THE HIGH PRESSURE POLITICAL SALESMAN: BARACK OBAMA

high-pressure
adj : aggressively and persistently persuasive; “a hard-hitting
advertising campaign”; “a high-pressure salesman” [syn:
hard-hitting]

Although I am not as far from that point as I might wish, I have yet to become an old man.  Nonetheless, because we have a new presidential administration every four to eight years, I have still managed to see quite a few.  Barack Obama’s presidency is turning out unlike anything I remember.

Why is the Obama administration so different?  Here we have both government and the corporate news media conspiring to encapsulate and imprison us in the stress of an unending crisis.   Usually our leadership wants us calm and reassured, but not the Obama administration.

Consider how the Obama administration is selling its current top priority.

When President Obama vowed last week to rebuild the nation’s slumping economy on the strength of “five pillars,” there was little doubt on which column construction would begin first – health care reform.  (continued here)

Health care reform is now an economic pillar?  It use to be that opposing the Democratic Party’s health care agenda just meant you lacked compassion for the poor and children.  Opposing Obama’s health care reforms now also means you must be an economic wrecker.  Consider the emphasis Obama puts upon his economic pillars.

We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand. We must build our house upon a rock. We must lay a new foundation for growth and prosperity – a foundation that will move us from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest; where we consume less at home and send more exports abroad.

It’s a foundation built upon five pillars that will grow our economy and make this new century another American century: new rules for Wall Street that will reward drive and innovation; new investments in education that will make our workforce more skilled and competitive; new investments in renewable energy and technology that will create new jobs and industries; new investments in health care that will cut costs for families and businesses; and new savings in our federal budget that will bring down the debt for future generations. That is the new foundation we must build. That must be our future – and my Administration’s policies are designed to achieve that future. (text of Obama’s speech here)

Same pile of sand?  The American economy use to be based upon free enterprise.  That is, our economy did not rest upon just five pillars and the judgment of our political leadership.  Instead we each had the job of shoring a portion of the economy with our own hard work and individual decisions.  Yet Obama tells us that we now have a pile of sand for a foundation, and we must replace it.

• New rules for Wall Street: Until politicians started meddling in the mortage lending industry, bankers avoided lending to bad credit risks.  There is no profit in it (see here).  Does Obama propose less government intervention?  No.
• New investments in education that will make our workforce more skilled and competitive: American education began as a disparate system of local and private schools that competed with each other to be the best.   Since then politicians have made more and more promises and spent more and more money.  Yet Obama promises more Federal involvement and wants to spend more.  Why?   With government “fixes,” has our educational system gotten better or has it become an increasingly homogeneous system dominated by special interests such as the teacher’s unions?
• New investments in renewable energy and technology that will create new jobs and industries: What do we call it when government invests in and seeks to dominate the private economy?  The answer is socialism, and we have examples from around the world that socialism increases pollution and undermines economic activity.   The problem is a blatant conflict of interest.  Who can regulate themselves without bias?  If government runs the economy, who will regulate it?
• New investments in health care that will cut costs for families and businesses: The stated goal is preposterous.  Increasing the role of government cuts costs?  How can anybody be so stupid as to believe that?
• New savings in our federal budget that will bring down the debt for future generations: Has anybody been watching what has been going on in Washington D.C.?  This economic pillar should have been a laugh line.  You want to know how serious Obama is about budget cuts?  Read this.  Believe it or not, I found it in the New York Times.

We are now led by people who rave joyously of the glories of racial and ethnic diversity, but they fight diversity tooth and nail.  With fear and irrational hope, Obama is fooling ignorant people into voting for bigger government.  Instead of economic diversity, Obama wants us to conform to his rule and a state controlled economy.  What will that accomplish?  It will secure the power of entrenched elites, what some might call “an oligarchy or plutocracy of lawyers, if not a kleptocracy” (from here).