In the past 10 days, each day has seen a variation of what has become several regular themes regarding the Presidential race as well as what's happening with the country. As I looked at my notes over this timeframe, the pattern from individual days are now starting to run together - and when we look at this at an altitude where we aren't just focusing on a single day - these patterns speak volumes about where we are and where we risk going.
In the wake of the terrorist attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya that resulted in the deaths of four Americans on the anniversary of the 9/11 attack, for apparently little more than political expediency, the Obama Administration blatantly demonstrated an astonishing level of contempt towards the American people with their lies and misrepresentations. It's one thing to tell a 'white lie' or to misrepresent some of the facts (as they say, the best lies are those that significant elements of truth built into them) in order to spin a story - but when one tells lies that are little more sophisticated than the lies a 4 year old would tell to avoid facing a punishment - there is a clear arrogance and contempt at work towards the target of the lies.
The Administration knew within 24 hours of the attack on the Benghazi consulate and 'safe house' that it was a pre-planned terrorist attack linked to the 9/11 anniversary and Islamic fundamentalist anti-Americanism and not a spontaneous demonstration that just got out of hand. Previous attacks and threats against not only the consulate, but other Western diplomatic facilities and persons in Benghazi had taken place over the previous 4-6 months. Requests from US personnel based in Benghazi and Tripoli for additional security protective services and personnel were rejected by the State Department. Instead, the State Department preferred to outsource the protective services to a British firm which depended entirely on local Libyan personnel of dubious reliability and allegiances.
The Administration, in particular the State Department, saw in Libya not what was - but only what they wanted to see. That utter failure of leadership cost the lives of 4 Americans.
The loss of life is bad enough - but how this Administration decided to address this act of war committed by a non-state entity against the American people is contemptuous.
The US Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, was paraded out to 5 different Sunday morning talk shows 5 days after the attack to push forward the meme that the attacks were not only spontaneous demonstrations that went out of control, something that could not be foreseen, but that the trigger for these 'demonstrations' was an obscure 11 minute video uploaded to You Tube three months ago that apparently 'insults' the Islamic religion. We were told by a parade of Administration officials and flacks that the real problem around these attacks and deaths was not those who undertook and perpetrated the violence, but an obscure video that had fewer viewers in three months than attended one of the 'demonstrations'.
Blame America First. Protect Barack Obama's campaign second. Appease our enemies third.
Those were the main interests of the Administration. It was the Big Lie in a manner not seen since either Joe Stalin or Joe Goebbels.
It's a big lie offered with the confidence and contempt that there is really no one who can hold those in power accountable and responsible for their action. This Administration does not believe they are accountable and responsible to anyone other than their own interests.
Congress? No, contrary to the Constitutional concept of checks and balances, this Administration does not believe that they are accountable and responsible to Congress. They know in most cases, their allies who hold majority control in the Senate, will do their bidding and prevent Congress from acting in unison. In the cases where Congress does act, or has acted responsibly, the President believes that he, and his unaccountable czars, have the power to ignore or reverse the will of Congress.
The People? This is an Administration with the mindset that a 52.8% 2008 plurality is in reality a 99% plurality - and that takes precedence even over the will of the people demonstrated in November 2010. We all know that this Administration cares little of the 1%. Polls are cited as justifications when they support the direction the Administration wants to go - and ignored as being immaterial when they don't. Provide thousands of weapons to criminals in a neighboring country where they are used to murder thousands of innocents - and it's all justified by the end means of trying to expand US gun control laws. The only degree of accountability that the Administration feels towards the people comes November 6th, but all they need to do is to lie, misrepresent, and cheat enough to ensure 270 electoral votes, and there are 4 more years to invoke 'fundamental change'.
Even the traditional watchdog for protecting the people has been co-opted and corrupted in the name of political / ideological expediency.
The Founding Fathers understood the power of the media. From Ben Franklin to Thomas Paine to others, a free media was key to holding the British crown accountable for their actions over the colonists. The Constitution defined specific protections for the press to be the watchdog for the people and to ensure the people had the information / power intended to hold government accountable and responsible. They were there to protect one of our core principles - that government is accountable and responsible to the people - that government serves the people, and not the people serving government.
Far too many in the media share the same ideological vision of government being able to create and sustain an utopia on earth - delivering 'fairness' and 'social justice' enacted by an elite class who know better than the great unwashed as to what are good for the collective. To the media 'elite', they are one in the same with the political 'elite' - the parents in this American 'family'.
Throughout the 'big lies' being foisted on the American people by the Administration, a majority of the watchdog media are openly complicit in supporting these big lies. They repeat these big lies. They provide excuses and explanations for the big lies as if they are the fictional 'Ministry of Truth'. Rather than the two minute 'hate' against Goldstein from 1984, we have the drumbeat of blame Bush, blame the conservative, blame someone / anyone else.
One reason why Mitt Romney's '47%' remark was hammered so hard was not because it was obviously false, but because to the progressive left, they know that it is not only predominately true - but matches how most of Middle America, most of traditional America thinks. This isn't permissible, so it has to be 'discredited' by any and all means possible. The progressive left knows that to remain in power, they can't debate on the 'facts'. They know that their economic concepts fundamentally does not work. They also know that they have to keep enough trapped in a cycle of dependency to government in order to ensure they can get enough votes.
This is also the same reason why the audio and video of Barack Obama's core belief around statism, liberal fascism, and class / race / gender warfare are ignored. Not because they are false, but because they are true and the truth will not convince more in the middle to vote their freedoms away.
One of the themes of this political campaign is to look at our present times as history repeating itself.
One of the first aspects of this is to look at 1979-80 and the parallels with today. There are many ranging from a feckless and naive foreign policy to failing economic and domestic policies. The world and country are seen not as they are, but as those in power want to see them. Reality has become so inconvenient that defining and molding perception is now the focus. Books are cooked. Lies are told and more lies are told to mask the earlier lies. It's not the fault of the feckless and naive policies, it's the fault of others - be it Richard Nixon / Gerald Ford or George W. Bush.
What more and more of Middle America are starting to realize is that reality is still there. Reality can't be hid. It is everywhere we turn - and perception, spin, and lies cannot fully mask reality no matter if they come from those in power or from those in the media.
Middle America sees reality when they go to the grocery store and see ever increasing prices. We see reality when we go to the gas station and see ever increasing gasoline prices. We see reality when we look at our paychecks or try to find jobs. Incomes have dropped in the last 4 years - even though the recession ended in June 2009. There are over 5 million fewer people working today than were 4 years ago - and our population still continues to grow. We're at the lowest level of labor participation since the great recessions of 1979-81.
But are we really repeating 1979-80? Or are we really repeating the 1929-1938 timeframe - where not only are we facing nearly as bad economic conditions, but also conditions around ideologies and policies that were commonplace in that time as Soviet Marism / Leninism or National Socialism (Fascism) were seen as the solutions for what was looking like the failure of democratic capitalism? There are just as many parallels from those times to today - except that for far too many, we've either forgotten or not learned the lessons from that timeframe.
We are at one of the great tipping points in history. We can either see this and respond accordingly by looking at reality - or decide to ignore reality because it's not very pretty, and hard to deal with, in favor of an artificial perception based around a cult of personality that masks the anti-freedom core vision.
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