Stronger Than Death's blog: "Dumb as a box of rocks!"

Every ideology is a mental murder, a reduction of dynamic living processes to static classifications, and every classification is a Damnation, just as every inclusion is an exclusion.  In a busy, buzzing universe where no two snowflakes are identical, and, indeed the smallest sub-atomic particle, we are assured, is not even identical with itself from one micro second to the next-every card index system is a self delusion.  Or, to put it more charitably, as Nietzche says, "we are all better artists than we realize".

It is easy to see that the label "Jew" was a damnation in Nazi Germany, but actually the label "Jew" is a damnation anywhere, even where anti-semititsm doesn't exist.  Anytime a person is labeled for their color, religion, or social class is a damnation.  "He is a catholic", "He is a Dr.", "He is homeless" to the card-indexing center of the cortex in the brain, that my experience with him will be like my experiences with others such as him.  Thus individuality is ignored when identity is asserted. 

At a party or any place where strangers meet (mumms included), watch this mechanism in action.  Behind the friendly overtures there is wariness as each person fishes for the label that will identify and Damn the other.  Finally it is revealed:  "Oh he has a confederate flag pic, so he is racist!"  "Oh he has silly pics of Obama so he is a hillbilly, militia man, domestic terrorist".  Then the accusing party relaxes for now they know how to behave, what roles to play in the game.  Ninety-nine percent of each has been damned; the other is reacting to the one percent that has been labeled by the card index machine.  

So to the people who don't know me, don't assume!  When you assume that just makes an ASS of U and ME!

Barack Obama is on track to have the most spectacularly failed presidency since Woodrow Wilson. In the modern era, we've seen several failed presidencies--led by Jimmy Carter and LBJ. Failed presidents have one strong common trait-- they are repudiated, in the vernacular, spat out.  Of course, LBJ wisely took the exit ramp early, avoiding a shove into oncoming traffic by  his own party.  Richard Nixon indeed resigned in disgrace, yet his reputation as a statesman has been partially restored by his triumphant overture to China. 
     
George Bush Jr didn't fail so much as he was perceived to have been too much of a patrician while being uncomfortable with his more conservative allies. Yet George Bush Sr is still perceived as a man of uncommon decency, loyal to the enduring American character of rugged  self-determination, free markets, and generosity. George W will eventually be treated more kindly by historians as one whose potential was squashed by his  own compromise of conservative principles, in some ways repeating the mistakes of his father, while ignoring many lessons in executive leadership he should have learned at Harvard Business School.  Of course George W could never quite overcome being dogged from the outset by half of the nation convinced he was electorally illegitimate -- thus aiding the resurgence of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.
  
But, Barack Obama is failing. Failing big.  Failing fast. And failing everywhere: foreign policy, domestic initiatives, and most importantly, in forging connections with the American people. The incomparable Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal  put her finger on it: He is failing because he has no understanding of the American people, and may indeed loathe them.  Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard says he is failing because he has lost control of his message, and is overexposed.  Clarice Feldman of American Thinker produced a dispositive commentary showing that Obama is failing because fundamentally he is neither smart nor articulate; his intellectual dishonesty is conspicuous by its audacity and lack of shame.
  
But, there is something more seriously wrong: How could a new president riding in on a wave of unprecedented promise and goodwill have forfeited his tenure and become a lame duck in six months? His poll ratings are in free fall.  In generic balloting, the Republicans have now seized a five  point advantage. This truly is unbelievable. What's going on?
  
No narrative. Obama doesn't have a narrative. No, not a narrative about himself. He has a self-narrative, much of it fabricated, cleverly disguised or written  by someone else.  But this self-narrative is isolated and doesn't connect with us.  He doesn't have an American narrative that draws upon the rest of us. All successful presidents have a narrative about the American character that intersects with their own where they display a command of history and reveal an authenticity at the core of their personality that resonates in a  positive endearing way with the majority of Americans.  We admire those presidents whose narratives not only touch our own, but who seem stronger, wiser, and smarter than we are.  Presidents we admire are aspirational peers,  even those whose politics don't align exactly with our own: Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Harry Truman, Ike, Reagan.
  
But not this president. It's not so much that he's a phony, knows nothing about economics, is historically illiterate, and woefully small minded for the size of the task-- all  contributory of course.  It's that he's not one of us.  And whatever he is, his profile is fuzzy and devoid of content, like a cardboard cutout made from delaminated corrugated paper.  Moreover, he doesn't command our respect  and is unable to appeal to our own common sense.  His notions of right and wrong are repugnant and how things work just don't add up.  They are not existential.  His descriptions of the world we live in don't make sense and  don't correspond with our experience. 
  
In the meantime, while we've been struggling to take a measurement of this man, he's diced just about every one of us--financiers, energy producers, banks, insurance executives, police officers, doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, post office workers, and anybody else who has a non-green job.  Expect Obama to lament at his last press conference in 2012: "For those of you I offended, I apologize.   For those of you who were not offended, you just didn't give me enough time;  if only I'd had a second term, I could have offended you too."
  
Mercifully, the Founders at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 devised a useful remedy for such a desperate
state--staggered terms for both houses of the legislature and the executive. An equally abominable Congress can get voted out next year.  With a new Congress, there's always hope  of legislative gridlock until we vote for president again two short years after that. 
  
Yes, small presidents do fail, Barack Obama among them. The coyotes howl but the wagon train keeps rolling 
along

> Dear All 535 voting members of the Legislator.
>
>
> The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775 - you have
> had 234 years to get it right; it is broke.
>
> Social Security was established in 1935 - you have had 74
> years to get it right; it is broke.
>
> Fannie Mae was established in 1938 - you have had 71 years
> to get it right; it is broke..
>
> War on Poverty started in 1964 - you have had 45 years to
> get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each
> year and transferred to "the poor"; it hasn't
> worked.
>
> Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965 - you've
> had 44 years to get it right; they're broke
>
> Freddie Mac was established in 1970 - you have had 39 years
> to get it right; it is broke
>
> Trillions of dollars in the massive political payoff called
> the TARP bill of 2009 shows NO sign of working.
>
> And finally to set a new record:
>
> "Cash for Clunkers" was established in 2009 and
> went broke in 2009!  It took good dependable cars (
> that were the best some people could afford ) replaced them
> with high priced ( people who couldn't afford to are now
> making payments ) mostly Japanese models so a good
> percentage of the profits, from the sales, went
> out of the country.  And lastly, the American taxpayers
> are now going to be dinged with paying for yet 3 billion
> more dollars of our governments experiments to make our
> wallets even thinner.
>
> So with a perfect 100% failure rate and a record that
> proves that "services" you shove down our throats
> are failing faster and faster, you want Americans to believe
> you can be trusted with a government-run health care
> system?  15% of our economy?  Are you crazy?
>
> Truly, the inmates are running the asylum!  And what
> does this say about voters who put such pond scum in
> office?  Maybe we need to let others in on this
> brilliant record before 2010 and just vote against
> incumbents.

San Francisco Examiner 
May 21, 2009
Dumb as a box of Rocks

A VERY GOOD EXAMPLE OF THE KIND OF REPRESENTATION WE HAVE IN CONGRESS, TRUE STORY:

A noted psychiatrist was a guest speaker at an academic function 
where Nancy Pelosi happened to appear.  Ms. Pelosi took the opportunity to schmooze the good doctor a bit and asked him a question with which he was most at ease.

'Would you mind telling me, Doctor,' she asked, 'how you detect a mental deficiency in somebody who appears completely normal?'

'Nothing is easier,' he replied. 'You ask a simple question which anyone should answer with no trouble. If the person hesitates, that puts you on the track.'

'What sort of question?' asked Pelosi.

Well, you might ask, 'Captain Cook made three trips around the world and died during one of them.  Which one?''

Pelosi thought a moment, and then said with a nervous laugh, 'You wouldn't happen to have another example would you? I must confess I don't know much about history.'