Right now, we are under assault from all directions. I cannot recall it ever being quite like this. We watch events take place and there seems to be no coherent or intelligent response. Things just get worse. Think about it. Think about all that has happened.
1. In 2008, the economy collapsed and America has yet to recover. The income of the average American family is lower today by almost 10% than it was back in 2008. We finally have more jobs today than were in place in 2008 before the collapse, but there are also about 15 million more people. Millions of people only have part time jobs or low paying jobs when they used to have good middle class jobs. Those at the low end of the economic ladder are not getting raises because there is a flood of illegal workers who will take jobs off the books for less than it would cost for legal employees. And president Obama has no actual plan to deal with any of this.
2. In 2008, America won the War in Iraq. We had tens of thousands of troops there, but the battles were mostly over and there were few casualties after that. We won the war, but then we lost the peace. Today, the nation where we spent years fighting to defeat terrorism is under threat from the worst Islamic terrorists yet to have appeared on the scene. ISIS is busy planning genocide against the infidels and beheadings of those whose beliefs do not line up correctly with those approved by ISIS. Death is their goal in a way that the world has really not seen since the end of the second world war. For example, the half million Yazidis in Iraq are supposed to be killed as "devil worshippers" by ISIS. It is the modern equivalent of the Nazis. Here too, we have a president who seems not to be paying attention. The problem has been overwhelming and obvious for at least a year (and for a lot longer for those who paid any attention to Syria and Iraq.) Obama, however, just blames others for not telling him the real story on ISIS. Somehow, we are to believe that the president of the United States cannot find out about anything unless his intelligence services spoon feed him the data and force him to pay attention. But, if the intelligence services knew of the problem, if the media knew of the problem, if members of Congress knew of the problem and spoke about it, and, hell, if I knew about the problem and wrote about it frequently on this blog, then the president of the United States of America damn well ought to know about it too. He has no excuse for his inaction.
3. In 2008, the nations of eastern Europe were on edge. Russia had just invaded and taken over two provinces in Georgia, a small country just south of Russia. In response, America under president Bush took steps to isolate Russia and to impose heavy costs on that nation for invading its neighbor. The USA got essentially all of the former Soviet satellites in eastern Europe along with nearly all of the nations that previously had been republics in the USSR to take a strong stand against Russian aggression in Georgia. These moves did not get the Russians out of Georgia, but they made clear to the Kremlin that any further moves to take territory would lead to major losses for Russia. Then came 2009 and our new president Obama and his Secretary of State, Mrs. Clinton. They came up with the "reset" in Russian-American relations. For those who may have forgotten, the thing that was "reset" was the reaction to the Russian invasion of Georgia. Obama and Clinton lifted all the sanctions that had been put in place just months earlier. Obama and Clinton not only abandoned all of our allies in eastern Europe, but they pulled American missile defense installations out of places like Poland and the Czech Republic thereby leaving the governments in those countries looking like fools who had relied upon the feckless Americans. Obama and Clinton gave the Russians a clear signal that their adventures in Georgia had NO CONSEQUENCES.
Fast Forward until 2014 and we get Russia now taking control of Crimea and a big chunk of eastern Ukraine. Russia knows that Obama will never stick to anything he does to confront the situation. Putin just has to wait until Obama folds and slinks off.
4. In the general Middle East, 2008 saw America have maximum influence over the nations of the region. We had friends in power in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Kuwait, Jordan, Israel and other places. The bad guys in charge of Libya were afraid of what we might do next; Colonel Gaddafi had actually given up his nuclear program rather than face a confrontation with the USA on the subject. Things were far from perfect, but at least they were better than they had been five years earlier.
Five years later, the region is in total chaos. Countries like Libya and Syria no longer really exist. Terrorists control large swathes of the area. Some countries that were our friends have moved away (like Egypt). Other countries that are still our friends no longer trust us. The only strategy employed in Washington to deal with all the chaos seems to be to try not to say anything that might insult our enemies (although we have no such limitations regarding our friends) and also to tell everyone that we can't do many things as well as to list all of those things that we just won't do (including the dreaded "boots on the ground").
5. In 2008, race relations in America had improved dramatically. Heck, we elected the first African American president. Nothing could better show that race was not the same divide that it used to be. But then that president and his people went to work. The professional race baiters like Al Sharpton and his ilk were given access and power. Opponents of the president were shut up by calling all criticism "racist". Far from improving race relations, Obama managed to inject race back into areas that had long ago seen that consideration disappear. Things just got worse.
6. In 2008, there were things that the government seemed able to do. The space program was functioning and achieving things. It was not perfect, but there were missions of all sorts underway. Today, we have NASA which actually has said that its new principal mission is outreach to the world's Moslems. Our health system had problems that needed to be fixed in 2008. Instead of fixing those problems, however, Obama injected the government into every aspect of healthcare (except one). Government efficiency brought us the Obamacare website that was both the most expensive website in history and a complete failure. Government meddling with insurance coverage brought 13 million people whose policies were cancelled. We now have a system so complicated that it is nearly impossible to have a reasonable conversation as to whether or not it still functions. Today, we learned that even the Secret Service no longer seems able to protect the president. Government has changed from a lumbering giant into a completely incompetent mess.
There are long lists of additional items that could come next. Should we talk about government taking away our basic liberties by means of spying on us? Should we talk about the loss of "a government of laws" and replacing it with a "nest of cronies"? Maybe the next item should be the destruction by Obama of all possibility of Americans trusting the things said by the government. If his presidency were to get a name in history, would it be "Telling Lies is the New Black"?
Even with all that has happened, I still have faith that America will recover and prevail. But we all have to participate in the effort to achieve that. We have to participate in the struggle to restore sanity to Washington. There is no other choice.
1. In 2008, the economy collapsed and America has yet to recover. The income of the average American family is lower today by almost 10% than it was back in 2008. We finally have more jobs today than were in place in 2008 before the collapse, but there are also about 15 million more people. Millions of people only have part time jobs or low paying jobs when they used to have good middle class jobs. Those at the low end of the economic ladder are not getting raises because there is a flood of illegal workers who will take jobs off the books for less than it would cost for legal employees. And president Obama has no actual plan to deal with any of this.
2. In 2008, America won the War in Iraq. We had tens of thousands of troops there, but the battles were mostly over and there were few casualties after that. We won the war, but then we lost the peace. Today, the nation where we spent years fighting to defeat terrorism is under threat from the worst Islamic terrorists yet to have appeared on the scene. ISIS is busy planning genocide against the infidels and beheadings of those whose beliefs do not line up correctly with those approved by ISIS. Death is their goal in a way that the world has really not seen since the end of the second world war. For example, the half million Yazidis in Iraq are supposed to be killed as "devil worshippers" by ISIS. It is the modern equivalent of the Nazis. Here too, we have a president who seems not to be paying attention. The problem has been overwhelming and obvious for at least a year (and for a lot longer for those who paid any attention to Syria and Iraq.) Obama, however, just blames others for not telling him the real story on ISIS. Somehow, we are to believe that the president of the United States cannot find out about anything unless his intelligence services spoon feed him the data and force him to pay attention. But, if the intelligence services knew of the problem, if the media knew of the problem, if members of Congress knew of the problem and spoke about it, and, hell, if I knew about the problem and wrote about it frequently on this blog, then the president of the United States of America damn well ought to know about it too. He has no excuse for his inaction.
3. In 2008, the nations of eastern Europe were on edge. Russia had just invaded and taken over two provinces in Georgia, a small country just south of Russia. In response, America under president Bush took steps to isolate Russia and to impose heavy costs on that nation for invading its neighbor. The USA got essentially all of the former Soviet satellites in eastern Europe along with nearly all of the nations that previously had been republics in the USSR to take a strong stand against Russian aggression in Georgia. These moves did not get the Russians out of Georgia, but they made clear to the Kremlin that any further moves to take territory would lead to major losses for Russia. Then came 2009 and our new president Obama and his Secretary of State, Mrs. Clinton. They came up with the "reset" in Russian-American relations. For those who may have forgotten, the thing that was "reset" was the reaction to the Russian invasion of Georgia. Obama and Clinton lifted all the sanctions that had been put in place just months earlier. Obama and Clinton not only abandoned all of our allies in eastern Europe, but they pulled American missile defense installations out of places like Poland and the Czech Republic thereby leaving the governments in those countries looking like fools who had relied upon the feckless Americans. Obama and Clinton gave the Russians a clear signal that their adventures in Georgia had NO CONSEQUENCES.
Fast Forward until 2014 and we get Russia now taking control of Crimea and a big chunk of eastern Ukraine. Russia knows that Obama will never stick to anything he does to confront the situation. Putin just has to wait until Obama folds and slinks off.
4. In the general Middle East, 2008 saw America have maximum influence over the nations of the region. We had friends in power in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Kuwait, Jordan, Israel and other places. The bad guys in charge of Libya were afraid of what we might do next; Colonel Gaddafi had actually given up his nuclear program rather than face a confrontation with the USA on the subject. Things were far from perfect, but at least they were better than they had been five years earlier.
Five years later, the region is in total chaos. Countries like Libya and Syria no longer really exist. Terrorists control large swathes of the area. Some countries that were our friends have moved away (like Egypt). Other countries that are still our friends no longer trust us. The only strategy employed in Washington to deal with all the chaos seems to be to try not to say anything that might insult our enemies (although we have no such limitations regarding our friends) and also to tell everyone that we can't do many things as well as to list all of those things that we just won't do (including the dreaded "boots on the ground").
5. In 2008, race relations in America had improved dramatically. Heck, we elected the first African American president. Nothing could better show that race was not the same divide that it used to be. But then that president and his people went to work. The professional race baiters like Al Sharpton and his ilk were given access and power. Opponents of the president were shut up by calling all criticism "racist". Far from improving race relations, Obama managed to inject race back into areas that had long ago seen that consideration disappear. Things just got worse.
6. In 2008, there were things that the government seemed able to do. The space program was functioning and achieving things. It was not perfect, but there were missions of all sorts underway. Today, we have NASA which actually has said that its new principal mission is outreach to the world's Moslems. Our health system had problems that needed to be fixed in 2008. Instead of fixing those problems, however, Obama injected the government into every aspect of healthcare (except one). Government efficiency brought us the Obamacare website that was both the most expensive website in history and a complete failure. Government meddling with insurance coverage brought 13 million people whose policies were cancelled. We now have a system so complicated that it is nearly impossible to have a reasonable conversation as to whether or not it still functions. Today, we learned that even the Secret Service no longer seems able to protect the president. Government has changed from a lumbering giant into a completely incompetent mess.
There are long lists of additional items that could come next. Should we talk about government taking away our basic liberties by means of spying on us? Should we talk about the loss of "a government of laws" and replacing it with a "nest of cronies"? Maybe the next item should be the destruction by Obama of all possibility of Americans trusting the things said by the government. If his presidency were to get a name in history, would it be "Telling Lies is the New Black"?
Even with all that has happened, I still have faith that America will recover and prevail. But we all have to participate in the effort to achieve that. We have to participate in the struggle to restore sanity to Washington. There is no other choice.
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