Reflections on Inauguration day

I am not very hopeful our new President will acknowledge and follow the many excellent policies and programs of the last administration in spite of the attitudes he has shown on this up to today. Once he is President with a majority in both houses of Congress and an adoring press corps he will probably take a very different course. No matter what he does, the media will proclaim his greatness to the skies even as they cursed and damned our last President. The orgasmic reaction of the media will prove a real problem once Obama faces the realities of the office. Only then will we find out what he is made of. My guess is he will be a disappointment to many of his adoring subjects who almost all have their hands out. The political money machine is currently in deep doo doo and will probably continue to decline simply because those who make it work see Obama’s “change“ as a black hole of new and oppressive taxes and are planning accordingly.

The financial realities of nations like Ireland who radically lowered taxes on business and realized huge increases in economic growth even in tax revenue, are lost on those American liberal socialists who’s mantra is “soak the rich.” There is no question but that Obama’s announced policies caused many businesses to quickly cut back on investment and employment in their plans for the years ahead. All because business must plan at least a year ahead and many plan for five or even ten years. Looking at and planning for huge new taxes and their effects on profits, investors, owners, and business managers had no choice but to cut employment and expansion to the bone in order to survive. Add that to the government created and promoted mortgage crisis and the media’s constant harping, “the worst economy since the great depression” and you have a recipe for econoomic disaster. Incidently, the Carter years were much worse than the current crisis by any measure you can use and that is something the left including their media completely ignore. Together these factors make a serious and long depression like that of the thirties an almost certain result. Incidently, government jobs will definitely exacerbate the depression. Only private sector expansion and job creation has a positive effect on the economy. I firmly believe that the policies Obama and his liberal Congress will put into effect will prevent any recovery and will lengthen and strengthen the current economic woes in our nation. At this point in time I see Nancy Pelosi and her control freak Marxist efforts as even more dangerous for America than Obama’s, but the reality of that opinion remains to be seen.

I think we can get some idea of where Obama will take us from several salient facts. First of all, this inauguration is costing tax payers more than the last four inaugurations put together. And this at a time of dire financial conditions. Second, maybe small, but indicative of things to come. Michelle Obama has spent more money on food, entertainment and clothing since her husband’s campaign began that Laura Bush spent since GW took office. Her penchant for $400 lobster “snacks” at expensive hotels is well documented. Incidently, all of those tabs were picked up by “others.” The media panned Sarah Palin for spending so much Republican money on clothes during the campaign, but they never mentioned the bills the Democrat party picked up for Michelle, and she wasn’t even a candidate. I wonder why?

On the brighter side, we had a former President who, like Obama, was the product of a corrupt political machine yet who history now sees as one of our best Presidents. Harry Truman was disdained by many of his democrat colleagues, a number of whom tried to keep him out of the Presidential race. On spite of this he won the Presidency even with pundits predicting a Republican landslide. He surprised everyone with his performance, friends and foes alike, and is now called one of the best Presidents ever. Then there was the peanut farmer who’s policies brought on interest rates in the twenties, double digit inflation and unemployment, and a recession that was far worse than the current one, at least to this point. Perhaps Obama can rise above his corrupt beginnings and become a good President for all the people. I certainly hope so.

One other prediction—the media will change their tune soon after Obama takes office and will begin commenting on how the situation is now beginning to improve. Anecdotal success stories of “ordinary Americans” will begin replacing the doom and gloom stories so common for the last few years. The media will try improving the public’s confidence rather than destroying it as they did while the Bush administration was in power. It will be a miraculous “change” brought about by “the messiah.” Don’t kid yourself, this will happen.

As a result of the sickeningly fawning media, I absolutely refuse to watch any TV on inauguration day. I will listen to his speech over the radio, but most of the media are so orgasmic over our new President and his wife that it sickens me greatly. For obvious reasons, he is receiving the exact opposite treatment from that Bush and his wife received eight years ago. The media are providing Michelle the same adoration heaped on Jackie and then Princes Di. Elitism, royalty, and pop culture rule in the current main stream media.

That a product of one of the most corrupt political machines in the country who was ushered into the political process by known mobsters and radical, hate-filled so-called "holy" men should receive such adulation is pathetic. The extremely biased reporting of the media far out shadows the really important and historic fact that America has elected a "black" man President. They are treating him and his wife much more like rock stars or Hollywood celebrities than President and first lady. He was elected our "pop culture" President by hordes of celebrity worshipers who couldn't care a rat's annie about any of his policies except maybe his promise to "soak the rich." But wait a moment, his promise to “soak the rich” applies only to businessmen and then only to those who don’t contribute to the liberal cause. That is apparent from the number of private jets that flew into Washington for his inauguration. There were so many at Dulles they had to close a runway to park them. At more than 600, twice as many as had ever been there before, this was an unprecedented turnout of the wealthy privileged few who scoffed at the environmental impact of burning all that fuel and flaunted their wealth while thousands of ordinary citizens were losing their jobs and homes. Remember the brouhaha when three auto execs flew to Washington for a handout in their corporate jets? Hmmmmm! I wonder how many who came in those 600+ jets are looking for bail-out money for themselves?

Yes, "Hollywood" has taken over and that includes the media. They have triumphed over capitalism, business, Republicans, the religious right, and common sense with hatred and bluster. These promoters of celebrity worship more and more control the thoughts and actions of those who react emotionally without thinking and refuse even to listen to any who do not toe their "politically correct" lines on anything. When an asinine and inept comedian like Al Franken can become a U. S. Senator by stuffing ballot boxes and a totally inexperienced, stammering debutante looks to be appointed the next Senator from New York simply because she has the name Kennedy in her repertoire, our government has sunk to unprecedented new lows. Both along with numerous others should be an embarrassment and an insult to the American public. But wait, we've already proven that integrity, honor, intelligence, respect, experience, and most other attributes of personal excellence do not matter to the pop culture adherents in the entertainment world. There are only two things that count, celebrity and complete submission to the emotional and hate driven agenda of the far left. I wonder but one thing. When capitalism and business are destroyed in this country, who's going to pay the taxes to support the rapidly expanding and money consuming monster our government has become?

Two years ago I responded to a scathing message from Arianna Huffington condemning George Bush and the Republicans for virtually everything including natural disasters while praising the actions of Democrats. That response never made it to the Huffington Post, but did trigger a vitriolic email response from Arriana to your’s truly. I include my response verbatim.

My dear Ariana:

As usual, you are close to being right, but are looking in precisely the wrong direction. I see your Orwellian predictions as at least equal to and probably truly more applicable to those on the liberal left than the conservative right. Of course, I am quite disappointed in Republicans who seem more intent on aping the worst behavior of the liberal Democrats than applying a steady conservative hand to the nation. Democrats are on a rampage of hate and destruction simply because they are out of complete power. Like spoiled brats who can’t have their way, they scream destruction for the very nation that serves them. Republicans, so long out of power, seem unable to handle the power they do have, falling into the trap of mostly reacting to the constant stream of charges and accusations from Democrats who have behaved even worse for decades. The whole thing would be just another comedic struggle between groups of fairly equal idiots hungry for power were it not for the vast number of Americans who really care about their country and want their leaders to do the right thing democratically. These people in the middle, and I don’t mean moderates, but the poor individuals caught in this titanic and completely indefensible warfare between politicians and their media cohorts from the two sides are the ones who will ultimately suffer as they are forced to choose between the lesser of two evils in so many elections.

Myopic, and totally adversarial gadflies like your self from both political extremes help polarize the nation into warring factions who are becoming increasingly radical in what they say and encourage. Can major violence be far behind? I don’t think so. It appears to me even our general populace has sunk to new lows in recent years.

America has apparently become a nation of hate filled, boob grabbing, irrational, bed hopping, lying and cheating men with no understanding of culture, honor, responsibility, reverence, or respect, and who adore politicians who act, talk and posture as they do. Could it be the American male has sunk so far from civilization as to be almost completely controlled by his basic instincts? Has the macho, baby making culture of the Latin American males and the killing culture of the inner city males (and of many Muslims, I might add.) taken control of our young people? How about the women? American women have become vulgar, violent, vain, vindictive, venereal, vicious and vacant in a sorry imitation of the latest version of the male of the species, indeed trying to out do most males in cursing, fighting and sexual activity. Has the self-serving, self-centered, self-righteous, sex-obsessed, cursing "anti-lady" become the new feminist icon? Have Madonna and Hillary become the idols and heros of Americas "new" women?

The most primal primate instincts seem to have risen to the fore as the controlling force for so many. Freed from the moral constraints of religion, the emotional constraints of family and the cultural constraints of community while being constantly bombarded with the unbridled promotion of sex and violence, American young people are growing in anger, animosity and activism against everyone and everything they see as opposing their absolute freedom from any moral constraints. In addition, they are increasing in hatred for those who are benefitting from the existing system. This seems true no matter how hard those they hate have worked, how positive the results, or how many people benefitted or were carried to success by their efforts. Listen to and watch the music videos that our young buy in the millions and to the adulation they express towards their chosen icons who star in them. Exempted from the outpouring of hate and venom despite promoting it are the carriers of the message: the politicians, media icons, educators, sports heros, and activists who are whipping up this violent class warfare. In their diatribes they have been very careful to grant themselves immunity from all this hate and venom.

Is this the future of America? How far are fundamentalist liberals from the killings and mob violence of fundamentalist Muslims? I don’t think that kind of violence is very far away. It is infinitely easier and quicker to get attention by violent, destructive action than by peaceful, constructive efforts. 9-11 provides us with a prime example. Eric Hoffer gave a powerful description of these sick and sorry individuals many years ago when he wrote,

"Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both."

It truly amazes me that Hoffer so accurately describes the political climate, actors and actions of today in words written during the forties, and fifties. That he so deftly describes the activist left of today, so very long ago is amazing. I shall use his quotes freely in this essay.

It is well known that intense hatred can unite people in a way nothing else can. People who dislike each other intensely will work together, even pause their own battles, to fight a common enemy, real or imagined. It is the power behind the lynch mob, the underlying force within riots, the basic motivator for war and the real enemy of peace. As is often the case, the so called, "peace movement" in our country is a movement that will lead us unerringly to hatred, violence and warfare. It is the last resort to those who have lost the legal, political, intellectual or practical battle against the other side for whatever reason. "When you can’t convince them or counter them democratically, bury them with protests and screaming hatred to silence them completely, or finally, blow them up." could well be the mantra of most protest groups. Freedom and individual independent and democratic action is the enemy of these groups that exist only because their programs or ideas do not convince the majority to adopt them. These are the sour grapes losers in democratic elections or determinations that would use any means to impose their will on the majority who did not agree with them in the first place. Once more, the prophetic words of Eric Hoffer,

"The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do. People unfit for freedom - who cannot do much with it - are hungry for power. The desire for freedom is an attribute of a "have" type of self. It says: leave me alone and I shall grow, learn, and realize my capacities. The desire for power is basically an attribute of a "have not" type of self."

Believe me, there are far more "have not" types than "have" types and the percentage seems to be growing. Maybe it’s because the "have not" types breed more frequently and so expand their genes in the human pool much faster and wider than the "have" types. In spite of strong economic growth and the widening breadth of middle income types, the numbers of individuals in the lowest economic and educational groups continues to expand. The trap of birth into the lowest economic and educational level is a trap these groups have great trouble overcoming despite countless government programs designed to provide just such a lift. This trap is certainly aided and abetted by self-styled "leaders" of these groups who desperately want to keep their minions in poverty and ignorance so they can control them. Why is this and how did it come to be?

In my own perception the biggest cause is cultural bias aided and abetted by a system of education geared to the poorest students. Excellence is almost deemed an evil in so much of our present culture. That there is a concerted effort to label those who excel intellectually and in earning power in a negative light is obvious. Poor students are told that the reason they are not successful is outside of their control and is being imposed on them by others for their own benefit. People told they are not to blame for their own problems will rarely if ever make any effort to solve their problems. They have a valid and highly touted "reason" not to succeed constantly being rammed down their throats. People who assume the responsibility to solve their own problems will usually solve these problems themselves, even those few problems for which they lack complicity or responsibility. Again, the prophetic words of Eric Hoffer:

"The untalented are more at ease in a society that gives them valid alibis for not achieving than in one where opportunities are abundant. In an affluent society, the alienated who clamor for power are largely untalented people who cannot make use of the unprecedented opportunities for self-realization, and cannot escape the confrontation with an ineffectual self."

Here is a classic example from my own experience: My church as part of their outreach program sponsored a Cambodian refugee family each year. These families, often with three generations, were provided a house to live in, a program to learn to speak English, and help in obtaining employment. Few of their members had any job skills and the language barrier was another major obstacle to normal employment. Fast forward three years for the very first family. The parents and three children are now fluent in English. The grand parents speak some English, but because they stayed home to care for the children they did not have the pressing needs of the parents. All three children rank very highly in a school system known for its high achieving students. Both parents have good jobs and have advanced steadily because of hard work and good skills development. By the time of my last contact with this church, the family has paid back almost ninety percent of the down payment made by the church for their house. They would soon have the title and mortgage in their own names. They were not required to repay the church, but insisted, saying the church could use the money to sponsor another family. They had become successful, contributing, tax paying Americans with no drag on the local economy or welfare programs. Every Cambodian family our church sponsored followed this same pattern.

Why is it that many inner city families, and in particular, African American families are unable to do this? In my opinion it is the vast difference between cultures and an indictment of our own culture that so demeans the unfamilied, the poor and the uneducated. For all their pious pronouncements, so many so-called leaders of inner city communities not only blame everything under the sun except the poor themselves, but insist the poor will remain poor unless they (these leaders) are given the power and the money to dole out to them. Apparently they have never heard the old Chinese saying, "Give a man a fish and he has food for a day. Teach a man to fish and he has food from then on." In actuality, programs to educate and help the poor to pull themselves up by their bootstraps along with a great deal of individual initiative by some of these same people has brought a massive movement of the poor into the ranks of middle and even higher income folks. This in spite of being told constantly they cannot do so on their own.

Do these same "leaders" talk encouragingly about this progress and how individuals have worked hard within the system to succeed and advance themselves up the educational and economic ladder? No! They not only hammer away at absolving the poor from any culpability in their sorry state, but even condemn someone like Bill Cosby when he dared to suggest that the poor have some responsibility for helping themselves. In effect they loudly proclaim, "The enemy is the system that is deliberately denying you any opportunity to climb out of your lowly state. They owe you (lots of money) just for being poor and you should demand it now." It seems to me they are doing everything in their power to keep the poor poor and subservient to their leadership. Why do they do this? I believe it is because they know that hate unites and they use hate skillfully to get their serfs to do their bidding.

Once more I turn to Eric Hoffer for appropriate thoughts:

"All mass movements avail themselves of action as a means of unification. The conflicts a mass movement seeks and incites serve not only to down its enemies but also to strip its followers of their distinct individuality and render them more soluble in the collective medium."

"There is apparently some connection between dissatisfaction with oneself and proneness to credulity. The urge to escape our real self is also an urge to escape the rational and the obvious. The refusal to see ourselves as we are develops a distaste for facts and cold logic. There is no hope for the frustrated in the actual and the possible. Salvation can come to them only from the miraculous, which seeps through a crack in the iron wall of inexorable reality. They asked to be deceived."

Could anyone better describe those who support the liberal left?

"There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day: we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life. Moreover, when we have an alibi for not writing a book, painting a picture, and so on, we have an alibi for not writing the greatest book and not painting the greatest picture. Small wonder that the effort expended and the punishment endured in obtaining a good alibi often exceed the effort and grief requisite for the attainment of a most marked achievement."

The liberal left and their subservient gadflies have honed victimism, individual irresponsibility, hate for the productive, and envy for the successful into a high art form. They look at their own failings and evils and loudly accuse their opposition of doing the same things. Their message to their eager hate-filled mob is, "Our opposition is just as evil and conniving as we are, but we’ll take a whole lot more from the rich and successful and bring them down to your level–really make them suffer. Who cares if we destroy the country, you’ll at least get your revenge." That is indeed a powerful, motivating message and it is working.

I agree with Osama bin Laden in one of his statements. "America will soon collapse into oblivion. All we have to provide is a tiny bit of terror every year or two. It will fan their internal flames of hatred and disturb their already precarious internal power balance. They will soon destroy each other. Islam will then march triumphant over the rotting corpses of these satanic monsters. Their passion for things of the flesh and not of the spirit will surely destroy them." I pray this is not prophetic, but fear that it is.

June 15, 1858 Abraham Lincoln said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand! I believe this government cannot endure permanently..." (paraphased from this point on) half left and half right. I expect the Union to be dissolved in a massive, violent... Leaders of the liberal left are indeed doing everything in their power to divide our nation with hate and vitriol while at the same time claiming it is their opposition that is causing the division. Somehow they seem to think that by destroying the nation they will come to power, permanently as a socialist, atheist dictatorship arises from the debris and ashes of the capitalist nation that once was America. The prophetic words of the Scottish historian, Tyler will have come to pass. The "shot heard round the world" will have at last been silenced. The serfdom of the middle ages will once more prevail with all new masters–lords and ladies. Virtually all people except those in power will have been reduced to the lowest common economic, social and educational common denominator. We will then have true liberal equality?

I'm sure you get lots of emails and lots of links to blogs, but do you ever read or listen to any who disagree with your opinions? Most liberals I know of listen to or read only the words of those who agree with them. You might browse through a list of my blogs. It has links to lots of stuff you may never hear about. Click on http://hjbloglist.blogspot.com/ and see some different views about a lot of things.

Howard Johnson