The New America – Deja Vu All Over Again

The simple catch-phrase slogans bandied about for the past year were the thing of pop culture legend. Hope. Change We Need. Change We Can Believe In. Yes We Can.

Pabulum to the ‘downtrodden’… manna to the Constitutional deconstructionists… and justification to history revisionists everywhere. But prior to the election these euphemistic phrases were long on emotional incitement and glaringly short on substance. If words can be taken to mean anything…ultimately, they mean nothing.

Or so we thought.

Five months after the election we are starting to see that President Obama meant something very specific with these slogans that helped garner him the election. It just wasn’t quite what any of us Americans thought he meant.

No one really believed that this ‘new direction’ Mr. Obama wanted to take the country would pay anything more than lip service to the Marxist ideologies of history’s dark past. With such an infamous cast of predecessors as Stalin, Hitler, Khrushchev, Castro, Mao… who could ever juxtapose such a charming and ingratiating figure as the handsome young Senator from Illinois? And he loves his family and smiles so warmly. I get a thrill up my leg.

But if we can still our beating, fawning hearts for one moment, just long enough to focus on reality…perhaps we can begin to see what this Change-We-Apparently-Needed-and- Supposedly-Now-Can-Believe-In…really is.

In Europe this month, our president apologized for our arrogance. He apologized for us causing the world economic troubles. He apologized for George Bush, Gitmo, the war in Iraq, the trouble between Muslims and Everyone Else… and for the despicable evils of Capitalism.

At home, not one to let a Crisis go unexploited, the President turbocharged the printing presses at The Mint, poured nitro-methane into the spending machine and spun dollars out of our pockets faster than goose-down in a hurricane. Our grandchildren’s children’s children will be paying off our debt well into the next ice age.

After maintaining that they don’t want to micro-manage businesses, our president fired the CEO of a private company, promised to fire anyone from the private sector they don’t like, for any reason; and we are now asked to simply trust them to do the ‘right thing’. Bureaucrats, with no prior experience running a corporation, will now run Fortune 500 companies as it suits them, picking and choosing, micro-managing at will. TARP funds in play, bail-out funds clicking in, and bonuses held ransom, Big Government will stick-and-carrot American industry to its liking…or else.

And just the ghost of Chairman Mao: Behind every ‘or else’…is the barrel of a gun.

“Oh Gary, Gary, Gary… Aren’t you being just a bit melodramatic? A little paranoid? Just a tad over-the-top?” You think so? You think the federal government is just moving into American business as an ‘advisory council’ of some sort? Offer assistance and good advice where it’s needed, but backing out within the actual workaday mechanism of commerce, trade and business? And once the economy is booming again, the government will just graciously bow out…withdraw…go away?

Pinch yourself – you’re dreaming.

Ask yourself (and FDR apologists and sycophants need not apply) – How many of the freedom-shackling elements of The New Deal are still in place after seventy-six years? Answer: Nearly all of them. So what is the likelihood that in future elections, with future administrations, that freedom-loving people will be able to reverse these Draconian measures already set into motion by the Obama administration?

Slim and none — and Slim just left town.

Mr. Obama had quite the love-fest going on abroad at the G-20 event in England. Europeans love American Presidents who slam Americans. For you see, Socialism doesn’t work in Europe any better than is does here, and this pisses them off. It’s nice to have an American prez come out and claim that it’s all our fault. This fosters an American-European group hug with warm fuzzies and candy cane sentiments. And it doesn’t hurt either that he abdicates our national economic autonomy to the newly formed FBS (Financial Stability Board), an organization of twelve nations run by an Italian banker, that gives the U.S. one vote — even though our GDP is three times its closest rival (Japan).

This, I imagine, was concocted to take the edge off our ‘arrogance’.

Then he took the Magical Mystery Tour to four other nations that agreed we were arrogant and dismissive; he bowed low to the Saudi king…(oh, I’m sorry, I mean, leaned down low in the midst of his handshake to the monarch to admire the fine carpet.), and then, in turkey, by supporting the Wahabbists, dealt a non-support blow to the Turkish middle class who seek to maintain a secular Constitutional government.

Then, as North Korea launches a ballistic missile, Obama offered a stern ‘warning’ that North Korea’s missile launch will not be tolerated…and then went ahead and tolerated it. So much so, that the very next day he issues a statement that our missile interceptor program will be cut drastically. I’m not one to recommend increasing the size of government – ever… but I think perhaps a new cabinet position should emerge: a Secretary of Consistency.

So I listened with great interest this morning as the President addressed his teleprompters at Georgetown University on the Wonderful Successes of The Obama Administration Dealing with the Economic Crisis. And I just had to swoon. President Obama is so smart, he is going to take over the entire formerly free market, and then, against all odds, manage, fix and render it solvent, practical, efficient. Whew! Now I can finally get some sleep.

And, amazingly, the President even invoked Biblical words, as in “…build your house upon the rock.” — likening his plan, I guess, to being as solid as having Faith in Christ.

Uh…. Now that’s arrogance we can believe in!

Are you kidding me?? When in history has a collectivist central-planning federal government ever lead to prosperity? When has it ever lead to nothing but decline? Decline and decimation of freedom, liberty, enterprise, and the economy? When has shackling our engine of freedom, Capitalism, ever been a good idea for prolonged economic growth?

But the teleprompter rolls on. They have figured it all out for us. The President’s bullet-points sounded so efficient, and forceful, and humane. Organized approach to the financial crisis. Practical oversight tempered with responsible stimulus. Restored Fairness and Balance to our tax code.

Fairness? He reaffirmed his commitment “to provide tax-cuts to 95% of working families”. But what about ‘families’ who aren’t working? I will bet you dollars to donuts they still get a check. That’s how we define ‘fair’ now. People who don’t pay taxes get ‘tax break’ checks. And what about the 5% who don’t get tax cuts? Wellsir… their taxes are going to go waaaaaaaaayyyyyy up. Because they ‘can afford it’, dontcha know. How do I know that? Hey, ask any Liberal/socialist. They know. They have the innate ability to determine who can afford what. It’s a special class they take at the university, in the Humanities and Philosophy Departments nationwide – Rich Dude Take-Down, 101.

That will get the economy humming.

A typical reaction after an Obama speech is to feel hopeful…bolstered… inspired… even proud. But then, like a tailing off sugar-rush, you come down from the Obama high. And you’re more confused than ever.

Fairness? I don’t know what that means anymore. Sort of like Hope…Change…Yes we can. Meaningless fluff, concocted to elicit an emotional feel-good temperament…while control-hungry despots carve up our world and send our freedom up in smoke.

I’m curious to see how long before the voters beg for a do-over. And if the frog in the boiling water will be able to leap out…or whether if by then, it will be too late.

But I’m just being melodramatic.