Never Forget

Eighteen years ago today....


It will never be distant history for me.

For me, it is as yesterday.  And my anger still burns.

All those hours waiting to hear if two of my homeschool fathers were still alive. Phone services of all types were in a knot, and the wait seemed endless. Both of these men were unharmed, but one had a very close call: he was supposed to be in one of the Pentagon rooms directly hit that horrible morning. Thank God that he was called away to Capitol Hill a mere fifteen minutes before American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon.

And who can forget watching live the collapse of the Twin Towers after being struck by American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175?

And there were those long minutes awaiting the location of United Airlines Flight 93. Thank God for the patriots aboard that flight.

Yes, eighteen years is a long time ago. 

But not for me.

And I will never buy into the whitewash of Islam.

What The Left Most Dreads Right Now

From the Guardian (UK), dated May 31, 2018:

Liberals' worst nightmare: a second supreme court pick for Trump

...Any vacancy prior to 2020 would almost certainly be filled by Trump, and a rules change adopted by Republicans during the Gorsuch nomination fight enabled the Senate to confirm supreme court justices with a simple majority vote....

Read it all HERE.

My commentary:

The Left will stop at nothing — NOTHING! — to get President Trump out of the Oval Office!

Fasten your seat belts. The propaganda war to destroy the Trump Administration is going to get worse and worse.

Make no mistake: the very survival of our republic founded upon the principles of federalism is at stake.

This battle isn't about issues ranging from women’s reproductive health to LGBT rights, as mentioned in the Guardian article. Those mentions are scare tactics to divert attention from what is really at stake.

The Collective Shrug — Not For Me

A young girl reacts as police officers secure an area following a shooting incident in New York on October 31, 2017. (Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images)

From At site of NYC terror attack, the school bell rang — then hell broke out:

Halloween turned truly terrifying for students and parents Tuesday when a driver went on a deadly rampage in front of several lower Manhattan schools — right as the afternoon bell rang.

Kids ran screaming down the sidewalk after the killer plowed his van into pedestrians and then emerged waving guns and shouting “Allahu Akbar.”

“Two women and a group of children — maybe 10 children — they’re running towards me. I hear one girls screaming, ‘Someone has a gun!'” said witness John Williams.

Frantic parents feared the worst as they waited to pick youngsters up from Independence Primary School.

[...]

Students from Stuyvesant High School and Borough of Manhattan Community College made it out of class in time to witness the carnage — bodies laying lifeless in the bike lane and victims were trapped inside a mangled school bus....

Read the rest HERE.

Over the next few days, we will, once again, see the same pattern: mourning with prayer vigils with candles, the placement of flowers, balloons, and teddy bears — and whatever else.

And, of course, the intoning of "Islam is a religion of peace."

Advice to accept the new normal and the mantra, "If you see something, say something."

In other words, after a few days or maybe a week, a collective shrug.

But I, for one, cannot become inured to all this.

I refuse to become inured to all this.

I must not become inured to all this!

Because, if I do, I surrender my heritage as a Westerner.

Was Stephen Paddock On The Spectrum?

The Autism Spectrum, that is.

I noticed the following information in this article (dated October 3, 2017):

Mandalay Bay shooter Stephen Paddock may have been a high-roller, but he lost a slip-and-fall lawsuit against a Nevada casino in 2014 — and still owed $270 in court fees when he killed at least 59 people Sunday, including himself.

Security video from the Cosmopolitan Hotel shows Paddock slipping and falling on Oct. 30, 2011, as he walked from a hotel shop towards a high-stakes area in the casino. Paddock said he had slipped in a puddle of liquid and sued the hotel in 2012, initially asking for $100,000, according to the attorney for the hotel, Marty Kravitz.

"They always ask for a lot more than they can get, but he got nothing," said Kravitz.

Kravitz met Paddock when he testified in a deposition for the lawsuit. Paddock enjoyed a special high-roller status with perks at at least one Vegas casino, but Kravitz described the man he met as "unkempt," "slovenly and careless" and "bizarre."

When Paddock fell at the hotel, said Kravitz, he "was wearing crappy flip-flops with a beverage in a bag in his hand."

"You wonder what a guy like this is doing at the Cosmo."

Kravitz also said, however, that there was "nothing about Paddock that would ever indicate someone who was unstable."

"This is not a guy that I would have looked at and thought, 'He's going to commit a crime one day.'"...

And I read elsewhere that he won big at the video poker machines by using algorithms he devised.

All the above information points to eccentricity, if not genius.  But those same signs could point to Asperger's.

I am also reminded of the film Rain Man.

Stephen Paddock appeared to have exhibited some of the behaviors on this list, including the following:

• Repeating certain behaviors or having unusual behaviors
   
• Having overly focused interests, such as with moving objects or parts of objects
   
• Having a lasting, intense interest in certain topics, such as numbers, details, or facts.

Noted author and inventor* John Elder Robison, who has Asperger's and certain savant abilities, spent some time back in 2013 vehemently denying that Asperger's is linked to violence. What brought Mr. Robison to discuss this matter? Adam Lanza of the Sandy Hook shootings appears to have had Asperger's that devolved into something deadly.

Perhaps, just perhaps, it is because Stephen Paddock falls somewhere on the spectrum that his actions make no sense and that he was able to live a secret life.

For the record, I've worked with several students on the spectrum.  Until a few years ago, I'd never seen one of these students tip over into psychosis.  But that particular student did!  The precipitating event?  A car accident, and the parents had to replace the car.  He couldn't handle the change.  Then they got a used car of the same make and model.  No dice.  The car didn't sound right to him.  His parents are still looking for "the right combination of medications."  And since he descended into aggressiveness and volatility, they sleep with their bedroom door locked  The last time I heard from the young man's mother, she was hoping to get him into the local community college.  I make a point of no longer communicating with the family.

* John Elder Robison used his self-taught knowledge to design guitars for the rock band KISS and toys for Milton Bradley.

Trump's Press Conference. Jarring!

Pod people are being created.  Hordes of them.

Last night and this morning, I watched some of CNN's and MSNBC's coverage of yesterday's press conference held by Trump.

CNN and MSNBC are bizarrely disconnected from what really transpired.

At one point on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Mika Brzezinski (and the daughter of Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski), the woman on the anchor desk, rolled her eyes to the heavens as she said the word "President." Following by a sigh, of course,

What alarms me is how many Americans will never actually watch the press conference. They'll just assume that Trump is unhinged because CNN and MSNBC have said so. These same Americans avoid Fox News like the plague. Not that some on Fox News aren't circling like sharks, too.

And you can bet that Trump is being excoriated this morning in classrooms all over the country — middle school through graduate level. And not only in social studies classes. English classes will also be infested with these "discussions."

President Trump is being presented as "unhinged" and unfit to be President. The same is coming from many supposedly on the Right: David Brooks and Michael Gerson, just to name two examples.

Watch your back.  At your workplace and at home.

THIS IS WAR!

About The Presidential Candidates

The Clarion Project offers this resource....

U.S. Presidential Race 2016: See what all the candidates are saying about Iran, ISLAMIST RADICALISM, the threat at home and much more

Please see the outgoing links at the tabs "View [the candidate's] Platform" for more information than is provided on the first page of the above link.

For example, I clicked on "View the Cruz Platform" and got the following information:

Record on Islamic Extremism

- Sharia Law is an "enormous problem" in the U.S.

Read the rest HERE.

Here is what I found when I clicked on "View the Bush Platform":

View of Islamism

Views the conflict as ideological in nature. Said: "[Islam has] been hijacked by people who have an ideology that wants to destroy Western civilization, and they're barbarians. And so that part, which is the part that we need to confront head-on, is clearly not a religious of peace."

Believes the strategy towards radical Islam needs to be focused more on security and less on promoting Western values and nation-building. Said: "Am I the same as my brother? Of course not. I'm not. I think, for example, our foreign policy ought to be grounded in not just the export of our own values or nation-building. These are good sentiments, but first and foremost in security and peace."

Thinks it's a mistake to equate elections with democracy-promotion, pointing to how Hamas and Hezbollah were voted into power.

Domestic Islamists

The U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations, a coalition of Islamist groups, demand that Bush drop American Center for Law and Justice executive director Jordan Sekulow as a top adviser to his "Right to Rise" PAC. They claim that Sekulow is "anti-Muslim" for publishing a pamphlet titled, "'Shari'a Law: Radical Islam's Threat to the U.S. Constitution." The coalition took particular issue with a sentence that claims "devout Muslims cannot truthfully swear the oath to become citizens of the United States of America."

Read the rest HERE.

The Clarion Project's main page for the Presidential candidates is HERE.

Let us realize this, however: without a real economic recovery, those of us who are pushing back against the ongoing Islamification will not be able to afford to push back.

Dollar realities are dollar realities, and those realities limit how much we can fund any pushback.

There also are time realities.  If we have to spend hours and hours treading the waters of this wreckovery, we won't have time to push back.

I'm sure that many are keeping their mouths shut because they cannot afford to lose their jobs.  Yes, I personally know a lot of muzzled people.

Tammy Swofford Commentary: "Jefferson in PRISM — I"

From the Daily Times Pakistan, Tammy Swofford reminds us of the dystopian dangers of absolute national security:

On May 25, 2013, the government very quietly removed an elderly gentleman from the sidewalk in front of the Independence Hall in Philadelphia. He had set up a small display with the original documents known as The Declaration of Independence and The United States Constitution. They rested on hand carved wooden easels on either side of the entrance to the building. Those who passed by were impressed by the genteel manner of the man. Perhaps more startling was the phrase that he kept repeating again and again: “Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.”

As the white-haired gentleman hailed from a private estate known as Monticello, he was remanded to the custody of the Virginia State Police and is now housed at an undisclosed location. Although there is nearly a complete media embargo on the peculiarities of this arrest, small factoids about the case are finding their way into a network of underground reporters who have managed to evade the surveillance of the state. A profile and extensive dossier had previously been constructed by the NSA and CIA on this particular citizen. He possessed a powerful intellect and strong command of the English language. At an earlier date, he had been heavily recruited to join the growing ranks of his powerful analytical peers. His subsequent protest was categorised as one of imminent threat to the intelligence-gathering capabilities of the security apparatus.

Interestingly, the technology that has allowed for the NSA PRISM programme is the same technology that has diminished any real public support for the elderly man who quietly went about his work as a sentinel. A new generation feeds on a virtual reality inhabited by avatars and unpredictable friends. Technological advances have placed increasingly complex global networking capabilities within the hands of the masses. This seems like empowerment. But a more subtle side to the technology has been exposed. A public poll assessing interest in the aforementioned arrest determined that 45 percent of Americans polled had little concern for the man on the sidewalk. In fact, they believed that the PRISM programme should be expanded. The conclusion is self-evident. This technology used by the masses is nimble in its psychological enslavement capabilities. For the unaware, it captures and enslaves the intricate reasoning processes necessary to understand concepts such as human liberty, right to privacy, and protection from unlawful seizure. Mildred Montag and a seashell to the ear. Fahrenheit 451.

PRISM. Bellum omnium in omnia.

One of the white-haired gentleman’s jailers, a rather brave fellow by the name of Edward Snowden, agreed to smuggle some of the private papers of this man into an underground media network. These papers were stored on a flash drive that was hidden in the heel of his boot. He assured the jailer that a forensic sweep of his private papers from his laptop at home had already been accomplished on more than one occasion. As I bring this report to you, the status of the jailer is also unknown. He is no longer available for updates on the physical condition of the prisoner. But he is known to be in a weakened state. So today, I release to you a few of the thoughts of this prisoner, delivered to me in a parking garage in Dallas. These are his words. His name is Thomas Jefferson....

Read the rest HERE.

A Bit Of Advice

For those of you who have children or other family members in the education system right now....

Find out exactly what is being taught in classrooms next week about the Boston jihadists. 

Ask a few questions.

I think that you might hear words such as the following:

“Poor Chechens! They’ve been so oppressed!"

"Chechens are freedom fighters who have been pushed so far that many are now extremists."

"We need to understand these people more. We need to sympathize with them."

"We all know Muslims.  What nice people they are!"

"Islam is not the problem and has nothing to do with what happened in Boston."

"Islam means peace."

Denying Reality

A few minutes ago, I was watching Fox News.  On the air came a psychologist who apparently specializes in autism.

She spoke of how we should not be discussing autism as having any possible connection with the horror inside the walls of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012, because discussing such matters could make autists uncomfortable and cause them to worry about their own mental state.

In my view, the words from that psychologist exemplify much of what is wrong with our nation's approach to dealing constructively with mental disorders.

Video discussion of the autism spectrum

This Election Campaign

It's been death by political ads and political robo calls here in the battleground state of Virginia.

I'm sick of Obama's petulance, sneering, and screaming.  I find him absolutely disgusting.

And his facial expressions and that pointing finger!  Sheesh.

To say, "Obama isn't acting Presidential," doesn't begin to insult him enough.  He is exhibiting demagoguery in the extreme.  Indeed, he is a textbook case of demagoguery. 

As I have previously opined, I think that some of Obama's attitude and behaviors can be attributed to substance abuse.  I can't prove that allegation, but all my intuition tells me that such is the case.  

How I'd love to see Barack Hussein Obama take a piss test with no advance notice!

Dick Morris, of whom I am not particularly enamored, summed it up this way:


I'm not big on predicting election outcomes. But I'll do so.

I predict a Romney-Ryan landslide. I hope that my prediction isn't wishful thinking.

BENGHAZI: INCONCEIVABLE

Tammy Swofford (bio) has written an excellent commentary about what happened in Benghazi on September 11, 2011. Worth your time.

She prefaces her opinion piece in the Daily Times Pakistan with the following:

It is my belief there was both dereliction of duty and gross malpractice in play regarding the denial of needed services as requested by a United States ambassador.

Excerpt from the body of USNR Lieutenant Commander Swofford's essay:

...Ambassador Christopher Stevens needed a more robust security complement. Instead, more than 30 security members were relieved of the mission in Libya in the last six months. What should have been the response of the Commander-in-Chief? When reviewing daily intelligence reports and noting an increase in ThreatCon in Libya, he still allowed his Secretary of State and her chain of command to approve a force reduction. Why were repeated requests for increased security assets by Ambassador Christopher Stevens denied? And why did the State Department try to pass off what was an organised terror attack against the staff at the Benghazi consulate as a mere anti-west provocation by ‘the village people’? Very early on, the images posted on a jihad portal showed scenes that denoted an exceptional use of firepower as opposed to protesters with mere matches and gasoline at their disposal. Who was asleep at the switch? And which analysts did not connect the dots that there was a trigger-pulling event slated for Benghazi?....

Blood on their hands. Diplomatic blood.  [T]he death of Ambassador Stevens was not an accidental event. Read my lips. It could have been prevented....

Read it all HERE.

The Obama administration MUST be held to account for Benghazi!  Americans need to get angry enough to prevent any more diversions and smoke and mirrors on the part of the administration.

Advice From Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Last night, I read Ayaan Hirsi Ali's recent essay in Newsweek not once but twice. What she has written bears consideration.

If you haven't read this essay, you must do so!

Excerpt to give you a taste of what the woman is saying:

Once again the streets of the Arab world are burning with false outrage. But we must hold our heads up high. Ayaan Hirsi Ali on how she survived Muslim rage—and how we can end it.

[...]

Utopian ideologies have a short lifespan. Some are bloodier than others. As long as Islamists were able to market their philosophy as the only alternative to dictatorship and foreign meddling, they were attractive to an oppressed polity. But with their election to office they will be subjected to the test of government. It is clear, as we saw in Iran in 2009 and elsewhere, that if the philosophy of the Islamists is fully and forcefully implemented, those who elected them will end up disillusioned. The governments will begin to fail as soon as they set about implementing their philosophy: strip women of their rights; murder homosexuals; constrain the freedoms of conscience and religion of non-Muslims; hunt down dissidents; persecute religious minorities; pick fights with foreign powers, even powers, such as the U.S., that offered them friendship. The Islamists will curtail the freedoms of those who elected them and fail to improve their economic conditions.

After the disillusion and bitterness will come a painful lesson: that it is foolish to derive laws for human affairs from gods and prophets. Just like the Iranian people have begun to, the Egyptians, Tunisians, Libyans, and perhaps Syrians and others will come to this realization. In one or two or three decades we will see the masses in these countries take to the streets—and perhaps call for American help—to liberate them from the governments they elected. This process will be faster in some places than others, but in all of them it will be bloody and painful. If we take the long view, America and other Western countries can help make this happen in the same way we helped bring about the demise of the former Soviet Union.

We must be patient. America needs to empower those individuals and groups who are already disenchanted with political Islam by helping find and develop an alternative. At the heart of that alternative are the ideals of the rule of law and freedom of thought, worship, and expression. For these values there can and should be no apologies, no groveling, no hesitation....

Read it all HERE.

Appeasement on the part of the West will only serve to prolong the power of the Muslim Brotherhood and like groups.  The same goes for foreign aid to the regimes of those same groups.  Let them fail miserably on their own, and the collapse will come a lot sooner that that of the USSR.

Gasping Here

I work a heavy schedule on Tuesdays through Thursdays.   Yet, no matter how tired I am or how much "school work" I have to do, every day after I get home from work, I head to the computer to check on the day's news.

Since early Wednesday morning on September 12, I've been reading news stories that take my breath away.

I find it impossible to believe that Obama doesn't understand the significance of what's transpiring in the Middle East right now.

I've come to the conclusion that Obama approves of and wants these events to occur.  In other words, he's doing exactly what he wants to do in the present situation.  I have come to this conclusion after reading THIS a few minutes ago.

His version of the New World Order?

His seeing to it that the West and Western ideals are denigrated and punished because of Western colonialism of Third World countries?

His channeling the dreams from his father?

All three, I think.

Furthermore, in my view, Obama is exhibiting some of the following signs of passive-aggressive behavior:

1. Procrastinates
2. Sulks, becomes irritable or becomes very quickly argumentative
3. Tends to work slowly or deliberately do a bad job on tasks
that he or she really does not want to do
4. Protests (unrealistically) that everyone is making
unreasonable demands
5. "Forgets" obligations
6. Believes that he or she is doing a much better job than others
think
7. Usually resents useful suggestions from others on how to
become more productive
8. Fails to do his or her share of the work, thereby obstructing
other's efforts
9. Unreasonably criticizes people in positions of authority
10. Cannot seem to accept responsibility or blame for problems
resulting from their poor performance and tend to project this
blame on others

I submit, however, that Obama knows exactly what he is doing and is consciously endeavoring to manipulate the situation to his own benefit, namely, the consolidating his own power as well as exacting revenge for colonialism.

The only other possibility that I can offer is that Obama is a Muslim.

Doctrine of the Last Shot Fired

I haven't posted here about the recent mass murder committed by James E. Holmes in Aurora, Colorado.

Instead of writing about similar events and scientific theories related to the mass murder committed by James E. Holmes in Aurora, Colorado, I have been pondering THIS ESSAY by Tammy Swofford.

AOW COMMENTARY:

Right now, all sorts of people – experts and otherwise all along the medical and political spectrum – are tying themselves into knots and asking, "Why did this happen?" and "What can we do to prevent this kind of thing?"

Please watch the following short statement from Charles Krauthammer, a doctor of psychiatry:



Of course, as a doctor of psychiatry, Dr. Krauthammer is naturally curious about the workings of the brain of James E. Holmes. But will doctors and scientists really learn something of value so as to prevent another similar attack by another individual?  Not likely at all!

I think back to when my mother unexpectedly died in 1987 in the coronary care unit.

Upon her death, family doctor asked my father and me, "Shall we do an autopsy?"

We considered for a moment and asked the obvious question: "Will an autopsy help someone else?"

Our family doctor replied, "No.  It's just a matter of curiosity."

We denied the autopsy, and the doctor concurred with our decision.

I submit that ongoing analysis of James E. Holmes and his vile deeds is nothing more than a matter of curiosity.

Let us consider incarceration expenditures; after all, expenditures are considered for all sorts of other government departments and for various healthcare measures:

Note that the above figures are averages.

The death penalty also has high costs:

...California taxpayers pay $90,000 more per death row prisoner each year than on prisoners in regular confinement....

Expenditures aside, let us ask this question: CAN we prevent such massacres from happening?   After all, the maladies of the soul and of the human brain are numerous and, to a certain extent, unfathomable.  These maladies will likely remain unfathomable.

Moreover, do any of us really believe that James E. Holmes can be rehabilitated?  

We CAN, however, follow the doctrine of the last shot fired.

It is both justice and mercy to follow that doctrine.

Egyptians To Hillary Clinton: "Monica! Monica! Get Out, Clinton!"

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made her first visit to Egypt since the Arab Spring regime change that ousted Mubarak.

There were taunting chants about Monica Lewinsky directed at Hillary Clinton.

My insights on that, courtesy of my Muslim neighbor in 1999, in a conversation that I'll never forget:

"And that President of yours [meaning Bill Clinton, of course]....He consorted with Monica Lewinsky. THAT JEWESS!"

Information from the above source:

...Tomatoes, shoes and a water bottle were thrown at part of Clinton's motorcade as it pulled up, protected by riot police, although a US official said Clinton's own vehicle was not hit.

The protest appears to have been the result of suspicions that Washington had helped the Muslim Brotherhood win elections in Egypt in the wake of last year's ouster of president Hosni Mubarak after 18 days of massive street protests....

Nation Of Wusses

So, on July 4, Mr. AOW and I went to the local VFW for the annual Independence Day barbecue.

Rarely do we discuss politics there.  Mr. AOW, however, said something about recently attending a Romney rally here in Northern Virginia because he wanted to tell the guys about one of the anti-Obama buttons we got at the rally; that button has a drawing of Obama on it and reads "Does this ass make my butt look bigger?"  I've been on a diet (almost done now) and just had to have that button.

One of the other VFW patrons (might not have been a veteran but should have some kind of connection to the military and about 30 years old) piped up and said, "Romney scares me."

Whisky Tango Foxtrot!

I kept quiet, but my brain shouted to itself:

"Romney SCARES you?  Are you kidding me?  OBAMA doesn't scare you?"

We're a nation of wusses. I'm convinced of it. And what happened at our local VFW a few days ago serves to reinforce my theory.

Silencing Voices

About the shuttering of Bare Naked Islam for the second time in a month....

We are living in Orwellian times.

A few days ago, I posted THIS here at IBA: "The End Of Blogging?" SOPA looms. Its power to silence voices is nearly unlimited.

It's not farfetched to realize that our days of freedom of speech on the web are numbered.

Furthermore, I expect that 2012 will bring the closing of all sorts of web sites, particularly blogs that are controversial.

I won't quit speaking out until my blog is shuttered by the forces of silencing voices, until I'm in jail, or until I die. After all, I'm an old woman. I don't have much to lose, really. The life I loved ended when Mr. AOW had his crippling stroke in 2009.

But I doubt that younger folks feel the way that I do. And I can't blame them for feeling that way.

"Life goes on, even after the thrill of living is gone."

The Great Depression And Today's Ailing Economy

In the January 2012 edition of Vanity Fair, Joseph E. Stiglitz writes the following:

...For the past several years, Bruce Greenwald and I have been engaged in research on an alternative theory of the Depression—and an alternative analysis of what is ailing the economy today. This explanation sees the financial crisis of the 1930s as a consequence not so much of a financial implosion but of the economy’s underlying weakness. The breakdown of the banking system didn’t culminate until 1933, long after the Depression began and long after unemployment had started to soar. By 1931 unemployment was already around 16 percent, and it reached 23 percent in 1932. Shantytown “Hoovervilles” were springing up everywhere. The underlying cause was a structural change in the real economy: the widespread decline in agricultural prices and incomes, caused by what is ordinarily a “good thing”—greater productivity.

At the beginning of the Depression, more than a fifth of all Americans worked on farms. Between 1929 and 1932, these people saw their incomes cut by somewhere between one-third and two-thirds, compounding problems that farmers had faced for years. Agriculture had been a victim of its own success. In 1900, it took a large portion of the U.S. population to produce enough food for the country as a whole. Then came a revolution in agriculture that would gain pace throughout the century—better seeds, better fertilizer, better farming practices, along with widespread mechanization. Today, 2 percent of Americans produce more food than we can consume.

[...]

The parallels between the story of the origin of the Great Depression and that of our Long Slump are strong. Back then we were moving from agriculture to manufacturing. Today we are moving from manufacturing to a service economy. The decline in manufacturing jobs has been dramatic—from about a third of the workforce 60 years ago to less than a tenth of it today. The pace has quickened markedly during the past decade. There are two reasons for the decline. One is greater productivity—the same dynamic that revolutionized agriculture and forced a majority of American farmers to look for work elsewhere. The other is globalization, which has sent millions of jobs overseas, to low-wage countries or those that have been investing more in infrastructure or technology. (As Greenwald has pointed out, most of the job loss in the 1990s was related to productivity increases, not to globalization.) Whatever the specific cause, the inevitable result is precisely the same as it was 80 years ago: a decline in income and jobs. The millions of jobless former factory workers once employed in cities such as Youngstown and Birmingham and Gary and Detroit are the modern-day equivalent of the Depression’s doomed farmers....

I do not agree with all of Stiglitz's conclusions, particularly in the final section of the article.

But I do think that he's largely correct and onto something that we have been desperately ignoring during this time of our ailing economy.

The coming damage will indeed be huge, and recovery as we want to think of it isn't going to happen.

In other words, for a very long time, if ever, Americans will not return to the standard of living that we had prior to this 21st Century depression (Yes, depression and not recession). And the present generation will not enjoy the same upward mobility and standard of living as previous generations have partaken of since World War Two.

Please take time to read the article. In my view, the article offers an important and ugly reality check: America will not again be what she was. Not in my lifetime. No matter who wins in November 2012.

I'm glad that I'm as old as I am.

GOP: I Give You Fair Warning

You had better get your act together and be assertive in the campaign for the White House in 2012. Otherwise, Obama is going to get re-elected.

I base my assertion on an essay I read in the Washington Post:

Obama’s trash-talking presser
By Dana Milbank,
Published: June 29

The best answer President Obama gave at his news conference was to a question nobody asked.

An hour into his unusually feisty performance in the East Room, the president was responding to CNN’s Jessica Yellin, who had pressed him on the deadline for raising the debt limit, when he decided to make a larger point.

“I’ve got to say, I’m very amused when I start hearing comments about, ‘Well, the president needs to show more leadership on this,’” Obama said, referring to the complaint made by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) when he walked out of budget talks. “Well, hey, lemme tell you something,” he said with a smile, chopping the lectern with an open hand.

“This thing,” he said after reciting the instances of his involvement in the talks, “is just not on the level.” To the Republicans, he said, “they need to do their jobs. . . You need to be here. I’ve been here. I’ve been doing Afghanistan and bin Laden and the Greek crisis.”

Obama gave a case-closed shrug. “All right,” he said. “I think you know my feelings about that.”

This was Obama as he ought to be. He often seems passive in public, giving friend and foe alike the impression that his presidency is adrift on matters from Libya to gay marriage to the debt talks. But on Wednesday, in his first full news conference in three months, he was uncharacteristically assertive...

[...]

“Call me naive, but my expectation is that leaders are going to lead,” Obama admonished the opposition. He likened the Republicans to kids who procrastinate on their homework, and to deadbeats: “They took the vacation. They bought the car. And now they’re saying, ‘Maybe we don’t have to pay’ . . . We’re the greatest nation on Earth and we can’t act that way.”

Populism, pugilism and American exceptionalism: From a stoic president, this was a refreshing blend.

Obama wants to play hardball, it seems.

GOP, you had better get into the game with a hardball offensive of your own. Act the wimp, and the Oval Office will again belong to Obama.

Mark my words: the strong man (or woman) will be the victor in November 2012.

Obama For Another Four Years?

In Front Page Magazine, Phyllis Chesler opines:

President Obama’s election is due, in part, to the desire among many American liberals and leftists to be seen as “atoning” for the sin of racism and the crimes of slavery. The fact that Obama is bi-racial—his mother was white—matters little since he looks like an African-American. Indeed, the President’s own writing focuses on his African, Muslim roots, especially because his Kenyan father abandoned both him and his mother.

In an era of symbolic identity politics and affirmative action, only one kind of candidate could trump Obama’s credentials and that would be an African-American woman....

[...]

Given the extraordinary pathology of Bush Derangement Syndrome, and short of Armeggedon, I do not believe that enough Americans will, without doubt, elect another white male Republican. No matter what his politics may be, he himself will be seen as retrograde, anti-woman, anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion, pro-racism, pro-war and as both dull and evil. The media, combined with Soros and Saudi monies and our intelligentsia have poisoned the minds of millions....

Read the rest HERE.

Have we really reached the point that whom we elect to the Oval Office depends upon race and gender?

Is white guilt that powerful a force?

Is gender correctness that powerful a force?

Maybe.

When Obama was elected in 2008, many Americans rejoiced, "We are living in an unprecedented time!"

Of course, electing an African-American President was indeed unprecedented for America. There is no denying that fact.

But what tide has been set in motion with this idea of "We must continue with unprecedented times"? Shouldn't political platform be the deciding factor for voters and not race and gender?

When I first read Chesler's essay, I thought to myself, "She's way off base." But the longer I think about what she has written, the more I think that she has a valid point.

Something has gone very wrong with the American electorate. We have lost sight of what deciding upon a political leader should mean.