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America Doesn’t Deserve Barack Obama
What can a responsible satirist satirize at a time when America is blessed with a President who transcends irony and sarcasm? The American people, of course:
“Obama Drastically Scales Back Goals For America After Visiting Denny’s”
Cross-posted at Conventional Folly
20 Responses to “America Doesn’t Deserve Barack Obama”
Gotta love the Onion. Along with The Daily Show and Colbert Report, it's the best news around.
No country deserves a Marxist oriented government. And for those about to sceme 'hyperbole', not the Administration and Congress have begun seriously discussing regulating and controlling compensation at ALL publicly traded companies.
Administration, Congress seek to rein in exec pay
Just how far do they have to go before the Left will admit the truth? Well, unfortunately history already provides that answer, in their unwavering support and adoration of Marxists from Lenin to Stalin to Mao to Castro to Chavez.
Even though I did have to stiffle a giggle for a moment, there's something a litle disturbing about fat-hate and the elitism there. I know it's the Onion, but some days the “humorless feminist” in me just gets fed up with it all.
And AR — add me to the list of those about to scream “hyperbole”.
Boy, some of the righties on this site claim that we non-righties have no sense of humor…unless AR was actually trying to be funny/ironic in equating Obama to Hugo Chavez.
heheh. afraid not, Anna. And AR is one of the more moderate righties here.
I am not joking when I equate Obama to Chavez. Not in the least.
Please tell me how taking control of GM and Chrysler, strong-arming some banks into accepting government monies and using that to make them withhold information on a merger they forced upon the bank (a felony if done by businessman), printing money at will like a Zimbabwe (see the evidence in the recent bond sales, and Chinese reaction to his profligate spending), and now starting a process to impose wage controls differs him from a Chavez?
Seriously. What more does he have to do? But I have asked and answered that already in this thread.
So we have a full-fledged Hugo Chavez guy in the White House? 100% through and through Chavez! No distinction. No wiggle room. Just Hugo Chavez wrapped in a black dude's skin?
AR, the USA and it's branches of government are MUCH MORE resilient and dynamic to just let Hugo Chavez take over. Our economy is much more robust and varied. Our society much more diverse and relatively harmonious. In order for Hugo Chavez/USA to win a USA presidential election, much of what I mentioned would have to be dissolved or severely weakened.
T_Steel,
I had actually for one second given that AR was resorting to hyperbole, especially with his difficult family situation (btw, my best to you & your daughter, AR) & was going to let it slide. I guess someone like AR might've been happier if Obama had just let everything (that he inherited from the previous administration, btw) collapse. Of course, then he'd be comparing Obama to Nero instead of Chavez.
Of course Obama is not Chavez, and I'm not sure we even know who Chavez is, other than the caricature in the media. But let's talk specifics. The Republicans didn't know what to do with the ailing auto industry. So they bailed them out, remember? Obama and his financial team had to weigh the potential consequences of kicking in more public funds, or letting the companies fail, along with their suppliers, dealers and other businesses financially bound to the auto industry. Their decision, the same decision in Bush and Republican legislators made, was another bailout, but instead of “cash for trash” they followed the purely capitalist model. They bought stock. That's how companies in America raise capital. Don't you guys know that? So we got something for our investment; we got the same thing other investors get for their investments: equity. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing socialist about that. It is a purely capitalist play. And it worked.
That's according to market analysts, and reported yesterday by the Microsoft socialists at MSN Money:
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/…
“The credit gods last year were angry and lusting for blood. They wanted a live sacrifice but were not satisfied with the painful, public deaths of Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros. (LEHMQ, news, msgs) and Washington Mutual.
They demanded more, and for a while in February it looked like they wanted no less than the entire financial system to burn as punishment for all the hubris and crimes of leverage that lenders and borrowers had committed for a decade.
Instead, the U.S. government threw itself in front of the banks and tossed two industrial companies into the line of fire: Chrysler and General Motors (GMGMQ, news, msgs). And that appears to have done the trick, because by all appearances the great credit crisis of 2007-08 ended with the two carmakers' bankruptcies and is now on the path toward a real recovery. We're not talking just “green shoots” here but flowers and trees.
The automakers' bankruptcies are major milestones in the recovery of the markets for a very strange reason, according to credit analysts. Investors had come to expect that Chrysler debt holders would lose their legal rights at the front of the line and be annihilated in a prepackaged bankruptcy — humiliated, ground into meatballs and fed to sharks — and instead, in a shocking development, they were treated with a respect almost amounting to decency.
That led to a thaw in the corporate credit markets, to the surprise of virtually everyone involved, and snowballed into what one veteran called “euphoric buying” two months ago. That was only accentuated when details of General Motors' bankruptcy began taking shape in late May. “
Ah, yes, it was a hostile take-over of our good and fair-minded banks and auto companies by the evil muah-ha-ha commie governement. Nobody (certainly not the presidents/shareholders of said companies — no!) was going to the government begging for hundreds of billions in help from the government at all. It would have been much, much better to have the companies go under and “let the markets take care of it”. What halcyon days of skyrocketing unemployment and business closures as the house of cards that is the credit-based american economy came floating down…too bad, really…
heheh. good snark roro. I've posted that article here three times, with no comment from the right wingers. Maybe it's such a silencer that they run from it. If so, I'll keep using it
“Just how far do they have to go before the Left will admit the truth?”
Based on what I've seen so far (including on this site), there may be no limit (other than to take their tech toys away, shut down the Internet, maybe).
Overall Obama has done a fine job, but he and his administration have an ugly black mark with their little fascist undertaking with Gummint Motors (giving the little green fascists a little sandbox laboratory to play eco-cars with, among other things), and if they extend federal interventionism beyond the scope of the financial sector and Gummint Motors, that is spooky and yes, truly alarming. (I wonder to what extent already they may be misreading or misinterpreting public opinion or assuming we all largely are a stupid Herd.) Note that if he and his administration (he smiles and avoids “heretical” criticism, can deflect it at any time to people like Geithner or smiling stooge Montgomery, etc., if he must) may give additional encouragement to the left wing of the Democratic Congress to seek lunatic fascistic or Marxist-style goals of their own. They seem to be seeking needless additional bureaucracy for bureaucracy's own sake (insidious complicated initial moves in health care rather than just openly seeking Medicare for everyone, to name the best current example) and given the fuel-efficiency idiocy we saw recently, what will they do in the name of “global warming” or “climate change” that is not only unmerited but is another dabbling in mild-to-wild totalitarianism?
The GM example (more than the banking industry with consolidation favoring key insiders) is alarming as well as disgusting. (Those who dislike the content or tone of the expression my rightful disgust and of my intelligent concerns about it and our future, I question their [true] motives, and those who reply strangely or illogically, I question their ability to read for comprehension, and suspect they may be part of the Herd that accepts everything with possible nodding of the head up and down no matter what Obama and the Dems in Washington say or do.)
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“Obama and his financial team had to weigh the potential consequences of kicking in more public funds, or letting the companies fail, along with their suppliers, dealers and other businesses financially bound to the auto industry. Their decision, the same decision Bush and Republican legislators made, was another bailout, but instead of “cash for trash” they followed the purely capitalist model. They bought stock.”
[ s i g h ] You left out the one detail that is paramount, the most important. “They” are GOVERNMENT.
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“the evil muah-ha-ha commie governement.”
Since the 1930s, Washington has normally engaged most often in a US-style form of fascism, which preserves or retains the private sector at least nominally (in name, that is), because the public is not a fan of Communism or outright all-public replacement of the private sector, as a rule. (That is one reason for the incrementalism and the deviousness behind the public “option” and trying to involve the private insurance companies at this time in some way in the early effort to expand federal government into health care in this country.) Managing various sectors as a government-run cartel (the way the airlines used to be before deregulation) is another example, to name another. What we're seeing now with the banks and with General Motors is another example, with an actual “state capitalism” ownership stake (the UAW, who didn't deserve anything, got its own stake and this constitutes in practice an effect additional federal government stake; everyone with an IQ above fifty who is honest both knows and will state that) and with what plenty of radicals since the 1960s (and often earlier) have wanted, who are Marxists at heart but are fascists in practice (fascism and Communism are “fraternal twins” from the same leftist, collectivist, totalitarian-learning roots, anyway) here in the USA, such as Ralph Nader, have wanted — federal officials in management or on boards of directors. The Obama administration has already made moves in this manner, and has been running both Chrysler and GM. (Now this is being compounded by members of Congress running GM, the most notorious example being Barney Frank and a plant un-closure in his Massachusetts.) The GM spectacle is disgusting and alarming, at least to people of quality and at least some intelligence and morality, in and of itself and what it may portend for more friendly-fuzzy lefty fascism to come.
(Note that Nader is dissatisfied with the Obama administration; he wanted even more given to the undeserving dinosaur UAW members, and is the equivalent here of radicals calling the liberal media “corporate right wing” [sic].)
A US-style version of fascism is what has been sought and practiced by Washington (especially by the Dems, who are more intervenionist), despite denials by the dishonest, and we can expect more to come. What matters isn't ownership, but control (by Washington); the day-to-day headaches of operation and other mundane matters can be left to the peon-serfs, while the mandarins and their elitist minions dream their grand lefty dreams and make the big grand-strategic and strategic decisions. And make us comply.
Thanks, GD.
Your comment was much more fact-filled and mature, but I think in the same vein. Maybe right-wingers don't read your articles due to their difficulty with reading comprehension? We mustn't make fun of illiteracy.
DLS — I don't think that most people see the whole GM mess as “good”, even if it was something for which the leaders of the company were pretty desperate, and even if it has been beneficial in certain ways. But just to be clear about your points: is it fair to say you would rather have seen GM go under?
DLS, I want to start by acknowledging you for writing something will that I don't believe a single one of your right leaning compadres here would agree with: “overall, Obama has done a fine job”
That said, some of your comments would seem to be a bit out of touch with reality. For example,
“giving the little green fascists a little sandbox laboratory to play eco-cars with”
Perhaps you haven't noticed, but the Toyota Prius alone is beating the snot out of everything the American auto makers have been selling for the last decade. It is not foolish at all to believe that the future of auto transportation is in “eco-cars.” In case you hadn't noticed, gasoline prices just hit four dollars a gallon again in California. The days of cheap oil are over. If we want to continue to drive for a little while, we had better get a whole lot better at conserving fuel while we do so. As for the government -gasp- actually getting some stock for their investment in the auto companies, what's the problem? If the car companies recover, we the people would like to get our money back, thank you very much.
I don't know where you get off calling this Marxist. This is not a state enterprise. This is a private enterprise company that failed, and had to be bailed out by the federal government. The government did so in the way capitalist systems always work. They bought stock.
I am curious about what you would have done, as well as the other rightists here. Well?
T_Steel – no, not 100%. I equate hem, but don't declare they are equal, as Obama is subtler and smarter than Chavez.
Anna – yes, as a matter of fact I do think he should have let the sick banks and auto industry be taken care of by market forces.
AR, there's a good chance that another Great Depression would have ensued, which would not have pleased very many of us. Maybe that outcome would not hurt you, but there was pretty good general agreement that we should avoid that if we could. Bush and his economists, AND Obama and his, plus economists in general, agreed that the government should step in.
Both banks and auto companies were first bailed out by Bush and his team. And you may not remember, but some GOP legislators appeared to agree with you. They balked at the $750 billion bailout. The NEXT DAY, the market lost $1.3 trillion, and the GOP decided a one day stand on principles was enough. They got right on board.
GD – unemployment continues to rise, exceeding the Obama Administration's own estimates of what it would have been WITHOUT their efforts. They are printing money at a rate guaranteed to cause hyperinflation. They are hostile to both business and entrepreneurship. The bond market is flailing away. He is giving away American companies to the government and his supporters over secured debt-holders. They are now talking about imposing wage controls over all publicly traded companies.
How exactly is Obama 'saving us'? This is, as much as the Left just HATES to hear, “Atlas Shrugged” come to life. I see no 'saving' of the economy. And the Great Depression is now generally acknowlded to have been extended by the very similar tactics attempted by Roosevelt, but our Ivy League Administration seems unwilling to learn form history.
Of course, as I have expressed in other threads, I think the HAVE learned from history, and are pursuing the exact course they want.