Where's the bread?

The changes that have taken place since January, are not what Obama envisioned. Rather, these changes are what many of us had hoped for when we heard the news he was elected.

For we knew what he was about. We knew what his motto "Hope and Change" really meant. But, as is typical for the Republican side of the political sphere, we stood back quietly, wrote letters, made phone calls and waited. Waited for that tipping point to come; the time and place when those in our country realized, this is serious and we won't take it anymore.

And it has.

We are slowly but surely "learning from our enemy":

NYT By NOAM COHEN

Saul Alinsky, the Chicago activist and writer whose street-smart tactics influenced generations of community organizers, most famously the current president, could not have been more clear about which side he was on. In his 1971 text, “Rules for Radicals,” Mr. Alinsky, who died in 1972, explains his purpose: “What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. ‘The Prince’ was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. ‘Rules for Radicals’ is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.”

It is an irony of the current skirmishing about health care that those who could be considered Mr. Alinsky’s sworn enemies — the groups, many industry sponsored, who are trying to shout down Congressional town hall meetings — have taken a page (chapters, really) from his handbook on community organizing. In an article in The Financial Times last week, Dick Armey, the former Republican House majority leader, now an organizer against the Democrats’ proposals on health care, offered his opinion: “What I think of Alinsky is that he was very good at what he did but what he did was not good.”

The disruption of the town hall meetings has many Alinsky trademarks: using spectacle to make up for lack of numbers; targeting an individual to make a large point; and trying to use ridicule to persuade the undecided.

A week ago, I made the following comment on a post here regarding another (but in the same realm) topic:

A dark cloud floated over America the day Obama was sworn in. Since then, the cloud has grown thicker & thicker. Not unlike a massive volcanic explosion, we are being choked off from the sunlight & poisoned by the gas. It's only a manner of time before we are all dead.

I believe my comment, although not stated in that manner, is being felt by more and more Americans, who are beginning to see what Obama's Hope and Change and his vision of what America will become, really meant.

Sultan Knish has written a post that I feel spells it out very plainly:

Obama Offers Circuses Without the Bread

Unemployment is up and the economy is down. The price of flour is up by 5 percent, the price of ground beef is up by 4 percent and the price of wine has gone up a whopping 8 percent. Even the price of bread has gone up from Obama's inauguration. Obama had promised "bread" and in six months in office, he has delivered nothing but circuses.

The Roman poet Juvenal wrote in his collection of satirical poems, "Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties. For the People... now anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses." And a people that hopes for nothing more than a bread dole and entertainment are a people who no longer rule, but are ruled by those who dispense the grain and crack the ringmaster's whip.

In his time Lenin promised the Russian people, "Bread, Land and Peace." He delivered none of these three things, there was neither land, nor bread and nor peace under Communism. Instead there was an endless circus of propaganda, a hollow brutal spectacle of brainwashed children, murdered millions and leader worship above all else.

Since then, circuses without the bread have become the legacy of socialism. From Kim Jong Il's empty towering hotels, to Castro's endless rambling speeches, from the USSR's forest of monuments to the EU's grandiose exercises in branding-- circuses are always easier to deliver than bread.

In his own six months in office, Obama has made high profile trip after trip around the world. He has given numerous high profile speeches at national landmarks and in prime time television, in Cairo and Ankara. He has been photographed with numerous world leaders and influenced not a single one. He has flown Air Force One on a date to New York accompanied by camera crews, and stood by while Air Force Two buzzed Manhattan to get him a postcard he can send around to his supporters. He has appeared on numerous magazine covers, twittered and appointed more Czars than the entire Romanov dynasty. And still the price of bread goes up.

The problem, as numerous socialist dictators, including most recently Venezuela's Chavez, have discovered is that socialism and a rising standard of living tend to be mutually exclusive things. The more socialism, the lower the standard. A rising tide may float all boats, but a dam only leads to splintered masts and a great big pileup of boats... in the name of equality.

A government can't set the standard of living, only hand out a dole. It is why Obama's economic recovery program has emerged as nothing more than a huge heaping of pork, not bread, with a socialist overlay. Government can consume resources, but it cannot produce them more efficiently than the free market can. A year after the Krugmanites on both sides of the Atlantic were busy celebrating the death of free market capitalism, and ushering in the glorious era of Big Government Uber Alles, the circus has never left town, but the bread is noticeably absent.

The question to be asked is how long the public will gaze at the circuses, or be satisfied with the occasional bread dole, rather than be able to earn a living for themselves. That is the fundamental question on which the fate of Obama's administration hangs. For a man whose victory was heavily tied to a nation crying out, "Where's the Beef?" after a decade and a half of prosperity, trying to feed America a diet of his own celebrity appearances makes for a very thin gruel indeed.

The rest here.

America, if you truly want to keep your freedom and liberty, stand up and say so now. Or else, we will become a nation that will trade "Where's the beef? for "Where's the bread?"