Inner pessimism and powerlessness: That is a dangerous combi

[SchmidtMotorWorks]

Pegy Noonan wrote:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 05250.html

America Is at Risk of Boiling Over And out-of-touch leaders don't see the need to cool things off.

It is, obviously, self-referential to quote yourself, but I do it to make a point. I wrote the following on New Year's day, 1994. America 16 years ago was a relatively content nation, though full of political sparks: 10 months later the Republicans would take the House for the first time in 40 years. But beneath all the action was, I thought, a coming unease. Something inside was telling us we were living through "not the placid dawn of a peaceful age but the illusory calm before stern storms."

The temperature in the world was very high. "At home certain trends—crime, cultural tension, some cultural Balkanization—will, we fear, continue; some will worsen. In my darker moments I have a bad hunch. The fraying of the bonds that keep us together, the strangeness and anomie of our popular culture, the increase in walled communities . . . the rising radicalism of the politically correct . . . the increased demand of all levels of government for the money of the people, the spotty success with which we are communicating to the young America's reason for being and founding beliefs, the growth of cities where English is becoming the second language . . . these things may well come together at some point in our lifetimes and produce something painful indeed. I can imagine, for instance, in the year 2020 or so, a movement in some states to break away from the union. Which would bring about, of course, a drama of Lincolnian darkness. . . . You will know that things have reached a bad pass when Newsweek and Time, if they still exist 15 years from now, do cover stories on a surprising, and disturbing trend: aging baby boomers leaving America, taking what savings they have to live the rest of their lives in places like Africa and Ireland."

I thought of this again the other day when Drudge headlined increasing lines in London for Americans trading in their passports over tax issues, and the sale of Newsweek for $1.

Our problems as a nation have been growing on us for a long time. Their future growth, and the implications of that growth, could be predicted. But there is one thing that is both new since 1994 and huge. It took hold and settled in after the crash of 2008, but its causes were not limited to the crash.

The biggest political change in my lifetime is that Americans no longer assume that their children will have it better than they did. This is a huge break with the past, with assumptions and traditions that shaped us.

The country I was born into was a country that had existed steadily, for almost two centuries, as a nation in which everyone thought—wherever they were from, whatever their circumstances—that their children would have better lives than they did. That was what kept people pulling their boots on in the morning after the first weary pause: My kids will have it better. They'll be richer or more educated, they'll have a better job or a better house, they'll take a step up in terms of rank, class or status. America always claimed to be, and meant to be, a nation that made little of class. But America is human. "The richest family in town," they said, admiringly. Read Booth Tarkington on turn-of-the-last-century Indiana. It's all about trying to rise.

Parents now fear something has stopped. They think they lived through the great abundance, a time of historic growth in wealth and material enjoyment. They got it, and they enjoyed it, and their kids did, too: a lot of toys in that age, a lot of Xboxes and iPhones. (Who is the most self-punishing person in America right now? The person who didn't do well during the abundance.) But they look around, follow the political stories and debates, and deep down they think their children will live in a more limited country, that jobs won't be made at a great enough pace, that taxes—too many people in the cart, not enough pulling it—will dishearten them, that the effects of 30 years of a low, sad culture will leave the whole country messed up. And then there is the world: nuts with nukes, etc.

Optimists think that if we manage to turn a few things around, their kids may have it . . . almost as good. The country they inherit may be . . . almost as good. And it's kind of a shock to think like this; pessimism isn't in our DNA. But it isn't pessimism, really, it's a kind of tough knowingness, combined, in most cases, with a daily, personal commitment to keep plugging.

But do our political leaders have any sense of what people are feeling deep down? They don't act as if they do. I think their detachment from how normal people think is more dangerous and disturbing than it has been in the past. I started noticing in the 1980s the growing gulf between the country's thought leaders, as they're called—the political and media class, the universities—and those living what for lack of a better word we'll call normal lives on the ground in America. The two groups were agitated by different things, concerned about different things, had different focuses, different world views.

But I've never seen the gap wider than it is now. I think it is a chasm. In Washington they don't seem to be looking around and thinking, Hmmm, this nation is in trouble, it needs help. They're thinking something else. I'm not sure they understand the American Dream itself needs a boost, needs encouragement and protection. They don't seem to know or have a sense of the mood of the country.

And so they make their moves, manipulate this issue and that, and keep things at a high boil. And this at a time when people are already in about as much hot water as they can take.

To take just one example from the past 10 days, the federal government continues its standoff with the state of Arizona over how to handle illegal immigration. The point of view of our thought leaders is, in general, that borders that are essentially open are good, or not so bad. The point of view of those on the ground who are anxious about our nation's future, however, is different, more like: "We live in a welfare state and we've just expanded health care. Unemployment's up. Could we sort of calm down, stop illegal immigration, and absorb what we've got?" No is, in essence, the answer.


An irony here is that if we stopped the illegal flow and removed the sense of emergency it generates, comprehensive reform would, in time, follow. Because we're not going to send the estimated 10 million to 15 million illegals already here back. We're not going to put sobbing children on a million buses. That would not be in our nature. (Do our leaders even know what's in our nature?) As years passed, those here would be absorbed, and everyone in the country would come to see the benefit of integrating them fully into the tax system. So it's ironic that our leaders don't do what in the end would get them what they say they want, which is comprehensive reform.

When the adults of a great nation feel long-term pessimism, it only makes matters worse when those in authority take actions that reveal their detachment from the concerns—even from the essential nature—of their fellow citizens. And it makes those citizens feel powerless.

Inner pessimism and powerlessness: That is a dangerous combination.

[crazyman]

I think it is horrible too. I'm just glad to have been born in 1979.

Also, I think we will have one more Hitler like thing before the end.

All I know is keep doing what I'm doing for myself (self employed) and love my country and my God.





(Sidenote) If we have another Genocide, and it happens here, he who has the runflat tires, magnetos, and old school generators survives.....

[MadBill]

-or maybe old-school non-electronic diesels, fitted with manual fuel shut offs, thus no need for electricity and no vulnerability to EMP (ElectroMagnetic Pulse)..

[F1Fever]

I think it is horrible too. I'm just glad to have been born in 1979.

Also, I think we will have one more Hitler like thing before the end.

All I know is keep doing what I'm doing for myself (self employed) and love my country and my God.

(Sidenote) If we have another Genocide, and it happens here, he who has the runflat tires, magnetos, and old school generators survives.....

Why do you feel that? something you read (book or bible?), something you heard (website, friend, tv?)
How would you describe "Hitler like thing", ie many burning people in furnaces, rounding up or killing of religious God fearing people or..?

-Thanks

[CamKing]

I don't know what it's like in all parts of the country, but in my 45 years, I've never seen people as upset with, and fearful of the government, as they are now. Gun sales are going through the roof. Many of my friends are getting concealed carry permits, and it's not the random thugs they're worried about. These friends aren't redneck country boys. These are well educated business people. People are openly talking about the possibility of a revolution. I don't ever remember that happening before.

[mike walsh]

Here is a great video that helped me understand where my money is going, as compared to where my parents money was at my age. Things were quite different 25 years ago!
(Approximatly 1 hour long)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A

[pdq67]

It's as simple as this, imho!!

If you aren't ready to die for your FREEDOM, then you don't deserve it!

It's funny because we know who they are, what they are, what they are doing and why, and also where they are at so when the time come's it will be like a Turkey Shoot once the 1st one goes down.

And here in MO, they resently passed HB 1692 that at the very end of it will allow certain DRUNK people to CC legally!!

I figure SOME people that are involved with causing our misery know they might be at risk, so are making sure they can protect themselves atall times legally and ta hell with the rest of us that might get drunk that also pack. And there was nothing in the ad about the bill that said anything about this crap beforehand!!

pdq67

[enigma57]

Peggy Noonan wrote:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 05250.html

America Is at Risk of Boiling Over And out-of-touch leaders don't see the need to cool things off......

...... When the adults of a great nation feel long-term pessimism, it only makes matters worse when those in authority take actions that reveal their detachment from the concerns—even from the essential nature—of their fellow citizens. And it makes those citizens feel powerless.

Inner pessimism and powerlessness: That is a dangerous combination.

Jon, this is not the result of 'out-of-touch leaders' as Ms.Noonan suggests. Actually, she is being too charitable in assuming this to be an unintended consequence...... For it is in fact by design and right out of Obama's mentor Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals". That point was alluded to priour to the '08 elections by this poster and others. And his predictions of what an 'Obama presidency' (or a 'Hillary Clinton presidency' for that matter) would hold in store for rank and file Americans have proven sadly accurate......

Saul Alinsky - yet another Obama mentor from his Marxist past
17 May, 2008

According to Columnist Paul R. Hollrah, "After arriving at Occidental [College in Los Angeles], Obama chose his friends carefully. He tells us [in his memoir] that, among his friends he included "the more politically active black students, foreign students, Chicanos, Marxist professors, feminists, and punk rock performance poets."

"Then, after transferring to Columbia University two years later, he found that "political discussions, the kind that at Occidental had once seemed so intense and purposeful," took on the flavor of the "socialist conferences" he sometimes attended at New York's Coopers Union."

"As Obama was preparing to graduate from Columbia he wasn't sure what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. Finally, in 1983, he decided to follow in the footsteps of one of his heroes, radical leftist and communist fellow traveler, Saul Alinsky. He concluded, "That's what I'll do… I'll organize black folks at the grass roots… for change."

"There wasn't much detail to the idea," he says. "I didn't know anyone making a living that way. When classmates in college asked me just what it was that a community organizer did, I couldn't answer them directly. Instead, I'd pronounce on the need for change. Change in the White House, where Reagan and his minions were carrying on their dirty deeds. Change in the Congress, compliant and corrupt. Change in the mood of the country, manic and self-absorbed. 'Change won't come from the top,' I would say. 'Change will come from a mobilized grass roots.' "

Barack Obama moved to Chicago, Alinsky's hometown, and established himself as a community organizer.

So who is Saul Alinsky?

According to Wikipedia, "Alinsky was a critic of a passive and ineffective mainstream liberalism. In Rules for Radicals, he argued that the most effective means are whatever will achieve the desired ends, and that an intermediate end for radicals should be democracy because of its relative ease to work within to achieve other ends of social justice."

In Rules for Radicals Alinsky writes, "There's another reason for working inside the system. Dostoevsky said that taking a new step is what people fear most. Any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people. They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future. This acceptance is the reformation essential to any revolution."

This is where Senator Barack Obama's campaign about "Change" comes from. He is not talking about positive change but rather the change outlined by his mentor Saul Alinsky. Revolutionary change. Socialist change.

In order to reach his goal Senator Obama, with the help of the radical left, the media and the Democratic party, is setting the stage for this radical leftist change agenda. He and his supporters are demonizing President Bush, Republicans, conservatives, Christians and those who believe in America.

As his mentor Saul Alinsky said, "They must feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and change the future."

Obama believes, "the most effective means are whatever will achieve the desired ends", even if that means lying, cheating and stealing. Obama will change the future.

Yes, change the future for the worst.

NOTE: Oddly enough, another of Alinsky's most ardent admirers turned out to be the woman who is now his principal opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Her 1969 senior thesis at Wellesley College was titled, There Is Only The Fight: An Analysis of the Alinsky Model.

http://www.zimbio.com/Barack+Obama/arti ... or+Marxist

See also article on Hillary's thesis on her mentor, Alinsky (cached version, link to original has been scrubbed by google/Soros et al).......

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... clnk&gl=us

Best regards,

Harry

[pdq67]

Put them on the F** list!

pdq67

[pdq67]

Back again.

It's amazing how the WEB is opening up a lot of peoples eyes!

One person recently posted that electrical power generating company's CEO's need to drop their salary demands because due to our F** GOV teaching us how to conserve, the bastards aren't making record profits lately.

NOT --- "Due to the fact that people are using LESS electrical power because of CONSERVATION, we need to RAISE our rates so I can hold my HIGH standard of living and F** John Q. Public!".......

pdq67