Big Hollywood | Gary Graham | Apr. 14, 2009
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.
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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.
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