Obama’s Real Vision of Change

Anthony D Dolpies
The demoralized victims of more than fifty years of central planning and empty promises came together last week in Michigan. In a scene reminiscent of Soviet style bread lines, more than 65000 people filled out applications, hoping for a share of 15.2 million dollars appropriated by the Obama stimulus package to help low income families pay bills, stave off eviction or find temporary housing. Only 3500 people will actually receive aid from the program. This latest incarnation of the Obama recovery act only adds to the evidence that the stimulus was never about job creation, Instead it was merely a tool for the expansion of political power through the welfare state.  

The long slow-moving lines and ill-prepared city welfare workers agitated the desperate citizens who began to trample and fight one another for a shot at the limited number of applications. This is the end result of Obama’s redistributionist economic policy. Sold under the guise of compassion, social justice, economic justice, egalitarianism, the individual is reduced to a budget item, who views his fellow man as a threat, competition for his slice of an ever shrinking communal pie.

 

Redistributionist or socialist policy, call it what you will, can never produce the economic or social equality that those who champion it promise. In fact such a political and economic system only advances the creation of an inescapable class system they claim to oppose. It advocates the notion that the bureaucrat is more equal than equal. The bureaucrat in the welfare state is given the arbitrary authority over the validity of what he views as the needs of the citizen in relation to the immediate needs of the state. In the end redistributionist policy only advances the ultimate immorality, slavery, first by enslaving the producer to the non-producer, then though dependence the non-producer to the state.

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Sunstein: Economic crises could usher in socialism

CZAR WARS

Sunstein: Economic crises could usher in socialism

‘With a little nudge our culture could go in many directions’

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Posted: October 11, 2009
6:43 pm Eastern

By Aaron Klein
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

 

Cass Sunstein

TEL AVIV – Economic crises can be used to usher socialism into the U.S., argued President Obama’s newly confirmed regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein.

In his 2004 book “The Second Bill of Rights,” Sunstein used the precedent of the Great Depression to point out that historic economic crises “provided the most promising conditions for the emergence of socialism in the U.S.”

“With a little nudge or a slight change in emphasis, our culture could have gone, and could still go, in many different directions,” wrote Sunstein in his book, which was reviewed by WND.

Last week, WND reported Sunstein wrote in the same book the U.S. should move in the direction of socialism but the country’s “white majority” opposes welfare, since such programs largely would benefit minorities, especially blacks and Hispanics.

“The absence of a European-style social welfare state is certainly connected with the widespread perception among the white majority that the relevant programs would disproportionately benefit African Americans (and more recently Hispanics),” wrote Sunstein.

 

Get Glenn Beck’s ‘Common Sense’ … The case against an out-of-control government: Inspired by Thomas Paine

In Sunstein’s book, the Obama appointee openly argues for bringing socialism to the U.S. and even lends support to communism.

“During the Cold War, the debate about [social welfare] guarantees took the form of pervasive disagreement between the United States and its communist adversaries. Americans emphasized the importance of civil and political liberties, above all free speech and freedom of religion, while communist nations stressed the right to a job, health care and a social minimum.”

Continued Sunstein: “I think this debate was unhelpful; it is most plausible to see the two sets of rights as mutually reinforcing, not antagonistic.”

Nobel Appease Prize fireworks: North Korea launches more missiles, Iran scoffs

By Michelle Malkin  •  October 12, 2009 07:55 AM

Nothing to see here, move along:

Yonhap news agency says that North Korea has fired two short-range missiles off its east coast. Yonhap quoted an unidentified South Korean government official as saying that the North test-fired the missiles on Monday afternoon…The report came hours after South Korea proposed two sets of working-level talks with North Korea. But Seoul also said it had no plan to resume high-level dialogue with its communist neighbor — amid lingering tensions over the North’s nuclear weapons programs.

Via Google News/AP.

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Meanwhile, Iran blows off the Nobel Appease Prize-winning Obama administration and plays beat the clock:

Iran dismissed on Monday a U.S. warning that major powers would not wait forever for Tehran to prove it was not developing nuclear bombs, saying any threats or deadlines would have no impact on the Islamic Republic.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi, speaking a week before talks on a proposal to send Iranian uranium abroad for further processing, also reiterated Iran’s refusal to discuss its “nuclear rights” with the six world powers.

“We have announced several times that we have nothing to discuss regarding that,” he told a Tehran news conference in comments translated by Iran’s state Press TV.

“That means continuation of our activities within the framework of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the safeguards agreement of the IAEA and enrichment on that basis,” he said, referring to the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

Such comments were likely to fan Western suspicions that Iran is seeking to win time by stringing out inconclusive talks while mastering nuclear technology and stockpiling enriched uranium of potential use for atomic energy or weaponry.

Climate Myths and National Security

By Viscount Monckton of Brenchley

The President of the United States recently told the United Nations that “global warming” poses a threat to national security and may engender conflicts as populations are displaced by rising sea levels, droughts, floods, storms etc. etc. etc. However, it is now clear that there is no basis for the notion that the barely-detectable human influence on the climate is likely to prove a threat to climate, still less to national security.

The first principle to which any national security advisor must adhere is that of objective truth. Though he must have an understanding of politics, he is not a politician: he is a truth-bearer. Therefore, he begins by narrowing down the issue to a single, central question whose answer determines whether the suggested threat is real. He then tries to find the truthful answer to that question, and draws his conclusion from that.

 

Quid enim est veritas? What, then, is the truth? The single question whose answer gives us the truth about the climate question is this: By how much will any given proportionate increase in CO2 concentration warm the world? We now know the answer. The oceans, which must store 80-90% of all heat-energy accumulated in the atmosphere as a result of the radiative imbalance caused by greater greenhouse-gas concentration, have shown no net accumulation of heat for almost 70 years, implying a very small influence of CO2 on temperature (Douglass & Knox, 2009). The devastating analysis of cloud-albedo effects shortly to be published by Dr. Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama at Huntsville will show that the UN has wrongly decided that cloud changes reinforce greenhouse warming, when in fact they substantially offset it. Repeated studies of the tropical upper troposphere (e.g. Douglass et al., 2008) show that it is failing to warm at thrice the surface rate as required by all of the UN’s models, again implying very low climate sensitivity. The clincher is Professor Richard Lindzen’s meticulous recent paper demonstrating – by direct measurement – that the amount of radiation escaping from the Earth’s atmosphere to space is many times greater than the UN’s models are all told to believe. From this, the world’s most formidable atmospheric physicist has calculated that a doubling of CO2 concentration, expected over the next 150 years, would cause 0.75 C (1.5 F) of warming, at most: not the 3.4 C (6 F) that the UN takes as its central estimate.

 

Most analysts would stop there. Yet some might ask, “Suppose that the single satellite on which Lindzen’s results depend is defective. What then?” They might consider the economic cost of attempting to mitigate the “global warming” which, as our Monthly Reports demonstrate, is not actually happening. The figures turn out to be startlingly simple. To mitigate just 1 C (2 F) of warming, one must forego the emission of 2 trillion tons of CO2. The world emits just 30 billion tons a year. So the analyst, as a thought-experiment, would shut down the entire world economy, emitting no CO2 at all. Even then, and even on the incorrect assumption that the UN’s exaggerated projections of the effect of CO2 on temperature are correct, it would take 67 years to mitigate 1 C warming. Preventing the 3.4 C (6 F) warming that the UN’s climate panel thinks would occur in 100 years would take 225 years without any transportation, and with practically no electrical energy. The national security advisor would at that point advise his head of government that there has never been any security threat less grave, or more expensive to prevent, than the non-problem that is “global warming”. It is the fearmongers that are the real national security threat.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/climate_myths_and_national_sec.html at October 12, 2009 – 09:41:22 AM EDT

Top Twenty Things Obama Doesn’t Say

By Jill S. Sprik

Despite countless speeches and news conferences, did you ever hear President Obama express the following ideas?

1. Not everything is a federal issue; some things are for the states to decide.

2. I hear what you’re saying and you have a good point.

3. One of the beautiful things about our constitution is the liberty given to individuals to pursue their dreams.  There is great opportunity in our country to succeed.

4. In an effort to stimulate job growth and despite the objections from my party, I am working with Congress to reduce taxes for small businesses.

5. I am saddened by the cycle of poverty that exists in our major cities, and here is a way we can empower the next generation to break the cycle and fulfill their God-given potential….

6. The folks at the town hall meetings and those who came to Washington on 9/12 were exercising one of the greatest rights we have as Americans, freedom of speech.

7. Stop already with all forms of ‘cult of personality’ behavior.  I am a public servant, just like all those who have served before and all who will come after my term is complete.  It’s not about me, it’s about the country.

8. I heard a great message Sunday morning at church.

9. History teaches us that evil exists in the world; for this reason the United States must remain strong, ready to defend itself and its allies.

10. I didn’t realize a communist was part of my administration.  It won’t happen again.

11. The billions siphoned out of health care into lawyers’ pockets never healed a single person.

12. No other country on earth offers its citizens the opportunity to pursue life, liberty, and happiness as does the United States of America.

13. The experts have looked at the proposed (fill-in-the-blank) program, and when it is extrapolated out beyond just the initial offering there is clear evidence it will cost too much money and will eventually fail.

14. I disagree 100% with the Cloward-Piven strategy of increasing the welfare rolls and overwhelming the financial system, and I am not affiliated in any way with the implementation of such an idea.

15. I don’t know the answer to your question but I will give it some thought.

16. The goal of my presidency is not to implement a political ideology, but to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

17. Every person has value regardless of age, gender, color, physical characteristics, or any other factor.

18. Any healthcare bill I sign must include a provision to exclude the rationing of care, keep the door open for competition among insurers, and promote the opportunity for our young people to pursue an education in the medical fields to ensure future supply meets future demand.

19. It is important for legislators to remember that what helps someone in the short-term may actually hurt them in the long-term, and we must avoid this kind of scenario.

20. It has become clear to me after meeting with military experts that their recommendations should be implemented in our current situation; this is not an area in which politics can be allowed to interfere.

The list could continue, but you get the point:  by not saying the kinds of things that show recognition of individual and state rights, by not listening to what a variety of voices can contribute to the discussion, by an unwillingness to be taught, and by a lack of humility, there is little evidence our President wants our individual, local, state, and national success.  Instead, he seems intent on implementing an agenda.

 

It’s sad, really.  This is someone who has the power and authority to do great things that could open the floodgates of opportunity for our country.  The right path in economic and foreign affairs could be more readily determined if his agenda was set aside.  

 

Pity the Americans who can’t find jobs, can’t feed their families, whose dreams have been destroyed by an economic crisis that could be remedied if someone who truly wanted to make things better would choose to do so.

 

Mr. Obama has thrown a lot of people under the bus.  I wonder if someone would do the same to him if he dared to deviate from his current role as Messiah of the Progressive movement and instead became the President of the United States.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/10/top_twenty_things_obama_doesnt_1.html at October 12, 2009 – 09:37:15 AM EDT

Dollar facing ‘power-shift’: analysts

Dollar facing ‘power-shift’: analysts

Oct 11 03:18 PM US/Eastern

The dollar’s position as the world’s leading reserve currency faces increased pressure as the financial crisis allows emerging economies greater influence on the world stage, analysts said.A report last week in The Independent claiming that China, Russia and Gulf States are among nations prepared to ditch the dollar for oil trades has heightened the uncertainty surrounding the US currency’s future.

The dollar slumped against rivals last week in the wake of the British daily’s controversial report.

“The US dollar is being hurt by the continued talk of a shift away from a dollar-centric world,” said Kit Juckes, an analyst at currency traders ECU Group.

“Three conclusions stand out very clearly. Firstly, the shift in economic power away from the G7 economies is continuing. “Secondly, there is a growing acceptance amongst those winners that one consequence of this power shift will be to strengthen their currencies.

“And finally, as long as the US economy is not strong enough for any rise in interest rates to be conceivable for a long time, the dollar’s underlying downtrend will remain in place,” added Juckes.

The Independent, under the front-page headline “The Demise of the Dollar”, reported last Tuesday that Gulf states, together with China, Russia, Japan and France, were considering replacing the dollar as the currency for oil deals.

“In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning — along with China, Russia, Japan and France — to end dollar dealings for oil,” wrote The Independent’s Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk.

They would switch “to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar,” added Fisk, citing Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources.

The report was denied by a host of countries, including Kuwait, Qatar and Russia, while France dismissed it as “pure speculation.”

Even so, the United Nations itself last week called for a new global reserve currency to end dollar supremacy, which had allowed the United States the “privilege” of building up a huge trade deficit.

UN undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs, Sha Zukang, said “important progress in managing imbalances can be made by reducing the (dollar) reserve currency country’s ‘privilege’ to run external deficits in order to provide international liquidity.”

Zukang was speaking at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, whose President Robert Zoellick recently warned that the United States should not “take for granted” the dollar’s role as preeminent global reserve currency.

Meanwhile at a G20 summit in Pittsburgh last month, world leaders unveiled a new vision for economic governance, with bold plans to fix global imbalances and give more clout to emerging giants such as China and India.

Following the summit, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner repeated Washington’s commitment to a strong dollar.

But last week the finance chief was left to watch as traders used The Independent’s report as an opportunity to push lower the troubled US unit.

The report “has helped concentrate the minds of traders and investors alike, and has given them another excuse to take the dollar lower,” GFT Global Markets analyst David Morrison told AFP.

“Despite what the Fed and other central bankers say, a weaker dollar is desirable because it is necessary to rebalance the global economy.

“As long as the decline is gentle and orderly, then they’re happy. But aggressive selling would spook the markets,” he added.

Commerzbank currency analyst Antje Praefcke agreed that the market’s reaction was significant because it showed that the dollar was on a downward trajectory.

“The questionable article in the Independent was of course disclaimed,” Praefcke said.

“It is nonetheless an interesting study of the pscychological factors which are currently putting pressure on the dollar. Even if conspiracy theories turn out to be nonsense, the dollar is subsequently able to retrace only some of its losses.”

 

 

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