Heavy On The Gas

"...we like natural diasters as bookmarks in our chronicles. Earthquakes, flood, tsunamis, volcanoes all appear to be outside of history and non-partisan." - John Batchelor.

I really like your description of natural disasters as ‘non-partisan bookmarks’. I guess it’s been in the back of my mind ever since RE uttered the words, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”

I just finished listening to Aaron Klein’s Sunday show in which he parsed Barack Hussein Obama’s speech last week re the Middle East. Aaron’s weekly radio program is the kind of radio The John Batchelor Show used to be; and, in somewhat diluted form, still is.

Putting aside what Aaron actually had to say, the very fact that we cannot comfortably take Obama’s words at face value is troubling. Does he support Israel, or does he not? The jury is still out on that. An argument can be made either way. Does he understand the linkage between Israel and America as it has traditionally served? And, in a more immediate sense: What does he intend for America? Again, a variety of opinion prevails.

We’ve come a long way from trying to figure out whether Bill Clinton had sex with Monica Lewinsky or not. The argument we’re having today brings it much closer to home. It puts us in the crosshairs. After two and a half years, we are still at a loss to explain who our president is and in whose interests he might be working. Meanwhile all the metrics by which we have traditionally judged administrations are telling us we’re going down.

It seems what we write here has very little impact; that even what JB and his guests may say on his mighty New York ‘blowtorch’ megaphone is but a thimble’s worth of utterance tossed into the great torrent of popular babble. I think we’re all smart enough to know that no one really cares what we say or write. If people should actually begin to care, it would probably be wise to stop. Mitch Daniels and Donald Trump (among others) seem already to have reached this conclusion.

It is, after all, only ourselves we aim to please. Unfortunately, whether by design or accident, we remain our own severest critics, forever seeking approval from someone ‘outside’. The more astute among us, perhaps, eventually come to realize that there is no one really out there – never was; never will. Call this futile exercise good old-fashioned ‘blame-shifting’.

At one time, there was a great debate to determine the center of the universe. As is customary in any such endeavors, the first three reports were wrong – and from the look of things, all subsequent reports may be wrong as well. In fact, the question may be so absurd as to not even deserve consideration.

Given all we have to worry about, it’s a small matter indeed, intended only for GPS fanatics – as is worry about apocalypse; rapture; the 12th Imam’s well; etc. These are not things we can actually do anything about. What does appear to be possible is for us to handle our own affairs with due care and dignity. And even in that we too often fail (Schwarzenegger, Strauss-Kahn).

When a nation fails, it seldom fails from the outside. It fails from within. It fails due to the fractures and divisions induced by uneven emphasis. By that score, we have failed already – even before Barack Hussein Obama started sporting his first legitimate tooth. Our president is merely the driver whom we have chosen to drive our bus. Netanyahu happens to be on that bus as well. He now wishes he weren't - as he now raises the alarm, saying that our driver may be a little too heavy on the gas.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Cutting Off The Nose

“…he was becoming exasperated with his failure to give him a jobs plan he could sell.”

Is that how these people see themselves - used car salesmen? I thought a president was elected ‘to preserve and protect’; to run things (and not into the ground). I guess I’ve been wrong all along when it comes to this bunch. At least they’re still selling - not yet at gun point. Aside from the fact that governments create only incestuous jobs, they don’t seem to understand that selling always involves no less than two parties. Both have to agree for the deal to go through. So far, there is no deal. The public is not buying.

I heard recently in passing that one of the Federal departments got rid of all their Fords and replaced the original fleet with Chevies. The Chevies were termed ‘junk’ (by the insider) and declared unsuitable to their purpose. Clearly, a conflict. Understandable that the government was wanting to push its own brand - suitability be damned.

When the public favored Ford over Chevy, it did so to make its position clear. All things were not equal. The public preferred one over the other . One accepted a government bailout; the other did not. Buying a Ford proclaimed one’s feeling toward the issue.

No matter how intense the advertising (selling), the public will not buy a ‘socialist mop’ - not the American public at any rate. It’s got to be forced down their throats - gavage. Obama and crew may see us as geese, but that’s not how we see ourselves. We will fight back in our own way.

We know their game: They want jobs so they can trumpet success and collect taxes to fuel their agenda. They make it seem like we are the ones wanting the jobs. We don’t.

If we wanted jobs, we’d get it done. Long before it dawned on Republicans to ‘starve’ offensive government outreach (to Muslims, unions, communists and the like), we the people were already deeply engaged: dragging our heels, holding back, starving (if you will) the government’s ability to proclaim a meaty victory.

We recognized long before the government did - before the media did - that only we could create jobs; that we were the only ones with that power. We could turn off the spigot - and we did. They say socialism fails wherever it‘s tried. Socialism doesn‘t fail; the public rejects it. Cutting off the nose is a worthy sacrifice if the face is no longer the face of America.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Newsreels

Pictorial essays of any possible consequences of hard-fought policy decisions are never hard to find. I’m thinking of the film, “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu“ to which we soon may be referring as Obamacare begins to kick in. Or, of concentration camp footage when we begin to really think about our latest (non)stance regarding Israel and Iran.

Been listening to Malcolm these past few nights. He’s right on target about a lot of things. If anything, he may be understating it. Israel has always counted on the support of the U.S. In fact, she has felt herself so sure of America’s continued support, she has hardly blinked an eye when most of the ‘Quartet’ decided to turn their backs. Even in America itself, she has felt herself so invincible as to think nothing of embracing her enemies and mocking her friends. It was all such great fun! Rahm Emanuel. What a wonderful Jewish boy! they said. He’s a little screwed up, but he’s bound to learn. After all, he was smart enough to teach that Bush dolt a lesson or two.

I don’t blame the Diaspora. We fell for it too. Obama was the clean, nice-looking black guy. We elected him to prove something to ourselves - something intangible, but nevertheless vexing. Our liberal bent demanded that we give him a shot. How could it hurt? America would always be America. If things go wrong, we can always turn it around. What we didn’t count on was his hatred for us - especially for our most annoying tendency of all: being so damn condescending.

We never really imagined that he was the messiah. We just wanted to throw him a bone, poor boy. We just wanted to see how the old squawk box would look with a different nameplate. We imagined we were in the Philippines at an electronics store; that we had just picked out our new flat screen TV; and when we were getting ready to pay, the clerk asked us - almost as an afterthought - which logo we wanted him to stick at the bottom. “What are the choices?” we asked. He showed us. “African-American,” we said. At least we got the first part right.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Vamshavriksha

We may never know if Rahm was pushed or if he is fleeing. Not only Seib, but the MSM in general have portrayed the event as bitter-sweet. Unlike departures from the Bush White House - which were generally viewed as evidence of confusion and abject failure - Rahm’s leaving is being hailed as fresh and exciting opportunities for both Rahm and Obama.

It has become a mark of supreme enlightenment to couch every political criticism (especially on our side) in phrases such as “both Republicans and Democrats…” or, now, more to the point, “past (Republican) presidents as well”. By doing so, we are hoping to triangulate and place ourselves above the fray. This can only be a winning strategy if our side has the advantage. It is unclear at the moment just who holds the advantage. Certainly, as far as midterms are concerned, Republicans can be expected to reap huge numerical gains in Congress. But take elections out of the equation and one finds that the same conditions that brought Obama to power in 2008 still exist today. The country is deeply divided along ideological lines.

When scientists scratch the earth in remote regions of our planet and unearth the bones of our ancestors, they then try to connect the dots between what they have discovered thus far and what they continue to find. As such, they are hoping to construct a lineage that would explain from whence we arrived at this point in time.

When all they would really need to do is to study in minute detail the developing fetus. Therein lie all the clues to every stage of development the human species has undergone to date, from single-cell organisms, through our reptilian stage, all the way up to what we are today. Every human being precisely replicates every single stage of his (or her) development since the beginnings of time while gestating in his (or her) mother’s womb.

It’s the same with ideas. All we have to do is ask ourselves why we believe in what we believe - do it doggedly and systematically - and we would find that we have come to accept certain assumptions and hold them as truth. At some point we branched out into two distinct beings: liberals and conservatives. Liberals have further (d)evolved into the Left of the political spectrum; conservatives into the Right. By failing to ask what has created this divide, we are obscuring the origins of what has made us so different.

We no longer question the assumptions that support our position. We simply regurgitate what we are told that most closely approximates our natural leaning.

Once the tree branches, it never grows together again unless the branches are cut and are heaped together for the purpose of a kindling. Then fire consumes them both equally.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Rats Fleeing

The departure of key personnel from the White House also marks the abandonment of the last vestige of any relevant metrics with regard to polls, vote count (Rahm and Axelrod), the economy (Summers), the war in Afghanistan (Gates) by which to evaluate the success or failure of the Obama administration. From now on the White House will be operating purely on faith. Faith does not require data, logic or reason as a basis for decision making. All it requires is the blunt outline of an ideology.

This, simply put, means that Obama will likely continue to do what he alone feels is right. He will no longer be required to pay attention to voters’ concerns or to statistics that define traditional economic realities, or actual conditions on foreign battlefields.

This shifts our Republic to an autocracy. If the president, even after elections, refuses to work with Congress, or even bypasses Congress altogether; if he refuses to listen to the wisdom of experts; if he chooses to ignore the complaints of the electorate, then we are all at the mercy of a single, possibly mad, mind.

As Hermann Hesse so eloquently puts it in “Steppenwolf”, his true magnum opus (as opposed to “The Glass Bead Game” which is commonly considered as such), “All interpretation, all psychology, all attempts to make things comprehensible, require a medium of theories, mythologies and lies…”

We now know that Obama is not the 'savior'. He may not even be the smartest among us. To trust any single man to steer our nation of 50 States is pure madness. The one item that was missing from the Republican plan - the most important item - was to immediately initiate impeachment procedures.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Slouching Towards Serfdom

The lasting legacy, I fear, from this, loosely referred to as the Obama administration, will not be from oil gushing into the Gulf; from value evaporating from our paper currency; from American influence eroding abroad – all of which can be reversed and made to look whole again. Instead, it is the abrasion of (our) trust in elected officials.

There was a hint of it already back in the Bush administration when some people insisted that 9/11 as well as the aftermath of Katrina were part and parcel due to Bush’s evil designs: the first to provide Bush-Cheney with an excuse to invade Iraq; the second, because both men hated blacks.

The concept of the possibility of a rogue government was now out there. Clinton supporters (or even Clinton himself) enhanced its legitimacy in the political realm when they lamented that 9/11 happened during Bush’s tenure. If it had happened when Bill was in office, he could have been a great president.

“Disaster” as political tool to advance policy objectives and to strike crippling blows at the opposition was already well rehearsed by the time Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States. Some even claim that the pre-election fiscal meltdown was instrumental to Obama’s installation. Rahm Emanuel emblazoned the concept into the national dialogue by dropping all pretence with his “Never let a crisis go to waste” comment.

Here we are now, wondering why the oil continues to spill; why there are an ever growing number of victims? The suspicion is that, even if it wasn’t sabotage, why is it taking so long (to plug the hole)? Clearly, the outlines of a solution are beginning to emerge: The policy objective of choking off America’s energy supply seems to be gathering steam; the prospect of a large pool of money for the federal government to waste on unprofitable ventures looms large, as does the demonization of Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Nuclear, paving the way for yet another government takedown and thrusting another huge number of people onto the welfare rolls.

All this talk about Obama feeling dispirited and actively thinking of voluntarily forgoing a second term is just that: talk. Barack Hussein Obama is doing just fine (at our expense, I might add). In short order, we can expect the private sector to be just that: private Obama. We’ll all, in one way or another, be working for him. We will live or die as he decides. He will elevate those who support him, while those of us who do not will find the yoke becoming ever tighter; the load ever heavier.

We are seeing the birth of a Chavez-style total socialist takeover. Even with the systems he himself has installed failing on all fronts, I don’t see Chavez in political trouble. Castro has managed to hold on for decades. Don’t think it’s because the people are particularly enamored of them. Ditto, Kim Jong-Il; Ahmadinejad; Mugabe; etc.

We are well along on a similar path, even with a Congress of elected, essentially rubberstamp officials standing in whispered opposition. And yet, the country on the whole is continuing to say, “It can’t happen here” – like a diabetic progressing through the stages of his irreversible disease. It has happened!

'Disasters' have become political bots to keep us in line and make us depended on the good graces of whoever has the audacity to declare himself king. Don’t tell me bots don’t work. They work just fine. Bots are but tools, the extensions of human hands. Unless we begin thinking critically, we openly embrace the prospect of serfdom.

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.”

Guilt: A Texas (sized) Gusher

Rahm Emanuel’s now famous phrase, "You don't ever want a crisis to go to waste." comes to mind. A crisis always generates guilt. Guilt is as good as money. Guilt needs time to incubate. If I remember right, in the schoolyard nobody was spared if they happened to be a little different, or obviously weak. The bullies were merciless. Guilt (or shame) was something that was taught by rote. “Go and apologize!” took the place of ten Hail Mary’s. Once the pump is primed, guilt spews like a Texas gusher. I’ve heard reporters returning from Haiti say, they felt guilty coming home to a fully stocked refrigerator. Many have been moved to contribute significantly to charities that concern themselves primarily with Haiti relief.

No doubt, slavery was one of the great stains on our own history. To this day we are made to feel guilty about it. It has spawned a great industry – rivaled only by holocaust and ‘global warming’ advocates - that promotes guilt for purposes of extortion. (I support the existence of the State of Israel not because of the holocaust but because it is the right thing to do now.) Guilt is the cash currency that derives from disaster.

Extortion is not the only game in town. Preferential treatment and quotas are also in play. If carried to extreme, it can kill meritocracy itself and result in tyranny by an ‘aggrieved’ minority. This is what happened when we elected Barack Hussein Obama.

Those who play this game never tell the whole story; that those profiting from disaster – especially after so many years - should actually be the ones profoundly ashamed for allowing themselves to be treated better than others who might have contributed more than mere ancestral suffering. To my mind it would be highly insulting to receive special consideration on the basis of skin color alone, or having lived x number of years; or having red hair; etc. Such an empty gesture, anyone with eyes can see, would be bestowed without merit and, thus, would be essentially worthless and condescending. I would politely refuse to participate in a scheme by which I am used as a mere tool to quiet somebody else’s throbbing conscience. I would not dare to come between any sinner and his God in this way – especially if the sin was specifically contrived for some devious purpose.

Unfortunately there are those who play that game to the hilt. They persist because they can catch many fish. Satire directed at Obama is not acceptable because he’s black; satire directed at Bush is acceptable because he’s white. We have entire populations falling for the gig. Two years ago, America fell for it. Even now, that Obama has proven himself to be supremely inept, it is still unacceptable to ridicule him. Any criticism of his actions must always be couched in, “…but we like him personally.” I’d like to know just how many of those who say that, actually know him personally.

Obama's Katrina

Rahm Emanuel's famous phrase comes to mind. "Never let a crisis go to waste." This administration has certainly benefited hugely from crises. To my mind, they may even have had a hand in some. Now comes a crisis not of its own making; a thankless crisis; a bone-crushing crisis; an unavoidable crisis; a damning crisis - one in which the one who saves will forever be responsible for the saved. All the more reason to cut America down to size - to the likes of the Dominican Republic, for example, which, being right next door, has responded sensibly by putting additional guards along its border.

Though the media is already comparing this to Katrina - praising the president for his timely television appearances and, at the same time, never failing to invoke Bush's Katrina failure - it will not be able to ignore this failure much longer. Even without taking time out of the evening news cast to broadcast the names of soldiers fallen in service of their country (as was done for Bush), the NewsHour will be unable to ignore the steady stream of bad news and rumor emanating from Dante’s deepest rings of hell. After the media has been forced out, imagination will become the news. …and one can only imagine.

No doubt some enterprising blog will risk limb and reason to chronicle this soon to be epic failure, not necessarily to advance a better way forward, but to expose a man who uses his pulpit to make claims that no mortal can reasonably defend; to show up such a man as a charlatan and fraud, so that he will never be taken seriously again. (Good riddance, Mr. Gore. And tell your friend, Danny Glover, to keep talking.)

We Must Choose

If you were to ask 10 random people on the streets of New York who Rahm Emanuel is, you'd be lucky to get one person who knows. Most people, especially people who call themselves 'Democrats' or ‘Progressives' or 'Liberals' are totally disengaged from the political process. Therefore, all the bloviating about Rahm or anybody else in the Obama administration is a waste of time.

The only face that matters is Obama's. If you happen to be skilled at painting by the numbers, examine the backgrounds of his czar appointees. This will supply you with the shades needed to complete Obama's portrait. Since we were given essentially a blank slate re our current occupant in The White House, it is entirely appropriate that we now try to find out who he is. (Better late than never.) Should we not like where he's taking us, attacking his people will miss the mark.

I understand Barry Hussein is not alone in this. But he is the face. He and only he can be defined - either as friend or foe.

I saw a movie yesterday about 'Doctors w/o Borders’ (Beyond Borders, '03). It dramatized three of the world's hot spots and the tremendous suffering there. The people helping out all were well-meaning souls who nobly put their lives on the line against impossible odds - trying to help.

But since the film was essentially a propaganda ploy for the Left, all the good Samaritans essentially succumbed to blaming themselves for all the evils in the world. They did so by triangulating their common sense in hopes of rising above the warring factions; they made no judgments, took no sides, and ended up crushed with not much to show for it. It was a modern version of Sisyphus’ plight: Intelligent, highly-skilled, good people - crushed by the madness of partisan violence.

At some point, I believe, it is required of us to take a side and fight impeccably to win. We’ve had it too easy. In elections, we happily voted for the lesser of two evils. Sometimes we flipped a coin. Granted (apart from at Louis Gates' house), nobody’s shown up in the middle of the night with guns yet.

Too many people are beginning to figure out that, despite the rhetoric, the math just doesn’t add up. They’ve begun to question the divergence between rhetoric and the results that can be expected. Too many people have decided that the time to take action is now; to commit; to take a stand; that a refusal to do so in the interest of avoiding the slings and arrows from either side is sheer lunacy. In my view, we no longer have the luxury to simply sit back. We must choose (if only to protect our ability to make choices in the future).