says Mr Gergen. “How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb? Only one. But the lightbulb must want to change. I don’t think President Obama wants to make any changes.”
I’m with Gergen on that one.
Shouldn’t that be “altar egos”?
Mania grandiosa rarely, if ever, changes its goals and pretentions.
Even the press room laughter is dying down.
“The tone is one reason for less laughter,” says American Urban Radio’s April Ryan. “There are lots of serious questions begging for serious answers. Those questions do not meld with laughter and light banter.”
But there’s also some frustration a-brewing among press corps members.
“There definitely aren’t a lot of laughs around the briefing room these days,” says Washington Examiner White House correspondent Julie Mason. “Robert’s little digs and evasions have lost their power to amuse – particularly since we haven’t had a presser since July.”
Mason also reports frustration in the ranks: “Reporters know how close the press secretary is to the president, and yet the quality of the information we get doesn’t often reflect that.”
Permanent Campaign seems to be what it’s all about. And using our money to do it. The latest: Mrs. Obama says “our” kids and she needs buckets o’ money to do something about it. Michelle Obama’s Mirror’s Blog skewers the Let’s Move program.
This morning marked the official kick off of the O’s War on Twinkies, aka “Let’s Move”.
So here’s the O’s command and control plan for battling kiddie-porn fat: eat healthier (as determined by companies who supply food and cafeteria services to school lunch programs across the country and who, incidentally, have been big contributors to the Won’s campaign coffers) be more active (through government funded pre,post and during school programs) and get healthier (that part’s just an edict — because we won — and we’re worried about healthcare costs).
An outstanding and most insightful post neo!
I had no idea that Obama’s ‘gang of four’ wielded so much and so exclusive an influence within the Obama administration.
And, it does as you state and also imply, explain a lot. Including why Obama will double down on his agenda, as a matter of course.
The corollary of that exclusive access and camaraderie is that everyone else, with the exception of Michelle, who is the closest to Obama, is on the outside looking in and, despite their adoration of Obama, of necessity must have less invested.
If, in order to get trust we must also invest it in others, then perhaps subconsciously, Obama’s supporters trust in him must be limited as well.
Which means, should he stumble badly enough as I believe he must, and reveal his feet of clay, at some point, the adoring mob will turn upon the “Man Who Would Be King”.
By their friends shall ye know them, or words to that effect.
But leaving Chu the Chinaman and Nobel winner in the rear in China?? How dumb is that?
“It was like the Obama campaign was visiting China.” Yes, and it’s like the Obama campaign is visiting America too, a place they are not that familiar with and rather disdainful toward.
Pretty scary.
That this guy is President is almost stunning. Who is he? What are his real ideas? Who are his real friends (outside this inner circle)? Does he have any? How come he doesn’t seem to have any actual ideas of his own, but comes across as one big talking point or set of talking points?
They guy scares me. It is not even conceivable to me that he could rally the country or unify the country the way Dubya was able to post-9/11. I can never see myself liking this guy. There is nothing there!
This bulb does not want to change,cannot change, and so gradually the willfully blind are beginning to see.
Mike,
I really really like Obama.
He has done more to wake people up to liberalism and the way Democrats ends justify the means approaches than anybody.
fascism is – reprehensible and apparent.
How long will Hillary put up with this?
I think the bulb is burning out. I’m hoping, anyway.
Obama has no national level experience. Axlerod, Jarrett, and Gibbs have no clue on national policy or having a finger on the pulse of the nation.
Emanuel has national level experience, but it is limited. He is a former congressman, who was a junior aid in the Clinton administration. In actuality, he is nothing more than a glorified lobbiest.
So, of couese there is going to be a level of dysfunction between what they do, andhow the public percieves it. For all of the claims that Bush was in a bubble, Obama magnifies that charge, and does so with an atitude like we are the morons. Like most liberals who are incubated from reality, he figures if he patronizes us enough, we will understand his brilliant worldview.
Wrong. But then again, following the Rules for Radicals only helps get you elected. Even after pitting constituencies against one another, he still is burdened with the responsibility of governing. Something that requires qualities Obama never had to develop before now.
How long will Hillary put up with this?
Spring 2011 would probably be a good guess, barring any game-changing catastrophes. After the midterm election bloodbath, when the DNC starts getting really panicky, would be a good time for her to pick a row with the Messiah, resign in protest by summer, and crank up her campaign for the Presidential nomination.
I’d bet a lot that was her plan from the get-go. It would also explain why her profile is so low now – to avoid association with the Obama (mal)Administration. She and Bill obviously pegged Obama to crash and burn, and decided that, paradoxically it would be better to be closer to Obama (punching the party unity ticket), so as to emphasize her move away later.
Or am I getting too byzantine in my dotage?
Cubs_Fan makes a good point about how limited Obama and the Gang of Four are.
They are basically Democratic machine pol types with little or no experience at the levels of national policy, foreign policy, economics or the military.
They ran a good streetfighting campaign, but as anyone sensible might expect they govern poorly and it’s showing across the board.
The theory that this Obama and these minions were operating with some big secret plan of launching an American Reich looks increasingly far-fetched, if not downright silly.
Or am I getting too byzantine in my dotage?
Occam’s Beard: Not at all. That’s been my read of Hillary too, though I include the possibility that her time might come before that if Obama implodes while in office.
Pelosi’s chief Health aid is telling reporters that the Speaker and House and Senate Democrats have agreed on a “trick” that will get their Health Care Reform passed, no matter what the objections by a daily increasing majority of the American people might be (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Pelosi-aide-says-health-care-summit-is-part-of-legislative-trick-to-pass-Obamacare-84025262.html#ixzz0f9qBWaB9).
The House passes the version of Health Care Reform already passed by the Senate, and Obama signs it into law. The Senate Democratic leadership rams through a bill amending the original Senate bill– changes to the Senate bill demanded by House Democrats–by subverting the legislative process to us the reconciliation procedure–which requires only 51 votes to pass a bill–to pass it, and then the House passes that amending bill, and Obama signs it; the result being Obama’s major initiative becomes law and it is an amended bill agreeable to the more radical, left wing House.
A more corrupt and dishonest procedure, contemptuous of the plain will of the electorate, and poking a grubby finger–one wearing a pinky ring–in their eye, could hardly be imagined.
If the Democrats try to pull this off, they truly do have a death wish, that we will gladly grant them on November 2nd.
I love Palin
http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2010/02/anti-palin-faux-troversy-of-day-black.html
She brings out the idiocy in liberals… 🙂
Dear Conservative, Please be thorough and do your due diligence before you smack people with words so that we aren’t like liberals. Let them hold this torch!
huxley: No, not the least bit silly.
For example, if Ted Kennedy hadn’t died they’d be halfway to the welfare state. And step by step, they could have gone a lot further.
The fact that they have no experience in the things you mention does not mean they could not have seized even more power. They are all about power.
Hopefully, they will not succeed. I am more encouraged by recent events than I was even a month ago, for example (Scott Brown’s election being a sort of turning point). But we are not out of the woods; not by a long shot.
Wolla Dalbo: That’s a good description of the plan Dems have been quietly muttering about since Scott Brown was elected.
It’s not clear that they can pull it off. As I recall, Lincoln, Nelson, and Snowe have already said they won’t support this procedure. It’s likely other senators will have qualms.
Since this bizarre end-run hasn’t been tried before there are also procedural challenges involved.
Geoffrey Britain suggested that the real reason for the healthcare summit is to give the Dems cover for foisting this Rube Goldberg scam on citizens. Makes sense to me.
Yes, there will be an explosion if Democrats pull this off.
huxley: No, not the least bit silly.
neo: As ever, we disagree on this.
Wanting more power as Democrats is one thing; secretly scheming to create a Reich is quite another.
They have given no indication that they want a Reich. The article doesn’t describe people who sound like they want a Reich. They have played within the system their entire professional lives.
I also think this would be a very difficult secret to keep.
The onus is on your side to make the case.
But we are not out of the woods; not by a long shot.
neo: Again how?
Obama has been progressively losing power and influence. If he has the power to call forth a Reich, he would have had the power to stop the steady deflation of his administration that has been unmatched in recent history.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary support. An American Reich is an extraordinary claim.
huxley: I have answered your questions countless times. I have no interest in going around the same circle again.
Obama vs. Palin speech preparation
http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/speech_preparation_obama_vs._palin/
Gotta study this ! Right down to the puppet strings from Rahm to Obama – Funny stuff
I imagine right now Judd Gregg really, really regrets his decision to include himself out.
There are days when I think the White House staffers are dismayed to discover that governance is harder in real life than it was on “The West Wing”.
They seem to need a good director to get through the day.
Just as Obama needs his trusty teleprompter to function, he needs his “fab four” advisors surrounding him at all times.
It’s almost as if he lacks the confidence to “wing it” by independently interacting with other cabinet members in areas in which they have a lot more expertise (Chu on China, for example). Although I agree that he chose them because they do his dirty work (while he maintains the cool facade…above it all).
There is a fair amount of speculation out there about whether or not Emanuel will be the next to find himself under the bus. He has apparently made noises about resigning, and has said that he didn’t plan to hold the COS position long term.
Sounds to me like we’ve got a podunk midwest towns city council running our country. Worse than that we had 53% of Americans who thought it was all a good idea!
Regarding Hillary. I have to believe that the Clintons are really walking a fine line.
It must be very frustrating trying to calculate when and how you are going to bail. I have no doubt whatsoever that the calculation is going on 24/7.
My guess is that she will try to hang on for another year or so to prove her loyalty bono fides to the party faithful. But, if things get too bad she may have to cut her ties to this crowd rather abruptly. And ruthlessly. Worry, worry.
I speak of the plural Clintons because it appears that she still finds him useful as a political ally, if for no other reason.
Huxley, I echo Neo’s warning: We are not out of the woods, not by a long shot. That you cannot see the Reich developing speaks not to our poor abilities to persuade, but to your inability to see. Das neues Reich has been growing under your nose for a year. The resemblance to and forces involved, as in the birth of German fascism, is inescapable to those who have a good grip on 20th century German political and economic history.
Baraq and his Volk will have some surprises for us. And the international forces of evil will have some surprises for him, both of which will regrettably injure us.
I’ve just started reading “GAME CHANGE.” Two chapters in and I’ve learned many things, which I had intuited but realize now that were true.
Although the book is written without citations (The only way they could get complete honesty was for their interviews to be “off the record.”) what I’ve read so far rings fairly true. The evidence is quite clear that Obama was not ready to jump all the way from junior Senator into the Presidency, and………………he knew it himself!
However, his prior experience had convinced him that he just needed to be able to bluff his way through. It always worked for him before. Why not now? This revelation does not surprise me. It also explains why he clings so desperately to those advisors who have been with him through the campaign to the exclusion of real advisors.
I hope the rest of the book is as interesting as the first two chapters.
“Is it any wonder then, that Obama the “great communicator” has failed to sell his program, with these two as his shills?”
I don’t get it. Do you mean to say that if Obama’s thugs were better at selling this program, that it would be worth buying into, considering? It wouldn’t.
The ideas behind healthcare and all of Obama’s programs are noxious in the extreme and should be reviled and fought energetically. He’s a communist, a totalitarian. He wants to make us slaves of the state.
I am wondering what the hell it is going to take before my countrymen snap out of their torpor.
This guy gets an awful lot of passes because he is telegenic. If he were ugly perhaps the evil in his ideas would be more apparent.
Huxley & Neo,
1. Great post Neo.
2. I think that you are both partially right.
Would they (Obama and his minions) like to take over? Like all leftists, you betcha. If they could that is. Could or can they pull it off presently? I do not think so.
First their manifest arrogance & incompetence in this past year has alienated just about all factions. Also, to really pull anything like that off, it would require the aid, or at a minimum, the acquiescence of our military. Not-gonna-happen-period.
The military takes an oath to defend the constitution of the United States, not swear allegiance to any would be tyrant or Congress.
We are far from that corrupt and decayed. However, given another generation of indoctrination and bad education, we will be lots closer.
That’s why when adults retake the levers of government we we need to…
a) eliminate the Dept. of Education, which was a Carter creation to repay the NEA for helping get him elected.
b) rescind the executive order JFK signed allowing federal government workers to unionize.
c) Dis-allow any form of participation in politics other than personal contributions and voting by federal employees.
ahem: you ask whether I mean to say that if Obama’s thugs were better at selling this program, that it would be worth buying into, considering?
My answer: no, I don’t.
Actually, in the original draft of the post, I had a lengthy paragraph (I later removed it because it was too long a digression) about how their idea of Obama as a “great communicator” meant that he could even sell lies to the American people. Of course, content matters. But it should matter even more than it does. The public ignored a great many inconsistencies, problems, and broken promises of Obama’s during his campaign, because of his facade as a “great communicator.” He pulled himself out of the Wright fiasco, for example, because of this speechifiying ability (I thought his speech was dreadful, but most people seemed to think it quite brilliant). My point is that, if one believed that being a great communicator meant you could sell almost anything (even these terrible bills), then the last people you should choose to do so whould have been Axelrod and Emanuel.
i dont know if i would call what they are building a reich. Though this is making rounds
search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Coming-Insurrection/The-Invisible-Committee/e/9781584350804
The Coming Insurrection is an eloquent call to arms arising from the recent waves of social contestation in France and Europe. Written by the anonymous Invisible Committee in the vein of Guy Debord–and with comparable elegance–it has been proclaimed a manual for terrorism by the French government (who recently arrested its alleged authors). One of its members more adequately described the group as “the name given to a collective voice bent on denouncing contemporary cynicism and reality.” The Coming Insurrection is a strategic prescription for an emergent war-machine to “spread anarchy and live communism.”
there is more
havent read it yet. i am still agog as to the lack of blatant knowlege that we forgot, misplaced, never xmited, take your pick.
Mark Steyn: “The Four Corpsemen of the Obamapocalypse.”
huxley, I am with you in this sense: that the great and even overwhelming majority of progressive activists and voters have no self-awareness of any desire to establish a fascist state. There is no document called “Plan XVII for the Overthrow and Destruction of the United States Constitution.”
On the other hand, you must admit that these same progressives will go as far as they can toward suppressing dissent, redirecting the resources of the economy according to their own ideas, and rigging and gaming the political system to keep themselves IN and the others–who have no legitimacy anyway– OUT. Opportunistic mischief by people with an infinite patience and appetite for mischief can do a surprising amount of damage.
You and I are betting that these progressives will not be allowed to go as far as they are willing to go because they will alienate the great mass of voters before they can go that far. I argue that this had already happened before Scott Brown was elected, and that people knew, and this was why Scott Brown won, even in Massachusetts.
huxley: I have answered your questions countless times. I have no interest in going around the same circle again.
neo: Countless, no.
Maybe twice.
If you challenge me, I’m crazy enough and enough of a programmer, that I will backtrack through all your topics and all the comments and present the links.
Since then, you have fobbed off my challenges with the same refrain that you have already answered.
In the meantime we have had several months of new and damaging facts on the ground about Obama as a leader, none of which favor your interpretation that he is leading us into a Reich.
Maybe Obama can recover enough to muddle through as a mediocre president. Maybe.
But the glory days when he might conceivably threaten to transform America into a Reich are gone. Dead. Kaput. A dead parrot.
And after next November — assuming he doesn’t declare martial law and then be promptly impeached — his majorities will be deeply decreased, if not turned upside-down, Obama is toast as Der Furhrer.
You are a smart person and run a great blog and mostly I agree with you right down the line, but not on this.
I don’t think that most people thought his speech brilliant so much as that’s what the MSM quickly and triumphantly proclaimed, repeatedly. Many people bought into because that’s what they heard on the ‘news’ and read in the papers. Many didn’t and don’t inquire further than that.
huxley: in your last comment you are coming perilously close to being a troll. To take the word “countless” literally is absurd, and a goad. You continue to misrepresent the content of my position in the many discussions we have had on this topic in the past.
I have no interest in going back and doing a count. I would think that we both have better things to do with our time. And if I challenged you to go back and do a count, and you did so, then I’d have to do one myself to check on you. What a foolish waste of energy.
Tim P: I agree that it’s hard to tell what most people thought of that speech, since most people probably didn’t listen to it. But I seem to recall his polls went up, he was praised highly in the MSM, and the majority of people seemed to consider it good enough for them to vote for him.
Obama seems increasingly nervous. It’s getting hard to watch. Bill Clinton, Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. and Reagen, etc., even Jimmy Carter, seemed like they were confident men. None made the Presidency look easy, but Obama seems so out of his league, that it’s quite noticeable. This is understandable due to the lack of experience he has, and the fact that the Presidency is probably the hardest job in the world. To have this job, without ever having done anything that’s difficult, would be quite harrowing, and it’s showing. He just seems so uncomfortable and ill at ease in his own skin. And it’s coming across. It seems the Obama supporters are really keeping quiet these days. I think many of them are thinking “oops”. Well, I’m sure we’ll all get through this.
I haven’t been commenting much recently because I have been a little dismayed by the temperature of the rhetoric, though I have understood the intensity of the feelings generated.
On the other hand, I have been seeing serial repudiation of Obamaism in special elections and by-elections; the collapse of Copenhagen and IPCC credibility; the stalemating of Obamacare; signs of true believers in the media waking up with a terrible hangover; and the beginning of a Republican comeback on more principled grounds.
huxley has been holding down his end without much support, and it is a position worthy of respect. I imagine he has been feeling some frustration.
Oblio: Thanks.
Is the release of Jack Ryan’s divorce records another example of Obama’s thuggish tactics?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ryan_%28politician%29
Ryan hoped to succeed retiring Republican Peter Fitzgerald in the United States Senate. On March 16, 2004, he won the Republican primary, thus pairing him against Democrat Barack Obama. However, after his divorce records containing damaging allegations were unsealed and made public, he withdrew his candidacy on June 25, 2004, and officially filed the documentation to withdraw on July 29, 2004.
Oblio: my point was never that it would inevitably occur; just that it could. Obama, Pelosi, and other leftists in Congress would be only too happy to surrender our liberties to a statist takeover, bit by bit, if they could possibly effect it.
I agree that things have been going in quite a different direction lately, and for that I am extremely glad. But it is best to be on guard, in order to nip these things in the bud.
Pete’s bro: I get into that history in one of the links in my post above (when I write “see this and this). Here’s the link again.
Obama’s history prior to his run for the presidency is indeed very disturbing. But not enough people seemed to be aware, or to care.
People. We have had a change in the political outlook recently yes and it gives cover to the huxley point of view.
It’s been a surprising 5 months.
Our momentum in the arena of ideas is not really core-belief changes in the masses so to speak.
We came pretty close to having cap and tax and an abomination of a health bill… It’s been a wild ride since the days of the stimulous monstrosity.
We do NOT have the protections necessary to defend ourselves from the power hungry politicians who would want to do this again – which they got close to doing this time.
How is it that the stimulous which seemed to be a reward to Obama supporting organizations and governments and GM’s takeover and subsequent give to the union came to be without protections?
I saw Greta interview Olympia Snowe about a month ago. I saw a completely different Olympia Snowe than I have in years.
Who is responsible for this massive defeat of a monster health bill? Obama himself. If there is a youtube video of that interview I suggest everyone watch it.
Olympia may have actually helped get the health care bill passed except that she made clear to Greta that there was no opportunity for her to offer any input to the product…
… and then Olympia talked about the Ben Nelson deal and the Louisiana deal and how it became unsupportable at that point.
Given the way Olympia watered down the Bush tax cuts and did all sorts of votes with Democrats over the years – the defeat was created by Obama’s tactics and the Democrat leadership’s tactics.
My point?
If the tactics weren’t such – the bill would’ve been passed. Just like Prescription Drugs and SCHIP and such.
I can only hope that many people’s eyes were opened lately. I scan the news for evidence. I watch the Frank Luntz groups with fascination. I sit there stunned watching people like Penny Lee and Bob Beckel and Mara Liason when they speak. I can’t imagine how thick one must be to say the things they say.
I think we can ALL agree that if these politicians didn’t defeat their own agenda – we’d be swallowing bitter pills right now. Liberties??? Right. Protections? No. It was by virtue of their tactics we are breathing easier.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,584248,00.html
Transcript of that Great and Olympia interview
Snowe:
I was part of so many conversations and meetings, but nothing ever translated into substantive policy changes. Rather they concentrated on trying to negotiate these special agreements where states were exempted from the compliance with national policy, which is totally unprecedented.
People. We have had a change in the political outlook recently yes and it gives cover to the huxley point of view.
Baklava: Indeed. More than cover I’d say.
> Tom Says:
> February 10th, 2010 at 10:50 pm
>
> Huxley, I echo Neo’s warning: We are not out of
> the woods, not by a long shot. That you cannot see
> the Reich developing speaks not to our poor
> abilities to persuade, but to your inability to see.
> Das neues Reich has been growing under your
> nose for a year. The resemblance to and forces
> involved, as in the birth of German fascism, is
> inescapable to those who have a good grip on 20th
> century German political and economic history.
A deeply silly comment that shows you must be totally unfamiliar with the history and political dynamics of late Wiemar / early Reich Germany. Start with Kershaws Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich. Bavaria, 1933—45, Allens Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town 1922-1945 and Joachim Fests masterly books on Hitler and Speer.
Read those books and maybe then you will start to understand those terrible times, and why the German middle classes folded, and realize just how silly drawing any parallels between those times and the current utterly inept Obama administration. The New Left 68’ers that infest his administration are many things but wannabe Nationalsozialisten is not one of them.
I chose the word cover purposefully. Circumstances are as they are because of their tactics.
I live and work in California.
Farmers – begging for water
Businesses – begging for a better way (and leaving)
Jails and Courts – letting out tens of thousands of criminals convicted of felonies (no joke)
And do you see what is being debated and passed by the legislature each day? Garbage pile after garbage pile of bills.
Bigger and more intrusive government with the right priorities…
The Road to Serfdom doesn’t have to mean holocausts or people in ovens or gas chambers.
Our debt of 12 trillion is the size of our yearly GDP. Our deficit (adding to that debt) is 10% of GDP. This path is unsustainable.
Free Markets are being transformed to a centrally planned, fascist, government rewarding supporting organizations type of economy.
As a business owner myself – I don’t know what to say. This past year has been surreal.
I’m glad for the past 5 months – but it only provides “cover”
Baklava: Not germane to the discussion at hand — an American Reich.
…or my position here in which most of my comments are being moderated out of the discussion.
I’m not saying things are good. I’m saying they aren’t a prelude to an American Reich.
I don’t think there should be any doubt that without a few invaluable resources like the internet, fox news and talk radio, we’d be well on our way to a totalitarian hell hole under this current crop of democrats. The fact that they may not or will not succeed is beside the point.
A thief is not just the guy who steals your wallet. Its also the guy you catch trying to steal your wallet.
SteveH: I’ll doubt that. There are a huge nmber of American Americans who won’t let America become a totalitarian hellhole no matter what.
Tell it to Sarah Palin.
Here’s an interesting, somewhat fawning background piece on Valerie Jarrett from Stanford Magazine: http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2009/sepoct/features/jarrett.html
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_michael__080424_obamamania_3a_a_mixed_.htm
Bravo, neo, an outstanding post indeed! Very insightful.
All presidents (indeed, all leaders) have a few close advisers that are separate from the official cabinet, but as with everything Obama has carried it to another level entirely. As with some of the other commenters, I had not realized the extent of it for Axelrod, Gibbs, Jarrett, and Emanuel, or depth of Obama’s isolation from the professionals.
“It is no accident that they are all fairly distasteful people, as well, as was mentor Rev. Wright.”
There’s a tendency to see one’s opponents as nasty and your own as nice, and I try to filter that out. Try as I might, in this case it is true; Obama surrounds himself with the type of people I would never associate with regardless of their politics. “Alter ego” does seem the only logical explanation.
Can’t understand it? The answer lies in one word: hubris.”
Indeed. Obama is so arrogant and vain he doesn’t think he needs the professionals. In 2000 I thought Al Gore was Mr. Smarty-pants Know-it-all but once again Obama has taken it to a new level.
And as you say it explains why several of his initiatives have collapsed. He repeated the mistakes of Bill Clinton on healtcare by negotiating in secret and then trying to ram through a gargantuan bill instead of several smaller more modest proposals. Ditto with the ME; he went for the whole enchilada rather than smaller agreements.
But let’s not underestimate the president. Yes, he’s an ideologue where Clinton was not. But like Clinton after the ’94 elections, the Gipper was pretty down in the polls in the midst of a severe recession in 82 and he came back to victory as well.
huxley said “There are a huge nmber of American Americans who won’t let America become a totalitarian hellhole no matter what.”
It won’t be an all-of-a-sudden thing but the death of a thousand cuts. And it’s happening before our eyes.
Remember, FDR gave up on his proposed Second Bill of Rights in favor of a more graduated approach. This is their deliberate strategy, and they’re putting it in place piece by piece.
Huxley,
If my grandfather were alive today he’d probably say we’re already in a totalitarian hell hole. He’d wonder wtf is going on in an America where wronging certain groups of people requires a harsher judgement than the harming of others. He’d wonder wtf is going on that his hog pen gets declared a protective wetland . He’d wonder wtf is going on that his hard earned labor gets used to prop up able bodied deadbeats who simply choose to embrace subsets of the American culture devoid of an adequate work ethic.
These things don’t arrive by some grand proclamation. They get here by bits and pieces of liberty’s erosion disguised as help being offered for the overall good.
Although only tangentially relevant to the original post, at the page linked to below there is a wealth of material having to do with the subject as it has evolved in the comments:
http://tinyurl.com/yd7vqxb
To whet your appetite, just a couple of quotes:
The major flaw in all of this is that fascism, properly understood, is not a phenomenon of the right at all. Instead, it is, and always has been, a phenomenon of the left. This fact — an inconvenient truth if there ever was one — is obscured in our time by the equally mistaken belief that fascism and communism are opposites. In reality, they are closely related, historical competitors for the same constituents. — P.7
The introduction of a novel term like “liberal fascism” obviously requires an explanation. Many critics will undoubtedly regard it as a crass oxymoron. Actually, however, I am not the first the use the term. That honor falls to H.G. Wells, one the greatest influences on the progressive mind in the twentieth century (and, it turns out, the inspiration for Huxley’s Brave New World). Wells didn’t coin the phrase as an indictment, but as a badge of honor. Progressives must become “liberal fascists” and “enlightened Nazis,” he told the Young Liberals at Oxford in a speech in July 1932. — P.21
They are quotes from a book authored by Jonah Goldberg which I am going to buy.
Progressivism, as practiced by Obama and other like-thinkers, whether they know it or not(I believe most of them are NOT aware) serves as a prelude to Fascism.
What’s a major(or perhaps minor) difference between Communism and Fascism? A reading of history indicates that most communist regimes are realized through violent revolution while Fascist states are usually more evolutionary in their origins, especially in cases of fascism evolving from more benign forms of governments, such as democracies of some type — a step by step takeover, frequently using a society’s own laws to further the process.
Speaking of books, I would love to buy one written by Jean Kaufman. Does anyone know whether one may be in the works?
A year ago I thought that Obama is a brilliant demagogue. But now he looks as a rather sloppy demagogue, not in the same league as Tony Blair or Pierre Trudeau. But look what the last two were able to do with Britain and Canada, transforming these countries with rather similiar demography and historical heritage into welfare states with increasingly fascistic attitudes to personal freedoms!
Neo, you and I agree about could (see my comment at 11:33), and huxley and I agree about the inevitability of resistance to the progressive enterprise. I don’t give Obama, Pelosi, and Reid credit for moderation, nor do I believe that there are limits on how far they would go, given the chance.
Sergey, I am afraid that Obama’s reputation as a brilliant anything has always been greatly inflated. Not that he is stupid; just not brilliant.
“”Obama surrounds himself with the type of people I would never associate with regardless of their politics””
Tom the Redhunter
I’d say your average liberal voter instinctively knows this too. They’re simply conditioned by political correctness to avoid admitting such a thing for fear of being judged as a knuckle dragging, hate filled discriminator.
Oblio: thanks for the kind and calming comments here and on the altercation thread. I wish I could bring your brand of clear-eyed fairness to these heated topics.
As for the subject under discussion, I’ve said before that I tend toward huxley’s view that these folks are not competent to pull off what they’d like to. At the same time — and I don’t think either huxley or Neo would disagree — it’s horrifying how vividly clear it has become over the past year just how far they WOULD like to move this country, how close they came before the Scott Brown implosion, and how much they managed to slip in anyway, even in their incompetence. Going forward, all they have to do is realize the need for a little more subtlety — and then, I fear, enough of us would go back to sleep that they could accomplish the rest of the agenda. Maybe the Pelosis and Reids and even Obamas aren’t smart enough to come to that realization — but they aren’t the only ones out there.
I think this revelation about Obama’s inner circle explains much. If he is marginalizing the Cabinet and really only taking advice from the Fab Four, then it explains the continuous campaign mode that is being used. He (Obama) truly lives in one of the most insulated echo chambers.
It looks like the entire executive branch is being run by 5 people, none of whom have any experience. Their hubris drives them, and their lack of experience along with keeping out any other opinions will eventually spell disaster.
Given this relevation, I begin to wonder not only about Clinton, but also how long the rest of the Cabinet hangs on before going into revolt mode.
Oblio made the point that many Obama supporters lack self-awareness of any desire to establish a fascist state. This is certainly true, and we can’t make the mistake of attributing the same motivations to all who are moving toward state control. Even someone like Soros may be less interested in the result of his efforts than in the feeling of power he gets from manipulating the world. Many others (the Joy Behar crowd) like the status. In the 50s, they would have discussed little more than the uncouthness of one who wore white shoes in April. But the largest group are those who don’t want to feel guilty and love the ideas of fairness and justice. I want fairness and justice, but I disagree emphatically with the idea that a monster state can do achieve this. Rather, it will cripple its people and screw things up royally
This large group has woken up a bit for now, but what of the younger people who will succeed them? This is why the education theme is so important. Degrading the intellectual skills and erasing historical context in an even larger group of Americans, while at the same time empowering them to greater political activism is a real danger. Even if the Obama agenda is toast, the problem isn’t solved. I see a long slog ahead and no certain outcome.
I join in with those who say that while Obama & Co.’s major initiatives appear blocked for the time being (but see my post above about Pelosi’s “trick,” and note the Democratic head fake, they have used over and over, of saying “the bill is dead” so that opponents relax their efforts in opposition, and then saying the bill is really “alive” the next day) it is not time to break out the Champagne, and I doubt that it ever will be with this wrecking crew.
Remember that this is a far Left Blitzkrieg, with dozens of operations, dozens of attacking columns–some in plain sight, some very quiet and covert, some the real thing, some fake–and all these operations taking place under the umbrella of a disinformation campaign designed to distract us, to dissipate our energy, to channel us in the wrong directions, and to get us to be fixated on and to look at the wrong hand.
In fact, it could be argued that Obama & Co.’s most pernicious work is being done by his Czars —unelected, un-vetted, partisans who report only to Obama who we are not paying attention to because we are focused on the “hand” represented by Health Care Reform, Cap and Trade, the Deficit and the Deficit and Debt–while the Czars (the other hand) are busily undermining the city’s walls.
Outside of Glen Beck’s investigative work on just a few of the Czars–Van Jones, Valerie Jarrett, Mark Lloyd, John Holdren and Cass Sunstein–has anyone seen any substantial reporting at all on the rest of the Czars? Other that a list of names, titles and pictures, do we even have any idea of who all these Czars are in any depth? Other than the few scraps of information on the prominent Czars listed above, have you ever even seen any description of what powers the Czars have, a comprehensive list of what initiatives they are pushing, or how much they are even being paid, and which account their pay is coming out of?
Remember that those 35 unelected, un-vetted Czars are busily working away–out of sight–on all sorts of efforts, working through regulation and policy changes that are not subject to any real Congressional oversight–unless brought to our attention–and have you noticed how little coverage i.e. basically, no coverage, the work of these Czars has gotten?
I suggest that these Czars are making changes and planting all sorts of IEDs throughout our administrative structure–changing policies and procedures, launching certain initiatives, squelching others, making funding decisions, likely appointing their people to key civil service positions (a practice called “burrowing” that will enable these appointees–unless removed as Obama & Co. are removing Bush burrowers–to have influence for decades to come); all steps designed to influence things under the surface that, cumulatively, may have a greater long term influence than Obama & Co.’s more showy initiatives.
Oblio,
what your trying to point out is what i said a long time ago. there is no plan in the sense of on X we do Y. but there is a “constant bias” and a system with a constant bias, no matter how small, will turn and eventually over time end up skewed all the way towards the bias if there is no opposing bias.
that is, what happens is a natural outcome of setting up the dynamics.
i am saying if you drop a 16 lb cannonball and you drop a 1lb grape shot they will hit the ground at the same time. why? because thats how the principals work.
others, who dont study history. dotn see histories past mistakes being turned into tactical moves. who dont want to admit that there ARE principals at work, nor do they want to read the people that worked them out (unless they are foreign and trite and popular).
i never said a plan
i always said that what you think will be a good outcome, will be the impetus to complete the task.
its no different than being in a fight and taunting the other one till they move outside their center of balance and into yours. to which in their anger you pull and throw them.
which is why the book i brought up.
its how a population bomb is armed.
duh
none of which favor your interpretation that he is leading us into a Reich.
not true!! its just that your beliefs dont allow you to see that the canon balls are falling at the same rate. you wont let any evidence in, and assert blindly that there isnt such. yet, we can list out easily over 100 things that shouldnt even exist if it wasnt going that way. not to mention, that MANY people with EXPERIENCE have been quoted, and pointed, and the general response is IMAGINATION is equal and on the same standing as experience and knowlege.
a bit back you went off and asserted that germany fell because they didnt have guns. yes. if i too had such false historical facts in my head, i would not be able to conclude or discern the sitution i am in. as long as you have some bad data in your assessments, your assessments no matter how worked out, are wrong.
this is why experience teaches ignorance normally and why our ignorance teaches experience doesnt work.
YOU keep making the wrong and FACILE argument that they copy like tin soldiers froma mold. so, you use the term REICH. why not the term DYNASTY? which is the term I use? oh yes, because you woudlnt be able to leverage the cache built up by the leftists to make your point by tying our reasoning (falsely) to some tight copy of the reich.
you never read me, so you never actually are debating waht we ACTUALLY say. you wont follow the links, beacuse withotu them, you can keep endlessly asserting that we havent proved anything. ie, ignorance is your sheild and you have learned to weild it in a way that makes you come off clever and smart, but tends to never conclude.
Reich – (with reference to Germany) empire; realm; nation / the German state, esp. during the Nazi period. by using reich to twist our words, our missive that he is rebuilding a nation (reich), becomes some horrid association to copying nazi’s down to the leather, and fetishes.
this is not a way to debate at all. the main point being that we never said it was a reich, and so your saying “none of which favor your interpretation that he is leading us into a Reich”…technically we can put any term we want in place of reich. and those who are not clever enough will not realize that. none of which favor your interpretation that a dog is leading us into a pickle
see? still true… and no, we would never be able to meet your false goal post of the dog leading us into a literal pickle. however the fact that we cant prove your target absurdity says absolutely nothing as to the validity of our assertions which never said reich.
the bs logic of: germans had hammers…nazis used hammers….so those that use hammers are nazis…and building a reich.
what we are saying is: germans had done things which when isolated become political tools…that those willing to use those same political tools and orchestrate situations to create them, have the same power goal of control that every despot (including nazis) has. that such tools are antithetical to the proper function of a REPUBLIC where lords and such are our employees. and if they are free to use such tools, they are not going to create utopia, they are going to create somethign similar to things we dislike in the past (but having their own creative stamp on it).
why? because a chisel chips away, and is not used as a screwdriver to make adjustments to some valve.
if FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION…then what does that imply about the tools used to create a form to follow function? does this sound anything like we are saying its a reich? or does it show that your using bs collective stuff to seem to win your argument, when your not at all, since what your claiming is never our argument
remember, you have asserted many many many times that you dont read this! so, you’re just like the left liberal who comments as to the content of glenn beck. so much so that you even use the same silly arguments to belittle a rational point that you CANT win a debate on by any other means. its really insulting, not clever…pissing on people and telling them its raining
and this isnt a dig, or an attack. its a statement of fact that no one ever ever said that they were building a copy of the third reich any more than castros despotism is a copy of the third reich. maybe if you read us, you might actually find the proof you require to the actual point we are making. ignorance does not replace knowlege. you can make knowledge look stupid by being ignorant, but ONLY to others who are ignorant too. in a way, its a way of winning over the brain-damaged by being brain-damaged and thinking like they do.
[edited for length by neo-neocon]
Can somebody own up to who was the first one to use the word Reich Hux and Oblio.
You guys are wonderful commenters.
I just don’t know where you are coming from on the Reich stuff.
Remember, I’m here in CA where the leftist agenda isn’t stopped like it is on the federal level.
We are on that Road to Serfdom….
From art’s text:
by using reich to twist our words, our missive that he is rebuilding a nation (reich), becomes some horrid association to copying nazi’s down to the leather, and fetishes.
this is not a way to debate at all.
the main point being that we never said it was a reich, and so your saying “none of which favor your interpretation that he is leading us into a Reich”
I gather it was the camp that is making the argument that………. well…. you give me the argument so I can hear it directly from you! 🙂
It is my view that we are on the Road to Serfdom unabated in CA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Serfdom
Read those books and maybe then you will start to understand those terrible times, and why the German middle classes folded, and realize just how silly drawing any parallels between those times and the current utterly inept Obama administration.
actually not.. since academia after wwii couldnt even get it straight that they were so close in ideology that they switched sides constantly. that is, revisionist history sought to hide the fact that communism and nazi fascism were very close to each other. almost the same ends, almost the same symbols, the same people, the same methodologies.
how do i know? because my family lived through it as conscripted soldiers of the reich, and as slaves to stalin twice. the sad thing is that even in kershaw you can see the points i have been trying to make. that the situation you think is good, is a critical part to the fulfilment of a process.
How did a talentless, unemployed house painter come to lead Europe’s most powerful country, smash the best organised working class in the world and establish a monstrous dictatorship?
what you didnt get from kershaw, and you should have is that the ideology of marx was written by a man who couldnt function in our modern world and compete and accept constant change as reality. well, look at hitler. same things. stalin too. and mao. its the mentality of those who fear real progress uncontrolled. but if you really understood the history and people at that time that were players, even fromkershaw, you would have realized that the reichs masters were incompetent!
hitler like obama couldnt run a business. didnt know how they functioned, was steeped in the ideologie of the time. and if you actually have read ALL The works not just the ones put out more on display, you would know that the holocaust was a critical part of the IDEOLOGY of MARX… and that what hitler did was pick a way to realize it. just as stalin did. just as the american progressives.
not one road, many roads. and taking many roads to the same place does not prove that all of them are not going there because they are not taking the one road most travelled
you can see kershaw skewing things a bit when he points out that “he was a committed German nationalist” in Hitler: 1889-1936. it was convenient for him to remove the socialist label, and to then avoid connecting hitler to marx and engels missive of a “revolutionary holocaust” would sweep the world washing it.
missing from kershaw is MARX antisemitism!!!! so all of that hatred is then beleived to come from hitler. but not so, its a key part of the marx ideology and prophetic tradition!!!! (where desciples help the prophet by forcing the fulfillment of the prophecies before their time. its a cargo cult fashion view that if they force the otcome early, the conditions will create the outcome. kind of like being a dentis and knowing your patient will come on friday, but you set up shop for that patient on monday believing that doing so will bring them in earlier and not the time that they are supposed to come)
Kershaw provides powerful evidence which refutes the argument put by US historian Daniel Goldhagen, among others, that the Nazis came to power because their lurid anti-Semitism attracted mass support from the German people, who were in some way predisposed to the ‘elimination’ of the Jews.
ah… but kershaw doesnt go into what people experiences at the ground level. what he is MISSING is the magazine articles (on i linked to here but neo edited out), in which pamplets and articles (like the insurection piece makign roudns now… hows that for same), that made specific false arguments. one of these was equal representation as a function of population make-up.
that is, the idea that if there are 10% X type of person in the population, then there should only be 10% in every other area equally. if not, then its a sure sign of cheating by those people and they are labeled as oppressors
i can get you a copy of the articles asserting that in the german press. over time it made kristalnact.. as PEOPLE took their agner out at the oppressors who were only 3-4% of the population but ran 20% of banks and businesses.
where have we heard that argument today and in which administrations and groups. well, race groups use the argument to get people angry at those who are disproportionate. making white people into oppressors (and the targets of that blue book going around).
who else? well men are disproportionately in business, and saying its a mans world was akin to in the past saying it was jews that ran everythign, its a jewish world.
this is how much we copied!
in germany, it beacme we are going to attack and remove the oppressors and make it a fair equal world for germans, and take back the unfair share that made germany a jewish state. sounds very nazi doesnt it? well, listen to the race mongers here, and how van jones said that those who are over represented have to step down. why? beacuse here its a white mans world… or a mans world… or a fat cats world. same functional technique, differen operative points.
its as if people cant grasp X + Y = Z if values of X and Y change… 2+2 = 4 is completely different than 1+ 1 = 2… they refuse to see the argument that encompasses both and makes equivalent that before seemed completely unique. why? because we pay attention to qualities, not principals of operation!!!!!!!!!!!
reading kershaw you can read the myths whole and never have germans or experience to tell you he is wrong. the fact that he is loved and pulbished and the left doesnt jump on him should tell you something!!!!!! but it doesnt. they have employed the same tools to acquire the same end. power. what they will do with that power says nothing as to what they are doing to aquire it and more.
it was not hitlers desire to end the jews (who were considered the bourgegie who ran companies like they do in india now, and like they evolved away from), that brought him into power and did all that. it was his acheiving power that gave him the ability to project his own version of socialism. the idea is that they are different since the next one is always supposed to be an EVOLUTIONARY version. under this, hitler and stalin were ameoba. crude, inexperienced, but the first life of socialism. later versions of russia, and sweden are like the ameoba differentiating into other creatures inabiting niches more effectively than one global creature
now, we are way ahead and we cant see the tie back to the ameobas…but just as humans tie back to single cells of their origin so do they. in fact this kind of talking is more of the kind they do when they look at things as they see a population as a body, they see themselves as the most important brain… and they see those that disagree with them as a cancer and sickness that the body has to remove…they see innovation as a cancer too, as it disrupts the harmony of the body as a whole.
reading kershaw, you get easily the idea that he is playing with you. but you hacve to want to catch him at it. not be a blind student with a mind so open that any crap can enter it once some false key is made to unlock being critical.
kershaw and others are the reason why we cant see them copying things that happened as tools today from accidents yesterday. the way they see it, is that the accidents of the past that did something, are like penicillan today once systemized. this is definitely not to say that kershaw doesnt have a lot to offer, he does. but one has to realize that he is also desperately trying to save communism!! and so he is very careful not to let you know marx behind this. and careful not to let you know how similar they are, by focusing on the differences.
[edited for length by neo-neocon]
The Road to Serfdom doesn’t have to mean holocausts or people in ovens or gas chambers.
correct!!!!
but if you require such in your definitino and proof of such before you conclude
then all other despotisms are free to enter, while they wait for a silly condition that has nothign to do with despotism, but more with what despotism CAN do after the fact
A reading of history indicates that most communist regimes are realized through violent revolution while Fascist states are usually more evolutionary in their origins, especially in cases of fascism evolving from more benign forms of governments, such as democracies of some type — a step by step takeover, frequently using a society’s own laws to further the process.
give this guy a big kewpie doll
let me restate that short!! (i can do this this time!)
if one were to see ice form naturally and see ice form supercritically… one might decide that the final state they reach is different.
its not.
its just that in one form, supercriticality, the state changes suddenly
and in its other form, you can see stages leading to things and moving towards ice.
the problem in the second thing is, AS I HAVE SAID 100 times and that may be literal, is that you cant tell which direction your heading in.
in the middle of water with some ice, are you moving towards freezing or moving towards melt?
the whole game in a fascist converstion is to make them think that the actions theya re doing will bring melt, but instead bring freeze!!
ergo my assertion that what you think is good is not as they are masters of inversion. that is masters at making you run enthusiastically to the WRONG goal post believing the yelling your hearing is screams of joy, not screams trying to tell you to turn away!!!
in this kind of thing, he left progressive useful idiots work hard, and if they see more ice when they lif their heads they work harder. except that their actions are inverted and the harder they work the more ice they see so the harder they work.
that is, their reflexes as a group are being used over their reflexes as individuals.
you are all expecting individuals to become opposition groups.
but to them this opposition group is the counter revolition of the fascist right!!! and so, the communists will kill them to save their place. if the communists lose, then the otehrs will change the communists.
either way, we as prols get totalitarianism..
[and living under one or the other, you would be surprised which you would find nicer and easier to live in]
put another way
when they are opposed soon, they will work hard with the desperation of westerners thinking they will stop a new reich, of which the only thing that can do that is complete communism.
so ANY opposition they get is feulded by the horror of allowing a new hitler to take up a place rather than a new stalin (whom they worship)
the silly part they dont get is that the difference between lucifer and beelzebub is not really a choice.
Tim P for President!
my comment didn’t register, for some reason
So the Obama administration is running the country with the same skill as the Democrats running Chicago.
That explains a lot.
Lazarus Long: not just the same skill; the same integrity, too.
Got the same weather now, too.
The Obama administration has argued that warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in their–or at least their cell phones’–whereabouts. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers say that “a customer’s Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records” that show where a mobile device placed and received calls.
A decade ago, New York City officials were so reluctant to give out food stamps, they made people register one day and return the next just to get an application. The welfare commissioner said the program caused dependency and the poor were “better off” without it.
Now the city urges the needy to seek aid (in languages from Albanian to Yiddish). Neighborhood groups recruit clients at churches and grocery stores, with materials that all but proclaim a civic duty to apply – to “help New York farmers, grocers, and businesses.” There is even a program on Rikers Island to enroll inmates leaving the jail.
Ahmadinejad: Iran Now ‘Nuclear State’
they announced that they have enough for a bomb
Now, They Call It “Hate Speech”
Not so long ago, they proudly called it “dissent.”
dont worry, this crushing of the free under a false label was never dont in russia, germany or china. to say so would be to add feul to the conspiracy.
no matter what happens, its not the same
no matter if they decided to come after bloggers who have commented, and your fined or jailed and forced to work (like tommy chong 🙂 ), that this labor and such is a completely different thing than being thrown in jail for your beleifs back in german, russia, etc. ‘
remember, when we do the same thing
its different
right?
Komsomolskaya Pravda admits thatnow that Victor Yanukovich won, russia and the ukraine are now buddies like in old times.. (any one other than me realize that the ukrainian people would not lilke this?)
this completed the removal of Viktor Yushchenko, who was poisoned in a previous attempt to remove him so that russia was favored again
[but its not a conspiracy!! the kgb did not try to poison the president. he accidently drank dioxin in his cornflakes. ]
basically NATO loses the Ukraine to russia
it looks like they are working very hard to remove Yulia Tymoshenko…
I used the word Reich up at the top not to make any associations with Nazis and leather, but to point out that the claims being made about Obama’s motivations and desired outcome are quite serious and extraordinary.
Obama is not merely moving us left to European-style government, but he intends to create a full-out fascist state and he has the resources to do so as President in the next eight years.
Again, these are extraordinary claims and about the worst thing one could say about an American president.
And yes, we’ve been over this in the past. However, it’s now several months later and it’s worth revisiting IMO to see which scenarios are favored by reality.
(1) The American people have mobilized overwhelmingly against Obamaism.
(2) Obama’s signature bills have been stopped cold so far
(3) Nothing has come from Obama’s threatening displays towards Limbaugh, Fox News etc, which were considered important indications of Obama’s tyrannical intentions.
(4) The economy is low and stagnant but has not been destroyed as some said.
(5) Obama and his administration have shown themselves to govern poorly and unpersuasively, which leads me to ask how such poor executors can be expected to pull of some kind of coup.
Bascially “Obama as prospective tyrant” has been a poor predictor of the past several months.
One can of course stick with the mindreading of Obama’s tyrannical motives and the alarmist speculations of what he can and will do, but it’s not been a winning formula for the past several months.
We are only nine months away from the mid-term elections in which Obama will lose even more power.
quite serious and extraordinary.
As they should be. His style is not one that I’d like to see in a President in the future. His style is crony capitalism, rewarding supporters, punishing opponents, class warfare, bash the Cambridge police, insurers, banks, anybody he disagrees with, rewarding United Auto Workers union, smacking Supreme Court judges with untrue language, labeling people constantly with untrue characterizations…
Look at the text of George Bush speeches and you will not find this level of divisive rhetoric. Unless Bush was referring to the extremists his rhetoric com complimented Ted Kennedy and co-authors of NCLB or the Prescription Drug program. Maybe you disagree but I do not see barbs or policy aimed at so many groups of Americans by Bush.
Here in CA – fuhgetaboutit. If you are successful you have a target on your back. A news story recently here in Sacramento highlighted this couple who CHOSE to spend 3300 per month on a home in 2005 and are walking away from their home even though nothing has changed but the value. Nobody lost their job, they are able to afford their payment. The reporters blasted the bank for not modifying the principle of the loan as if this couple was OWED a loan modification.
Out here in loony left land – that was a news story.
So yes huxley – I think it is legitimate to talk about the desired outcomes of leftists as “quite serious and extraordinary”.
It is fascism – by definition. I’m not talking ovens and gas chambers. I’m talking an ideology that pits americans against each other. Obama, journalists, CA legislature, The Senate and House – these are all people interested in exercising their power and they are doing it fairly successfully.
Debt is 100% of a year’s GDP. The deficit is 10% of GDP. CA is having issues meeting it’s obligations and letting out criminals on the street.
Huxley,
Are any of these Obama abuses Hugo Chavez-esque in any way?
a) The taking of GM and Chrysler and giving to the UAW
b) The rhetoric towards the Supreme Court judges, Anthem Blue Cross, Bankers, Doctors, Insurers in general and police?
These things could be from Venezuelan newspapers in my mind.
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2010/02/obamas-budget-2.html
Oh yeah
http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/02/09/martin.obama.republicans/index.html
CNN makes Obama’s case…
Again, these are extraordinary claims and about the worst thing one could say about an American president.
So? Are you going to rat on us to the teacher, Huxley?
huxley: no, you used the word “Reich” to create a strawman to misrepresent the words of others, which you could then feel smug about knocking down.
huxley: and by the way, your comment of 4:06 PM is an excellent example of the straw man genre. I don’t believe that most people here were saying Obama would absolutely succeed in a statist takeover that reduced our liberties and advanced socialism. The fact that so far he has failed to do so (because, fortunately, the special election of Scott Brown has seemed at the moment—and, hopefully, for the foreseeable future—to have stopped Obama, Pelosi, et al in their tracks) has nothing to do with whether they had every intention of setting up such a system. The latter is what I, and most of the commenters here who agreed, was asserting.
If you continue with this straw man stuff, you will officially have crossed over the line into troll.
It may come to pass that Illinois will be a trainwreck for Democrats in November. Now, wouldn’t that be sweet beyond expressing?
huxley: no, you used the word “Reich” to create a strawman to misrepresent the words of others, which you could then feel smug about knocking down.
neo: This is strictly mindreading on your part and untrue.
Which is one of my objections to your characterization of Obama as a prospective tyrant.
Yes, that is one way to interpret his behavior, but not the only way.
However, the fact is that none of us knows for sure goes on behind Obama’s smooth, closed exterior, and we are still flailing about trying to figure him out.
I don’t believe that most people here were saying Obama would absolutely succeed in a statist takeover that reduced our liberties and advanced socialism.
neo: And that’s not what I said. What I did say:
he intends to create a full-out fascist state and he has the resources to do so as President in the next eight years.
I recognize that your side is not certain that Obama can do so, but unless I have misunderstood what people are saying, you are talking about some fascist outcome very serious and very possible for Obama to accomplish. If you are just talking Obama as a wannabe FDR, we can stop arguing now.
Give the United States’ long and entrenched history of democracy, the strength of its Constitution and the resilence of its people, the basic center right nature of its citizens, the current wealth and stability in spite of recent challenges, the tyrant Obama scenario always struck me as quite a remote possibility, and events since have borne that out.
Your side, it seems to me, has consistently overestimated Obama’s capability and ruthlessness, and underestimated the strength of America and its citizens.
I guess Chrysler wasn’t taken and given to the uaw.
The citizens lost on that issue and others.
In fairness, huxley, it is dangerous to underestimate your opponent. Your response would be that it can also be dangerous to over-estimate your opponent, and you would be right.
You have been consistent from the beginning in warning that loose rhetoric and name-calling are dangerous to the Resistance, because they turn away people who could be and probably should be allies. I remember that you, Fredhjr, and I went round and round last winter on the question of to what degree Obama could be legitimately described as a socialist. I suspect that you didn’t want to use the word “socialism” technically because you know that some people will throw it around as a content-free scare word; and that plays into the anti-anti-communist narrative into which the blue-state people we know have been indoctrinated.
I also remember that huxley was calling the turn in Obama’s political fortunes last spring, when it became clear that the Democrats were committed to directions–politicized stimulus, deficits, international apology tours, energy and health policies–that the vast majority of Independents would not be willing to take. This was not a matter of clairvoyance, but of analysis.
Baklava, you are right about a lot of things, including your point about car company nationalization. Good money after bad, and utterly hopeless, unlike the TARP program, which was always a good bet to take. You are also right about how out of control the progressives can get on the local level. I sometimes daydream about buying real estate in California, near my relatives; but then I come awake with a jerk and ask myself why I would ever willingly expose the fate of my property to the California Legislature. I have started daydreaming about Alabama and Texas instead.
Artfldgr, I like your point about “constant bias.” You understand the problem as being that of a dynamic system of evolutionary strategies, and not in terms of static labels–which are themselves the products and tools of particular strategies.
Thank you Oblio.
I see the actions I listed above as something that Hugo would be proud of.
We should be alarmed.
Yes we should be careful with our rhetoric so that it is persuasive.
I don’t believe most things said here on this blog should be the focus of thought police. The reason why I post here is because it is fairly free of the weeds and unreasonable ugly people.
It is better than most newspaper comments like the Washington Post and the Sacramento Bee. There… you find totally non-persuasive people cluttering up the place.
An interesting development:
http://tinyurl.com/ygewu8k
Oblio: Thanks, as ever, for a calm, thoughtful response.
Yes, some amount of overestimation of threat is necessary and sane. However, past some point it is wasteful and even crazy. Finding the happy medium can be difficult.
Most of the discussion in this blog has focused on the threats and possible threats Obama poses with little or no consideration of our defenses against Obama.
Although everyone promised that we wouldn’t go Obama Derangement Syndrome, IMO this blog has become deranged or close to it on the subject of Obama. I understand. I was quite concerned myself last summer.
However, Obama — whatever his ultimate intentions might have been — peaked several months ago, and the erosion of his power since has been spectacular and it doesn’t seem that he has hit bottom yet.
It’s clear that the fascist takeover theory has lost ground correspondingly and my optimistic scenario has done quite well.
The tenor of discussion here has shifted some, but not all the much. I’ll be curious to see how that develops or doesn’t.
Rahm and Barak go way back, they both ran Rod Blagoievitch’s first gubernatorial campaign. Ran as in the hands-on architects of it.
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