The Grim Repeater

April 29, 2012 Leave a comment

Wall Street Journal, Thursday, April 19th, 2012:

Wonderland by Daniel Henniger, Deputy editor, editorial page,

 It’s 1936 All Over Again

The Obama 2012 campaign is channeling the ghost of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Depression.

 With a small group of credulous millionaires joining him at a White House séance the other day to support the Buffett Rule, the Conjurer-in-Chief called forth the spirit of Ronald Reagan, who the president averred would have supported his magic tax on “millionaires.” There have been 43 other presidents of the United States. The last one you would associate with Barack Obama is Ronald Reagan.…

FDR’s 1936 speech, however tough and accusatory, had Roosevelt’s natural personal buoyancy. Barack Obama has no such gift for popular uplift. Reagan and Bill Clinton had it, and it was an underestimated piece of George W. Bush’s two successful presidential runs.

Barack Obama is, frankly, a pretty grim guy. He does try to mitigate the downer mood—”This is also about growth”—but ultimately his audiences always hear about the ditch someone else put them in and the superhuman effort “we” have to make to pull out of this deep hole.

Barack Obama is grim because he believes, and has always believed, that dark forces are actively at work in America to shaft the middle class. So do his closest supporters. So you run on anger and antipathy.

Can you re-run Roosevelt’s Depression strategy without Roosevelt? In tough times, some voters will buy it. But I don’t think enough will to produce a majority of the beleaguered.

Barack Obama is asking people to cast a less-than-hopeful vote in November. Resentment is not something most people in 21st-century America carry around in the front of their heads. Once Barack Obama stirs it up, as he’s doing now, he has to sustain it for six months. He is asking people to vote out of something resembling, well, depression. (emphasis mine)

Filed under 2012 election, Political Commentary, Politics Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

The Lives of Others

January 1, 2011 Leave a comment


The Lives of Others, written and directed by Florian Henckel Donnersmarck.
Academy Award Winner of the Best Foreign Language of 2006

William F. Buckley Jr. wrote in his syndicated column that after the film was over, “I turned to my companion and said, ‘I think that this is the best movie I ever saw.'” *

I agree with Buckley, it is an awesome movie.

The story has so many intricately woven layers, each one adding depth to a narrative of an oppressive society and man’s desire to act out of his free will, to create.

In 1982, I was 30. I well remember reading about the GDR and the repressive socialist society which had pared humanity down into numbers. And, everyone in East Germany knew that the walls had ears. I don’t think recent college graduates even know about these things – they are even now voicing support for socialism under the cover of social justice. The Ministry for State Security (the Stasi) would love these kids. On campuses, this movie should be required viewing instead of reading progressive Howard Vinn’s diatribes of American history.

It took Ronald Reagan, in his 1987 Brandenburg Gate speech, to put into words the demolition needed to restore freedom from the tyranny of communism and socialism: “Tear down this wall!”

* from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_Others

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Recent examples of the same type of government as depicted in The Lives of Others:

Government dependency via Public unions: 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/business/02showdown.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2

 and

“Machines will definitely be able to observe us and understand us better. Where that leads is uncertain. “

HARTMUT NEVEN, a computer scientist and vision expert at Google.

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Viewer warning:  there is nudity and a scene of sexual nature in this movie.

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