NEVER TOLERATE TYRANNY!....Conservative voices from the GRASSROOTS.

Obama's List

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/obamas_list.html

April 06, 2010
Obama's List
By J.R. Dunn

Over the past
year and a half, we've seen much in the way of speculation of what
Obama is
really up to, what his true agenda might be behind all the soothing
and
meretricious rhetoric. It was quite clear that "Obama" was a
construct, a
carefully manufactured image, as all politicians are to one extent or
another.
But Obama was an extreme example -- all image, most of it having
little or no
connection with any discernable substance. The gap between what he
said and
what he would then proceed to do was wide and glaring. This obvious
and
undeniable discontinuity is the major factor feeding all the
conspiracy
theories -- the ones featuring George Soros as puppet master, or the
claims of
adherence to Islam and so forth. If only it were that simple! The
past few
weeks have clearly revealed that Obama is something at the same time
entirely
more commonplace while also being more obnoxious.

Obama is an
example of that peculiar American contribution to the long line of
political
deviancy, the romantic leftist, a combination of undergrad Marxism,
New Deal
activism, Great Society idealism, and late 60s dementia. In
fulfillment of
this role, he is going down the list of left-wing daydreams,
wish-fulfillment
fantasies, and unfinished business, and doing his damndest to see them
made
reality. No more than that, and certainly no less.

Take a look
at his latest series of crimes. Start with health-care "reform." We
all
know about this -- or, at least as much as we can be expected to know
about a
bill that is incoherent, contradictory, longer than Remembrance of
Things Past
and not fully grasped by even its most fanatic adherents. (Oh, there
is one
thing we do know that they don't -- that things that go up also come
down,
either by way of the Supreme Court, Congressional repeal, or the
streets of
Washington opening up to swallow everyone who voted for the atrocious
thing.)

As for the newly announced nuclear disarmament treaty
with Russia, we know even less about that, apart from it being a
"breakthrough." The single concrete point I've been able to gather
is that
the treaty terms will allow 800 launch systems, a provision that only
indirectly involves nuclear weapons as such. If true, this has the
feel of
complete disarmament and not the nuclear variety at all. Does this
mean 800
missiles? Or missiles, bombers, and submarines, and what have you? It
doesn't
sound at all good. We'll know more when Massa O comes down from the
big house
to explain it to us.

Third is the manned space program, now
effectively kaput. Constellation was morphing into the standard
gold-plated NASA make-work program, which does not mean that it wasn't
worth
pursuing anyway, as the only game in town. The idea of a major nation
not
possessing a manned program in the 21st century is an absurdity in and
of
itself. Particularly in light of the fact that such world powers as
India,
China, Richard Branson, and Jeff Bezos are all moving into manned
spaceflight
in a big way. Eventually somebody is going to stop ditzing around in
low earth
orbit and start exploiting the vast resources available on the moon
and in the
inner solar system. It would be nice if they spoke English.

All
three of these have been on the leftie checklist for decades or
longer.
Health care since Harry Truman... or was it FDR? Or perhaps Aristides
the
Just? Government health care was the goal the left was aiming at with
the
establishment of Medicare and Medicaid a half-century ago. And we're
still not
there yet -- the left won't be satisfied until they have their
completely
centralized system on the model of the UK's National Health Service.
That's
why they don't really care what's in the current program -- it's
designed to
fail, and in short order, so that they can nationalize it in order to
"save"
it.

Nuclear disarmament was in large part of product of the KGB,
the secret sponsors of every disarmament movement from the 1950s SANE
to the
to the 1980s Nuclear Freeze. But tainted origins don't matter.
Anything is
better than nukes, which must be banished forthwith.

The space
program has been a left-wing target since it first began. The standard

argument -- that it's a "waste of money" -- can be set aside. The left

considers every dime outside its direct control to be "wasted".
Rather, it's
combination of elements, including lack of imagination and spirit, an
inability to see what a new age of exploration would mean for America
and the
world at large, and a sense of bitterness at America's achievement --
the U.S.
will always be the nation that first set foot on the moon, something
that
leftists find difficult to accept.

In the past two weeks, Obama
has taken all three off the board. His other recent efforts: beating
up on
Wall Street, attempting to resuscitate the unions, groveling before
third-world tyrants -- are also characteristic of the American
left and
nobody else. (When did you last see a Castro or a Chavez bowing to a
sheikh?)
Obama is a typical example of a particular type of left-winger,
produced by
the United States alone among all nations. He is doing exactly what
would
be expected from this type of leftist, out of absolute conviction.
Not in
the service of any third party. Not to destroy or cripple the country.
With
his college-sophomore grasp of the world, he seriously believes he's
doing the
right thing and will be vindicated before the end titles roll up. This
in
defiance of the clear failure of every last left-of-center domestic
and
international program of the past eighty years. This is ideological
blindness
at its deepest.

So what predictions can we derive from this?
What else is on the list? The answer is -- what do the lefties
want?

•Cap & trade
•Marijuana legalization (tied in with
ending the drug war as a whole)
•Amnesty for illegals
•Cutting Israel
loose (We saw the first step toward this last week)
•Creation of an
international legal system
•Media "reform"
•A new NRA (National Recovery
Act here, playmates -- not the gun guys.)
•A government-mandated green
economy
•An equal outcomes "multicultural" society

We will see
attempted legislation on all these -- and likely more -- over the next
few
years, particularly in light of his recent "triumphs".

But what
about the exceptions? Guns in the national parks? Clearance for new
nuclear
reactors in Georgia? The new offshore drilling program? Each case
involves
triangulation of the most transparent and inadequate type. Bill
Clinton was at
least taking concrete action with NAFTA and welfare reform. Obama is
doing no
such thing. Loosening gun restrictions is a bone thrown to the
despised
"clingers." The reactor projects must still clear the standard
regulatory
barriers, an unlikely event. The drilling program is almost completely
bogus.
More exploration fields off of Alaska were closed than opened, along
with the
entire Pacific Coast and much of the Atlantic.

Obama's problem
is that romantic leftism is consistently disastrous. A brief
examination
of FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society, the models for Obama's
efforts,
will reveal that clearly. More to the point, the prototypes for his
recent
triumphs have also failed wherever they have been put into effect.
Concerning
health care, we're told that we've joined the rest of the civilized
world. So
here's what civilization looks like:

In 2008, the Australian
health-care system came near to meltdown after the New South Wales
hospital
network collapsed. The money was all spent, vendors stopped supplying
medical
materials, patients just out of surgery lay screaming on their beds
after the
morphine and sedatives ran out, and hundreds of specialists and
personnel
jumped ship for jobs in private medical centers. How did it happen?
Nobody
knows. Last year, Dr. Anne Doig, the incoming head of Canadian
Medicare,
stated publicly that the system was nearing implosion. She promised to
try to
fix it. She did not sound enthusiastic. In the UK, mother of all
national
health services, not a week goes by without another series of stories
in
British papers detailing corruption, incompetence, and sheer cruelty
within
the NHS. Recent news includes reports that dozens of local hospitals
will be
closed down as a money-saving measure, leaving many communities with
no
medical facilities whatsoever. Tens of thousands have died in the
hands of the
NHS in recent years, and tens if not hundreds of thousands more will
die
before any meaningful reform occurs. These countries, compromising the
core of
the Anglosphere, are on their way to Third-World status as far as
their
health-care systems are concerned. We just joined them on that slide.
As for
me, I liked barbarism better.

There is an argument to be made for
maintaining a small but useful number of nuclear weapons, but you
won't hear
it from the left. Their contention is that nukes are no good and must
be
gotten rid of in toto. Forget the fact that they ended World War II
decisively
and quickly, that they helped win the Cold War (Could the West have
kept the
USSR contained without them? The simple answer is "no".), and have
played a
large part in keeping the peace since. No matter -- they're Bad
Things, and
must be eradicated, along with DDT, alar, fast foods, and Toyota. So
Obama has
heroically tackled the job -- just as Iran is obtaining its own
nuclear
arsenal. Great timing.

The first manned space program, which
culminated in the Apollo lunar missions, was cancelled by Richard
Nixon while
he was playing his "I'm a liberal too" game during the run-up to
Watergate.
The ensuing economic shock caused by the loss of hundreds of thousands
of jobs
(Where did the liberals think those paychecks were going to? Somebody
living
on the surface of Pluto?), helping to kick off the 1970s recession
that hung
on like a bad flu until Reagan took office. Obama simply repeated
Nixon's
error, with a recession already in place. What will the results be?
What would
you guess?

Any one of these programs, in place or planned, would
be problematic at best -- creating serious and intractable problems
during a
period where resources and finances are stretched thin. But going into
effect
all at once -- along with lesser examples I haven't mentioned -- is
the
political equivalent of opening the seven seals. Like all other
leftists
before him, Obama knows he's right and that once these gimmicks are
passed the
problems will simply solve themselves. It's the same attitude as
afflicted
FDR's brain trusters, LBJ's best and brightest, and all the little
manipulators and systemizers in between. They change not all. They
might as
well be wearing baggy suits, two-tone shoes, and straw boaters.

It's tempting to simply stand aside and watch him crash and burn.
But not enough, because innocents -- such as the people who have
already
canceled their health insurance and are awaiting their personal
notification
from Obama -- will crash and burn with him. We must rather make the
effort to
limit the damage as much as we can with whatever resources we
possess.

All the same, the prospect is no longer frightening or
foreboding. It's exhilarating. Thanks to O, the third millennium is
getting
interesting. We're off on swift ride down hell's highway, with a man
at the
wheel who thinks the truck steers itself. When we at last reach a
turnoff,
things are going to be very different.

Obama, quite contrary to
his intentions, is set on ramming us into a brick wall before we
complete the
ride. Fortunately the truck is very large and very sturdy, while
the wall
is shoddy and poorly made, the bricks ancient, cracked, and
deteriorating.

When it's all over, there will be one thing left standing
amidst the wreckage. It will be either that perverse little political
philosophy called romantic leftism, or the United States. I'm betting
it'll be
the old US of A.

One thing I know -- it won't be Obama's
reputation.

J.R. Dunn is consulting editor of American Thinker, and
will edit the forthcoming Military Thinker.