Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Obama's Message of Failure

Libertarian leaning independents like me tend to see the election as a choice between two evils. Which is worse, the Democrats who tax and spend or Republicans who borrow and spend?

In this election, I must admit, I am absolutely and thoroughly proud of the fact that George Bush had the political courage to stand against public sentiment and support the troop surge. I am also proud of the American Troops, who in the onslaught of adversity stood with the Iraqi people against the radicals who slaughtered innocent civilians in their quest for power.

I am voting for John McCain for his role in supporting the Surge and for a long history of working to do what is best for the nation.

The theme of this post is the question about which party is more negative.

As a matter of partisanship, newspaper reporters and college professors routinely use examples from Republican campaigns in discussions about negative campaigns. This creates that illusion that Republicans depend solely on negative campaigns.

What I see is something different. Republicans tend to be overt in their actions while Democrats favor subtlety. When a Republican goes negative, it is generally clear that they've gone negative. They want the world to see the negative thing they see.

Democrats, on the other hand, like to build negativity into the core of their message, while pretending that they are the beacon of hope and light.

A prime example of this technique is Barack Obama's message of "failure."

Look at how many times Barack use the word "failure" in his campaign.

Calling other people a failure is one of the lowest, underhanded, insulting and negative acts that a politician can undertake.

I've been astounded by the shallowness of Barack's campaign. It is nothing more than following the recipe laid out in the Manifesto and Mao's Little Red Book. What you do is label your opponent a failure. Frame issues to support the label, then talk about some sort of unspecified change that will happen on removing the failure.

There are always bad things in the economy and political structure that need fixing. Despite Obama's hate-filled drumming of the world failure, I see a great deal of good around me. As for the failure, the economic troubles seem to be things that built up over decades.

Who failed?

Let's see: A government-backed mortgage reinsurance scheme established by FDR crumbled under the collective weight of the bad loans created by the Community Reinvestment Act passed in the Carter years and strengthened in the Clinton years.

Add to this the slew of social legislation passed in the first 100 days of the Pelosi Congress.

We then had two solid years where the partisan press screamed recession, death and gloom. This finally pushed the economy into a position where oil speculator (both in and outside the US) were able to push oil prices to absurd levels. This was followed by an orchestrated short attack on the American stock market.

The only connection that the above events have with this election is that many of the players in the drama loathe George W. Bush.

For once, I might actually vote Republican. McCain is the best candidate. He ran a positive campaign. His views on immigration match my views. He probably would be ahead in the polls if the partisan press had not framed the election in such a way as to have people voting on McCain's weakest issue … the attack on the economy.

My only hesitancy in supporting McCain is that he has a long history of working with Congress in a bipartisan fashion. He is the guy who makes things happen. With a Democratic Congress and Senate, that means he would make an expansion of the state happen.

Of course, it is Congress that holds the purse strings. A bigger more intrusive government will happen regardless of the president.

I hope that American voters reject Obama's message of failure because we are not a failed nation.

4 comments:

rmwarnick said...

President Bush not only went against what you call "public sentiment" but also rejected the advice of his Iraq commander, the CENTCOM commander, and the Pentagon brass.

Why? Because the so-called Iraq "surge" was political theater. It was intended to enable Bush to leave office with more troops in Iraq than when the American people voted overwhelmingly for withdrawal in 2006.

In military terms, the "surge" was a disaster. It prevented reinforcements from going to Afghanistan in time to stave off defeat there. It made 2007 the bloodiest year of the entire Iraq occupation, and added to the millions of refugees and internally displaced driven from their homes.

None of the declared objectives of the so-called "surge" were ever accomplished. Militias were not disarmed-- to the contrary, the U.S. paid to re-arm Sunni insurgents in exchange for not shooting at Americans.

There was no political reconciliation, no elections, and the Iraqis never gave control of their oilfields to western companies (the principal goal).

Oh, but the Republican domestic political propaganda succeeded. The "surge" is working! Victory is in sight! Never mind that the Bush administration ended up forced to agree to a fixed withdrawal date, something they always derided as a "surrender date."

Anonymous said...

Kevin writes: “I am absolutely and thoroughly proud of the fact that George Bush had the political courage to stand against public sentiment and support the troop surge.” Snap out of it man! Your anger has you spouting non-sensical things that is soiling your good name as objective devotee of reason. Bush is a homicidal monster. Of course he "pushed" for the surge. He wants to dump this failure in the lap of his successor. He has used our tax dollars to kill and maim countless civilians, and has robbed us of enormous treasure. Are you a soulless homicidal monster? Take the dog for a walk and chill out! Obama has won this thing so start looking for the positive. The Bush Clinton dynasty is over, and a smart articulate altruistic black man is now the president of our United States. There is much to be happy about.

y-intercept said...

I was opposed to starting the war. The surge, however, stopped a slaughter. I suspect that historians will recognize it as such no matter how much disinformation the left dumps on the internet.

rm warnick is completely correct that many philosophers (Chomsky, Soros, Lakov, Marx and Hegel in particular) see the world as a stage for their ideas.

Here is the catch. Once you accept Hegel's view that the world is a stage then point and accuse a person of being an actor on that stage, then you must accept that recognize everyone as players on the stage. That includes the elitist highbrow professor and the throngs of lefties who paint themselves up and go a prostetin'

The terrorists knew radical theory well. Hussein, Khomeni, bin Ladin and all of the players in the game learned various versions of the dialectics. Notice how the Iranian army does the goose step. The Irancians learned the theory from Sith Lord Hitler.

Hussein's reading room was lined with memorabilia of Stalin.

One of the reasons that I opposed the invasion of Iraq was that Hussein had a civilian army trained specifically in the technique.

The terrorists involved in the war knew the theory well. They paced their genocide for maximum effect.

Even though Bush was a dupe for invading. We must remember that he was not the person doing the killing. The killing was done by the killers.

Back to the stage. The leftist protestors and partisan press that cheered on the genocide also were actors in the political theatre.

I talked to lefties who got excited with each bombing. Their body language squeaked with glee as they tried to affect self-righteous indignation.

Don't you see? If you accept the world stage theory; then you have to accept that everyone from the terrorist to wormtongued professor is an actor in the political theory.

Even worse, when I see Obama running a campaign that essentially is following the recipe of Marx and Mao, I am left feeling sick.

The primary form of the campaign was to agitate by pounding the label failure, calling for an unspecified change while foreign powers and other rogues in the market manipulated oil and stock prices.

Bush was a dupe for starting the game, but Obama is not breaking us out of it.

The only one speck of light that I have seen in the last several years is that American soldiers stood by the Iraqis during their awakening.

As Obama is simply playing the game, I hope McCain wins because I believe that he is our best shot out of the problem.

Biden was 100% correct that soon into the next year, there will be a major test of Obama ... one that requires more than a speech and the vote of present.

rmwarnick said...

Is there some kind of blogosphere prize for the least reality-based commentary? I think you are a contender!