We, the Weary people
Posted on December 25, 2008
December 25, 2008
(for one of my buddies, who thinks Barack Obama’s Public Works projects and Big Spending economic policies are brilliantly original, the salvation of the US economy, and have never, ever, been tried before…)
“We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong… somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises…
I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started…. And an enormous debt to boot! “
“A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. “
“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reaches us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men, we must live through all time, or die by suicide. “
“…Some who heard this speech may have wondered where Roosevelt would get the money for his massive public works, his “aid to agriculture ” and his “bold leadership in distress relief “, among other promises. It may have been especially perplexing because Roosevelt, while he was promising a more active government, was also promising to cut government in size by 25 per cent and to balance the budget in each year of his presidency. But how could Roosevelt expand federal programs and cut government and balance the budget at the same time? We are back again to Roosevelt’s lack of economic training. It can’t be done… “
It is a strange walk.
Lonely, frustrating, and often seemingly pointless. It is, after all, easier to accept than to query. Easier to acquiesce than to resist. Easier to cheer when others are cheering, than to raise doubts and question the integrity of famous leaders, past and present. Revered icons, like Franklin D. Roosevelt, spoken of in awed and hushed tones by his legions of admirers.
Or the Great Barack Obama, the perceived savior of the human race, worshiped with borderline religious hysteria by masses of frenzied groupies. Elected on hype, deliberately vague promises, a cult of personality, emotionalism, and the hope of lots more free lunch?
“The most damning indictment of FDR’s New Deal Agenda is that it did not do what it set out to do: end the Great Depression. Ask anyone over eighty, and he or she will probably say that FDR cared about the working man and gave the country hope. Maybe so, but that is not a sound economic plan – to declare, much as Bill Clinton would do sixty years later, “I feel your pain “. Empathy is all well and good, but it does not create jobs or business or wealth. “
“The Democrats’ current laundry list of ‘new’ New Deal programs-from cap and trade anti-global warming regulations, to 52 per cent marginal tax rates, to socialized health care, to $300 billion of new spending programs every year appear to be almost intentionally designed to torpedo the U.S. economy. Voters may find the recent Barack Obama chant, ‘Change we can believe in’, mighty appealing. But if we adopt this “new’ New Deal, the economy will almost certainly crater… “
The campaign reminded me of the wildly popular TV show “Survivor “.
Where the winner it seems excels at double speak, triple smiles, and quadruple personalities. All of them devious and underhand.
The smiling knife wins every time…
All of this was gushingly aided and abetted by a trendy media establishment, of which so many seem so obsessively eager to be on the winning side, to be “right ” and forceful, and convincing, in the daily televised verbal slanging matches. Which pass by the innocuous description as “interviews “. Where panels of so-called “experts ” race to cram in as many words per second as possible, whilst all the time desperate to drown out the voice of dissent. If logic and carefully reasoned arguments, presented in a polite and articulate manner do not suffice, then there is always the fall-back reserve strategy of bluster and decibels. Most of what we see and hear on television falls under the latter category.
At the same time, the walk is not quite as solitary as one might think. It can also be a fascinating, creative experience.
A sharing of doubts with like minded souls. A healthy skepticism applied to accepted norms. A suspicion, deep and growing, that we, the people, puppets all, have been and continue to be, lied to, deceived, conned, hoodwinked and generally made a Rhesus Monkey of.
We have a fundamental weakness, we little ones. An unfortunate tendency. A gullibility. We always tend to make assumptions. The same assumptions. Politicians are honest, sincere, and have only the good of the nation at heart. And of course… they know what they are doing.
Scientists are honest, admit their doubts and uncertainties, and never, ever, lie, deceive or fabricate evidence to gain fame, appointments, and lucrative research grants. Businessmen are honest, and have only the good of their work force and shareholders at heart.
Insurance company managers and C.E.O.’s are honest, and have only the good of their Mom and Pop investors at heart.
Idem ditto for brokerage houses, investment advisers, life insurance salesmen, and used car salesmen.
And now for governments. Governments are only there for the good of the people. Our governments are full of high principled, self sacrificing, super-wise borderline omniscient leaders, who care about you and me. Who will lead us “by the calloused hand ” (quote from ‘little Barry’) towards the promised land of plenty.
Right. Oh, yeah. Uh-huh….I wish.
It takes a brave soul to take on these comfortable assumptions. A brave soul indeed, for he is at risk of being vilified as some kind of sociopath. A radical perhaps. Some kind of a nutter. Out of touch with reality. Can’t you see? Obama has the answers! (Everybody cheer…)
(why don’t we throw our coats before him on the road? Heck, our shirts while we are at it?)
The truth may be that Man has a strong fundamental tendency towards becoming corrupt, mean, selfish and grasping. Machiavelli was right…
Children and young people may -perhaps-survive into early adulthood with their ideals and innocence intact, but they will probably change into cynics, or become easy pickings for the established cynics.
In matters spiritual, emotional, material, political, legal or historical.
The truth may be that corruption in government is rampant. The same for waste, bribery, pork barrel politics, political lobbying, and nepotism. Epitomized during the reign of FDR, the great UnAmerican, by the cynical (cynical!) dispensation of ‘patronage’ (money, lots of it, from the tax payers). FDR, it has been said, had a vote calculating machine in his head. He thought nothing of dispensing funds in truly staggering amounts to the richer states, the swing vote states, where he thought the most votes were at stake. Whereas the poorer southern states, which were solidly democratic, but where the need was also much greater (more poor people, and grossly disadvantaged black tenant farmers) received -by comparison- a mere pittance.
FDR elevated political cynicism, the manipulation of the gullible, to a fine Art form.
The trick is to inspire passionate loyalty, a Messianic Presence, utter devotion, with a cold ‘votes calculator’ between your ears. Make each side believe you -secretly- share their view. And that, in the fullness of time, you will vindicate their trust in you.
“And I will lead you by the calloused hand… ” (Barack Obama)
Give me a break. This is pure emotion. Not substance. Or track record.
Mr Obama, if I was running for chairman of the local Podunk Bowling Club, or president of the Ballyhoop Geranium Growers Society, I could quote 99 per cent of your speeches verbatim, and nobody would think I was talking about running the USA…
The truth IS… that the founding fathers of the United States warned in the most ringing and eloquent terms against the dangers of ‘big government’ and the dangers of involvement in foreign wars.
“I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government, are all foreign to us. They are nations of eternal war. “
And what have we got?
Bigger and bigger government, with a ballooning bureaucracy, exponential growth in national debt, and the emergence almost daily of yet more entities clamoring for a taxpayer funded bail out. And an overseas “tar pit ” which in some regards bears an uncomfortable resemblance to Vietnam.
Always, always, we have this humongous federal “elite “, bloated beyond belief, puffed up with their own self importance, and arrogant in their belief that they know better than you or I how to spend our tax payer dollars. So, because we, the people, are so retarded, they will make these difficult decisions for us. They will decide how to spend more and more of our money. For our own good of course. I feel so grateful. So moved. Almost weepy.
Far too small a percentage of the electorate reads History. Therefore, we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes.
Here we go again. FDR prolonged the Great Depression, with his central planning, his cockamamie alphabet soup of federal agencies tricking around with the economy, and his supremely arrogant, amateurish, beginner’s grasp of Economics.
There are endless excellent studies out, all of which point to some inescapable truths:
Far from solving the problems of the Great Depression, FDR’s buffoonery and political chicanery actually prolonged it.
And he spent billions of dollars achieving this negative result. As Morgenthau, the Secretary of the Treasury, went on record as saying, in May 1939, after nearly eight years of FDR’s bungling incompetence:
“We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong… somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises… I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started…. And an enormous debt to boot! “
FDR was the head of an “elite ” that “knew better ” than the people.
He engaged in:
Central Planning. Public Works expenditure. Government intervention. Subsidies. Bail outs. The ‘New Deal’.
There is plenty of evidence that his policies simply did not work.
A number of books are out that make fascinating reading.
“New Deal or Raw Deal? ” Burton Folsom
“The New Dealers War ” Thomas Fleming
“FDR’s Folly ” Jim Powell
And what is dear Barry talking about? Our Dear Leader?
Surprise, surprise.
Central Planning. Public Works expenditure. Government intervention. Subsidies. Bail outs. The ‘New’ New Deal…
We have learned, since the Great Depression, exactly… nothing.
Despite the Internet, despite the free flow of information, the level of trust, hope and expectation invested by so many people in the next administration is…. touching.
This…puppet…. has had enough of the BS. Already. What Obama is talking about is not going to work. It will cost the tax payer a fortune, that’s for sure. Reduce our freedoms and our ability to decide ourselves how we wish to spend our working dollars. But it will not solve the underlying root economic problems. Too much emotionalism, party politics, hopelessly unrealistic Utopian socialism, paternalism,
sentimentalism, pork barreling, and contempt for the lessons of History and Economics.
We are doomed to give previously failed economic policies, tried over and over again in the past, yet another run.
Once again, we see how the Federal government is indeed,similar to a runaway Express train, going full belt down the rails, with nobody in the drivers’ cab, and everybody giving lofty,emotional, stirring speeches in the Dining Car.
We, the Weary People, the tiny minority who can see the easily predictable train wreck coming along, we protest…
“…Some who heard this speech may have wondered where Roosevelt would get the money for his massive public works, his “aid to agriculture ” and his “bold leadership in distress relief “, among other promises. It may have been especially perplexing because Roosevelt, while he was promising a more active government, was also promising to cut government in size by 25 per cent and to balance the budget in each year of his presidency. But how could Roosevelt expand federal programs and cut government and balance the budget at the same time? We are back again to Roosevelt’s lack of economic training. It can’t be done… “
(Burton W.Folsom, page 38, ‘New Deal or Raw Deal?’)
We protest urgently. Get real, America.
You face problems you cannot solve by any other means than a quiet, thoughtful approach to studying the lessons of History and Economics.
At the same time, realistically, taking into consideration the fundamentally limited nature of us ‘all too’ human beings.
“I will lead you by the calloused hand… “
(sigh…)
F.M.
(c)
CLICK HERE TO GO TO MORATORIUM PROTEST MAIN PAGE
Last edited by Francis Meyrick on September 2, 2010, 11:00 am
(0 votes, average: 0.00 out of 5)You need to be a registered member to rate this.
Loading…2 responses to “We, the Weary people”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Very well written-If comes to Politics I am not the best to discuss, but will give my best to give a little feedback. Like ever leader this one faces a lot of hardship. No matter which angle we would look for it is a Depression that the World is falling in right now. No Barry Obama or other would be able to heal the Economy issues at present time. The USA economy has plunged deep with the WAR in Iraq and also with the monetary market that crushed few times. The entire World bases their economy on the Mighty USA Dollar. All Countries are looking up to the biggest MARKET which is USA!
USA needs to get stronger by quit fighting. The entire World depends on you people there.
This is my personal view. It is very hard time for Canada too. Our economy depends so much of your economy. We do feel the plunge as well.
Thank you for the great insightful post !
Zuzanna Musial
On my reading list there is a book:
"The Failure of America’s Foreign Wars"
(edited by Ebeling and Hornberger)
I have it here on my desk. That looks interesting.
I’m working my way through "FDR’s Folly" (Jim Powell) (How Roosevelt and his New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression)
Thought crosses my mind, I might post some "book reviews" on the site.
Francis