Obama’s legacy
I concur with this prediction:
There will be no liberation of Mosul in 2016. The Islamic State will outlive the U.S. administration whose lapses in Syria and Iraq helped to create it. It will be the ugliest piece of Barack Obama’s legacy.
Except perhaps for that last line.
I’m not sure it’s the “ugliest piece,” but only because there are so many ugly pieces.
“Predication”?
I was visiting with a business associate the other day when I got the shock of my life.
This is a guy who 6 months ago was arguing the justifiability of ObamaCare on altruism grounds. When I stated it was a cost shifting atrocity meant to shift both wealth (through a hidden tax) and more perpetually, personal life energies and options through the collectivist participation mandate, he replied, “But where’s your compassion!?”
That was his argument. I pointed out what was happening to our liberty, and his reply was to refer to compassion. When I suggested an individual could be as self-sacrificing and compassionate as he chose and that nothing had ever prevented that, he said, “Yeah, but then others won’t make the same sacrifice”.
Yesterday his own compassion was most forcibly expressed by goddamning the government; and by calling Obama a lawless dictator ruling by executive order.
He even suggested he would vote for Trump, since Hillary is so onviously a crook.
What happened? His insurance went up a couple hundred percent, and he realized that his new and extremely busy business, which he works 16 hours a day, was not generating him the personal wealth he had hoped, because of taxes on taxes on taxes.
Said he hoped to find a way to do cash business. “I know people who are collecting government payouts for their kids, getting tax rebates on taxes they have not paid, and who are working under the table for cash. I’m here day and night busting my ass and my accountant says I don’t pay enough tax when I’m paying 50% all told.”
I told him that the problem was the law. The solution was not to join the law breakers, but to change the law. And I suggested that he say just what he said to me to some of his “friends” who retained views similar to the ones he had just a short while ago.
“I already have a target on my back now that I own this business, and I don’t want another one” he said.
I said , “You just called Obama lawless. You mentioned executive orders. Do you think that Trump has a more constitutional view of the role of the chief executive? Don’t you think people have to make up their minds whether they really want a dictator?”
He never answered; even though I repeated the choice in different terms a couple of times.
So … that is where we are in this miserable country and culture. Even when people get the truth, they won’t, or are afraid, to act on it … or even speak about it too freely. And frankly they don’t even really know what kind of government they want.
DNW:
You might be interested in the last paragraph of the Frost quote in this post.
As I might have said before online, the Left and Demoncrats were never going to Forgive the Iraqis to helping American patriots free them from tyranny. Hanging Saddam Hussein reminded the Left too much of many overlords and slave lords in American cities could be hung just like that.
That’s what they were really afraid of. Plus Clinton and Demoncrats were selling American secrets and weapons to enemies, and they didn’t want that to get out, especially for Saddam or Niger.
I felt that intuitive conclusion before 2008’s election, which is why I knew ahead of time that they were going to “collapse” the Afghan and Iraq front while people were paying attention their “Victory Lap” dance.
He never answered; even though I repeated the choice in different terms a couple of times.
He’s the same as those Nazi fascist obedient storm troopers. He Will Obey his Orders, no matter what they are. He is too weak and selfish to do otherwise.
neo…
I’d have to say it’s a dead heat:
IRAN
Libya
Iraq
Syria
Yemen
Egypt
Pakistan
Afghanistan
Turkey
and the hijrah into Europe.
Barry has shut down our production of Hellfire missiles… and much else.
Blert, shut down or just diverted to Russia and Syria to give to his Islamic buddies?
DNW,
Your friend, moved by the handle of his discontent by one social activist movement and then another, is a typical example of people is people and why the activist game is the only social cultural/political game there is.
The general will of We The People is – and has always been since the founding – a function of activism, the Narrative contest for the zeitgeist.
The salient point of your observation is that the political mass of your friend’s (and other people’s) discontent is up for grabs between competitive social activist movements.
The Democrat-front Left and then the Trump-front alt-Right have displayed the necessary activist mindset and skillset to harvest and mold that discontent for political utility.
In contrast, at the outset of this presidential election cycle, conservatives had appeared to be best positioned to utilize that same discontent to take political ground from the Democrat-front Left.
Except conservatives were self-sabotaged again by their chronic, fundamentally anti-competitive aversion to activism.
Conservatives and therefore the GOP have lacked sufficient activist mindset and skillset to harvest and mold the politically basic discontent under competitive conditions, virtually inviting any hungry ambitious usurper to exploit the gaping vulnerable opening. Trump-front alt-Right activists simply took up that invitation by swooping in to snatch the politically basic discontent out of the hands of conservatives.
Yet even now, incredibly, rather than undergo critical self-correction of their activist deficiency, conservatives in apparent denial have instead opted to decry the very same politically basic discontent that they need to utilize in order to bring about the social reforms they want.
The corrective steps that conservatives must make are, first, move on from protesting the social political nature of people and the politically basic discontent exploited by the Trump-front alt-Right; second, recognize that the same discontent is the necessary ingredient for conservatives to bring about the social reforms they want; and third, collectively, zealously and fully, and permanently adapt the activist method necessary to harvest and mold the discontent to make a difference.
Correcting course from Obama requires digging down to the premise level and re-laying the foundation of the public discourse by setting the record straight that, on the law and the facts, the decision for OIF was correct and then, in that frame, showing Obama’s course change from Bush, which is justified at the premise level by a demonstrably false narrative of OIF, was wrong. See the answer to “Was Operation Iraqi Freedom a strategic blunder or a strategic victory?”.
Many in the Alt right and conservative activists grew up during the Left’s sabotage of Iraq. It is a failure in their view and experience, and sometimes a painful one as well.
While there can be competing groups of activism in the same alliance, for example BLM vs Gaystapo on the Leftist alliance, the Republican/patriotic/Alt Right/conservative alliance is still in its early days.
At most, it’s been about 2-3 years. That’s not nearly enough to cement any kind of SOP.
There are two things that have created American patriotic activists. 1. The internet 2. Counter Cultures
With the internet, people with jobs and lives, can participate without marching, paid for by Soros of course.
The Alt Right is a Counter Culture blowback reaction against feminism, anti male hate, and so forth.
To get activists of the policy wonk sort to focus on Iraq, requires some time and retooling. Oh, there are paid DC special interests and talking heads, as there usually are, but they wouldn’t be the “activist” of the modern 21st century. They’re just paid professional players of the Game in DC. But DC isn’t the entire country, via the internet drawing together a lot of the Counter Culture. And more and more of those counter cultures are turning anti Leftist due to Leftist expansion and ruthless cruelty.
I recommend that people use the Left’s hypocrisy against them and instigate greater repressions against these cultures on the part of the Left. Make the occupation burn down more villages, thus recruiting more insurgents to the cause.
Today a reporter asked Obama about ISIL. ISIS is always ISIL to the Administration. And the MSM goes along when talking with government officials.
The name ISIL admits that this group extends beyond Iraq and Syria and is in the entire Levant.
Stupid concession by Obama.
A small thing but it drives me nuts. The fact that Obama and his minions stick with ISIL is stubborn and stupid. And the media suck ups play along.
DNW, regarding your friend. Dyed in the wool Democrats are like that, prefering the narrative to what they see with their own eyes. I always ask my wife why she votes Democrat. When I point out that three of the last four MA Speakers are convicted felons and the current one is an unindicted co-conspirator she just shrugs. It’s as if the rest of the MA House is a bunch of angels and the felons are an anomoly. It’s the same in all the Democratic strongholds, New York, Chicago, Detroit, on and on. They’re cesspools of corruption but the voters look the other way because of the political promises for handouts for the poor and the chance to feel virtuous for the well-to-do, charity without thought or effort.
charity without thought or effort.
Which is a perversion and heresy of the Christian charity and love, hijacking an existing culture or belief for megalomania power plays.
People do feel guilty and they do want to give back to their communities. Making children starve while only you get to hoard food and eat it has been ingrained in us to be against such instinctively. But the way the Christian heretics handle guilt is by having Democrats absolve them of such in return for taxes and votes. The actual direct helping of other people, isn’t allowed.
As such, while it deals with a person’s guilt, it doesn’t make them spiritually better or provide them with more independent/good ethics.
Cornhead, for what it’s worth, last time I checked, “ISIL” is the correct reference in AP Style, which is used by most media. A given entity can always have their own house style that supercedes AP Style, but by default, for those organizations which use AP Style (which would be most print and broadcast media) ISIL is the correct reference and a given writer/reporter would be incorrect in using “ISIS.”
The ugliest piece of Obama’s ‘legacy’ will be his facilitating and abetting the world’s movement into a new ‘dark age’. Obama has set a new standard in appeasement and treason.
But it’s people like the friend DNW describes, who have enabled the Obamas of this world. If there is a Lucifer, he’s laughing with delight.
Kyndyll
The AP is wrong for the reason I outlined above. Never concede an inch to an enemy.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/29/us/detroit-public-schools-bribery/
The parents interviewed elsewhere are speechless, and reeling at the thought that the school principals involved would do this to “our own kids”.
Apparently these parents just moved to Detroit, and have not read a newspaper in any of the last 40 years. About: The corrupt and indicted mayors, the criminal city council members, the Department of Public Works frauds, the corruption in the Water and Sewerage Department, the thieving police chiefs, the mismanagement by, and the self-dealing of, the school board.
He wanted to express his altruistic feelings; he just wanted to make sure that if he put any money in, everyone else did too. You know, otherwise this gesture toward the downtrodden might cost him something in relative social position and advantage.
I’m going to say something that is going to strike a some here as odd; especially given the fact that I have not exactly been preaching anything but a kind of libertarian shove-their-socialist/nihilist-vomit-back-down-their-own-throats till they choke to death, kind of morality.
But … if you tried, really and sincerely tried, even for a little while, to be truthful and transparent in every respect – not just fair dealing and honorable, but committed to dwelling in truthfulness and practicing an unremittingly virtuous will, if you could/can do that for even a few days, you would/will be shocked at how swamped we are in a miasma of petty, calculating, manipulative, self-dealing evil which suffuses every aspect our entire social world.
You get to the point where you ask yourself if frantic attempts by almost everyone to “establish the narrative” to one’s own advantage, to slant, tempt, taint, subvert, and undermine, are not really much more fundamental than politics. (and of course they are)
I know I sound like an Evangelical Protestant preacher here, or some Catholic mystic, but, people are bad: perhaps unavoidably, perhaps understandably, but woefully deceptive and calculating and manipulative, right down to their evolutionary survival-strategy cores.
It is almost enough to make you believe in a personification of evil.
No wonder that modern-liberals just abandon the notion of “truth” altogether, and shrug that ” ‘Evolution’ made me do it. “
The ugliest piece of B. Hussein O.’s legacy is B. Hussein O. himself.
Cornhead, the issue I’m pointing out here is that a reporter/copy desk editor/etc, doesn’t get to ignore style rules they don’t like or don’t agree with. If they do, and explain their actions to the editor by saying, “AP is wrong, so I’m doing it MY way,” it will not go well. I cringed every time I had to use the term “cactuses,” because it sounds idiotic, but that’s correct AP Style and I valued my job.
Not to derail the topic (or debate the rightness of ISIL vs ISIS), but it’s a sore spot of mine that people outside the media don’t necessarily realize.
Kyndyll,
Perhaps you should step outside. Breathe the free air for a change of perspective. Early morning walking the dogs I count 20, 30, and sometimes 40+ contrails over flyover country. Come to IA. We welcome friendly folks.
Cornhead Says:
April 21st, 2016 at 2:23 pm
It’s not the optics.
It’s the acoustics.
“I sis.”
Really.
!
ISIS prefers ISIL as its nic…
As you might figure — straight off.
Fourteen years as a road deputy taught me that Evil with a capital E exists, and I fully believe in Satan, as I have seen too many that do his works.
Theologically, the Christian God backs free will and Satan believed that he, Lucifer, would make a better Jesus than whatever God used for Jesus.
Satan wanted to save humanity from the pain of using free will, since with free will and agency, also came evil. Thus by proving to God that humans are hopelessly broken and by fighting/negating free will, Satan wins that argument or war with God.
After all, if you can make all of humanity into slaves that believe and wish their Free Will never existed… wouldn’t that be check mate.
And isn’t that what the Leftist alliance and Islam does. There is no will except the will of their fanatical god, for both cases.
So evil being evil has some reasons to it besides the obvious stuff people here have experienced. There’s an entire strategy behind that war and conflict. A strategy that may not necessarily be unveiled from theology and religious debates, but one in which applying Sun Tzu and Clausewitz would expose.
The ugliest parts of Obama’s legacy:
1) the usurpation of the powers of congress thereby laying the groundwork for dictatorship in the US,
2) the acceptance of terrorists in Iran having nuclear weapons,
3) Obamacare eating up the American economy from the inside.
We should remember that he was elected, not appointed. The real villains are the voters.
Frankly I am looking forward to have a mere criminal like Hillary as President as opposed to a fascist America hater like Obama.
“…but only because there are so many ugly pieces.”
And it’s a dead cert that it will get worse.
One question remains: How much more will Obama be able to damage or destroy in the eight months that remain in his presidency?
The answer: As much as he possibly can.