I begin to think that my body is reacting out of habit. I woke up this morning with a headache that would kill most mortals, my tongue had gone cashmere, my stomach was threatening a violent rejection of anything resembling food, and what little light was filtering through the curtains this morning resembled nothing so much as a 6000 Klieg light. All this despite the fact that I had absolutely nothing to drink last night save for a cup of tea. Either I’ve gotten too old, or my body has developed the knack of the hangover every 365 days. Of course, in this case, most of it was the common cold. But the morning my body takes to doing this, still strikes me as a little more than happenstance. I think next year all try and confuse my body by having a few too many. Maybe the usual drunk and hangover routine will cancel out age and infirmity. At least, I’ll have fun trying.
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In looking back on 2008, the first thing that occurs to me is that as yet I have not purchased a 2009 calendar. On the other hand, it also occurs to me that I haven’t purchased a calendar for the last fifteen years, anyway. All my stuff ends up on my computer. I wonder at that change, just a little. Not a change in me, so much as changes in the world around us, driven by events, driven by technology, and just plain new habits. I only mention it, because that’s one of the things that was a major event that happened every year at the end of it as I was growing up, and I assume for decades before that. It was part of the preparation for the next year. It also gave you a chance to look ahead and look back simultaneously. Mostly, because the birthdays and other annual events in your life need to be copied from one to the other, and in doing you ended up remembering the events that it happened from the year before. The mechanical necessity of the thing forced you into the mental process of both review and looking forward. We no longer have that mechanism for the purpose anymore. At least, for the most part. Still, on this first day of 2009 it seems a reasonable thing to do to look back at 2008 and take inventory. Habit, perhaps. Military types will understand what I say when I call this a battle damage assessment. Admittedly, my brain is trying to imitate a deep shag pile carpet this morning. On that basis my observations may or may not make any sense to you. But here goes;
Whatever else it was, 2008 was certainly not a year for conventional wisdom. Certainly nobody following conventional wisdom saw the economic downturn, and, nor the idiotic response to it from the Federal government. In fact, there were few among the unconventional wisdom school who saw it coming, either. However that maybe, it certainly ended up being centered on government.
Perhaps that’s the big lesson here; 2008 was the year of government. For anyone who is a believer in freedom and the freedom of markets to operate, 2008 has been nothing short of total disaster. The problem is, the people that are in power in a few weeks are not freedom types either. And so for the next couple of years, we’re stuck with it,a dthe repercussion on freedom will be felt for decades.
Certainly the economic downturn was a culmination of years of governments forcing banks into providing loans to people who couldn’t afford it. People like Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, to name two, doubled down, pushing Congress into appropriating by conservative estimates $700,000,000,000.00 of our money and then promptly losing track of every cent of it. They have not a bloody clue where any of that money went. At least, so they tell us. Oh, and they want more.
I said this the other day, and I’ll say it again, we’d been far better off if the Federal government had simply said “Okay we’re not gonna take any taxes for six months.” No question in my mind whatever that that doesn’t help the Federal deficit. On the other hand, it would have ended up costing us far less money in the long run, and would have far more direct effect in terms of a recovery. As it stands, with Democrats in both houses of Congress and in the White House, we stand a snowball’s chance of seeing a recovery before the next four years go by.
Speaking of the White House, I pretty much predicted that Hillary Clinton wouldn’t win the nomination, but I never figured Americans would be quite so stupid as to elect Barack Obama. I, like many other Americans, figured that if Hillary Clinton lost the nomination the race was John McCain’s to lose. What I didn’t count on was John McCain working toward that particular end.
Not that he didn’t have help along the way, with the other “Republican” candidates vying with him in a contest of who could say the most non free market things. We decried these points at the time, did BitsBlog. Wildly, and repeatedly. To no avail, of course.
So now we have Obama. Here’s a guy who seemingly is intent on rebuilding the depression of the nineteen thirties. Make no mistake; FDR prolonged the depression of the thirties. The only thing that saved our backsides in that case was WWII. But that’s OK, look at it this way ; we’ll probably end up with WWIII shortly, the way things are looking for in policy wise, and with Hillary Clinton and as Secretary of state. As was demonstrated going into world war two, the naiveté of the antiwar left is a surefire guarantee for getting us into war, that by the time they’ve been in power a few years, we are ill prepared to fight. Ill prepared, because the entire were left made us so, seeking and said to spend our defense dollars on social programs.
I think I’ve finally figured out, though, why it is that Obama is so much trying to invoke FDR. He sees FDR as a figure that was universally loved. Obama is deluded in this, of course, but there it is. The thing is, being universally loved is where he wants to be. His ego demands it. And that is why, quite frankly, he spends most of his time playing to the gallery. Watching them, watching him. I will point out to you with a certain amount of trepidation that the last time we had someone in the White House with that kind of ego, was Richard Nixon. Given what we saw of him in this election, Obama’s ego makes Nixon’s look minuscule by comparison. The result of all that is quite predictably disastrous. Let’s just say, we won’t have any shortage of things to write about here at BitsBlog for the next few years. But I think I can pretty much guarantee you that economic recovery is not around the corner.
And who, a year ago, would have predicted that gas prices would tumble as they have? Even I took until mid June to make such a prediction. All it took was the mere threat from the White House to start opening up offshore areas to drilling, and pop goes the bubble. I can’t help but think that that entire scenario could easily have been avoided, had Mr. Bush and his minions had the courage and foresight to make that move seven years ago. Looking forward, I can’t help but think that what price progress we’ve made on oil, will all go down the tubes before the echo from Obama’s oath of office dies. We’re about to see I think the biggest load of manure ever shoveled on to the American people coming from DC. “Green jobs”. More global warming nonsense. The insanity of oil companies running advertisements encouraging people not to use their product. Congress’ micromanaging finally getting to the point where they are dictating to the American people what kind of cars they can and cannot buy. It’s at that point, of course, that we notice the economic collapse, and a lot of politicians wondering what the hell went wrong. Screaming about global warming, in the midst of the coldest year in many, with the evidence telling us that we are in a downward spiral in temperatures. The Democrats, meantime are telling us that we should be dealing with global warming, People are actually buying this nonsense… And frankly, I have no indication that it’s going to get anything but worse.
I happened to watch the ball drop in New York City last night, and the overly warm and friendly way the media gave bill and Hillary Clinton their usual tongue bath treatment. Is there anybody on the planet who doesn’t understand that that appearance was in reality trying to get Bubba into the New York Senate seat his wife abandoned? In sitting there and watching that spectacle last night I couldn’t help but think that Caroline Kennedy suddenly started looking like a reasonable choice for the Senate appointment. Alas, given the last election, these are the kind of choices, distasteful as they are, we are forced into making for at least the next couple of years.
I think 2009 will become the year that we started seeing some are repercussions for the corruption we’ve seen the last several years. All of the targets will be Democrat. A goodly number of those doing the finger pointing, too, will be Democrat. The reason of course for this is simple; in cleaning house at this point as opposed to six months ago, they don’t stand to lose their power. On the other hand, I’m already hearing chatter from some Democrats party sources that suggest some 74 or so house seats will be lost to the Democrats in the next midterm election, with a similar percentage being lost in the Senate. Apparently, the Democat leadership is seriously worried. Reid, particularly, since his is one of the seats they’re seeing as a loss just now. But that’s 2010. 2009 is the setup for it, and what we’re going to see is the Democrats suddenly interested in ridding themselves of the image that they’ve created of themselves over the last several years, of being a gang of corrupt thugs. The separation effort will fail, resulting in 2010. But between now and then, what we’re going to be seeing is Democrats circling the drain. While that will on some levels be very satisfying to see, unfortunately it invariably ends up in as some of the worst government possible. I have no reason to believe this is going to be any different.
Barack Obama and Rod Blagojevich
Speaking of corrupt Democrats, this business with Rod Blagojevich will continue to play in our headlines for at least the next six to eight months. The Democrats are going to have absolutely no choice whatsoever about seating Roland Burris. It’s my view that they should be slapped down on constitutional grounds if they try. But if they were really smart, given the history of Blagojevich on demanding cash transfers for any action he might take as governor, does not stand a reason that somebody should be investigating whether not there was a cash transfer from Burris to Blagojevich, or some kind of political favor having been made there? My guess is we’re going to see that subject, over the next three to four months. At which point this whole thing will be stuck in our headlines for the next year at least whilst everyone haggles this one out. And the question of Obama’s involvement in the political machine in Chicago has yet to be fully fleshed out. We’ll see that come up again and again.
As for the mainstream press, I think the story for the next year is going to be Vicki Iseman. She of the $27 million lawsuit against the New York times who falsely spread the story that she and John McCain were an “item”. If nothing else, that story will serve very well indeed to shine a light on press bias against conservatism. So desperate were the “reporters” and editors at the New York Times to paint John McCain in a bad light, that they got careless and got themselves caught in a flat out lie in that effort. The odd part about it is, given John McCain and who he is, the New York Times needn’t have bothered. He’d lost the election all by himself, without their help, by spending all his time trying to be a Democrat. What will happen with the New York Times at that point that the suit comes into play, is anybody’s guess. But it’s pretty well known just now that Pinch doesn’t have the coin to be paying her off just now. Going to be interesting to see how that one plays out.
As for the Middle East, I see no major changes in our situation for the next 4 years or so. After all, we’ve gone to the last 40 years with no major changes, and the cast of players currently in power here in these United States are quite prone to insisting that Israel back down again, rather than see their enemy actually defeated. As I stated the other day, I think that until such time as their enemy is actually defeated, Israel will be subject to the kind of attacks she split up with its inception of the country in 1948. The logical thing to do would be to pave Gaza. About the time Israel started putting parking stripes on the place, somebody would notice that things were awfully damned peaceful. Peace, you see, is not a product of negotiation but of having won the war and having soundly defeated your enemy. Negotiation only leads to what we’ve seen in that region all these years. Sorry, that is the facts. The current cast of players leaves me no indication that that’s going to change in the next year.
In sum, I am not encouraged by what I see on the horizon. With different leadership, I could be so convinced. But that’s not going to happen within the next year, now, is it?
