Detroit: Downsizing America

Liberals as well as conservatives are dumbfounded, taken off guard, outraged by president Obama’s handling of the Libyan situation; committing American troops into a theater of ‘kinetic military action’ without clear goals defining ‘victory’; without formally addressing the U.S. Congress or the American people. This means that this president must be intending to go it alone, much like Syrian president Assad is apt to do - or Kaddafi, for that matter.

Obama keeps hinting that this operation will be short and sweet after which time we’ll be out of there and wash our hands of the killing. History shows, however, that this sort of thing has a habit of dragging on. I listened to Dan Henninger last night. He’s one of my favorites on the WSJ editorial staff, but even he had it wrong. He views the conflict as ‘something’ sweeping the Middle East; something so powerful, it cannot be stopped or its direction determined. I do not believe in some amorphous ‘something’. Unleashed? Yes, the way someone might unleash an attack dog. Directionless? No. We all know where it’s headed, but are afraid to say it out loud.

America is not America without also being a super power. Yet, we can plainly see that it is this administration’s intention to degrade us to some unspecified common denominator. I don’t remember the president campaigning on a platform to make America worse. We all fell for the ‘change’ routine while assuming that ‘change’ meant ‘better than Bush’.

This sentiment is not exactly new. Liberals have in the past often promoted the banning of SUV’s on the premise that SUV’s are dangerous to smaller cars. It would seem that, if SUV’s are indeed so dangerous (to smaller cars), it is the smaller cars that should be banned.

I didn’t make this up. I’ve heard the argument before. At the time, we all laughed about it and didn’t take it seriously. Now, it seems, we’re coming face to face with it. The new norms, as presented to us, clearly strive to downsize America.

My question is: How far down are we willing to go? What exactly does Obama have in mind? Perhaps the ‘greens’ can give us some clue: A country bereft of energy; its people taking up farming, herding, bartering, canning… Sounds like Pol Pot to some degree. (I don’t think that Obama would send his goons out to shoot me for lighting up a cigarette or reading a book; but who knows, all that might still be in the offing. Neither would Obama order the burning of medical journals as the Taliban are wont to do. But the effect of Obamacare would essentially amount to the same.)

There are many ways to skin a cat – or fox. I’m sure Obama knows them all. Yesterday, I noted from my stats that nobody read anything I posted on my blog that day. I was convinced that someone had blocked my feed. It seemed reasonable to assume, especially since it’s been going blazes. Today, it’s back to normal. I do wonder what happened.

As for the fox: There has been a fox that parked itself all morning in our backyard, enjoying the trickle of sun. He was a chubby, healthy looking thing; lazy as all get out; yawning, snoozing, stretching, and the like. There’s a specific spot by the old sugar maple where all the animals come when they’re hurt. Last year, a deer with a bum leg spent a couple of days there, its mate alert and watching from across the fence. After a couple of days, both wandered off as if nothing had happened. I remember, a long time ago, our various cats would hang out there as well.

I believe there are specific spots on this earth that are ‘power centers’. Usually great cities are built around such places. I’m wondering if it is possible to kill such spots – pave them over; seal them. Probably not. If so, what’s happened to Detroit? (The obvious answer is liberalism.) What else might be hatching there?

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

No Remorse

Any written document exists at best as a shorthand in support of a theme. Any sentence within it must not and cannot be regarded as absolute truth. It can only be an approximation. Haiku is a Japanese art form in which three lines of writing aim to convey a broader concept. It usually amounts to a pictorial. The intended effect is a feeling that often defies definition.

When I say, “Obama is out to destroy the nation”, I do not mean by it that he will order the military to carpet-bomb America. And even if true, the landmass would remain along with most of its people. What I really mean is (and it has surfaced at various times, embedded in various terminology) that he is out to fundamentally 'change' the nation. He has said so himself. But we, as heretofore optimistic Americans, automatically jump to the conclusion that this American president would strive to make America a better place - at least, better than it has been. ‘Better’ meaning that all ships are raised by what he intends.

Having watched our president over the past two years, I find this is not the case. The part about ‘change’ is still applicable, but the one about ‘better’ is clearly not. As I look around, I cannot fail to see that now, two years later, everything is worse. The press does not trumpet it as they did with Bush, but nevertheless housing, jobs, and the economy in general are barely limping along. The world too, is a much more dangerous place as rogue nations, seeing America taking a back seat, are flexing their muscles.

All this could not be happening by accident. There is a plan. The plan for the past two years has been to diminish America’s influence in the world. In order to achieve this, America itself needs to be diminished. And this program is proceeding unimpeded.

You may ask yourself, why would any American - never mind the president - be complicit in such a program? The answer is: because he believes it. There are citizens living here who actually hate this country. It stems from a condition of profound narcissism. They look around and see huge problems elsewhere and erroneously assume that America - universally acknowledged to be the greatest power and influence in the world today - is at fault; that everything our nation has ever done has led to this condition; and, worse yet, that America has profited unjustly by it. Therefore, the answer they arrive at is that America must be cut down to size.

They recruit the like-minded, the weak-minded, the corrupt, and those hostile to America from overseas to form a coalition to bring this about. Our president, sadly, is among these.

It may make some sense when written within the frame of a history text or doctoral dissertation. It may even earn one honors by the way in which it was expressed, the balance, symmetry and beauty of the argument. But actual geopolitics does not necessarily conform to academic theory, however elegant. As I suggested at the outset, dogma is but a shorthand (set in stone) for utopian dreams.

There are so many factors that play into the reality of a single situation, it would overflow every existing library in the world just to house a minute fraction. Therefore, it is sheer madness to reduce these to just one or two simple solutions and then to pursue these come hell or high water.

Of far greater import is one’s love for one’s country, one’s faith in one’s people; and of wanting to do what’s best for them. In other words, to subscribe to the concept of 'exceptionalism'. Not to wallow in one’s self-loathing. Also, it’s always so much more effective to lead by example; to begin at home, or with oneself even: to develop discipline; to eschew bad habits; to remain vigilant and caring for those whose situation it may be in one’s power to affect.

Barack Hussein Obama, for whatever reason, wants to go down in history as having changed (no less than) the world. For this, he seems to be willing to sacrifice his own. It will not work. The damage he would end up doing to America would reverberate around the world. No one will be immune - least of all he.

The story of Detroit is not what it seems on the surface. It is of jackals feasting on a carcass. It is of corruption sanctified by hatred - hatred for the whites that built this once great city on the backs of blacks. It is pay-back. It is kicking over the sand castle. It is the Palestinians destroying the greenhouses of Gaza.

Even if convicted, Kwame Kilpatrick will show no remorse.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

A Wound Bled Dry

It’s become tough to live in Detroit and in so many other urban centers. Theft, murder and arson have been legitimized by the culture much like jihad is endorsed by Islam. Kids who do well at school are ostracized for wanting to “be like whitey”. The same is true of people wanting to work at regular jobs.

Test scores in New York City public schools have been rising. Yesterday it was reported why. It seems that wrong answers on math tests now receive partial credit. Students are passed through the system without having learned. This makes them either into criminals or welfare recipients. Alternate means of scoring self-image must now be established.

Brutality becomes the new standard. Its rules are simple. Survive by yielding to the strongest element. Safety in numbers. Tribes. Gangs. “Lord of the Flies”. For those who manage to maintain at least some modicum of civilized behavior, the only answer is to leave.
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The 14-year old inner-city gang member - who openly admits to having killed - suddenly, finds himself in the glare of media attention. The shapely young reporter, feigning innocence, asks, "Why do you do it?"

Perhaps more astute than most; perhaps more articulate, he answers simply, "It's the thrill (of it); drama, you know?"

Her expression remains up-beat as he rambles on (now bitterly) about an absent father; a crack-addicted mother; hours, days spent alone in a dirty room without food and only the ever-present TV laugh track for company; adding, that the street was (in essence) the only way out. And that the only way to survive on the street was to be respected.

The point made, she tosses him a final salvo - a technique taught in journalism school, designed to involve the reporter personally in any scoop to generate empathy and thus draw higher ratings. "I take it then, that it would be unwise for me, for instance, to come down to your neighborhood alone, especially at night," she purrs, already with an eye towards her next promotion.

"I wouldn't necessarily think so," he answers directly. "Though that is your fantasy, you wouldn't have much to fear around here. You're not of our culture. We target mainly our own - those in whose faces we are most likely to recognize ourselves. It's ritual suicide. A bullet here amongst us means nothing. It only serves to (once again) access a wound that's long since bled dry."

It's Still Bush's Fault

No doubt, the Obama administration is going down in flames. Getting rid of this one and replacing him (or her) with this or that one is purely political theater – and, in this particular case, much like moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic.

It’s interesting to note that the blame game, particularly on the left, has already begun. Progressives, seeing the writing on the wall, won’t let this one go without one last salvo of the classic guilt trip directed squarely at the most sensitive part of American sensibility.

There can no longer be any question that the American people elected Barack Hussein Obama - not for his resume, but - for his skin color. In this way, they had hoped to put the lie, for once and for all, to accusations of racism that have been emanating unabated from certain quarters for decades. According to a new theory, hatched at the highest levels of academia, America’s contrition has come too late.

In a recent interview of Princeton ‘Politics and African-American Studies’ professor, Melissa Harris-Lacewell, on the Joe Scarborough morning show, he confronted her with Obama’s shortcomings since he’s been in office. Her rationalization, to my mind, was nothing short of astounding. She said that Obama had been left with a “hollow prize”; that, by the time Americans saw fit to elect a black man president, America had already been gutted, spent, used up; adding, that this is similar to blacks that have had the misfortune of having been elected mayor of failed cities like Detroit.

In other words, “It’s Bush’s fault.”

Things Turn Dicey

What was the money quote that seems to define this administration? - Something about never letting a crisis go to waste? Sounds like these guys are quite happy when things turn dicey. It gives the president another chance to get out there and blame Bush. Bush, after all, was the one who put the security apparatus that failed in place. Obama had nothing to do with it, it seems. This alone could easily give POTUS a month of talking points about 'hope and change' to distract from the poisoned pill health care bill (which will now sneak through under the radar). It will kill health care and the economy to boot, just as sure as the would-be bomber’s ex-Guantanamo denizen handlers fully expected to bring down that plane over Detroit. Only, the bomber was a kid with a serious attack of nerves. He probably peed in his pants which was likely the only thing that kept the explosives from going off.

Obama is no kid. He's not stupid. If he looks stupid to you, know that it's an act. Barack Hussein Obama is a committed ideologue. By now we should all know what his ideology is. He knows he must first break the back of this country in order to then build it up into what he has in mind. America is diminished, but survives yet. It survives despite the efforts of Obama and the Left. They can be expected to keep hammering away at it as long as they’re able: that Interpol thing, healthcare, cap and trade, immigration, spending, more spending - even the mishandling of the terrorist threat.

I attended a pre-New Year's Eve breakfast in my neighborhood yesterday. There were cucumber sandwiches, (German) Christmas Stollen, and English Breakfast Tea, quietly brewing in a pot wrapped in a cozy. I remember the liberal ladies asking me, "You don't mean Obama...?" eyes open wide, never finishing the question. It's too disturbing even to contemplate. I understood what was not being said, and did not object when they abruptly changed the subject.