Obama can’t fix what his party broke
Obama can’t fix what his party broke
by Donald Hank
Before reading further, make sure you see this amazing video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5tZc8oH–o
Did you see the debate last night?
Despite his relaxed exterior,and his pontifications on the economy, Obama was on the defensive, as well he should have been. McCain knew stuff he didn’t know, like the difference between a strategy and a tactic, or the names of presidents in Eastern Europe. After McCain rattled off these names and associated facts, Obama could only say “I agree with Senator McCain on this.” It was obviously all he could say. And then there was the gaffe about “taking out” Pakistan. And the misquote of Kissinger. Not a good night for Barack.
McCain was like a father lecturing to a son who hadn’t done his homework.
Again, Obama tried to make the claim that McCain is a laissez-faire capitalist who wants no regulation of the Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac, and, unfortunately, McCain muffed his chance to really explain the crash mechanism as well as Barack’s (and the Democrats’) primary role in the crash. Republican politicians seems to have little understanding of this mechanism, but it is all important for voters to know.
Folks, I had written a column on Bush’s role in the bank crashes that some thought was blasphemous, but what I said had to be said and no one else was willing to say it (that’s what Laigle’s Forum is all about, you know). And now we know the role Bush played in bringing down the banks. So is the bank crash all about Bush?
Not by a long shot, although he aided and abetted. It is more about Obama, his pals and his party. Much more.
I believe Bush’s role is related to his blind belief in New Age Christianity. As I have shown in various columns, evangelical Christians have been brainwashed by the Left into accepting what we might call “Christian socialism,” which includes teachings of globalism and surrender of sovereignty. Mainstream pastors now talk as though God had added an eleventh commandment: Thou shalt share the wealth. Indeed, my Brazilian colleague Olavo de Carvalho showed that the revolutionary mindset, which we now call the Left, started as a Christian heresy in the 13th century. Strangely, this heresy, which teaches that Christians must build the kingdom of God by eliminating social injustice, is now becoming the dominant doctrine in America, to our great peril, and the latest financial crash is its spawn. This heresy was first introduced into the American church by way of the far Christian Left (Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo) and was mainstreamed by preachers like Robert Schuller and later his protégées such as Rick Warren as well as supposedly “conservative” church leaders. If this sounds like blasphemy to you, you are no doubt a true believer in the emergent church’s New Age teachings. Beware.
But yes, the crash is really mostly about Obama and his party, which sabotaged American business. Characteristically of the Left, they behaved like naughty school kids who made the spitballs and let other kids throw them. That’s how it works. There are always some smart aleck troublemakers who are highly popular and the other, shy kids with a good upbringing, want to imitate them. Pretty soon the kids with the good upbringing are the worst offenders in the schoolyard and the smart alecks are posing as angels, laughing up their sleeves as the poor suckers get punished.
Naughty boy Jimmy Carter (another Christian leftist, by the way) started things off by introducing the Community Reinvestment Act in 1977, which the Democrats passed. This was a typical Carter goody-goody initiative to bring housing to people who would only get housing if you twisted their arms and made them pay no more than they would pay to rent. You know, the group we used to be called poor credit risks. Now we call them the “underserved.”
The program was modestly dimensioned at first and ran with no major glitches until Clinton took it into high gear, demanding $1 trillion in sub-prime mortgages, with the semi-government bureaucracies Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac leading the charge. Banks that could not or would not comply were punished. Punished for implementing nothing other than good business practice, mind you! (Remember that government-business partnerships are a feature of fascism, hardly the American way).
Then Bush morphed into Clinton on steroids and all but doubled the percentage of subprime loans, but added the cherry to the sundae with his “zero down payment initiative.”
There were a few futile attempts to put the brakes on, notably Senator McCain’s attempt in 2005 to enact the Housing Enterprise Regulatory Act. The Democrats blocked it. Obama doesn’t want you to know any of this, and the networks and mainstream media are helping him hide it and sell his fiction.
In all fairness to Bush, he too had tried to rein in Fanny and Freddy, back in 2003, but ran up against the Democrats.
So while Bush must take some of the blame, because he did push for higher percentages of sub-prime mortgages and his administration did write the disgraceful “Zero-Downpayment Initiative,” he was, after all, just following the Democrats’ lead and, I believed, trying, in a bungling way, to be a good little Christian, guided, unfortunately, by principles of the Christian Left, which had subtly and gradually become the mainstream in America.
Bottom line: while Obama claims regulation is necessary and accuses McCain of not wanting it, it was McCain himself who tried to introduce regulatory legislation that would help remedy the damage done by the Democrats through over-regulation of the socialist kind.
Keep that in mind when you go to the polls.
Another video on the subject:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usvG-s_Ssb0
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September 28th, 2008 at 12:15 am
Don,
You mentioned Christian socialism in your commentary. There is an excellent account of the history of that within the context of the history of socialism itself.
It is all in a book accessible online, “The Socialist Phenomenon”, by Igor Shafarevich, a world-renowned mathematician and a friend of Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
—Quote—
It seems to us quite legitimate to conclude that socialism does exist as a unified historical phenomenon. Its basic principles have been indicated above. They are:
* Abolition of private property.
* Abolition of the family.
* Abolition of religion.
* Equality, abolition of hierarchies in society.
The manifold embodiments of these principles are linked organically by a common spirit, by an identity of specific details and, frequently, by a clearly discernible overall thrust.
- Igor Shafarevich
The Socialist Phenomenon, p. 200
http://robertlstephens.com/essays/shafarevich/001SocialistPhenomenon.html#pagestart_200
—End Quote—
Some of the facts of the history of socialism explained in Shafarevich’s book may amaze you.
Igor Shafarevich identifies the strong relationship between religions and socialism as an all-pervasive aspect of civilization throughout all of Christian history. (You’ll need to do a “Find in page” for “Anabaptist”.)
The opening paragraph in the foreword (by Alexander Solzhenitsyn) to Shafarevich’s book is of concern in regard to how socialism gets in under the radar, even in the West – obviously – and, most importantly, in various religious denominations.
—Quote—
It seems that certain things in this world simply cannot be discovered without extensive experience, be it personal or collective. This applies to the present book with its fresh and revealing perspective on the millennia-old trends of socialism. While it makes use of a voluminous literature familiar to specialists throughout the world, there is an undeniable logic in the fact that it emerged from the country that has undergone (and is undergoing) the harshest and most prolonged socialist experience in modern history. Nor is it at all incongruous that within that country this book should not have been produced by a humanist, for scholars in the humanities have been the most methodically crushed of all social strata in the Soviet Union ever since the October Revolution. It was written by a mathematician of world renown: in the Communist world, practitioners of the exact sciences must stand in for their annihilated brethren.
-Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in
The Socialist Phenomenon, by Igor Shafarevich, p. vii
http://robertlstephens.com/essays/shafarevich/001SocialistPhenomenon.html#pagestart_vii
—End Quote—
My concern is that the “annihilated [humanist] brethren” in the USSR that should have been able to serve as objective and accurate historians have a somewhat more “humanitarian” counterpart in the suppression of objective history in the so-called “free West”. That is, the historians, politicians, pastors and ministers who don’t dare to speak out for fear of having their careers and livelihoods destroyed.
Different means, equally effective, same end; only here it is done not so much through deadly force but through curtailment (often by force) of the ability to partake in the pleasures provided by materialism.
That is how leadership becomes corrupted and turns into populism, and that it also how socialism is made to prevail for as long as there is a civilization.
Socialism is a means by which we try in vain to create Paradise on Earth.
–Walter
September 28th, 2008 at 4:44 am
What was amusing today was the fact that most mainstream media types including Stephanopolous claimed that Barack deserved an -A and a John deserved a B+. That was very humourous and disturbing at the same time. As far back as I can remember the Media has not engaged in such blatant favoritism for one party; namely Barack and Uncle Joe Stalin …oops Biden. My wife who is intently liberal, was rather disappointed and my day went by rather quickly ! Although Barack came across as arrogant – Harvard Law School, and in 1990 became the first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review – not knowing anything above and beyond elitism. Furthermore John would serve the public well were he to wipe that smirk off his face that said “Hey Mom I’m the biggest kid in grade three”. John came across as knowing considerably more than Barack, not only in substantive information but in concepts. The USA would be at the mercy of every despot and terrorist movement were Obama to become the President.
The ‘Great Debate’ may well have been called – Do You Know More Than A Fifth Grader !
The fact that all the questions were framed beforehand speaks volumes as well. Thereby ignoring other critical issues -for example families and the state funded agents of terror attack upon them. From what I observed last night, there are some dangers out there in the real world. Peace out.