Something Rotten in Denmark

Some of you who’ve been reading my posts since this bin Laden thing happened are surely scratching your heads. Believe me; I’ve taken note of the many cold shoulders. A while back, I wrote a piece on assumptions; saying, that all our beliefs rest on assumptions, and that these assumptions rest on (other) assumptions as well, and so on…

The truth is, I don’t know what happened and how, and who was involved and who wasn’t. People, especially those who make it their business to comment on events, do not like to admit that they don’t know anything; for if they don’t know, why take the chance of being wrong and looking foolish? So, we base our evaluations and predictions on what we might call ‘core assumptions’. But even those, under certain circumstances, can come into question.

Hardly anybody (except maybe the Japanese) expects the earth to suddenly start moving underfoot. Nobody here expects America to end. And, until a relatively short time ago, everybody held science in high regard, especially with respect to scientific pronouncements about ‘global warming’. When things happen to challenge ‘core assumptions’, however, people become uncomfortable. They begin shifting around in their seats, contemplating a bathroom break.

Since Obama’s election, this has begun happening to more and more people. There have always been certain assumptions that have gone along with our concept of the American presidency. As time went by, it became increasingly difficult to square these with what we were seeing. Some came to wonder whether we were witnessing the greatest hoax ever perpetuated on the American people.

We tried, in our own small, measured way, to catch someone’s attention. Our telephone calls and e-mails, our marches on Washington, our confrontations at town hall meetings, our votes - all was summarily brushed off; ignored. Now we are being told that Obama could win again in 2012.

Meanwhile, the economy is not coming back; our jobs are not coming back; everything is getting more and more expensive. Some of us are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. We’ve been told that we have found and killed Osama bin Laden. On the very same day the office of Homeland Security elevates the terror threat to Americans worldwide. What gives?

None of us wants to believe that our president is actually working against us. It’s easier for us to see him as a bumbler who can be removed with due diligence in 2012. This, again, is our assumption. We also assume that we can keep it together till that day arrives.

All this was yet true under Bush. I’ve made it no secret that I prefer Bush to Obama. Though, I will admit, that looking at the whole thing as a continuum, Bush made Obama possible.

It could be that Bush too was snookered. Then, why is he keeping quiet and not saying anything? If anybody knows something, it could only be Bush. Is he even free to speak? I have already said that his refusal to appear with Obama in New York City today speaks volumes – and it’s not what the media says it is.

Enough has happened to prompt me into digging deep down into my assumptions. All I can come up with is that I just don’t know - and you don't either. But something smells awfully rotten in Denmark.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Going Too Fast to Take the Exits

We have now reached the point I have been warning about. The state of our nation is anything the government says it is. “The economy has turned the corner” and, poof! the stock market goes through the roof; “eight million jobs saved”, and, shebang! it is so; “companies have resumed hiring” and, would you believe it? (Obama is a genius!) Unemployment goes from nearly 10% to barely 9 (the new norm), and, again, Obama is simply the best!!! “Oil prices will not spur inflation” and, miracles of miracles… “We are winning the war.” Really?

How can we possibly oppose the policies that have brought about such incomparable blessings? All throughout the Middle East and beyond, democratic movements have awakened and unseated long-entrenched tyrants and placed power into the people’s hands. And we did it all without firing a shot. Here at home, we’re standing up for workers’ rights; a chicken in every pot; a roof over every head; heath care for all; etc.

He (Obama) will go down in history as the greatest American president since Lincoln, or is it Roosevelt? Or Reagan? Or Washington? (Let me check my calendar.) Only bright days ahead. A nation powered by shiny new high speed (can we still say, ‘bullet') trains and batteries; wind and solar power. …clean, crystalline air to breathe. No one smokes. Everyone eats healthy - and not too much. Utopia is truly within our grasp.

This one is a keeper. This president. The best we’ve ever had. Why bother with any more elections? This is a good as it gets. Boy, are we ever lucky!
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"We should seek by all means in our power to avoid war, by analyzing possible causes, by trying to remove them, by discussion in a spirit of collaboration and good will. I cannot believe that such a program would be rejected by the people of this country (England), even if it does mean the establishment of personal contact with the dictators."

- Neville Chamberlain.
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Absolutely riveting broadcasting last night, John. I had dozed off with my radio on. Was literally frightened awake by the raw energy emanating from your segment with Malcolm Hoenlein alone. You turned into a pit bull and would not let go. You got Malcolm to say what he didn’t want to say. You got him to admit that Iran is winning.

I understood Malcom’s reticence. It was so obvious the man was struggling, stumbling. He fully grasped the import of the words that you so pitilessly coaxed from his convulsing throat. He understood what it means for Israel.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

The Nightingale And the Rose

Pardon me while I don’t quite bite. Anything can be spun, including facts and numbers - like ‘the economy is improving’ and ‘unemployment is decreasing‘ and ‘green‘ jobs are the future. It’s generally done by introducing a ‘new’ method of counting, using ‘new’ parameters and a different basket of assumptions. In education, overall results are generally improved by lowering the bar and dumbing down tests.

All this frantic fudging does not change a single thing of significance. Obama is still a socialist (whether we say it or not). And he may even be a card-carrying member of the Muslim Brotherhood for all we know (whether we even dare ask the question).

Partisanship has nothing to do with it. The proof is in the pudding. America is slipping, the dollar is slipping, our educational system is not producing and we are making mistakes in every area of endeavor relative to the rest of the world.

Whether we point it out or not, whether or not we’re turning off our radios because we’re sick of hearing about it, it’s happening at an alarming rate.

I note that the Batchelor show has one big advantage over everybody else in the business: he doesn’t take calls. Therefore he’s spared the tedious bleating of the inarticulate, the partisan poisoned, and the uninformed. Batchelor only talks to ‘experts’; meaning, that what has made them experts is in large part their familiarity and comfort level regarding language. This translates well to radio. It does not mean, however, that the ‘great unwashed’ - the rest of us - have nothing to say.

While everyone likes to claim the people’s support for whatever murderous scheme they might find themselves accessories to, they remain prepared to drop public opinion for expediency’s sake. In Beck’s case, I am not so sure his being dropped from major markets has so much to do with poor ratings as with his fingering of the great puppet master himself: Soros, who seems to have his fingers in every conceivable pie - just as I never believed that the re-elections of Reid and Pelosi were entirely free of electoral fraud.

I just finished reading ‘The Nightingale and the Rose’ by Oscar Wilde. It is one of the stories that came in a volume published by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin. Like Grimm’s fairy tales, the themes in these stories are not necessarily all clover and honey. Some serious issues are explored here under guise of clear language and simple metaphor. ‘Nightingale’ for instance explores the notion of personal sacrifice for a lost cause. It can bring tears to a child’s eyes and continue to haunt into adulthood.

In America, there have been many more such sacrifices than those currently living here. In fact, it could even be said, that every grave in America holds the remains of a martyr who had some sense of the eternal. What would any of them say if they were to come back today and watch the rose tossed carelessly aside to be crushed by an unseeing wagon wheel? Would they be impressed by the gloss of manipulated polls and surveys? Or would they be moved to weep at the flag (they fought and died for in some cases) being dragged through the muddy streets of our relentless discontent?

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Value vs. Money

Again, this assumes that government can create jobs. Government cannot create jobs. It can create a climate conducive to job creation or it can do the opposite. The jobs government creates are not ‘real’ jobs. They are jobs dependent on political patronage.

Government can insert itself and re-distribute the wealth created by real jobs in the private sector, but it cannot create or re-distribute ‘value‘. The honest money poured into unproductive sectors is money wasted. The tipping point is reached when too much wastage starves the private sector (where value is created) out of existence.

With the rise of autocratic dictatorial regimes at the expense of democracies, it is inevitable that job creation suffers. This political trend has now also taken root in Washington.

America was well known throughout the world as a place where it was still possible to come and make something of oneself. The business climate was considered to be ‘friendly‘. This is changing. High taxes and regulations have virtually ground business in America to a halt. In order to stay in business these days you have to first ingratiate yourself to the party in power and then wait for them to give you your arbitrary allotment of wavers and handouts. It’s called crony capitalism and it never works well.

There’s no mystery as to how capitalism functions and how ‘real’ value is generated. A man goes to work for a firm and receives a salary. His salary is predicated on how much he can be expected to contribute to the firm’s bottom line. If his skills are independent of the firm’s structure, he can eventually go out and start his own business. He will then begin to hire people keeping the same principle in mind: he will pay them a percentage of what they can be expected to contribute to the new firm’s success.

An athlete is paid according to how many people his presence can bring into the stadium. An actor is paid according to how many people his talent can attract to movie theaters. It is their talent that is valuable. The money generated by any such transactions can go up in smoke in an instant. The value of individual talent, skill and perseverance remains. A good actor will always eat.

Not many of us are blessed with outstanding attributes such as John Batchelor’s golden-throated voice and keen wit; or even with the ability to think effectively on our feet. Yet, we too can be a part of the system. We have other, perhaps less spectacular, attributes to deal. And we too, if we apply ourselves, can earn a modest, but secure, living.

Enter big government that blocks all normal processes and throws the whole system into confusion. Now nobody can be secure. The rules change with the political winds. It’s difficult to plan and even harder to trust - and the whole thing breaks down to be replaced by … what?

At this point, it could be anything - a new currency, gold, indentured servitude, work camps. With capitalism discredited, one’s work can no longer save one. Things are apt to become a whole lot more arbitrary and complicated. For one thing, America may soon not have to worry about its immigration problem as opportunity continues to fade; and there won’t be much left to bother blowing up anymore.
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A note about education: Education no longer teaches discipline and skills. Education has become so devalued in America (and elsewhere) that it represents little more than a (hall) pass for entrance into the entrenched elite classes‘ washrooms. Additionally, education nowadays consists primarily of learning to spout political propaganda points.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

To Live Another Day

All this is entirely self-evident. Taxation inhibits economic activity. That’s why one sees the flight of people and businesses from high tax states to lower tax states. As jobs and money flee, the tax base shrinks, resulting in less money flowing into government coffers. It’s difficult to understand why this concept is so difficult to grasp for some people.

‘Democrat ex-legislators’ have just sealed Illinois’ fate. It is not hard to figure out what will happen next. “Wisconsin, here we come!”

Unless, of course, Illinois is so progressive, they feel they are not subject to economic consequences. They would first and foremost blame the economy in general - the loss of jobs (new norm) overall, due to whatever - without necessarily understanding what the word ’economy’ actually means. They would further argue that what is quite obvious in ordinary household budgeting becomes counter-productive when applied to a macro model where increased government spending and higher taxes are the ultimate solution. They would have plenty of company in support of that view from the likes of Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist, to many in the halls of Congress, and in Democrat-controlled State legislatures.

Even more ominously looms the casual wholesale dismissal of economic principles overall; the view that it is and never has been about fiscal policy; that the whole purpose of the exercise is to make things ‘fair’ by re-distributing wealth.

Our current administration has been mounting an all-out campaign to criminalize achievement. Wealth is regarded as some kind of unpardonable stain - and, to some extent, the class warfare narrative has taken hold. If successful, metrics to actually measure economic success or failure would cease to exist. Only one thing would stand in the way of fully implementing the program: neighboring states or countries in which capitalism actually works.

That is why these too have to be destroyed by Federal rules and regulations. It is why Israel cannot be allowed to survive, and why America cannot remain as she once was.
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Read an article this morning in the WSJ by John Eibner and Charles Jacobs, entitled, “Will Freedom Come for Sudan’s Slaves?” about a country that is about to be split in two. Among a whole host of outrages, slavery is still practiced in northern Africa. It is of the most brutal and degrading sort, vividly detailed here.

Earlier this week, I saw a clip of a debate on France 24 about the kidnapping and murder of French citizens in Niger. And yet, we keep our condemnation close to our vests. At no cost must we insult Islamic extremists. They are noble savages, after all. Easier to turn against ourselves and become like them. It is now clear that they won’t necessarily like us any better if we do; but, at least, they’ll presumably no longer be tempted to come across to our shores to raise holy hell. We who have far less experience in the art of intimidation and physical brutality may yet live another day.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Lipstick On A Pig

Oh yes, I know, everyone is busy painting lipstick on a pig right now. It’s our version of celebrating Eid. We’re so hoping for Obama to make good, we’re even willing to gauge out our eyes just to make it so. The fact is that more of us still have jobs than don’t. This means that most of us can still be persuaded to pull Obama’s lunch wagon. (By the way, all this talk about us becoming more and more like Europe is a bunch of hogwash. If you ask me, we’re headed straight for Stalingrad.)

If it turns out that those with jobs should begin to feel the pinch, only then will the situation change. Only then will we all begin reading from the same page.

Apparently it’s all been forgotten: health care, the new EPA regs (regarding carbon emissions), higher taxes on the local level, FINREG, net neutrality, gas prices, etc. It’ll all kick in this year. A new norm for unemployment; immigration, border security, foreign affairs, inflation, energy dependence…

I honestly don’t see the optimism. True, the world around us appears to be digging out - at least they’re trying. We’re just digging deeper.

Stocks are up today. They generally rise in the third year of a presidency. Will they this time? The year has barely started. Some people have made money, it‘s true. This is supposed to be a bad thing - so this administration keeps saying anyway. And now they’re claiming a (minor) victory. Make up your mind! Which is it?

The fact is, it’s jobs that drive America. People working - creating value. Nothing I’ve heard will produce more or better jobs as long as Obama is president. Now it could well be that with the ‘net neutrality’ bandwagon gaining ground, there’ll be nothing but good news from here on in. That won’t necessarily mean it’s so. It just means that we'll be suffering in our bunkers - alone.
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Pete Postlethwaite died today. To my mind he was an actor’s actor. Loved the film “Brassed Off”.

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/

Thinking Outside the Box

It has been noted that if the Chilean mine collapse had happened in the U. S., the trapped miners would have died. After a suitably scripted period of rhetoric and hand-wringing, Obama would have imposed an immediate moratorium on all mining operations, and appointed a committee to propose a series of new regulations; and another to determine ways of exacting damages (fees) for the government to exploit. Such assessment is an obvious slap at our current administration and can obviously never be substantiated . It nevertheless is based on what we have come to know about our leadership thus far - thinking strictly inside the (wrong) box.

It’s the same with our current fiscal problems. Our government’s only solution appears to be beggaring the dollar (as in printing more money). This policy is sure to cause dislocation worldwide. It is likely to hurt us even more than others by making things more expensive, killing jobs even further, and reducing our influence abroad.

Some say that this is actually what Obama wants to happen. If it is so, he’s on the right track. If not, he’s barking up the wrong tree. The only thing that can turn things around in the U. S. is not mere smoke and mirrors; but a single-minded emphasis on growth. Growth is the only sane way of absorbing our debt. Yet every policy proposed by this administration so far, without exception, has been is anti-growth. Go figure!

In order to stimulate our economy, we have to, first and foremost, bring back confidence. This would involve primarily an all-out political effort. We have to convince the business community that the government is not out to destroy it. We have to erase uncertainty by stating in plain English what government policy toward business across the board will be going forward. We have to make investment in American businesses attractive. We have to improve the business climate to attract the best minds along with capital from overseas. We have to quit punishing success. We have to reduce taxes. And we have to stop bad-mouthing capitalism.

To turn our economy around, it will require bold, decisive action. This is what Obama promised us during his campaign for the presidency. Thus far, we have seen only small thinking; tinkering on the margins and all of it wrong. Perhaps he’s aware of the Vedic parable which claims to show that ‘every act of ours reverses itself in its results‘. But I doubt it.

When Shankaracharya (Hindu theologian; 8th or 9th Century), was still young, he decided to renounce the world and become a wandering monk. Monks are never allowed to return home. When his mother died, none of her relatives came forward to cremate her body. Shankaracharya then decided to break his oath. As his mother’s body was too heavy for him alone to carry to the pyre by the river, he is said to have cut it up into portable pieces.

He was a man credited for his ability to think outside the box in search for solutions

He would later be credited with the revitalization of Hinduism which had become corrupt and ineffective and Buddhism was rapidly gaining ground. He established four mutts (monastic schools), one in the north, one in the south, east and west of the sub-continent. These still exist today.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Running Out The Clock

I don’t believe this president is ‘running out the clock’. Only someone who feels he’s on the ropes will try to run out the clock - the boxer who has lost all confidence that he can defeat his opponent with a single decisive blow. POTUS is not there yet. He still has two more years. He’s done a lot already, perhaps more (legislatively) than any other president in history.

He’s also put in place a mechanism that will make America bleed for years yet to come. He has had to give in a little from time to time - at least verbally - to throw the hounds off his trail. But he will continue to do just what he has set out to do.

Ahmadinejad works the same way, mouthing petty lies now and then as to give the Russians and others cover for continuing to honor their agreements with him - financial, technical and otherwise. We all know he’s lying through his teeth, but it’s enough to placate those who are desperate to believe in the essential goodness of evil men.

In the meantime, the clock is running unimpeded, allowing the Hitler of Iran to have his nuclear arsenal and Obama his re-making of America into a Marxist Utopia.

The reason Obama has lost his magic is because he knows that a growing number of people have become dead certain of what it is he is doing. With each apparent capitulation, his argument grows weaker in the face of what’s continues to happen.

Summers and others are gone because they too have figured it out. There’s no chance of Obama’s policies working. There’s no chance of better times returning without changing course - ...unless, of course, the president intends exactly what is happening.

The media focuses on Velma Hart as someone capable of articulating exactly what it is that has America‘s panties in a knot. She is a rabid supporter of the Obama fiction and even she has doubts.

No doubt, the media want’s Obama to change course. They can see that what this administration has put in place has not worked. Their distaste of Republicans trumps all, however. They will never support Republicans. They need Obama to change course; adopt Republican policies if need be. Even this they can handle, like counting Iraq as one of Obama’s foreign policy successes, or counting ‘jobs saved’ as his domestic triumph.

Unlike Obama, The New York Times is not necessarily unpatriotic. It is simply pro-Democrat. It defines their hopelessly entrenched tradition. They would rather go out of print than portray Obama for what he truly is. Like Obama, they will double down when push comes to shove, even while precariously perched on a knife’s edge.

I realize that, like any man of a single physical body, Obama's personality oscillates between infinite poles. I realize it is simplistic - moronic even - to ascribe a single motive to any living man. I draw my conclusions (wrongly perhaps) from what I see. America is waning under this president, whatever the reason. To deny this is no reflection on Obama, perhaps; but it is a fact. Neither will Obama’s eventual electoral defeat solve the problem. This hydra has many heads, many of which combine to define very an essence within every living American soul. Even the most virtuous among us is afflicted. And it is there that we must ultimately find the cure.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Monty Python And the Holy Grail

I discovered this gem 10 years late. The kids were already old enough to watch and understand movies. We saw this one over and over again and we laughed every time. Even when not watching it, we had come to know the script by heart and acted it out precisely. “Bring out your dead!” was one of our favorite parts to reenact.

Those were innocent days. Or so it seemed. Our future still lay ahead of us. Even with all the political drama raging all around us, we felt somehow secure, ensconced in the apparently limitless American dream. We felt we could forge ahead as long as the government kept foreign threats from materializing into something that could hurt us. There was no question that our government was up to the job.

We had jobs. We went to work every day. We could even afford to be choosey. Say, we didn’t like what we were doing, we could always go and do something else. The kids did their homework with pencil and paper. …or else they read history texts with a picture of George Washington on the cover.

We would never have guessed that it would all fall apart under a church-going, half-white, half-black president who would turn all black the minute he took office.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Man the Water Stations

While the debate rages about how to fix the economy (read today’s opinion pieces in the NYT), things continue to get worse out there, particularly on the jobs front. People are re-entering the job market because they have become desperate. It’s no longer a choice - to work or not to work - it’s become a matter of survival.

Unfortunately, the jobs are no longer out there. They’re over in India, China, the Philippines and elsewhere. Value-based work is fleeing the country, leaving only enforcement-related and administrative (basically government) mandated tasks which themselves face the cleaver as tax revenues continue to fall short of expectations. It’s the classic definition of a downward spiral.

Incredibly, there is a way out. It is to make America business-friendly once again. Europe is trying it - although tepidly - and thus far has had limited success at least in terms of improving the psychological climate that businesses face. The reason that this hasn’t yet happened in America is because at the moment they are freer than we are. Our taxes and regulations are literally choking the life out of us. Add to this, the people’s distrust of government policy overall, and you have the entire country in unison fuelling the tailspin.

Washington has become so toxic, even if the president were to come out tomorrow with a workable plan to solve all the nation’s problems, nobody would pay much attention. For the majority of Americans, Barack Hussein Obama has already torn up his leadership card and thrown it to the wind. We have reached a point where Obama’s government no longer represents us.

How to explain this to people in a foreign country? People tend to assume that countries speak with one voice. If the government, for instance, insists on basing its foreign and domestic policies on the now largely discredited threat of ‘global warming’ while the people themselves have become aware of the hoax, that government can be said to rule against the will of the electorate. The U.S. is not the only nation that has chosen to follow the forked path leading to civil strife. The first fault line to appear, as always, is the one between the classes. The elites have chosen one path, leaving the masses to wander another.

Time to man the water stations in this desert. Many are about to get themselves lost out in the wilds. Great swatches of land have already been ceded to cartel control. It is clear, the American government does not care about Americans. One of the two will fall and there will be blood. In the meantime, maps and survival tips must be distributed.

I open the paper today and read that the Taliban have offered to burn all medical books.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Killing Jobs

No mystery here. POTUS is too embarrassed to talk about jobs. It’s too obvious what he’s doing. He’s killing jobs… and he’s doing it on purpose. It would be too much of a lie - even for him - to say otherwise. He stresses education: Marxist education; re-education. He celebrates Katrina (not the Boy Scouts) because, he feels, it focuses the nation once again on the much ballyhooed failures of Bush.

Obama keeps stressing the failure of past administrations. As his wife once famously proclaimed, “Barack will never allow you (the people) to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.” Back to what? Jobs? Economic growth? Prosperity?

He means to turn the nation into a land of the jobless. Only then will he be able to impose his solutions and to do whatever Marxists do with legions of beggared masses.

In Obama’s world view, a return to prosperity would spell defeat. He cannot allow it because he knows that it is the rich who would prosper again and return the nation to a two-tier system of rich and poor; of winners and the losers. This would be unacceptable to POTUS who wants everyone to exist on an equal (economic) plane, some being more equal than others by virtue of skin color (and political orientation).

Virtually all the talking heads miss this point. They view Obama’s policies as failures while he sees them as successes. Limbaugh recognized it early on when he said he wants Obama to fail. The Left was stung by the clarity of his revelation. He had swerved too close to the truth. And he was attacked relentlessly for it.

In Obama’s world, America had become a cancer. He sees himself as the surgeon mandated to cut it out, leaving but an empty shell with no relation to past glories and what we all have traditionally regarded as success. American exceptionalism to Obama was and is anathema as long as it put our nation on a higher (economic) level than the rest of the world; as long as there is even one child starving in Africa. America had no right to endure its standard of living because, to Obama, it was never a result of hard work, talent and ingenuity. It was the result of theft.

A thief has no conception of the value of work. Therefore he has also no conception of what it takes to run an economy. He happily takes what does not belong to him and thinks it is good. Obama is essentially a thief. He has never worked a day in his life. He was pre-ordained to his present position by skillful apparatchiks who carefully groomed him to fit Shiva’s part. He is no more than a ventriloquist’s dummy. A hollow man. Dead wood, on which someone has chosen to hammer (and sickle) out an implausible Fabian tune.

Hollywood Always Has It End Well

The narrative in and around the Gulf is so compelling - so riveting - if it never had happened, we would have had to invent it. And so we did. Plenty of horror movies out there in which some threat is burgeoning and seemingly unstoppable. Then the hero rides to the rescue on his white horse… Hollywood always has it end well.

It occurs to me that in this particular oil spill saga there are no heroes – at least none that we can see (yet). It just keeps chugging along, getting worse every day. The means we have currently devised to mitigate the immediate problem – the loss of jobs; massive dislocation, and overall threat to the environment – seem inadequate. We’ve elected to sacrifice BP on the altar of public opinion and, along with it, even more jobs. The moratorium on drilling ups the ante as even more jobs are absurdly sacrificed to our pagan god, Gaia. In short, we seem to be fighting the loss of jobs with the loss of more jobs.

In the meantime, the spill spills on. There are signs that the media and our ADD president are on the verge of losing interest altogether. The World Cup and our rapidly approaching midterm elections are just too juicy to overlook. And then, of course, there was Michael Jackson’s death anniversary.

Odd to see no one coming to our aid. Besides affecting the lives and livelihoods of Gulf residents – not to mention wildlife – badly, the spill can also be classified as a global environmental emergency. Whenever there has been such an emergency abroad, the U.S. has usually been the first to arrive. We were always quick to offer humanitarian aid to the stricken whether we were invited or not. Earthquakes in Turkey and Haiti; tsunamis in East Asia; famine in Africa; etc. Often our considerable contribution had to be disguised - our sacks of emergency foodstuffs re-labeled - to look like it’s not coming from us but from some NGO (as not to offend the people filling their bellies with our own home-grown grains).

On May 3rd, 2008, Cyclone Nargis hit shore in Myanmar and devastated the densely populated, rice-farming delta of the Irrawaddy Division. It was the worst natural disaster in Burmese history. The ruling junta’s version of our Jones Act prohibited the country from accepting foreign aid – this, despite 200,000 dead or missing and millions displaced. We continued to beg and bribe officials and they eventually relented and allowed some of us in.

No such efforts are being made here. The nations of the vaunted ’global community’ seem to be just standing around, clucking their tongues and shaking their heads. Where are the Russians, the Chinese, the Venezuelans, Brazil? Where is the Middle East? Europe? Where is The Sierra Club? PETA? Nothing to say? Where is the UN to bash down our doors and fix this thing (which, as is becoming increasingly clear, we can’t handle ourselves).

“Yes, we can!” indeed! Since Obama has been in office, we haven’t been able to do anything, except to make things worse. Whether due to incompetence or by design, it doesn’t matter anymore. We’re going to hell in a hand basket. While the rest of the world just stands around watching.

I once saw an Indian film “Bandit Queen” (Shekhar Kapur) in which a woman was publicly beaten to within an inch of her life. The town’s people just stood around and watched. It sent a chill through my heart.

Could this be the legacy of Ameica's fall from grace: Nobody helping anyone? Every man out for himself?

Home-Grown Terrorists Plotting

Home-grown terrorists, plotting against us? Where is this coming from? Why is this happening? It's all those madrassahs and mosques and websites, preaching hate. Hatred is often aligned with righteousness for those shallow of thought. It is preached unceasingly in the Middle East.

But wait! Why single out the Middle East? Right here in America we have also succumbed to righteousness' allure. We too allow mosques, our public schools and prisons, our institutions of higher learning, our media to preach hatred directed toward opposing ideologies. Is it any wonder that the weak-minded should take some of this poison to heart?

For years now, we've sat by while talk radio has unabashedly smeared president after president; each duly elected to represent our nation. We're still doing it now, often with the red hot banner of righteous indignation unfurled and snapping in the storm. We listen compulsively for reasons to ridicule. It's become an industry in a nation that's managed to outsource everything else. And then we wonder why there are no longer any jobs in America.

Passive Aggression

I agree with everyone that the job situation does not look good. Asians who have come here to work are returning back home where American 'outsourced' jobs are plentiful and gaining. Obviously, not one of Obama's policies does anything to help the economy. As I've stated many times before, Barack Hussein Obama is not stupid. He knows exactly what he's doing. He is a virus that has been deliberately introduced into the American body politic – Trojan horse style, if you wish – to infect it and to morph it into a neo-Marxist model.

The American people have also caught on. The entrepreneurs are keeping their powder dry. Small business is holding off expanding. Those who can afford it, are not working. Consumers are not buying. Yes, some of this is due to all the things we routinely mention: economic uncertainty, high taxes, government imposed regulation and crushing bureaucracy. I happen to believe that a lot of this is proactive on the part of Americans as well. They appear to have collectively decided that they will do nothing to help this current government succeed. They've resolved to sit on their hands and wait it out. They do not like where we’re being herded. They want this government to fail.

It goes way beyond the economy. The economy is just a convenient obvious measure by which administrations are commonly judged. Beyond that, most Americans abhor the political philosophy espoused by this administration. They mean to make their displeasure felt by not doing; holding back, by denying this government the tax money that is wantonly ripped away from them during every economic transaction.

We've become passive-aggressive. We see this as being the only thing we can do to get our country back. We understand that all the other (obvious) ways are booby-trapped. Marching (on Washington), for instance; tea parties; attempting to talk to elected representatives - all have resulted in being ignored, ridiculed, demonized and marginalized. Resorting to violence is the most dangerous course we could take. Americans know this instinctively. It would result in a clampdown followed by utter and complete chaos. Chaos would usher in the classic Marxist revolution. There is now considerable evidence that this may be the administration’s ultimate goal.

There is, however, a proven alternative: the Gandhian example: non-violence; passive resistance; not being a part of; not doing. This appears to be the strategy the American people have chosen. It is reflected in the economic numbers. It represents a sacrifice, to be sure; but if it serves to slow down this administrations ‘flat earth’ agenda, it may be well worth the effort.