More Obama Rumination

Spengler draws a bleak picture:

Be afraid - be very afraid. America is at a low point in its fortunes, and feeling sorry for itself. When Barack utters the word "hope", they instead hear, "handout". A cynic might translate the national motto, E pluribus unum, as "something for nothing". Now that the stock market and the housing market have failed to give Americans something for nothing, they want something for nothing from the government. The trouble is that he who gets something for nothing will earn every penny of it, twice over.

The George W Bush administration has squandered a great strategic advantage in a sorry lampoon of nation-building in the Muslim world, and has made enemies out of countries that might have been friendly rivals, notably Russia. Americans question the premise of America's standing as a global superpower, and of the promise of upward mobility and wealth-creation. If elected, Barack Obama will do his utmost to destroy the dual premises of America's standing. It might take the country another generation to recover.

"Evil will oft evil mars", J R R Tolkien wrote. It is conceivable that Barack Obama, if elected, will destroy himself before he destroys the country. Hatred is a toxic diet even for someone with as strong a stomach as Obama. As he recalled in his 1995 autobiography, Dreams From My Father, Obama idealized the Kenyan economist who had married and dumped his mother, and was saddened to learn that Barack Hussein Obama, Sr, was a sullen, drunken polygamist. The elder Obama became a senior official of the government of Kenya after earning a PhD at Harvard. He was an abusive drunk and philanderer whose temper soured his career.

The senior Obama died in a 1982 car crash. Kenyan government officials in those days normally spent their nights drinking themselves stupid at the Pan-Afrique Hotel. Two or three of them would be found with their Mercedes wrapped around a palm tree every morning. During the 1970s I came to know a number of them, mostly British-educated hollow men dying inside of their own hypocrisy and corruption.

Both Obama and the American public should be very careful of what they wish for. As the horrible example of Obama's father shows, there is nothing worse for an embittered outsider manipulating the system from within than to achieve his goals - and nothing can be more terrible for the system. Even those who despise America for its blunders of the past few years should ask themselves whether the world will be a safer place if America retreats into a self-pitying shell.

Too bleak?

Comments

[DRaftervoi]

Yeah, for one, the pop-psychology of the "sins of the father" is a bit much - many people are better than their parents at some things and worse at others, and I don't see Mr. Obama as an "embittered outsider." And the "he hates America" line is probably overstated, as well. There is a difference between the outright hatred and the more passive critique that the U.S. needs to be "controlled" or "directed" by Internationalist elites.

[oceanguy]

Not too bleak, but at the same time it's a stretch in some parts. I have faith that as the campaign progresses, that people will see Obama's "Hope" as little more than hope for a socialist state. A kinder gentler socialism, but a central authority redistributing wealth for the good fo the oppressed is what he sees. His rhetoric simply allows the greatest number of people to label themselves as "oppressed" and therefore deserving of government largess, at the big corporations' and rich people's expense.

He is absolutely wrong on the situation in Iraq and in the war that Islamists are waging against us. As things continue to improve in Iraq, it will make it difficult for him to keep pushing his withdrawal plan. His willingness to make nice with enemies will also play against him.

Remember the votes in the middle will decide the election. can Obama credibly move towards the center to win enough moderate votes?

The dangers that he will win come from a media that is almost driven to see him elected and his eloquence and the appearance of staying positive and hopeful... without saying what he really hopes for. I have faith in the electorate that they will listen and choose wisely and not emotionally.