House of Eratosthenes

Stagnant GDP, 9.1 unemployment, another $5 trillion in debt, $1.6 trillion annual deficits, and sky-high fuel and food prices have combined to crush any notion of upward mobility. (If in 2004 5.7% unemployment was supposed to mark a “jobless recovery,” what exactly is 9.1% called? If Bush’s average $500 billion deficits over eight years were abhorrent, what must we say of Obama’s average $1.6 trillion over three? Really bad?)

In response, the Obama administration — let me be candid here — seems clueless, overpopulated as it is by policy nerds, academic overachievers, and tenured functionaries (cf. Larry Summers’ “there is no adult in charge”). They tend to flash Ivy League certificates, but otherwise have little record of achievement in the private sector. Officials seem to think that long ago test scores, a now Neolithic nod from an Ivy League professor, or a past prize translates into knowing what makes America run in places like Idaho and southern Michigan.

Yes, I know that Steven Chu is “brilliant” and a Nobel laureate. But that means no more than suggesting that laureate Paul Krugman was right about adding even more trillions to the debt. My neighbors know enough not to quip, as the know-it-all Chu did, that California farms (the most productive in the U.S.) will dry up and blow away, or gas prices should reach European levels, or Americans can’t be trusted to buy the right light bulbs, or a failed Solyndra just needed millions more of taxpayers’ money.

Solyndra and Van Jones are the metaphors of these times, reminding us of the corruption of the very notion of “green.” In the age of Al Gore, it has eroded from a once noble ideal of conservation to a tawdry profit- and job-scam for assorted hucksters and snake-oil salesmen. Without the lofty hype and shake-down, most otherwise would have had to find productive jobs. Tragically, “green” is the new refuge of scoundrels.
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Why, then, do I see blue sky and a break in the present storms? For a variety of very good reasons.
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The country always knew, but for just a bit forgot, that you cannot print money and borrow endlessly. It always knew that bureaucrats were less efficient than employers. It knew that Guantanamo was not a gulag and Iraq was not “lost.” But given the anguish over Iraq, the anger at Bush, the Obama postracial novelty and “centrist” façade, and the Freddie/Fannie/Wall Street collapse, it wanted to believe what it knew might not be true. Now three years of Obama have slapped voters out of their collective trance.

The spell has now passed; and we are stronger for its passing. There is going to be soon a sense of relief that we have not experienced in decades. In short, sadder but wiser Americans will soon be turned loose with a vigor unseen in decades.
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The country always knew, but for just a bit forgot, that you cannot print money and borrow endlessly. It always knew that bureaucrats were less efficient than employers. It knew that Guantanamo was not a gulag and Iraq was not “lost.” But given the anguish over Iraq, the anger at Bush, the Obama postracial novelty and “centrist” façade, and the Freddie/Fannie/Wall Street collapse, it wanted to believe what it knew might not be true. Now three years of Obama have slapped voters out of their collective trance.

The spell has now passed; and we are stronger for its passing. There is going to be soon a sense of relief that we have not experienced in decades. In short, sadder but wiser Americans will soon be turned loose with a vigor unseen in decades.

In the America that rises like a Phoenix from the ashes, you can’t be elected President just by muttering vague platitudes about “hope” and “change” and being on Oprah Winfrey’s short-list of honored guests. Companies can’t rip off consumers, charging exorbitant prices and fees for providing negligible quantity & quality by way of product & service, and get away with it all by throwing out some bumper-sticker slogan with the word “green” in it.

Who knows? Maybe in the coming bigger-and-better America, we’ll see some movies come out that boast truly original plots, not based on any old comic book or cartoon show from the seventies, and don’t have Shia LaBeouf or Natalie Portman in any major role. Wouldn’t that be great?

I know she’s not one of your favorite people (a moderate! Aiiieee!) but Peggy Noonan had a similar piece in Saturday’s WSJ. It’s quite good, too. More Red Meat for the choir’s happy consumption.
- bpenni | 10/04/2011 @ 09:43
She’s not a moderate. She says all the right things until the time comes to actually make a decision then she goes the other way.

Peggy Noonan is the opposite of Dennis Prager, preferring agreement to clarity.
- mkfreeberg | 10/04/2011 @ 09:54
Good to see VDH writing about something besides how illegal immigration is tearing California to pieces. A bit of optimisms serves him well. I left a few choice comments over at the VDH article. They were all in response to other posters. They can be summed up as follows:

“Quit with the talk of civil war and secession. Not. Gonna. Happen.” (This is one of my biggest and most consistent gripes with VDH’s regular commentors.)

“Quit with the talk about Obama inventing a reason to not step down peacefully if he loses. Not. Gonna. Happen.”

“Moderate GOP presidential nominee = Democrat elected president, like night into day. Quit with the talk that watering down our platform is going to draw in centrist and moderate voters. The moderates will break for the Democrat on Election Day, the conservatives will stay home.”

“Hey, RINOs – shut up. We tried it your way in ’08 and we lost. Time to let real conservatives pick the candidate. And quit listening to what the Left thinks about can and cannot beat Chairman Zero. Their opinion doesn’t count.”

“Quit banging the drum for Romney. The health care thing alone will torpedo his candidacy. If nominated, he will be trounced in the general election.. I do not care what some poll taken last week purports to show – it is a year to the election and a lot can happen between now and then.”

“Enough with the crap about the crowd booing a gay soldier. They were booing his loaded question, not him as a gay man.”

“Why are we talking about anyone besides Perry and Romney? The others aren’t serious contenders.”

“You’re an idiot. Go away.”

Oh, and I’m sick of hearing “Ron Paul, Ron Paul, Ron Paul!”

I think that about covers what I said this evening.
- cylarz | 10/07/2011 @ 01:09

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“The Coming Post-Obama Renaissance”Tuesday, October 4th, 2011

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Tuesday, October 4th, 2011