Yep, we're effed. Obama is an idiot, and the progressives who defend him are worse idiots.
The WSJ opinion piece is scathing, as is Krauthammer's. The socialist cockroaches don't care that they're driving what's left of our republic over a cliff.
And did you see this? The frickin' teacher's union in sunny California has caught a bad case of teh crazee from the punks in Madison. Teaching was once a respected profession. Not anymore, thanks to union radicals.
Here's what I find interesting: this is a bit of man-bites-dog. When k-hammer and the wsj trash Obama, face it, is is dog-bites-man. (Note this is true whether or not Obama has it coming - in this instance, he surely does - but it's just not news when conservatives criticize liberals, or vice versa).
Crook is a solid "citizen of the world" - his blog is published in the Atlantic and in the Financial Times - you can't get much purer example of Establishment Left Davos-man opinion manufacturing.
His criticisms of Obama have to date at least had the veneer of being "constructive" criticism and to-be-sure-his-opponents-are-worse kinda drivel.
In this piece he throws in the towel on Obama. Note his criticism isn't so much about policy as about the blinkered refusal to acknowledge reality, and the insight that the speech makes progress in any policy direction more difficult.
A year ago Obama got "You Lie!" from his political adversaries.
Now he's getting "You Suck!" from his political allies.
The soi-disant "respectable centre-left" is abandoning Obama. So are the genuine progressives.
I chastise myself for my cynicism, knowing it is unhealthy. But the fact that this man is President, and can give such puerile speech's and not be ridiculed to death for them, only confirms my hopelessness that these States will survive as envisioned by the Founders. I pity our children.
Wow lewy! Just wow. I hope the left has the guts to primary the sonofabitch. It will be uplifting to watch the left tear each other apart, limb from limb. That's hope and change I can believe in!
Luther # 5 .... sadly, I am going to agree with you completely. I've kept my comments on various blogs to a minimum (for me anyway) recently simply because I have nothing good to say and my government and country as a whole has become an extreme embarrassment to me. Rant mode "on" I guess ...
We're fucked. Period. The only reasonable goal now is to see how long we can delay demise of the culture and nation. We're broke and everyone knows it. Except us and our leadership in executive and legislative branches.
That "embarrassment" is pretty egotistical of me I admit. Then again, we are now an entire nation incapable of 3rd grade math. Not one politician or pundit that I can recall has opined that broke is broke ... the the object needs to be elimination of the debt beyond a reasonable ratio, annually, versus GDP in financial terms.
All I hear is how we're going to "keep the debt from growing any faster" ... and the debate is about how much deceleration there will be, versus actual reduction of our debt. From what I can tell, both sides, no "reduction" is anticipated ... "moderate" increasing of the debt is acceptable ... we somehow think we're okay today, eh?
The clincher is the idea that there was a "surplus" since Vietnam's time. No, beotches, there never was a "surplus" ... our debt never reached zero in order to enable a surplus. What you/we had is a periodic surplus (read: temporary) in annual total federal tax revenues over total annual federal, state & local expenditure for a given year. Actually, IIRC, at the federal level, that temporary surplus was FICA tax revenues, which if removed from the "equation" would have eliminated the "surplus."
In other words, simplified to "consumer levels" ... if one is immensely in debt to both Visa and Master-Card, BUT manages somehow to NOT use either card for a month, or even a year, THEN they have a "Surplus?!"
We are like the folk who max out their credit from all sources ... e.g., they reach their "debt limit." We're reaching ours nationally between next month and July. If we can spend no more, do we have a "Surplus?" Bwahahahaha.
... Every time we do this we "raise" our debt limit and likely will do so again. When you can print money you can do that ... individually with Visa or Master-Card, not so much, eh?
I admit to a total lack of sophistication on this subject. Comes from 50 years in the military, the private sector and the public sector. 3 + 2 now equals 7.67, a "surplus of 2.67, which we will try to keep from reaching 3.67.
We now think of "capitalism" as "trading speculation profits" not capital formation and production for real tangible returns. We believe if we bundle enough bad debts together in to a CDO that the rules of large numbers will prevent failures....and provide a profitable return. Whoops ... that didn't work out so well, did it?
We're going broke fighting pointless national building wars and wars where we rescue others so that they can hate us more easily. We have the best armies in the world, but that doesn't make them diplomats and policemen with civilian ROE's ... except in Foggy Bottom.
Once upon a time I served and actually grew to like, even love, some of those peoples were fought for, and I believed we were fighting for mutual benefit and protection of the concept of liberty. I was a fucking fool, an idiot at best. I didn't know I was on the losing side until Walter Cronkite told me I was ... silly me.
We like being lied to, such as when the Big O & West Wing asserted there were no boots on the ground in Libya ... hogwash, there WERE boots on the ground before the first B-2 took off from Whitman AFB. FAC's are not just guys in little airplanes ... they're also brave men, and perhaps women today, on the ground establishing targets by recon. No ... now we "debate" what kind of footwear constitutes "boots."
Since we're broke, why pray tell, do we not end completely our futile drawn out nation building involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan, and soon to be Libya?
I mean like do it tomorrow! Now! Period. Spend what money we do have on more F-22's and even better armaments, so that we can "whack a mole" when needed ("Practice" is always good, cal it "training") and no one can stop us (BE the 900 lb Gorilla!!) ... then leave the fuckers to kill each other in civil and religious conflict. It's cheaper by far if they kill each other. If they get uppity again, whack-a-mole again, then depart.
By all means, we must refrain from supporting our sole allies in this conflagration ... looks bad, ya' know. Ask the fucking Pali loving Italian journalist who just had his ass executed in Gaza how about how much "they" loved him? Maybe he gets some virgins, eh?
And ... Oh, my we shant kill "civilians" ... such innocent mothers who breed future enemy combatants faster than we can kill them, who labor to feed and shelter our enemies to boot, under Foggy Bottom rules. We actually have come to believe the fallacy that you can fight a war, to win mind you, without collateral damages....thinking like that in an asymmetrical conflict assures you will lose. Losing is our intention.
So yeah, far worse than Luther, I'm convinced we're screwed.
The funniest part of all this is that we actually believe our past enemies, now momentary trading partners, will continue to fund this for us. They will, all righty, until the moment it's to their advantage not to. That moment is soon upon us.
Finally ... we learned nothing from the Soviet demise. Nothing. We continue involvement in affairs not ours just as they did, sending arms, yada yada, until we can't. Then we're fucked
Aridog, I've got a crick in my neck from all the vigorous nodding I was doing as I read through both your posts. Well said - we are in a world of hurt, and I don't know of anything that could be done to reverse it. Even if there was the collective will to deal with the budget, there's not the collective character to buck up under the years if discomfort it would take to get back to equilibrium.
I guess, due to my previous background, I look for a leader, dumb shit that I am. As leaders can only do so much.
Though my idea of a leader is one who unites, matter and anti-matter, in the present climate, an impossible task in other words.
I don't know, who could possibly speak to all in this most fractured society. I still hold on though, that someone could.
I'll be dead in a few years, from smoking and drinking, and evil individualist thougths. So what the fuck do I care.
I was in San Diego last week, visited SDMCRD to look at the museum. It was also grauation day by chance, the next day, for a bunch of Marines. Funny to watch them measure belt buckels from center line, inches of cover above the nose, ah fuck, I'm twenty again.
Great posts, aridog. And I do mean GREAT. I appreciate the fact that you don't mince words...you tell it like it actually is.
Luther, if you're the drunk uncle, I'll be the persnickety aunt. Hah! I quit the cancer sticks over 13 years ago, and at the same time stopped the "daily imbibing" mode that I'd slipped into. I still don't smoke, but Noah and I enjoy an very occasional evening sip of Tennessee's finest (and Noah still enjoys an occasional cigar or pipe). Mostly we're just old sticks in the mud.
However, like florrie, I'm still bitterly clinging to my individualistic thoughts. Oh, and my persnickety-ness too. ;)
Hmmm... we're an eclectic mix;I'm a young whipper snapper who never smoked and very rarely drinks. I'm sure my mother would testify that my eeevil individualist thought tendencies have been around for a while. My goal in life is to grow up to be a bitter, responsibility-preaching curmudgeon (I would SO give money to hear some beauty pagant contestant say THAT!).
Gee - wonder what the common denominator is here? :D
I sit in admiration of you all, in having the will power to have done what you have in stopping the addictions of alcohol and nicotine. Seriously, I do.
I guess I'll just be number one on the death panels, though I'll likely be dead before they are fully in effect.
I have always hated, since extreme early youth, others placing their expectations of me, on me. Whatever they may have suggested, I usually did the opposite, and yes, to my extreme detriment on many if not most such events.
I'm just saying.
I suppose, as an only child, I was/am just being obstreperous. Or plain stupid.
Sociology could be good science. If the practitioners could jerk their head out of their asses long enough to make it so.
Sociology is junk, as is a large swath of psychology. Both are driven by self-important academics who blather a "new & improved" theory every year or two for the purpose of issuing a shiny new ($$$) textbook bursting with the names of their fellow academics.
The nonstop yada-yada-yada is simply progressive/liberal/globalism claptrap, and a money-making scheme foisted upon unsuspecting college students as required curriculum. The actual "meat" of both subjects would fit in a thimble.
"progressive/liberal/globalism claptrap, and a money-making scheme foisted upon unsuspecting college students as required curriculum. "
I think you're right, Lady Red. When I took psych 101 the professor took an interest and offered me a job in his lab so I could afford/would stay in college. I've sometimes regretted that decision, but not often as the field seems to have become a massive circle jerk of the type of people you mention above.
The WSJ article also had a good analysis. Synopsis: we're effed.
ReplyDeleteYep, we're effed. Obama is an idiot, and the progressives who defend him are worse idiots.
ReplyDeleteThe WSJ opinion piece is scathing, as is Krauthammer's. The socialist cockroaches don't care that they're driving what's left of our republic over a cliff.
And did you see this? The frickin' teacher's union in sunny California has caught a bad case of teh crazee from the punks in Madison. Teaching was once a respected profession. Not anymore, thanks to union radicals.
I saw both Krauthammer's piece and the WSJ editorial, and think both to be far too kind to Barry.
ReplyDeleteI also tried to read the actual text, but there was nothing there.
Except in the very first paragraph, which gave the perfect read of what he thinks of himself, when he said '...I kept the government open...'
The man has more ego, with less reason, than anyone I've ever seen in public or private life.
There's more where that came from...
ReplyDeleteClive Crook: Obama's speech was a waste of breath.
Here's what I find interesting: this is a bit of man-bites-dog. When k-hammer and the wsj trash Obama, face it, is is dog-bites-man. (Note this is true whether or not Obama has it coming - in this instance, he surely does - but it's just not news when conservatives criticize liberals, or vice versa).
Crook is a solid "citizen of the world" - his blog is published in the Atlantic and in the Financial Times - you can't get much purer example of Establishment Left Davos-man opinion manufacturing.
His criticisms of Obama have to date at least had the veneer of being "constructive" criticism and to-be-sure-his-opponents-are-worse kinda drivel.
In this piece he throws in the towel on Obama. Note his criticism isn't so much about policy as about the blinkered refusal to acknowledge reality, and the insight that the speech makes progress in any policy direction more difficult.
A year ago Obama got "You Lie!" from his political adversaries.
Now he's getting "You Suck!" from his political allies.
The soi-disant "respectable centre-left" is abandoning Obama. So are the genuine progressives.
Pile on, baby, pile on...
I chastise myself for my cynicism, knowing it is unhealthy. But the fact that this man is President, and can give such puerile speech's and not be ridiculed to death for them, only confirms my hopelessness that these States will survive as envisioned by the Founders. I pity our children.
ReplyDeleteWell, I'd just say it's my opinion that Charles is at least as unbiased as Crook, if not more so.
ReplyDeleteSure, Crook is the ed of the Atlantic but the left is as sick of BO as the right.
Oh well, it's Red Eye time anyhoo, see y
ReplyDelete'all later!
Dances said The man has more ego, with less reason, than anyone I've ever seen in public or private life.
ReplyDeleteTruer words have never been spoken! Now I'm off to read lewy's link...
Wow lewy! Just wow. I hope the left has the guts to primary the sonofabitch. It will be uplifting to watch the left tear each other apart, limb from limb. That's hope and change I can believe in!
ReplyDeleteLuther # 5 .... sadly, I am going to agree with you completely. I've kept my comments on various blogs to a minimum (for me anyway) recently simply because I have nothing good to say and my government and country as a whole has become an extreme embarrassment to me. Rant mode "on" I guess ...
ReplyDeleteWe're fucked. Period. The only reasonable goal now is to see how long we can delay demise of the culture and nation. We're broke and everyone knows it. Except us and our leadership in executive and legislative branches.
That "embarrassment" is pretty egotistical of me I admit. Then again, we are now an entire nation incapable of 3rd grade math. Not one politician or pundit that I can recall has opined that broke is broke ... the the object needs to be elimination of the debt beyond a reasonable ratio, annually, versus GDP in financial terms.
All I hear is how we're going to "keep the debt from growing any faster" ... and the debate is about how much deceleration there will be, versus actual reduction of our debt. From what I can tell, both sides, no "reduction" is anticipated ... "moderate" increasing of the debt is acceptable ... we somehow think we're okay today, eh?
The clincher is the idea that there was a "surplus" since Vietnam's time. No, beotches, there never was a "surplus" ... our debt never reached zero in order to enable a surplus. What you/we had is a periodic surplus (read: temporary) in annual total federal tax revenues over total annual federal, state & local expenditure for a given year. Actually, IIRC, at the federal level, that temporary surplus was FICA tax revenues, which if removed from the "equation" would have eliminated the "surplus."
In other words, simplified to "consumer levels" ... if one is immensely in debt to both Visa and Master-Card, BUT manages somehow to NOT use either card for a month, or even a year, THEN they have a "Surplus?!"
We are like the folk who max out their credit from all sources ... e.g., they reach their "debt limit." We're reaching ours nationally between next month and July. If we can spend no more, do we have a "Surplus?" Bwahahahaha.
Rant continued....then I'll go away for a while:
ReplyDelete... Every time we do this we "raise" our debt limit and likely will do so again. When you can print money you can do that ... individually with Visa or Master-Card, not so much, eh?
I admit to a total lack of sophistication on this subject. Comes from 50 years in the military, the private sector and the public sector. 3 + 2 now equals 7.67, a "surplus of 2.67, which we will try to keep from reaching 3.67.
We now think of "capitalism" as "trading speculation profits" not capital formation and production for real tangible returns. We believe if we bundle enough bad debts together in to a CDO that the rules of large numbers will prevent failures....and provide a profitable return. Whoops ... that didn't work out so well, did it?
We're going broke fighting pointless national building wars and wars where we rescue others so that they can hate us more easily. We have the best armies in the world, but that doesn't make them diplomats and policemen with civilian ROE's ... except in Foggy Bottom.
Once upon a time I served and actually grew to like, even love, some of those peoples were fought for, and I believed we were fighting for mutual benefit and protection of the concept of liberty. I was a fucking fool, an idiot at best. I didn't know I was on the losing side until Walter Cronkite told me I was ... silly me.
We like being lied to, such as when the Big O & West Wing asserted there were no boots on the ground in Libya ... hogwash, there WERE boots on the ground before the first B-2 took off from Whitman AFB. FAC's are not just guys in little airplanes ... they're also brave men, and perhaps women today, on the ground establishing targets by recon. No ... now we "debate" what kind of footwear constitutes "boots."
Since we're broke, why pray tell, do we not end completely our futile drawn out nation building involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan, and soon to be Libya?
I mean like do it tomorrow! Now! Period. Spend what money we do have on more F-22's and even better armaments, so that we can "whack a mole" when needed ("Practice" is always good, cal it "training") and no one can stop us (BE the 900 lb Gorilla!!) ... then leave the fuckers to kill each other in civil and religious conflict. It's cheaper by far if they kill each other. If they get uppity again, whack-a-mole again, then depart.
By all means, we must refrain from supporting our sole allies in this conflagration ... looks bad, ya' know. Ask the fucking Pali loving Italian journalist who just had his ass executed in Gaza how about how much "they" loved him? Maybe he gets some virgins, eh?
And ... Oh, my we shant kill "civilians" ... such innocent mothers who breed future enemy combatants faster than we can kill them, who labor to feed and shelter our enemies to boot, under Foggy Bottom rules. We actually have come to believe the fallacy that you can fight a war, to win mind you, without collateral damages....thinking like that in an asymmetrical conflict assures you will lose. Losing is our intention.
So yeah, far worse than Luther, I'm convinced we're screwed.
The funniest part of all this is that we actually believe our past enemies, now momentary trading partners, will continue to fund this for us. They will, all righty, until the moment it's to their advantage not to. That moment is soon upon us.
Finally ... we learned nothing from the Soviet demise. Nothing. We continue involvement in affairs not ours just as they did, sending arms, yada yada, until we can't. Then we're fucked
I endorse both rants. And I appreciate the info about the nonexistant surplus, Aridog; I didn't realize they were stretching the truth, silly me.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the "consumer level" explanation.
ReplyDeleteimg:"http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y117/floranista/rwcguy.jpg"
Aridog, I've got a crick in my neck from all the vigorous nodding I was doing as I read through both your posts. Well said - we are in a world of hurt, and I don't know of anything that could be done to reverse it. Even if there was the collective will to deal with the budget, there's not the collective character to buck up under the years if discomfort it would take to get back to equilibrium.
ReplyDeleteLovely optimistic thought of the day...
#11 is one excellent post. Depressing, yes, but I truly cannot stomach double talk anymore and I appreciate that you "tell it like it is".
ReplyDelete(As do the other regulars here. Thank you all.)
imgw:"http://rashmanly.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/obamashamwowwf5.png?w=399&h=546&h=546"
ReplyDeleteimgw:"http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Sk4f7RV2Lv0/TaCKzRtPogI/AAAAAAAAAJ8/0t2yx5cxrOs/s320/obamaspeding.JPG"
ReplyDeleteFine rants, Ari, and well said, as is your métier. We like you pissed, or, at least I do.
ReplyDeleteMy focus is, despite my cynicism, on solutions.
I guess, due to my previous background, I look for a leader, dumb shit that I am. As leaders can only do so much.
Though my idea of a leader is one who unites, matter and anti-matter, in the present climate, an impossible task in other words.
I don't know, who could possibly speak to all in this most fractured society. I still hold on though, that someone could.
I'll be dead in a few years, from smoking and drinking, and evil individualist thougths. So what the fuck do I care.
I was in San Diego last week, visited SDMCRD to look at the museum. It was also grauation day by chance, the next day, for a bunch of Marines. Funny to watch them measure belt buckels from center line, inches of cover above the nose, ah fuck, I'm twenty again.
Hahaha, dont't I wish.
May I just be the drunk uncle, here, that everyone is ashamed of knowing.
ReplyDeleteI can handle shame, as my life has been filled with 'how I could have done better'.
ReplyDeleteI'll be dead in a few years, from smoking and drinking, and evil individualist thougths.
I quit smoking 8 years ago, quit drinking 21 years ago, but I still have plents of evil individualist thoughts!
heh heh
Great posts, aridog. And I do mean GREAT. I appreciate the fact that you don't mince words...you tell it like it actually is.
ReplyDeleteLuther, if you're the drunk uncle, I'll be the persnickety aunt. Hah! I quit the cancer sticks over 13 years ago, and at the same time stopped the "daily imbibing" mode that I'd slipped into. I still don't smoke, but Noah and I enjoy an very occasional evening sip of Tennessee's finest (and Noah still enjoys an occasional cigar or pipe). Mostly we're just old sticks in the mud.
However, like florrie, I'm still bitterly clinging to my individualistic thoughts. Oh, and my persnickety-ness too. ;)
Hmmm... we're an eclectic mix;I'm a young whipper snapper who never smoked and very rarely drinks. I'm sure my mother would testify that my eeevil individualist thought tendencies have been around for a while. My goal in life is to grow up to be a bitter, responsibility-preaching curmudgeon (I would SO give money to hear some beauty pagant contestant say THAT!).
ReplyDeleteGee - wonder what the common denominator is here? :D
I sit in admiration of you all, in having the will power to have done what you have in stopping the addictions of alcohol and nicotine. Seriously, I do.
ReplyDeleteI guess I'll just be number one on the death panels, though I'll likely be dead before they are fully in effect.
I have always hated, since extreme early youth, others placing their expectations of me, on me. Whatever they may have suggested, I usually did the opposite, and yes, to my extreme detriment on many if not most such events.
ReplyDeleteI'm just saying.
I suppose, as an only child, I was/am just being obstreperous. Or plain stupid.
Sociology could be good science. If the practitioners could jerk their head out of their asses long enough to make it so.
Yeah, it's drunk Uncle.
Sociology is junk, as is a large swath of psychology. Both are driven by self-important academics who blather a "new & improved" theory every year or two for the purpose of issuing a shiny new ($$$) textbook bursting with the names of their fellow academics.
ReplyDeleteThe nonstop yada-yada-yada is simply progressive/liberal/globalism claptrap, and a money-making scheme foisted upon unsuspecting college students as required curriculum. The actual "meat" of both subjects would fit in a thimble.
Now, let me tell you how I REALLY feel...:D
"progressive/liberal/globalism claptrap, and a money-making scheme foisted upon unsuspecting college students as required curriculum. "
ReplyDeleteI think you're right, Lady Red. When I took psych 101 the professor took an interest and offered me a job in his lab so I could afford/would stay in college. I've sometimes regretted that decision, but not often as the field seems to have become a massive circle jerk of the type of people you mention above.
Luther says:
ReplyDelete"I sit in admiration of you all, in having the will power to have done what you have in stopping the addictions of alcohol and nicotine."
Ooh, ooh - not me!
I tried to link Adam Ants 'Goody Two shoes'.
ReplyDeleteOf course I was unable, so:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0XUJ1GdIkw
Dances linky
ReplyDelete:-)