House of Eratosthenes

The e-mails have been busy during my travels on Friday and Saturday, during which time I was at the mercy of the wireless networks in Nevada, a broad flatland in which one must consider himself fortunate to find working indoor plumbing. So this morning at coffee o’clock I have some reading to do. And what do I see in my inbox…vast, great volumes of not-much. Race hustlers trying to make the Trayvon Martin shooting more incendiary, and funny pictures of cats.

And then…

My President had some kind of deadline looming over His head Saturday night, for which He urgently needed me to pony up three dollars. I’m not sure what that was all about. Something to do with the FEC, so from this I infer it would be related to His efforts to win a second term in the upcoming elections.

Ed Darrell & Co. are completely upset with me. There is a picture of our President making the rounds, walking in His dignified way from a plane to a limousine or perhaps vice-versa, carrying a hardcover copy of The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria. People think poorly of this, and Mr. Darrell has harsh words for those who think so poorly. His critiism is against poor thinking, but as always seems to be the case with him, one cannot help but suspect he is upset that they’ve reached a conclusion he doesn’t like. One also ends up a little confused about whether his excited and scolding words are for those who send the picture around through the e-mail, or for those who quite reasonably and innocently draw their conclusions from it.

I’m not sure he himself knows.

President Obama has hit me up before for contributions of $2 or $3. Sometimes the e-mails are not from Him, but from people who report to Him or somehow support Him in His efforts. The last one, I think, was from His wife Michelle. There is a lot of language to the effect of how close we are to getting this thing done that we’re trying to do, that is so important. Nothing unusual about any of this, except in this case, I’ve not yet seen a specific statement made about what it is they/we are trying to be doing, which I find a little odd. Isn’t it part of typical deadline management, to keep in mind the horrific consequences to follow of failing to meet the deadline? Granted, that all by itself doesn’t necessitate a repeated chanting over & over again of what the consequences are…but it becomes an expected part of the pitch when the time comes to shake people down for money. What are we trying to do?

Ed’s pals are not happy with me going after just one thing…in which they’re squarely in the wrong. They would like the conversation to be expanded to include other things they think will make them look better. This “James Kessler” person would like to talk about “your [my] side” and/or Republicans, which is unfortunate since that has nothing to do with anything; my point was that Ed Darrell, wrapped up in his hatred and his passions, said something silly and illogical, I’m right and that’s that.

But after all these years of me subscribing to Ed Darrell’s website, and all these years of having been wisely led by President Obama, I notice nothing’s changed — not one single thing. There are these problems existing somewhere; nobody can say, specifically, what those problems are (except schoolteacher Ed is very often upset that the public education system is getting enough money, I guess there’s that, but that particular peeve is not under discussion here). There is not much specific discussion of the problems so it follows that there’s no talk at all about what the solutions are going to be.

But still there is something to inspire all the hot air flowing with such great heat, power and force from the progressives among us. The bulk of it seems to be: These nice people over here do not yet possess a monopoly on free speech — they’re having trouble getting their message out. Those other people, over there, are getting a message out and that’s part of the problem. They need to be shut up.

It is rather remarkable that if I were previously sympathetic to the global desires of Planet Looney Liberal, I’d be forced to seriously reconsider my allegiances right about now. After the last four years of Obama’s presidency and highly successful — and privileged — campaigning, if all the problems in the world that you can see are due to Him not quite being able to get the last word in on enough things…or perhaps not giving enough speeches?…there’s something very, very wrong with your viewpoint. Also, it’s further remarkable that after all the Best! Speech! Evar! going on again and again and again…I still don’t understand what the Obama agenda is. I’ve responded to quite a few of these e-mails asking me for the $3 asking, politely and succinctly, what exactly it is we’re trying to do. I’ve not yet received an answer back.

There is a new video out called The Road We’ve Traveled, narrated by Tom Hanks. Perhaps my question would be answered if the video had a title more like, The Road In Front Of Us or something…okay, so these people who are paid to come up with things that might possibly be credited to President Obama, have found some stuff. Fine, but what choices are we making, when we choose Obama’s leadership? What are the advantages of said leadership, contrasted with that of someone else — who is also capable of making decisions when the time comes, but would & could be expected to make different ones, due to a wholly different outlook on the world and how it works? On this, the seventeen minutes stand functionally mute.

If the video contributes anything at all to the decision to be made about the upcoming election, it is only this: Here, here and here, Barack Obama was confronted with an important decision that could be made by nobody else. And He decided!

Well…with all respect to the office of the Presidency…pffft. You could say exactly the same thing about Obama’s predecessor, couldn’t you? Actually, you could say that about everyone who’s been elected to that office. Except maybe those two guys who died in office without serving very long…I suspect even they would be able to point to something.

After all the hundreds of millions of dollars spent, and hundreds of speeches given by Him every single year out of the last three or four — I don’t really know what the Obama Doctrine is. About anything. I see He opts for this-or-that when such-and-such a decision comes up…sometimes. It’s much more usual for Him to, as they say, “vote present.” But from whatever definitive decisions actually do manage to be graced with His Holy Imprimatur, I try to reach conclusions about what the Obama philosophy is…and these loudmouths like Ed & Crew scold me about it. If my conclusion is not flattering, that is. And I cannot help but conclude, like I said, that that’s what the scolding is really all about. Meanwhile, the question remains unanswered.

Reasonable persons across the ideological spectrum should be able to agree, that if your argument can only be made to look good by impugning the character of the other guys, to the point where you’re avoiding any discussion of the decisions made & why they’re made, then your argument is probably wrong. According to that, then, they would support whoever is presenting a good plausible plan to get the gas prices back down and get all these capable and able-bodied people working again. I think President Obama should be displaying Himself and His crew as the people who are laboring to implement such a plan.

But from Him, and His supporters, all I’m seeing and hearing is how important it is that they be given more of a chance to get their message out, than those detestable other-people. In fact, it can be truthfully said that — for all I know — that’s the whole point of the seventeen-minute-video linked above: Re-elect Obama, so He can continue to give speeches every day, because who knows, sooner or later one of these days He’ll give the one speech that finally gets the message out. You know, I’m not entirely sure what that has to do with getting the unemployment rate down to five percent, getting gas back down to $2.65 a gallon, and recovering America’s triple-A credit rating.

I wondered about the plea for $3 until I saw a wire service story where the Obama campaign touted the fact that they had received contributions from over 3 million people.

‘Ya know, there’s a saying about a wad of money that’s only $1 bills, but I won’t specify it here.
- BillW. | 04/02/2012 @ 06:51
The Reign of Pharaoh Obymandias (PBUH) should be the final proof — if any more were needed — that what we call “liberalism” is really what psychologists call “projection.”

For instance: Ask a liberal what he hated about George W. Bush. You’ll get a thirty-minute tirade, of course, but that’s not the interesting part — ask him when he developed all these feelings. Turns out that they’ve always felt that way. Before he performed presidential act #1 — hell, before he made campaign promise #1 — they hated him.

It has always been about speeches, in other words.

Liberals really do seem to believe that government, being properly the domain of Smart people (like them!), should be filled stem to stern with people who can spout off glibly about any old subject with complete confidence (like them!). People who have fancy degrees in important subjects that end in “studies” (like them!). People who consider a half-hour’s perusal of Newsweek in the dentist’s office to be all the knowledge and research they need to solve all the world’s problems. People who know the proper pronunciation of “nuclear.”* George Bush, on the other hand, sounds funny, often seems lost for words, and cheerfully admits there are things he doesn’t know /hasn’t read / doesn’t particularly give a rat’s ass about. You couldn’t hold one of those droll, faux-worldly conversations over a triple-venti-latte-mochachino with G.Dub, in other words. He’s probably never said “I was listening to NPR the other day” in his life.

And that, more than anything else, is why they hate him. Turns out you didn’t have to pull straight A’s in Wymyn’s Studies to get the most important job in the world.

On the other hand, they have this desperate need to believe that Obama did pull straight A’s. Wrote the freakin’ textbook, in fact, for whatever class He deigned to attend. When He says things like “I probably know more about any subject than the guys giving me the briefings,” liberals truly, honestly believe him. They have this religious zeal to convince everyone that not only is Obama a smart guy –which I’ll stipulate for purposes of argument — but that he’s the Smartest Guy Ever — which I will not.

What else could this be but projection? They’re so desperate to believe that they could’ve gone to Harvard and taught con law and penned Dreams from My Ghostwriter that they take any criticism of Obama’s brainpower as a personal affront. They themselves don’t have the first clue how to solve all the problems Obama’s facing — and would of course vote “present” more often than not — but it’s essential to their self-concept that they believe they do. It’s nearly pathological.

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*(with the exception of Jimmy Carter, who’s allowed to say “nook-u-ler” because he was so instrumental in helping North Korea get some).
- Severian | 04/02/2012 @ 09:37

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