Of the sons of Issachar, men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do, their chiefs were two hundred; and all their kinsmen were at their command — 1 Chronicles 12:32
You want to talk about a hard punch right in the gut of American national security.
Allow me to sum this up for you: Obama is telling the Russians, “I assure you that I’m going to cave in to you like the pandering weakling that I am. But I can’t do it yet. If I sacrifice American security before the election, the American people will rightly turn on me and I’ll be out – and you’ll have a strong leader to deal with who will confront you as an obvious opponent rather than the Neville Chamberlain-style Appeaser-in-Chief that you have in me. If you give me ‘space’ to get re-elected I promise you I’ll bow down before you the same way I’ve already bowed down so many times before. I’ll even apologize to you for America’s ‘aggression’ if you want me to. Heck, I just got through apologizing to the people who murdered American soldiers! So you KNOW I’m good for it!”
SEOUL, South Korea — It was a comment not intended for public consumption, and another lesson for President Barack Obama on the importance of being careful about what you say around microphones, especially in an election year.
At the end of a 90-minute meeting between Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday, journalists rushed in to hear remarks from the leaders about the content of their talks.
Journalists spied the two leaders leaning close together and talking in hushed tones. According to those in the room, the conversation was difficult to hear but the videotape revealed Obama asking the Russian leader to wait until after the November election before pushing forward on the topic of a planned missile defense shield.
“Pool” videotape provided more information about the conversation between the two leaders:
Obama: This is my last election…After my election I have more flexibility.
Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.
While most journalists didn’t catch the rest, one Russian reporter managed to record the context with his equipment.
Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.
Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…
Obama: This is my last election…After my election I have more flexibility.
Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.
The planned anti-ballistic shield system has been one of many sore spots between the two world powers in the last few years.
Moscow says it fears the system would weaken Russia by gaining the capability to shoot down the nuclear missiles it relies on as a deterrent. It wants a legally binding pledge from the United States that Russia’s nuclear forces would not be targeted by the system.
That’s actually NOT what Moscow wants. Yes, it is their rhetorical posture to make them sound “reasonable,” but the reality is that Russia doesn’t just want some “contract.”
Moscow wants the United States to abandon this missile defense system altogether. Moscow wants to throw a monkey wrench into the entire system that the United States says is necessary to protect America from the now very real prospect of a nutjob Iranian ballistic missile attack.
You need to understand what current American policy is. And then you need to realize that Obama is signalling the Russians that he is going to abandon his own policy and undermine American security if Russia just gets off his back so he can get re-elected. Because getting re-elected is all that Obama cares about. And he’ll violate any trust no matter how sacred if it will purchase enough votes.
To frame it in terms of the title below, if Obama was going to “stick” to the missile shield as is official US policy as of just a few months ago (December 2011), he wouldn’t have anything to be afraid of. Which is to say that Obama is already planning on appeasing Russia; he just needs “space” to betray America:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama Administration plans to complete an anti-ballistic missile shield to protect European allies against Iran ”whether Russia likes it or not,” the U.S. envoy to NATO said on Friday.
Moscow’s objections to the project, which includes participation by Romania, Poland, Turkey and Spain, “won’t be the driving force in what we do,” Ivo Daalder, the ambassador, told reporters at a breakfast session.
The U.S. estimate of the Iranian ballistic missile threat has gone up, not down, over the two years since President Barack Obama opted for a new, four-phased deployment to protect the United States and NATO allies, Daalder said.
“It’s accelerating,” Daalder said of the U.S.-perceived threat of Iran’s ballistic missiles, “and becoming more severe than even we thought two years ago.”
“We’re deploying all four phases, in order to deal with that threat, whether Russia likes it or not,” he added. At the same time, he urged Moscow to cooperate in both to deal with Iran and to see for itself that, as he put it, the system’s capabilities pose its strategic deterrent force no threat.
If the perceived threat from Iran ebbs, “then maybe the system will be adapted to that lesser threat,” Daalder said.
[...]
Daalder said the sides remain at odds over, among other things, Russia’s demand for the legally binding pledge, before any cooperation, that its nuclear forces would not be targeted by the NATO elements.
“They have gotten themselves quite hung up on our unwillingness to put this in legally binding writing,” he said.
The administration was not convinced that such a pledge would be ratified by the U.S. Senate, he said, nor should Moscow be convinced that even if it were, “we wouldn’t necessarily at some point walk away from it,” as the George W. Bush administration did from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the only U.S.-Russia missile defense pact.
That withdrawal opened the way for the creation of an anti-missile defense shield that the U.S. government says is designed to protect the United States from countries like Iran and North Korea.
Daalder said that if the United States ever were placing interceptors to counter Russia’s nuclear missiles, “we wouldn’t deploy them in Europe. We would deploy them in the United States.”
The physics of missile defense intercepts make it “easier and better to approach an incoming missile from the opposite side than it is to try to chase it down.” he said. “That’s the way that it works.”
Russia knows full-well that we wouldn’t build a system designed to protect America from Russian missiles in Europe. What Russia is trying to do is create difficulties that will make the missile shield politically impossible to build altogether. The Russians also very much like the idea (which is why Russia has helped Iran develop its nuclear program to begin with) of America being vulnerable to Iran which very obviously gives Russia more influence and power over US policy. At least unless we build a missile defense shield.
But Barack Obama is worried about the Iranian threat. Obama isn’t worried about millions of Americans being murdered. Obama is looking out for #1. Obama is worried about his re-election and he will betray America if that’s what it takes to keep his job so he can continue his “fundamental transformation” of America from a constitutional republic into a Marxist banana republic.
This has always been a nation that was determined to protect itself. Barack Obama wants to “fundamentally transform” that. He just needs “space” to do it so he can betray the American people with impunity.
You see, it really isn’t about 320 million Americans or their pitiful national security. It’s about Obama and his election. You suck; Obama actually is a messiah and ergo sum Obama is the only being that is worth a damn on Obama’s view.
And so this same Obama is telling Europe, “With all due respect, please remember that only I matter. You can save your continent and preserve the hundreds of millions of peasants who live there, but just don’t do it until AFTER I’m re-elected:
The Obama administration will pressure European governments not to let Greece fall out of the eurozone before November’s Presidential elections, British Government sources have suggested.
Representatives from the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission are due to arrive in Athens next month to assess Greece’s reform efforts.
They are expected to report in time for an 8 October meeting of eurozone finance ministers which will decide on whether to disburse Greece’s next €31bn aid tranche, promised under the terms of the bailout for the country.
American officials are understood to be worried that if they decide Greece has not done enough to meet its deficit targets and withhold the money, it would automatically trigger Greece’s exit from the eurozone weeks before the Presidential election on 6 November.
They are urging eurozone Governments to hold off from taking any drastic action before then – fearing that the resulting market destabilisation could damage President Obama’s re-election prospects. European leaders are thought to be sympathetic to the lobbying fearing that, under pressure from his party lin Congress, Mitt Romney would be a more isolationist president than Mr Obama.
The President discussed the eurozone crisis with David Cameron during a conference call on Wednesday and both welcomed statements by the European Central Bank that it was “standing firmly behind the euro”.
The ECB is expected to present a plan in the next few weeks to help indebted countries like Spain and Italy by buying their government bonds.
Today, Prime Minister Antonis Samaras will travel to Berlin to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel, and to France tomorrow for talks with President François Hollande. He is asking that Greece be given more time to meet its deficit targets and implement its reforms as its economy is struggling through a fifth year of recession.
But Germany’s Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, said it was only months since creditors drew up a second bailout package and agreed on a massive debt write-down for Greece.
Britain is understood to have pressed the Germans to ensure that if eurozone leaders decide Greece’s position is unsustainable the financial “firewall” around Spain and Italy is made stronger. Officials are worried that if Greece was to exit the eurozone, the move could result in dramatic increases in the cost of debt for other weaker eurozone members – making their financial situation unsustainable.
Allow me to translate that part that says, “European leaders are thought to be sympathetic to the lobbying fearing that, under pressure from his party lin Congress, Mitt Romney would be a more isolationist president than Mr Obama.” It’s pretty much the same thing as saying that Obama has assured Europe that he’ll promise to screw the American people to give Europe whatever bailout it wants as long as Europe doesn’t interfere with his re-election. It’s pretty much the same promise Obama gave to Russia to screw American national security if Russia didn’t do anything to interfere with his re-election.
Greece, of course, has long-since proven that it is a giant black hole of bailouts. Greece is a country that will promise anything to get the next bailout, then completely renege on its promises, then come begging for another bailout. And given that it’s already worked so many times for them before, they’re going to keep doing it until Europe is a dry husk. Greece is one of those cancers that has to be surgically removed or else the patient dies.
Not that Obama cares. Obama is worried about the most important thing that ever existed or ever will exist: Obama.
I frankly don’t know whether Obama didn’t get his ass kicked nearly enough when he was a kid, or whether he got his ass kicked way too many times. It was clearly one or the other, given the malignant narcissist he’s become.
Greece’s economy, Europe’s economy, hell our own economy, are all teetering and will very likely go over the brink. But what matters any of that if Obama is re-elected? His sheer wonderfulness is really all that ought to matter to anyone with the proper perspective. All of the rest of us are but dust before him, and we ought to remember that.
Iran, Russia, China and Syria are planning to hold
the largest war games exercise in the Middle East in less than a month, Iran’s
Fars media reported Tuesday.Citing “informed sources,” the report said
that 90,000 soldiers from the four countries are to take part.The
massive war games drill will include air defense and missile units as well as
ground, air and naval forces. It is scheduled for early July.
A total of
400 planes and 1,000 tanks are said to be taking part, among them “12 Chinese
warships… Russian atomic submarines and warships, aircraft carriers and
mine-clearing destroyers as well as Iranian battleships and
submarines.”
All of the above are to arrive shortly in Syria, according
to the report.”
Russia denies that any war games will take place. While it is certainly possible there won’t be any 90,000 troops and hundreds of ships, etc. flooding the Syrian coast, I personally don’t have much more trust in Russia (especially under Putin) than I had for the U.S.S.R. So allow me to entertain the notion that the FARS report is accurate.
Given the environment (I mean, Syria has now brutally murdered way, WAAAAAY over 14,000 of their own citizens while Egypt is in political meltdown), why on earth would anybody be doing a war game?
Consider one other rather massive “elephant-in-the-room” development: Iran has clearly used the just-suspended-as-futile UN talks as nothing more than a way to keep stalling for time while developing their nuclear weapons program – a program that never would have existed in the first place without Russia and China. Which of course is exactly what Israel and American conservatives said was the case from the very beginning.
And Syria is nothing more than a puppet state of the Iranian regime.
So let me answer my question: why on earth would Iran, Syria, Russia and China conduct “war games” while war that is very definitely NOTa game looms everywhere?
Because they want to deter Israel from launching its attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons program, that’s why. How could Israel attack Iran with the Russian, Chinese, Syrian and Iranian navies massed off her coast???
The fascist powers that be - Syria, Iran, Russia, China and the United States of God damn America under Obama – do not want Israel to be able to defend her right to exist. Fortunately, God has other plans.
One of the few Old Testament prophecies that was never fulfilled – YET! – is that the city of Damascus would be utterly destroyed. I look at the incredibly wicked state of Syria today recently murdering over fourteen thousand of her own people as a puppet state of Iran, and the one thing I can tell you as a certainty is is that Damascus has it coming to them.
Famous journalist and radio presenter Sergei Aslanyan has been assaulted late Monday night, Moscow police reported.
According to police, an unknown man called Aslanyan at 11.30 pm and asked him to come out for a talk. As soon as the Aslanyan left his house the man attacked him, hitting the journalist on the head and stabbing him on the chest, neck and an arm, before disappearing.
Aslanyan himself managed to call police and was later hospitalized at a major Moscow clinic where he was operated on. “The patient was brought last night to the operating room, now he is in intensive care,” said at the hospital.
Moscow police initiated an investigation over assault and seized CCTV footage hoping to establish the identity of the attacker.
It is believed the crime may be related to Aslanyan’s work. Newspaper Izvestia suggested it may be connected with provocative remarks by the journalist on religious themes
On May 14 on a live radio show on Radio Mayak, Aslanyan discussed the question of choosing a new car, and used the expression, “from rags to riches,” in the context of a discussion about the biography of the Prophet Muhammad, in a manner which has drawn condemnation from some parts of the Muslim community, with some pro-Islamic media publishing negative articles referring to the remarks.
The imam and the congregation of Kazan Zakaban Mosque and the Tatarstan community wrote a letter to the Prosecutor General of Russia, in which they stated that they were offended by Aslanyan’s comments.
The Islamic community is sensitive about perceived attacks on Islam, and its founder. The 2005 publication in Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad led to a wave of protests and threats directed towards the newspaper.
In Russia, the November 2009 murder of Moscow priest Daniil Sysoev, who had been converting Muslims to Christianity, in St. Thomas’ church in southern Moscow has also heightened religious tensions in some sections of the community.
Sergey Aslanyan, who previously worked with liberal radio station Ekho Moskvy, has been with Radio Mayak since 2008, taking part in a range of programs. Radio Mayak confirmed that Aslanyan had been assaulted.
WUERL: This lawsuit isn’t about contraception. It is about religious freedom. Embedded in the mandate is a radically new definition of what institutes a religious community, what constitutes religious ministry — brand new and never fortified in the federal level. That’s what we are arguing about.
The lawsuit said we have every right to serve in this community as we have served for decades and decades. The new definition says you are not really religious if you serve people other than your own and if you hire people other than your own. That wipes out all of the things that we have been doing, all the things that we contribute to the common good — our schools, our health care services, our Catholic charity and even parish soup kitchens and pantries. All that’s wiped out.
WALLACE: Let me pick up on that, because the White House says — the famous accommodation by President Obama, that they changed the mandates so that the insurance companies that you are dealing with, to provide health insurance coverage to your employees have to provide the birth control for free and that the charities and the schools and the hospitals, don’t have to do anything.
WUERL: This is one of the reasons why we say the accommodation didn’t change anything, because so many of our institutions, certainly the archdiocese, is self insured. We are the insurer.
So, when you say, don’t worry, we changed this and only the insurer has to pay. And we are the insurer, there is no accommodation.
WALLACE: But they’re saying, well, over the next year, we are taking public comment on this. And we will tweak that regulation so that the self insurers will not have to provide the birth control.
WUERL: Last time the government said we are going to hear from you, 200,000 suggestions went in and not one of them was accepted.
What was in the presentation before the request for suggestions was exactly what the administration reported out. By the way, it’s a law. It’s a law right now.
All of this conversation about we’ll find a way around it, that’s conversation. What’s law right now, is that that definition is what we are going to have to live with. And that’s why we went to court, because in the United States, if there is an impasse on the individual rights, we’re going to court and that way you scrape away all of the politics.
WALLACE: I don’t know if you’ve heard about this. But if you haven’t, I’ll inform you. What do you make of the fact that the broadcast network spent grand total of 19 seconds on their evening newscast — 19 seconds — covering the lawsuits by the 43 Catholic organizations; what do you make of that?
WUERL: Well, it is puzzling because they are focusing so much attention on the pope’s butler. It seems to me that somehow they missed the boat. And they missed the story.
And that’s why it is so important that we have a moment like this.
WALLACE: You think it’s political bias on the part of the networks?
[...]
WALLACE: Meanwhile, Mitt Romney came out this week for allowing federal funds to be used by low income parents to send their kids to any public school or even to some private school and parochial schools. You support that idea, don’t you?
WUERL: The idea that money should follow the child, we all pay the taxes. We are all paying taxes for education. Why doesn’t that money follow the parents of the kids?
For example, here, if you live in the District of Columbia, if you are very wealth or have a lot of support, you can send your child to a very exclusive private school. But if you live in this inner city, if you live in some of the poorest neighborhoods, you don’t get an option.
That’s why the Catholic Church is there, that’s why we have our schools in the inner city saying we’ll give you a chance to get a decent education and we’ll pay for it. But wouldn’t it be fair, wouldn’t be just, wouldn’t be really honest if every child a chance at a real, true, academically excellent education. And one way to do that is to let the parents have a choice.
Archbishop Wenski put the essence of the gigantic story that the mainstream media has steadfastly refesued to cover thusly:
“As Catholics, we help people not because they’re Catholic, but because we’re Catholic. And so our schools, our universities, our Catholic charities, organizations, our hospitals admit people regardless of their faith. What the government is saying to us is that then, we’re going to have to operate hospitals for Catholics only?”
What does the mainstream media scream in place of covering such a story from such a perspective?
You want to talk about a hard punch right in the gut of American national security.
Allow me to sum this up for you: Obama is telling the Russians, “I assure you that I’m going to cave in to you like the pandering weakling that I am. But I can’t do it yet. If I sacrifice American security before the election, the American people will rightly turn on me and I’ll be out – and you’ll have a strong leader to deal with who will confront you as an obvious opponent rather than the Neville Chamberlain-style Appeaser-in-Chief that you have in me. If you give me ‘space’ to get re-elected I promise you I’ll bow down before you the same way I’ve already bowed down so many times before. I’ll even apologize to you for America’s ‘aggression’ if you want me to. Heck, I just got through apologizing to the people who murdered American soldiers! So you KNOW I’m good for it!”
SEOUL, South Korea — It was a comment not intended for public consumption, and another lesson for President Barack Obama on the importance of being careful about what you say around microphones, especially in an election year.
At the end of a 90-minute meeting between Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday, journalists rushed in to hear remarks from the leaders about the content of their talks.
Journalists spied the two leaders leaning close together and talking in hushed tones. According to those in the room, the conversation was difficult to hear but the videotape revealed Obama asking the Russian leader to wait until after the November election before pushing forward on the topic of a planned missile defense shield.
“Pool” videotape provided more information about the conversation between the two leaders:
Obama: This is my last election…After my election I have more flexibility.
Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.
While most journalists didn’t catch the rest, one Russian reporter managed to record the context with his equipment.
Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.
Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…
Obama: This is my last election…After my election I have more flexibility.
Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.
The planned anti-ballistic shield system has been one of many sore spots between the two world powers in the last few years.
Moscow says it fears the system would weaken Russia by gaining the capability to shoot down the nuclear missiles it relies on as a deterrent. It wants a legally binding pledge from the United States that Russia’s nuclear forces would not be targeted by the system.
That’s actually NOT what Moscow wants. Yes, it is their rhetorical posture to make them sound “reasonable,” but the reality is that Russia doesn’t just want some “contract.”
Moscow wants the United States to abandon this missile defense system altogether. Moscow wants to throw a monkey wrench into the entire system that the United States says is necessary to protect America from the now very real prospect of a nutjob Iranian ballistic missile attack.
You need to understand what current American policy is. And then you need to realize that Obama is signalling the Russians that he is going to abandon his own policy and undermine American security if Russia just gets off his back so he can get re-elected. Because getting re-elected is all that Obama cares about. And he’ll violate any trust no matter how sacred if it will purchase enough votes.
To frame it in terms of the title below, if Obama was going to “stick” to the missile shield as is official US policy as of just a few months ago (December 2011), he wouldn’t have anything to be afraid of. Which is to say that Obama is already planning on appeasing Russia; he just needs “space” to betray America:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama Administration plans to complete an anti-ballistic missile shield to protect European allies against Iran ”whether Russia likes it or not,” the U.S. envoy to NATO said on Friday.
Moscow’s objections to the project, which includes participation by Romania, Poland, Turkey and Spain, “won’t be the driving force in what we do,” Ivo Daalder, the ambassador, told reporters at a breakfast session.
The U.S. estimate of the Iranian ballistic missile threat has gone up, not down, over the two years since President Barack Obama opted for a new, four-phased deployment to protect the United States and NATO allies, Daalder said.
“It’s accelerating,” Daalder said of the U.S.-perceived threat of Iran’s ballistic missiles, “and becoming more severe than even we thought two years ago.”
“We’re deploying all four phases, in order to deal with that threat, whether Russia likes it or not,” he added. At the same time, he urged Moscow to cooperate in both to deal with Iran and to see for itself that, as he put it, the system’s capabilities pose its strategic deterrent force no threat.
If the perceived threat from Iran ebbs, “then maybe the system will be adapted to that lesser threat,” Daalder said.
[...]
Daalder said the sides remain at odds over, among other things, Russia’s demand for the legally binding pledge, before any cooperation, that its nuclear forces would not be targeted by the NATO elements.
“They have gotten themselves quite hung up on our unwillingness to put this in legally binding writing,” he said.
The administration was not convinced that such a pledge would be ratified by the U.S. Senate, he said, nor should Moscow be convinced that even if it were, “we wouldn’t necessarily at some point walk away from it,” as the George W. Bush administration did from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the only U.S.-Russia missile defense pact.
That withdrawal opened the way for the creation of an anti-missile defense shield that the U.S. government says is designed to protect the United States from countries like Iran and North Korea.
Daalder said that if the United States ever were placing interceptors to counter Russia’s nuclear missiles, “we wouldn’t deploy them in Europe. We would deploy them in the United States.”
The physics of missile defense intercepts make it “easier and better to approach an incoming missile from the opposite side than it is to try to chase it down.” he said. “That’s the way that it works.”
Russia knows full-well that we wouldn’t build a system designed to protect America from Russian missiles in Europe. What Russia is trying to do is create difficulties that will make the missile shield politically impossible to build altogether. The Russians also very much like the idea (which is why Russia has helped Iran develop its nuclear program to begin with) of America being vulnerable to Iran which very obviously gives Russia more influence and power over US policy. At least unless we build a missile defense shield.
But Barack Obama is worried about the Iranian threat. Obama isn’t worried about millions of Americans being murdered. Obama is looking out for #1. Obama is worried about his re-election and he will betray America if that’s what it takes to keep his job so he can continue his “fundamental transformation” of America from a constitutional republic into a Marxist banana republic.
This has always been a nation that was determined to protect itself. Barack Obama wants to “fundamentally transform” that. He just needs “space” to do it so he can betray the American people with impunity.
Barack Obama said something a few days ago that festers like a nasty strain of brain cancer.
When mainstream media “reporters” handed Obama a softball question about Republicans calling him out for appeasement (in a question that failed to mention ANY of the reasons the Republicans had given for accusing Obama of appeasement in the first place), Obama said:
“Ask Osama bin Laden and the 22 out of 30 top al-Qaida leaders who have been taken off the field whether I engage in appeasement. Or whoever is left out there, ask them about that,” the president said during a news conference.
Iran is going to have a nuclear weapon SOON. That day will be a dark and terrible one, because Iran will ultimately be able to a) shut down the Strait of Hormuz and send oil prices skyrocketing above $14 a gallon; b) launch an international wave of terrorism; or c) even attack Israel with IMPUNITY when they get nuclear weapons and the ballistic missiles to deliver them. Because if we attack a nuclear – and frankly crazy and truly evil - Iran, we get to kiss a few cities and tens of millions of Americans goodbye.
There were several other reasons the various GOP rivals rightly accused Obama of appeasement. But let’s just ask ourselves: if those biased leftist hyper-partisan psuedo-journalists had confronted Obama with the disgrace of Iran’s nuclear program in the context of their question about “appeasement,” wouldn’t that have made it just a little bit harder for a biased leftist hyper-partisan pseudo-president to give us such a smash-that-lob response???
In any event, Obama is a great, strong, powerful leader and NOT a timid appeaser because he got Osama bin Laden – and just don’t you mind the rest of the foreign policy disasters he’s presided over. That’s the Obama line.
Let’s forget that, mainstream media, so we can lob Obama a softball question devoid of any context at all – and allow Obama to say something like, oh, “Ask Osama bin Laden if I’m an appeaser.”
So let’s consider Obama’s answer: does Obama being the brave, brave Sir Robin who happened to be the carbon-based lifeform inhabiting the Oval Office at the time we got Osama bin Laden make up for all of the above appeasement???
Well, first consider the FACT that the waterboarding Obama opposed, demonized and in fact actually tried to criminalize-after-the-fact was ESSENTIAL to finding out where Obama was (see also here). If Obama had got his way, and Bush had not waterboarded terrorist suspects, we can toss out the only link we had to Obama (courier) and we can toss out the city where he was hiding (Abbottabad):
Oops. Did I forget to mention that Obama has actually had many more acts of appeasement than what I had above? Because not only did he denounce the very waterboarding that got us Osama bin Laden, but he also denounced the Gitmo where we got that information.
So why does Obama get all the credit for getting Obama and Bush none?
Please refer to my previous statements regarding the level of bias in American pesudo-journalism.
But then there’s also “the decision” to get Osama bin Laden. Wasn’t that like really brave?
Well, I’m going to the dentist this week to get some really painful work done. I’m just as brave as Obama was to get in my car and show up at that dentist office.
Imagine if Obama had REFUSED to get Osama bin Laden (after making a campaign promise that he would do so if he knew where bin Laden was hiding). What do you think are the odds that that information would never get out? What are the odds that no so much as one single member of the armed forces or the intelligence community would be outraged by such an act of cowardice and not leak the fact that Obama refused to get the world’s number one terrorist in the world? And what are the odds that Obama would have been re-elected with Republicans running that ad again and again and again like Bush Sr.’s “Read my lips, no new taxes” line???
It wasn’t “brave” for Obama to approve that mission; it was an act of self-political-survival.
And that mission to get Osama bin Laden had some huge consequences that for some strange reason the media has refused to lay at the door of the guy they gave all the credit for getting him to.
If Obama deserves the credit, does he not also deserve the blame?
For one thing, U.S. relations with vital partner in the war on terror Pakistan are at an all-time-low because of the thing that Obama claims so much credit for having done.
Imagine if Mexico launched a commando raid into the heart of the United States to kill someone their government was after. Or imagine if Canada did that to us. How would we respond to the fact that soldiers with guns flew into our country without our knowledge or consent to start shooting people?
Do you remember when Obama falsely and in fact demonically attacked Bush for bringing down the U.S. image to the rest of the world. Now the world hates us more than it ever did under Bush. Even the ARAB WORLD hates us more, because they at least had some respect for Bush. Versus Obama who is just a simpering – and yes, appeasing – scrawny-necked dumbo-eared little weasel.
But hey, I’m not a “journalist” or a “reporter,” so I can bring facts like that up, can’t I???
There was another casuality to Obama’s grand mission that everyone gave him total credit for: we gave away BILLIONS in stealth technology to our enemies in China and Russia.
Remember that helicopter tail section Obama left behind in Pakistan?
Several of us at Big Peace have reported in the past about the noticeable warming relationship between China and Pakistan. This has concerned the US because of the amount of cooperation and assistance – worth billions of dollars — given to Pakistan. It was eventually decided that that we would have to accept Pakistan’s warts if we were to have a regional partner in the War on Terror. It was an uneasy concession from the start and hard pill to swallow. In fact, that pill hasn’t fully worked its way down.
Just recently there were immediate questions over the successful downing of Chinook that did more damage to US forces in an instant in what otherwise could not be accomplished by the Taliban in over ten years of war. Those questions were directed to the highest reaches of the Pakistan government and its intelligence arm, the ISI.
Now comes in what appears to be an open betrayal by our so-called mission partners.
The US employed new stealth technology in the successful raid on Osama bin Laden. Special Forces used a previously unknown capability, and so far as we know, is unduplicated by any other country, when they swooped down on Osama’s compound in stealth-modified Blackhawk helicopters. One of those helicopters had a mechanical malfunction and crashed on site as a result. Despite urgent requests by the CIA and the US government, Pakistan allowed China to view the new machine.
“The US now has information that Pakistan, particularly the ISI, gave access to the Chinese military to the downed helicopter in Abbottabad,” the paper quoted a person “in intelligence circles” as saying.
Pakistan, which enjoys a close relationship with China, allowed Chinese intelligence officials to take pictures of the crashed chopper as well as take samples of its special “skin” that allowed the American raid to evade Pakistani radar, Reuters reported.
No one from the Pakistani army was available for comment, but the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), Pakistan’s top spy agency, denied the report. The paper said Pakistan’s top general, chief of army staff Ashfaq Kayani, denied that China had been given access.
Do you know how much it cost to develop that technology that China can now easily reverse-engineer for pennies on the millions of dollars?
You don’t want to know. Seriously.
Our enemies can not only reverse engineer our stealth technology and make their own stealth helicopters to use against U.S. interests, but it can also now devise better countermeasures against our stuff to leave us weaker in the future.
And Obama isn’t through on that score. He just left behind a hi-tech radar-evading stealth drone for Iran to find.
And what did it cost us to develop that thing? A bunch. What’s it going to cost Iran – and its allies Russia and China to develop? Nada.
But, hey. That kind of thing gets in the way of the mainstream media narrative that anything that we don’t want to credit Obama for we will blame Bush for.
We’re back in the days of the Marxists and the Nazis (fellow socialist travellers) rising to power. All it would have taken for the ugliest period in the history of the human race to have been averted was a little honest reporting by the medias of those countries. But the media had become ideological pawns of totalitarian agendas. It had become an actual ally of those agendas.
“Pentagon officials are pushing back against cutting any more beyond the $450 billion they’ve already been asked to make, but at half the federal government’s entire discretionary budget — and growing — the defense budget is an obvious place to keep cutting.”
Now Obama is demanding that the military be cut by another $600 billion on top of that $450 billion. He wants to preside over the destruction of America’s military strength. And he is succeeding in his failure.
One of the characteristics of “God damn America” is that we would have a president who is determined to gut our national security when we need it the most.
Which is precisely why Obama is trying to gut our military when we need it the most; he is the epitome and the embodiment of God damn America.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has warned of the possible damage to national security with a supercommittee failure. That warning is echoed by leaders of every service and by others.
They are worried because the same Budget Control Act that gives unprecedented power to the special panel of six Republicans and six Democrats also comes with what Panetta calls a “doomsday mechanism” in case a majority of committee members refuse to reach a deal.
The mechanism — sequestration — forces future defense budgets and some popular entitlement programs to take across-the-board cuts. For defense, the deepest cut would occur in 2013, followed by automatic cuts of up to $55 billion a year for eight more years. This would be on top of $465 billion in defense cuts already planned over the next decade.
Recently, Panetta laid out in new detail what will befall defense programs if “maximum” sequestration is triggered so defense cuts total almost $1 trillion over the decade.
“The impacts…would be devastating,” Panetta wrote. In fiscal 2013, assuming the president exercises his authority to exempt military personnel accounts from automatic cuts, a 23-percent cut “would have to be applied equally to each major investment and construction program” of the Department of Defense, leaving “most of our ship and construction projects unexecutable — you cannot buy three quarters of a ship or a building.”
Many civilian workers would be furloughed, Panetta said.
“The situation does not get better” beyond 2013, he added, with cuts of up to $100 billion a year possible compared to the 2012 defense budget.
“Rough estimates suggest after 10 years of these cuts, we would have the smallest ground force since 1940, the smallest number of ships since 1915, and the smallest Air Force in its history,” Panetta wrote.
Wartime funding for Afghanistan would not be directly impacted, the secretary explained, but war efforts would suffer.
“Contracting personnel would be cut, resulting in delays in the contracts and the contract oversight that support the war. Payroll personnel would be cut, resulting in late payments to wartime vendors, and legal and policy support would be disrupted,” Panetta advised.
That’s what Obama’s OWN Secretary of Defense says.
“My message to them is simple:No.I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending.There will be no easy off ramps on this one.”
It won’t be long before Iran gets the nuclear bomb and the means to deliver that bomb. The day they do, they will be able to launch a wave of international terrorism and they will be able to block the Strait of Hormuz. With impunity.
THE NATION – Democrats rip Bush’s Iran policy Presidential candidates say a new intelligence report shows that the administration has been talking too tough.
By Scott Martelle and Robin Abcarian
December 05, 2007
Democratic presidential candidates teamed up during a National Public Radio debate here Tuesday to blast the Bush administration over its policy toward Iran, arguing that a new intelligence assessment proves that the administration has needlessly ratcheted up military rhetoric.
While the candidates differed somewhat over the level of threat Iran poses in the Mideast, most of them sought to liken the administration’s approach to Iran with its buildup to the war in Iraq.
It’s not enough to say that they were completely wrong. They were DEAD wrong. They were TRAITOR wrong.
Meanwhile, on top of Iran moving full-speed ahead in developing nuclear weapons, Russia just threatened the United States with a clear act of war because they understand that Barack Hussein Obama is a feckless puke who is dismantling our ability to stand up and fight as quickly as he possibly can:
MOSCOW — President Dmitry Medvedev said Wednesday that Russia will target the American missile defense system in Europe with its missiles if Moscow cannot reach an agreement with Washington and NATO on how the system will be built and operated.
Russia just threatened Obama with World War III unless Obama backs down like the pencil-necked little coward they know he is.
Even during the height of the Soviet Union’s power, Russia would never have DARED to say anything that threatening to Ronald Reagan.
But then again, Ronald Reagan wasn’t a weak, pathetic, gutless fool who despised the United States of America.
And the Russians knew that Ronald Wilson Reagan – unlike Barack Hussein Obama – would stand up for the United States in a strong, powerful way.
Barack Obama: “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation,” Obama responded.
“As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States,” Obama continued. “In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch.”
Do you remember being attacked by Libya? Did the Libyans invade us? I mean, maybe I was just asleep when it happened or something. Otherwise, Barack Obama ought to be impeached, and the single witness against him should be … Barack Obama. Barack Obama trampled all over the Constitution according to none other than … that’s right, Barack Obama.
Do you remember how the left unrelentingly mocked and attacked Bush for “looking into Putin’s eyes” and thinking he saw someone he could work with? I don’t know about you, but I see an awful lot of eye contact going on between Obama and Gaddafi. But the mainstream media would never DREAM hold Obama accountable to the same unrelentingly negative standard they attacked George Bush with.
I always laugh how nobody is more blatantly unfair than the same left that constantly self-righteously lectures the right about “fairness.”
And the Obama administration is advancing the same meandering gibberish throughout the rest of the Middle East (and the world) as well, of course. Obama’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called brutal Syrian thug Bashar al-Assad a “reformer” because these liberals are naive clueless idiots. John Kerry - who thought he was just so much smarter than George Bush – was unsurprisingly every iota as stupid as Obama and Clinton. But at least after watching Assad murder at least 850 of his own people, even Kerry could “discover” that Assad was certainly “no reformer.”
So what about the president who said that “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack” until he himself unilaterally authorized a military attack without even bothering to talk to Congress about said unilateral military attack?
Well, we find that our Fascist-in-Chief is basically above the law:
Today marks the 60th day since President Barack Obama formally told Congress about the U.S. intervention in Libya. It matters, because Congress hasn’t authorized the action and the 1973 War Powers Act states that if a president doesn’t attain that authorization 60 days after the start of military action, the president must halt it within 30 days.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) told Fox News that the House was working on a resolution for Monday that “would either get Congress to sign off on intervention in Libya or cut off the operation.”
And on Wednesday, Republican Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.), Mike Lee (Utah), Jim DeMint (S.C.), Ron Johnson (Wis.), Tom Coburn (Okla.) and John Cornyn (Texas) sent a letter to Obama asking whether he intended to comply with Section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.
“As recently as last week your Administration indicated use of the United States Armed Forces will continue indefinitely,” they wrote in the letter. “Therefore, we are writing to ask whether you intend to comply with the
requirements of the War Powers Resolution. We await your response.”
Earlier this month, The New York Times reported that the Obama administration was committed to complying with the War Powers Act, but that it was also looking for ways to lawfully continue the military intervention without asking Congress to authorize it:
One concept being discussed is for the United States to halt the use of its Predator drones in attacking targets in Libya, and restrict them solely to a role gathering surveillance over targets.
Over recent weeks, the Predators have been the only American weapon actually firing on ground targets, although many aircraft are assisting in refueling, intelligence gathering and electronic jamming.
By ending all strike missions for American forces, the argument then could be made that the United States was no longer directly engaged in hostilities in Libya, but only providing support to NATO allies.
Another option, reports the Times, is to order a complete stop to military efforts and restart them shortly, which lawyers say would buy them 60 more days.
In an opinion piece for the Washington Post, Bruce Ackerman and Oona Hathaway, professors of law and political science at Yale, argue that Obama is charting new territory here:
Make no mistake: Obama is breaking new ground, moving decisively beyond his predecessors. George W. Bush gained congressional approval for his wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Bill Clinton acted unilaterally when he committed American forces to NATO’s bombing campaign in Kosovo, but he persuaded Congress to approve special funding for his initiative within 60 days. And the entire operation ended on its 78th day.
In contrast, Congress has not granted special funds for Libya since the bombing began, and the campaign is likely to continue beyond the 30-day limit set for termination of all operations
Do you see how fundamentally and profoundly fascist our Führer is? Do you not see how this creep is constantly trying to wiggle out of constitutional responsibilities and wriggle out of his responsibilities to Congress after he personally, repeatedly and hypocritically demonized George Bush for doing far, far LESS?
I rather routinely call Obama the F-word. No, not that F-word (although the ability to resist doing so is dwindling); the other F-word: Fascist. Barack Obama is a fascist.
I have had quite a few liberals fixate on this word, and – while ignoring the rest of my arguments – proceed to give me a lecture about how my extremism undermines my positions and arguments (which they don’t bother to consider).
I’d like to respond to that. At length.
There are many who would argue that if a politician is not as rabid as Adolf Hitler, that one cannot use this label of “fascist” - at least not unless the target is a Republican (see below). Barack Obama is not a “dictator,” these would argue. He hasn’t launched the world into global war and he hasn’t murdered 6 million Jews (at least, he hasn’t yet). So he can’t be a “fascist.” This argument fails on two parts. First of all, by such a metric, Benito Mussolini wouldn’t be a “fascist” either (except for the “dictator” part). One of the reasons it is hard to have an easy definition of “fascist” is because fascism has taken a different character in every country and culture in which it has been embraced. Hitler is not the norm or standard of fascism; he is merely the most extreme example of its virulence and danger. Secondly, even if we were to take a Hitler as our example, let us realize that Adolf Hitler was a very cunning politician who managed to gain power in a Germany that was THE most sophisticated, educated and scientific nation and culture of its day. What I am asserting is that if an Adolf Hitler were to run for the presidency of the United States in 2012, he would run a platform that we could very easily label as “hope and change,” he would demagogue his adversaries as being the cause for the nation’s plight, he would lie both cynically and outrageously to win votes and he would then proceed to push the country as far as he possibly could toward his agenda. And so here, from the outset, I am claiming that the suggestion that either Barack Obama or anyone else does not qualify as a “fascist” simply because he or she can’t be directly compared to Adolf Hitler is nothing but a straw man.
The question thus becomes, what is fascism, and then it is what is Obama steering us toward?
THE WORD “fascism” is used broadly on the left as a term of abuse. Sometimes it is used to refer to any repressive government, whatever its political form. Most commonly on the left in the U.S., it is used to describe any Republican government–in particular, any Republican government or candidate on the eve of a presidential election.
As an experiment, I typed the words “Bush fascist” and then “Obama fascist” sans quotes. I got 3,280,000 Google hits for Bush fascist (and keep in mind an awful lot of hits would have vanished in the last 11 years as domains purged articles or simply ceased to exist) versus only 2,490,000 for Obama. That means liberals were over 45% more likely to call Bush a fascist than conservatives have been to call Obama one.
And when these liberals express their outrage that I would dare call Obama a fascist and thus lower the discourse, I invariably ask them just where the hell they were when their side was teeing off on Bush for eight unrelenting years of Bush derangement syndrome??? It was rare indeed to see a liberal excoriate his fellow liberals for demonizing the president of the United States.
With all due respect, the left started this form of ”discourse.” They turned it into an art form. And how dare these hypocrites dare to tell me not to do unto Obama as they did unto Bush???
That might only be a rhetorical argument, as two wrongs clearly don’t make a right. But it remains a powerful one. Liberals have forfeited any moral right to criticize conservatives for using their own tactics against them.
But I don’t simply call Obama a fascist because liberals called Bush one. I call him one because he has exhibited all kinds of fascistic tendencies, which I shall in time describe.
But fascism has a far more precise definition. Historically, fascism is a far-right movementof the middle classes (shopkeepers, professionals, civil servants) who are economically ruined by severe economic crisis and driven to “frenzy.”
In the brilliant words of Leon Trotsky, fascism brings “to their feet those classes that are immediately above the working class and that are ever in dread of being forced down into its ranks; it organizes and militarizes them…and it directs them to the extirpation of proletarian organizations, from the most revolutionary to the most conservative.”
I have no doubt that the irony of these words were entirely lost to the “Socialist Worker” who wrote the article. But allow me to illuminate it for you: think of the most infamous fascists of all time, the Nazis. What did the word ”Nazi” stand for? It was the “acronym for the ‘National Socialist German Workers Party’.” Let me try that again, just in case you missed these precious little details: “National SOCIALIST German WORKERS Party.”
But ask the “Socialist Workers” and they’ll assure you that the “Socialist Workers Party” had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Socialist Workers. Because that would certainly be awkward, wouldn’t it???
It is rather fascinating that “Socialist Worker” would cite as his authority on fascism and who should be labeled as a “fascist” the Marxist thinker . Allow me to provide one counter statement which is based not on the “brilliant words” of a Marxist, but on the plain simple facts:
“Part of the problem in recognizing fascism is the assumption that it is conservative. [Zeev] Sternhell has observed how study of the ideology has been obscured by “the official Marxist interpretation of fascism.” Marxism defines fascism as its polar opposite. If Marxism is progressive, fascism is conservative. If Marxism is left wing, fascism is right wing. If Marxism champions the proletariat, fascism champions the bourgeoisie. If Marxism is socialist, fascism is capitalist.
The influence of Marxist scholarship has severely distorted our understanding of fascism. Communism and fascism were rival brands of socialism. Whereas Marxist socialism is predicated on an international class struggle, fascist national socialism promoted a socialism centered in national unity. Both communists and fascists opposed the bourgeoisie. Both attacked the conservatives. Both were mass movements, which had special appeal for the intelligentsia, students, and artists, as well as workers. Both favored strong centralized governments and rejected the free economy and the ideals of individual liberty. Fascists saw themselves as being neither of the right nor the left. They believed that they constituted a third force synthesizing the best of both extremes” [Gene Edward Veith, Jr., Modern Fascism: Liquidating the Judeo-Christian Worldview, p. 26].
So depending on Leon Trotsky or any other Marxist-inspired academic who merely parrots “the official Marxist interpretation of fascism” has rather serious intellectual drawbacks. And yet that is largely what we get. Far too many American academics wouldn’t be so obvious as to use the phrase, “In the brilliant words of Leon Trotsky,” but they give his ideas, theories and talking points total credence, nonetheless. The term “useful idiots” was literally coined to describe these Western “intellectuals.” And their being “useful idiots” is every bit as true today as it ever was in the past.
Consider the REAL ”polar opposite”: American conservatives are capitalists, not socialists. They demand a limited national/federal government, not a massive centrally planned state as does socialism, communism and fascism. They prefer the federalist idea of powerful states’ rights against a weakened federal government, not some all-powerful Führer. And to try to force conservatives into some Nazi mold invariably means either creating straw men arguments or citing irrelevant facts (such as that conservatives favor a large military just like the Nazis did, as though virtually every single communist state does not similarly favor a large military “just like the Nazis did”). If you want an all-powerful national government that gets to decide who wins and who loses, if you want to see a system where you have to come to your government for assistance and resources with all manner of strings attached rather than being allowed to depend on yourself, your family and your community, you should embrace the political left, not the right.
By the way, another favorite idiotic red herring for liberals asserting that “Nazism was right wing” was that the Nazis hated the admittedly left wing communists. But consider the fact that Coke hates Pepsi and Barbie Doll makers hate Bratz Doll makers. Are we supposed to believe that Coke is the opposite of Pepsi as opposed to water, milk or orange juice? The fact of the matter is that Nazis and Soviet Communists hated each other because both movements had a global agenda of totalitarian dominion, and both movements were competing for the same rabidly left wing converts.
Pardon me for the following insult, but the only people who believe garbage arguments like these are ignorant fools who live in a world of straw men. Even if they have the title ”PhD.” after their names.
It is for that reason that I can state categorically that Marxism and fascism are not “polar opposites” at all. They are merely two potentially complementary species of socialism. That is why China has been able to easily weave blatantly fascistic (national socialist/corporatist) elements into its Maoist communism. It is also why Joseph Stalin was able to go from being an international socialist (i.e. a communist) and then appeal to nationalism (i.e., national socialism or “fascism”) when he needed to fight Hitler, only to switch back to “international socialism” after the war, as a few lines from Wikipedia on “Russian nationalism” point out:
The newborn communist republic under Vladimir Lenin proclaimed internationalism as its official ideology[4]. Russian nationalism was discouraged, as were any remnants of Imperial patriotism, such as wearing military awards received before Civil War….
The 1930s saw the evolution of the new concept of Soviet nationalism under Joseph Stalin, based on both Russian nationalism and communist internationalism. Official communist ideology always stated that Russia was the most progressive state, because it adopted socialism as its basis (which, according to the writings of Karl Marx, is the inevitable future of world socio-economic systems). Under Lenin, the USSR believed its duty to help other nations to arrange socialist revolutions (the concept of World Revolution), and made close ties with labor movements around the world[4].
[...]
The Soviet Union’s war against Nazi Germany became known as the Great Patriotic War, hearkening back to the previous use of the term in the Napoleonic Wars. The Soviet state called for Soviet citizens to defend the ‘Motherland’, a matrilineal term used to describe Russia in the past.
[...]
In 1944, the Soviet Union abandoned its communist anthem, The International, and adopted a new national anthem which citizens of the Soviet Union could identify with.
And then, with the victory secured over fascism, the Stalinist “national socialism” (a.k.a. ”fascism”) suddenly became international socialism again. The Nazis’ very name was Nationalsozialistische.
One can be a “Marxist-fascist” and combine and blend elements of both totalitarian socialist systems quite easily, as both the Russian and then the Chinese communists proved. Communism and fascism have far more in common with one another than they have in opposition; especially when you examine the fact that both political systems invariably end up becoming the same big-government totalitarian police state.
So for my first two points – namely that 1) the left has routinely demagogically labeled the right “fascist” even when 2) it is clearly the left that owes far and away the most to fascistic elements – I am going to continue to shout from the rooftops who are the real fascists in America.
That said, it is still not enough to merely point out the FACT that American liberalism has much in common with fascism. And there is a lot more yet to say.
Before I begin spouting particular examples, I therefore need to further approach just what it is that would constitute a “fascist.” And then see who and how the label fits. From The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics:
The best example of a fascist economy is the regime of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Holding that liberalism (by which he meant freedom and free markets) had “reached the end of its historical function,” Mussolini wrote: “To Fascism the world is not this material world, as it appears on the surface, where Man is an individual separated from all others and left to himself…. Fascism affirms the State as the true reality of the individual.”
This collectivism is captured in the word fascism, which comes from the Latin fasces, meaning a bundle of rods with an axe in it. In economics, fascism was seen as a third way between laissez-faire capitalism and communism. Fascist thought acknowledged the roles of private property and the profit motive as legitimate incentives for productivity—provided that they did not conflict with the interests of the state.
[...]
Mussolini’s fascism took another step at this time with the advent of the Corporative State, a supposedly pragmatic arrangement under which economic decisions were made by councils composed of workers and employers who represented trades and industries. By this device the presumed economic rivalry between employers and employees was to be resolved, preventing the class struggle from undermining the national struggle. In the Corporative State, for example, strikes would be illegal and labor disputes would be mediated by a state agency.
Theoretically, the fascist economy was to be guided by a complex network of employer, worker, and jointly run organizations representing crafts and industries at the local, provincial, and national levels. At the summit of this network was the National Council of Corporations. But although syndicalism and corporativism had a place in fascist ideology and were critical to building a consensus in support of the regime, the council did little to steer the economy. The real decisions were made by state agencies such as the Institute for Industrial Reconstruction (Istituto per la Ricosstruzione Industriale, or IRI), mediating among interest groups.
[...]
Mussolini also eliminated the ability of business to make independent decisions: the government controlled all prices and wages, and firms in any industry could be forced into a cartel when the majority voted for it. The well-connected heads of big business had a hand in making policy, but most smaller businessmen were effectively turned into state employees contending with corrupt bureaucracies. They acquiesced, hoping that the restrictions would be temporary. Land being fundamental to the nation, the fascist state regimented agriculture even more fully, dictating crops, breaking up farms, and threatening expropriation to enforce its commands.
Banking also came under extraordinary control. As Italy’s industrial and banking system sank under the weight of depression and regulation, and as unemployment rose, the government set up public works programs and took control over decisions about building and expanding factories. The government created the Istituto Mobiliare in 1931 to control credit, and the IRI later acquired all shares held by banks in industrial, agricultural, and real estate enterprises.
The image of a strong leader taking direct charge of an economy during hard times fascinated observers abroad. Italy was one of the places that Franklin Roosevelt looked to for ideas in 1933…
Fascism is all about the “community,” not the individual. Its message is about the good of the nation, or the people (or the Volk), or the community, rather than the good of a nation’s individual citizens. It is about distributing and then redistributing the wealth and returning it to “its rightful owners” under the guise of an all-powerful state rather than recognizing and rewarding individual achievement. In short, when Hillary Clinton explained that, “It takes a village,” an educated Nazi would have snapped his fingers and excitedly shouted, “Ja! JA! Das ist ES!”
For Obama, the collectivism, community or “village” thing is such a profound part of him that he has literally made it an integral part of his very heretical form of “Christianity,” which very much stresses individual salvation and individual responsibility. Obama has on several occasions put it this way:
For example, in 1995, Obama said, “my individual salvation is not going to come about without a collective salvation for the country…” and again in May of 2008, “our individual salvation depends of collective salvation.”
In the Christian faith, there is no such thing as collective salvation. Salvation is an individual choice. It is personal acceptance of Jesus as savior, Son of the living God.
Obama’s is a wildly perverted view of orthodox Christianity. It so distorts true Christianity at such a fundamental level, in fact, that one literally has to go to Hitler to find a suitable similar parallel from a “Christian” national leader. The great Protestant Reformer Martin Luther – the most famous German prior to Hitler – had written the most monumental text of German culture prior to Hitler’s Mein Kampf. It was called “The Bondage of the Will,” which was considered THE manifesto of the Reformation. According to Luther, the human will was in bondage to sin. The fallen will, if left to itself, will choose what is evil. The human will has been perversely set against the righteous will of God. For sinful human beings, the will is not in a state of liberty but is in bondage to its worst impulses. Luther wrote in this work, “When our liberty is lost we are compelled to serve sin: that is, we will sin and evil, we speak sin and evil, we do sin and evil.” Adolf Hitler infamously turned that key doctrine of Christianity on its head in his “The Triumph of the Will,” in which he exalted depraved human will to an altogether different level of human depravity. Which is to say that Hitler was so profoundly wrong that he proved Luther right.
But getting back to Obama’s profoundly anti-Christian concept of ”collective salvation,” the Nazis would have been all over that, enthusiastically shouting their agreement, “Ja! JA! Das ist ES!” Recall the encyclopedia entry on fascism stating that, “Fascism affirms the State as the true reality of the individual,” which was then further defined as “collectivism.” And the Nazis repeatedly called upon loyal Germans to make horrendous sacrifices in the name of that collective.
What the Nazis pursued was a form of anti-capitalist anti-conservative communitarianism encapsulated in the concept of Volksgemeinschaft, or “people’s community.”
From the Nazi Party Platform:
- The first obligation of every citizen must be to work both spiritually and physically. The activity of individuals is not to counteract the interests of the universality, but must have its result within the framework of the whole for the benefit of all Consequently we demand:
- Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes. Breaking of rent-slavery.
- In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice in property and blood that each war demands of the people personal enrichment through a war must be designated as a crime against the people. Therefore we demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
- We demand the nationalization of all (previous) associated industries (trusts).
- We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries.
- We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.
- We demand the creation of a healthy middle class and its conservation, immediate communalization of the great warehouses and their being leased at low cost to small firms, the utmost consideration of all small firms in contracts with the State, county or municipality.
- We demand a land reform suitable to our needs, provision of a law for the free expropriation of land for the purposes of public utility, abolition of taxes on land and prevention of all speculation in land.
- We demand struggle without consideration against those whose activity is injurious to the general interest. Common national criminals, usurers, Schieber and so forth are to be punished with death, without consideration of confession or race.
- We demand substitution of a German common law in place of the Roman Law serving a materialistic world-order.
- The state is to be responsible for a fundamental reconstruction of our whole national education program, to enable every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education and subsequently introduction into leading positions. The plans of instruction of all educational institutions are to conform with the experiences of practical life. The comprehension of the concept of the State must be striven for by the school [Staatsbuergerkunde] as early as the beginning of understanding. We demand the education at the expense of the State of outstanding intellectually gifted children of poor parents without consideration of position or profession.
- The State is to care for the elevating national health by protecting the mother and child, by outlawing child-labor, by the encouragement of physical fitness, by means of the legal establishment of a gymnastic and sport obligation, by the utmost support of all organizations concerned with the physical instruction of the young.
- We demand abolition of the mercenary troops and formation of a national army.
- We demand legal opposition to known lies and their promulgation through the press. In order to enable the provision of a German press, we demand, that: a. All writers and employees of the newspapers appearing in the German language be members of the race: b. Non-German newspapers be required to have the express permission of the State to be published. They may not be printed in the German language: c. Non-Germans are forbidden by law any financial interest in German publications, or any influence on them, and as punishment for violations the closing of such a publication as well as the immediate expulsion from the Reich of the non-German concerned. Publications which are counter to the general good are to be forbidden. We demand legal prosecution of artistic and literary forms which exert a destructive influence on our national life, and the closure of organizations opposing the above made demands.
Ah, yes, the Nazis had their “Fairness Doctrine“ long before this current generation of liberals had theirs.
You read that Nazi Party Platform carefully, and you tell me if you see small government conservative Republicans or big government liberal Democrats written all over it.
Now, you read the Nazi Party Platform, and given what American liberals want and what American conservatism opposes, it is so obvious which party is “fascist” that it isn’t even silly. Then you ADD to that the fact that fascism and American progressivism (which is liberalism) were so similar that the great fascists of the age couldn’t tell the damn difference.
Since you point out Nazism was fascist, let’s look at some history as to WHO was recognized as fascist in America.
Fascism sought to eliminate class differences and to destroy/replace capitalism and laissez-faire economics.
H.G. Wells, a great admirer of FDR and an extremely close personal friend of his, was also a great progressive of his day. He summed it up this way in a major speech at Oxford to the YOUNG LIBERALS organization under the banner of “Liberal Fascism”: “I am asking for a Liberal Fascisti, for enlightened Nazis.” He said, “And do not let me leave you in the slightest doubt as to the scope and ambition of what I am putting before you” and then said:
These new organizations are not merely organizations for the spread of defined opinions…the days of that sort of amateurism are over – they are organizations to replace the dilatory indecisiveness of democracy. The world is sick of parliamentary politics…The Fascist Party, to the best of its ability, is Italy now. The Communist Party, to the best of its ability, is Russia. Obviously the Fascists of Liberalism must carry out a parallel ambition on still a vaster scale…They must begin as a disciplined sect, but must end as the sustaining organization of a reconstituted mankind.”
H.G. Wells pronounced FDR “the most effective transmitting instrument possible for the coming of the new world order.” And of course, we easily see that the new world order Wells wanted was a fascist one. In 1941, George Orwell concluded, “Much of what Wells has imagined and worked for is physically there in Nazi Germany.”
It was from the lips of liberal progressive H.G. Wells that Jonah Goldberg got the title of his book, Liberal Fascism. Goldberg didn’t just invent this connection: H.G. Wells flagrantly admitted it and George Orwell called him on it. All Goldberg did was rediscover history that liberals buried and have used every trick imaginable to keep buried.
And as a tie-in to our modern day, who more than Barack Obama has been more associated with said FDR?
But let me move on to some real red meat. In just what specific, concrete ways can I call Obama a fascist?
Well, to begin with, there is the signature achievement of his entire presidency, his national health care system (ObamaCare). For liberals, it is nothing but the most bizarre coincidence that Nazi culture had a national health care system that was quite rightly considered the wonder of its day by socialists in America. It is the most despicable of insults that Sarah Palin excoriated ObamaCare as “death panels” – even though it is more precisely a bureaucratic maze consisting of more like 160 separate death panels:
And the “czar” thing hits a very fascist nerve, too. Obama has appointed 39 czars who are completely outside our Constitutional process. Obama signed a budget bill into law that required him to remove these czars, but why would a fascist trouble himself with outmoded things like “laws”? One of the enraged Republicans responded, “The president knew that the czar amendment was part of the overall budget deal he agreed to, and if he cannot be trusted to keep his word on this, then how can he be trusted as we negotiate on larger issues like federal spending and the economy.” And of course, he’s right.
But why do I say it’s financial fascism in 20/20 hindsight? Because of what we just learned: in spite of all the bogus lying promises and the massive takeover “for our own good,” Obama didn’t fix anything. Instead he made it WORSE:
The financial system poses an even greater risk to taxpayers than before the crisis, according to analysts at Standard & Poor’s. The next rescue could be about a trillion dollars costlier, the credit rating agency warned.
S&P put policymakers on notice, saying there’s “at least a one-in-three” chance that the U.S. government may lose its coveted AAA credit rating. Various risks could lead the agency to downgrade the Treasury’s credit worthiness, including policymakers’ penchant for rescuing bankers and traders from their failures.
“The potential for further extraordinary official assistance to large players in the U.S. financial sector poses a negative risk to the government’s credit rating,” S&P said in its Monday report.
But, the agency’s analysts warned, “we believe the risks from the U.S. financial sector are higher than we considered them to be before 2008.”
Because of the increased risk, S&P forecasts the potential initial cost to taxpayers of the next crisis cleanup to approach 34 percent of the nation’s annual economic output, or gross domestic product. In 2007, the agency’s analysts estimated it could cost 26 percent of GDP.
Last year, U.S. output neared $14.7 trillion, according to the Commerce Department. By S&P’s estimate, that means taxpayers could be hit with $5 trillion in costs in the event of another financial collapse.
Experts said that while the cost estimate seems unusually high, there’s little dispute that when the next crisis hits, it will not be anticipated — and it will likely hurt the economy more than the last financial crisis.
So much for the massive and unprecedented fascist government takeover.
Think last year’s $700 billion Wall Street rescue package was beaucoup bucks to spend bailing out the nation’s floundering financial system? That’s chump change compared to what the overall price tag could be, a government watchdog says.
The inspector general in charge of overseeing the Treasury Department’s bank-bailout program says the massive endeavor could end up costing taxpayers almost $24 trillion in a worst-case scenario. That’s more than six times President Obama’s proposed $3.55 trillion budget for 2010.
Nobody here but us fascists. And we sure aint talking.
Then there are other issues that the left usually uses to attack conservatives, such as racism. Wasn’t Hitler a racist, just like conservatives? The problem is, the liberals are as usual upside-down here. After running as the man to create racial harmony, Barack Obama has instead done more to racially polarize America than any president since other famous progressives such as Woodrow Wilson and FDR. Frankly, if one were to conduct a major study of racial politics, and the setting up in opposition of one racial group against another, just which party has emphasized race and race-baiting more?
Hitler’s Jew-baiting was all about the idea that one race had taken over the culture, had the money and the power, and was using its influence to oppress the people in the banking system and anywhere else that mattered. And Hitler’s constant screed was that Germany needed to confiscate the Jews’ wealth and then redistribute it. With all respect, all the left has done is replace “Jew” with “Caucasian” and making the exact same claims.
And with all this hard-core racist demagoguing, I’m supposed to say that, “Oh, yes, it’s the conservatives who are guilty of demagoguing race”??? Seriously???
Obama has Samantha Powers (the wife of Cass Sunstein, the man who “nudges us”) close to him and advising him on matters of war. According to the very liberal publication The Nation, “She began to see war as an instrument to achieving her liberal, even radical, values.” What if you had an ultra conservative – oh, say a Sarah Palin - openly acknowledged to pursue war and risk American lives to advance her radical values??? What would the left call this if not “fascist”?
But it’s only fascist if Republicans do it, of course.
Also in yesterday’s news is the fact that Obama is the perpetual demagogue- which is a quintessentially fascist tactic. Obama demonized Bush for trying to raise the debt ceiling until he needed to raise it. Now it would be un-American for Republicans to act the same exact way Obama acted. In the same demagogic spirit, Obama personally invited Paul Ryan to a speech just so he could personally demonize him. The same Obama who lectured Republicans that it would be counter-productive to rely on name-calling and accusations in the health care debate launched into a vicious demagogic attack. Ryan correctly said that “What we got yesterday was the opposite of what he said is necessary to fix this problem.” But that is par for the golf course for a fascist. If that wasn’t enough, Obama held a White House conference for “stake holders” in the immigration debate and refused to invite a single governor from a border state.
A Republican equivalent would have had to come out of a deep involvement with some vile racist militia organization to approximate Obama’s background. And liberals would rightly label such a politician a fascist for his past alone.
Here’s a recent Youtube video of Obama’s key union allies on camera saying, “We’re not going to rely on the law,” and, “Forget about the law” as they seek to impose their unions basically whether workers want them or not:
President Obama’s economic team is exhausted, according to White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, and that is one the reasons Christina Romer announced her departure Thursday.
Gibbs dismissed reports that Romer, the outgoing chairwoman of the president’s council for economic affairs, was leaving because of conflicts with Larry Summers, the director of the National Economic Council.
The press secretary told The Hill on Friday that Romer and the rest of the economic team have worked the equivalent of six years during the 18 months they’ve been in office, and Romer wanted to return to her normal life.
“These guys have probably packed a term and a half into a half of a term,” Gibbs said.
Romer is the second member of the economic team to leave this summer. She follows Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget.
The early days of the administration alone were enough to wear the team down, he said, as they realized the depth of the recession.
“If you think about what we went through in the beginning, nobody knew when we woke up if the whole thing was just going to come crashing down,” Gibbs said.
[If one listens carefully, one can hear a shrill, whiny voice screaming, "It's all Bush's fault Romer is resigning!"].
Romer was involved in the administration’s planning of the $787 billion economic stimulus package. Ever since the legislation was approved by Congress, she’s been at the forefront of the administration’s effort to sell the product to the public.
That’s been difficult given the fact that the nation’s unemployment rate soared to 10 percent after the legislation’s approval. The administration had hoped the jobless rate would top off at 8 percent.
Romer was the administration’s public face every month when the national unemployment numbers were released – usually to bad news. She issued a statement on Friday noting the private sector created 71,000 jobs in July, not enough to lower unemployment.
Reports surrounding her departure suggest she was leaving because of the heavy presence of Summers, an economist with a reputation for less than stellar people skills, and because she was frustrated with life in Washington.
Gibbs dismissed those stories, saying Romer had been in on every critical meeting with Obama on the economy and played a key role in the White House’s economic policies. [...]
So here’s the White House narrative to cover up the fact that there are big pissing matches going on inside the White House economic team, and the fact that Obama’s own economist has written a paper suggesting that her boss is leading the nation to “highly contractionary” economic ruin: Romer is quitting because she’s been working 32 hours a day (6 years divided by 1.5 years, times an average 8-hour work day).
Let’s not laugh and take it seriously for a moment. The White House economic team has worked themselves into a frazzled mess, burdened with their profound care for the average America.
Well, what about their boss, Barry Hussein?
From the GuardianUK:
As Barack Obama settles into the White House, the differences between the way the old and new presidents manage their time will begin to show. Now it is time to break the puritan fiction that the only way to achieve is to get up early and live clean.
Ex-president Bush rose at 5.45am and was at his desk by 6.45am. He worked until 6pm, taking meetings in strict five-minute blocks. He ran three miles in 21 minutes before lunch every day. He does not drink. Women’s skirts – in his White House – had to fall below the knee.
Obama gets up hours later – aides during his campaign said he did much of his strategising after midnight. He smokes, he drinks beer while watching sports, and has mentioned keeping his regular poker night while president.
Bush showed up ready to work at 6:45AM. For Obama, it’s kind of nice if he shows up by 9:30 – and not particularly bright-eyed or bushy-tailed after the partying from the previous evening.
That economic team is working themselves to the bone. Obama couldn’t give a flying favorite-Emanuel/Blagojevich-phrase.
But staggering in to the office late in the morning at a time when useful people might be typically taking their first break of the day isn’t really enough to get the picture of contrast between those frazzled, overworked economic team members and their boss Barry Hussein. Because we haven’t taken into account for all the vacations and all the golf outings, have we?
While many Americans are cutting back on their vacation plans or eliminating them altogether, Barack Obama is setting an aspirational example for all of us. Sure, times are tough, but perhaps we can enjoy a life of leisure vicariously through our betters.
On July 16-18, the Obamas enjoyed their first summer vacation in beautiful Bar Harbor, Maine. The idyllic town has long been favorite summer getaway for the rich and powerful going back to the Gilded Age. Truly a resort fit for a king public servant.
Anticipating exhaustion from two long weeks in Washington, D.C., Michelle Obama is hosting her eldest daughter and several family friends on a “private vacation” to Spain, August 4-8. Staying at the luxurious Villa Padierna, Americans can rest easy knowing the accomodations will “pamper guests with elegance, spaciousness and a comforting array of amenities.” With three golf courses on the property, it’s quite a shame Barack must attend a party thrown in his honor by one of his billionaire friends. Despite this hardship, I’m sure Michelle will sing “Don’t Cry for Me, America”. Or at least hum a few bars. (After the spa’s Chakra Balancing treatment with Hot Stones.)
The five days back in the White House will be a horrible burden to the family. Thankfully, the Obama clan will take a third vacation, Aug. 14-15, to Florida’s Gulf Coast, following charges of hypocrisy for vacationing in Maine earlier. As any PR pro will tell you, the best response to “out of touch” accusations is to face them head on. Preferably from a balcony, sipping a mojito while watching Helios’ golden rays paint the beach in myriad shades of gold as the fiery orb slips ‘neath the azure horizon.
WASHINGTON (AP) – The White House is the place to be on Wednesdays.Since the presidency changed hands less than six weeks ago, a burst of entertaining has taken hold of the iconic, white-columned home of America’s head of state. Much of it comes on Wednesdays.
The stately East Room, where portraits of George and Martha Washington adorn the walls, was transformed into a concert hall as President Barack Obama presented Stevie Wonder with the nation’s highest award for pop music on Wednesday.
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