This piece from yesterday's WSJ, "Obama and the Politics of Crowds" is one of the best long-view things I've seen in a while. I've been reading Eric Hoffer's "True Believer" and Hannah Arendt's "Origins of Totalitarianism", and much of what Ajami says here resonates strongly with these Cold War era books, with their clear-eyed view of twentieth century psycho-politics ("psycho" as in psychological, not psychopathic, although one could be forgiven for making the assumption).

Karl Lowith, a student of Martin Heidegger, long ago tagged Marxism as essentially a Christian heresy in his book, Meaning in History. Attempts to posit an end of history outside of Christian eschatological categories inevitably take on the religious connotations that come with those categories and symbols. The unholy alliance of Christianity and Marxism that is Black Liberation Theology, for instance, is one expression of this strange hybrid. The total, life-long commitment shown by many adherents of the hard left bears witness to the religious quality of their devotion, and to the deliberately inculcated "imminent transcendence" of bringing heaven down to earth. Think of "Dear Leader"Kim Jong Mentally Il of North Korea and his captive herd of worshippers. A world closed to the transcendent is a violent one, with no mercy, no grace.

But all forms of fascism are also in this category; rebellion against transcendence, and a violent propensity for the imminent here and now, mixed with a usurping messiah figure, as Ajami discusses, typify what we know of fascist movements: Hitler, of course, and Mussolini, but also Juan Peron, Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, and and a whole host of other South American dictators (what is it about South America and dictators?). Crowds--as distinguished from audiences-- are not rational; an orator cannot reason with them, but a skillful demagogue can produce images that substitute for thought.

Hope. Change. We are the change we have been waiting for. Fill in the blank with your own dream...while standing next to ten thousand others projecting their own images and dreams onto the One.

It's no real comfort to know that they would come down off this drunk after the election to find he is nothing like their conjured image. And though that would be Obama's problem at that point, we would all be sharing the hangover.

This is the most entertaining political piece you're going to come across this year...make yourself feel better.




I especially enjoy the description of the democrat herd as "ballot cattle".

-- Harold Kildow

**************
D.C. Innes adds:

This fellow appears to be someone named Alfonzo, or "Zo." He describes himself as Christian, conservative Republican, and no one is pulling the wool over his eyes.

You can see his other videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/machosauceproduction.

Dan Henninger makes clear the economic implications of the imminent transition we face: American Cowboy Capitalism is going on the shelf, and under Democrat hegemony, we're going to wheel out a Euro style hammock, put our feet up, and retire from our status as world leader of anything. Hans Morganthau, dean of the "realism" school in international relations knew that power consists, only and always, in all three of its expressions: political, economic, and military. No nation can be a world power without excelling in all three, and this is why America has been the world hegemon--much to the discomfiture of the Left--for almost a century, despite the aggressive rise of totalitarian governments throughout the 20th century. We are now set to kiss it all goodbye, and as Henniger ruefully points out, once it's done, it's done. We're done.

Several other commentators have put together their parade of Barackian horribles, some listed by David below, and here is Henninger's partial list:

Obama's federalized medical insurance system starts the transition away from private medical care and toward Obama's endlessly promised "universal health care." This has always been the sine qua non of planting a true, managed-market economy in the U.S.
Obama's refundable tax credits are direct cash transfers from the federal government. This would place some 48% of Americans, nearly half, out of the income tax system. More than a tax proposal, this is a deep philosophical shift, an American version of being "on the dole."

His stated intent to renegotiate free-trade agreements such as Nafta is a philosophical shift. It abandons the tradition of a hyper-competitive America dating back to the Industrial Revolution, toward a protected, domestic workforce, as in Western Europe. The Democratic proposal to eliminate private union votes -- "card check" -- ensures the spread of a static, Euro-style workforce.

Eliminating the ceiling on payroll taxes changes Social Security from an insurance to a welfare program. Obama's tax credits requires performing government-identified activities, the essence of a "directed economy."

All this would transform the animating American idea -- away from creation and toward protection.

This and the other scenarios predicted is what it looks like when a democratic people choose equality over liberty. The tragic thing is, we will end up with neither equality nor liberty, since we will have made ourselves into just another flabby and useless Euro welfare state unable and unwilling to lead, follow, or get out of the way.

But what an elegant class of mandarins we will have lording it over us!

 

-- Harold Kildow

 

A South African drive-time disc jockey in Dubai has been fired for imitating God as part of his morning banter. (AP story here.)

He was not fired for violating Sharia Law. Dubai, one of the principal cities and one of several semi-autonomous states in the United Arab Emirates, is a diverse international community. He was fired because his irreverence, that is, his careless treatment of this divine subject matter, offended the religious sensibilities of the people who live in Dubai. He was responding to someone's failed attempt to sue God in a U.S. court. (See my post on that: "The Audacity of Suing God.") "He intended to be funny, not to offend anybody," said Arabian Radio Network Chief Operating Officer Steve Smith. "However, what he did was highly offensive to the Muslim and Christian community in the UAE."

No doubt this shocks many American readers who see it as an example of religious fundamentalism in the benighted Arab world.

But this was our world not so long ago, and I think that in that respect it was a better world. People were more self-controlled and respectful of one another when we inhabited that world.

In 1966, John Lennon had to apologize publicly for saying that the Beatles were "more popular than Jesus." The remark made no impression on the British when it was first published in London's Evening Standard. But when DATEbook published the Maureen Cleave interview in America it was a huge scandal.

Lennon's full statement from the interview was this:

'Christianity will go,' he said. 'It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first-rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.'

In some ways, of course, we are a better society now than we were. We're more accepting of racial differences among us, for example. But that improvement has not grown out of our rejection of God. Indeed, the civil rights movement was, in significant measure, motivated by Christian faith.

When people turn away from God and focus on themselves, they actually dehumanize themselves and each other.


Consider this post from November 7, 2007: "An Atheist Ally of Religion? Sounds Reasonable."

Dalrymple, noting the rarity of religiously motivated cruelty, draws attention to the decency that the eternal perspective engenders in by far most people who genuinely embrace it. After quoting from a meditation by Bishop Joseph Hall (1574-1656) on contentment and self-control, Dalrymple concludes that, “moderation comes more naturally to the man who believes in something not merely higher than himself, but higher than mankind. After all, the greatest enjoyment of the usages of this world, even to excess, might seem rational when the usages of this world are all that there is.” It is at least arguable that unsentimental, atheistic rationalism leads logically to debauchery and ultimately to tyranny.

He drives home this connection between piety and moderation by comparing the genuine fruit of Christian faith with what these grumpy anti-theists have to offer:

“Let us compare Hall’s meditation “Upon the Sight of a Harlot Carted” with Harris’s statement that some people ought perhaps to be killed for their beliefs:

With what noise, and tumult, and zeal of solemn justice, is this sin punished! The streets are not more full of beholders, than clamours. Every one strives to express his detestation of the fact, by some token of revenge: one casts mire, another water, another rotten eggs, upon the miserable offender. Neither, indeed, is she worthy of less: but, in the mean time, no man looks home to himself. It is no uncharity to say, that too many insult in this just punishment, who have deserved more. . . . Public sins have more shame; private may have more guilt. If the world cannot charge me of those, it is enough, that I can charge my soul of worse. Let others rejoice, in these public executions: let me pity the sins of others, and be humbled under the sense of my own.

“Who sounds more charitable, more generous, more just, more profound, more honest, more humane: Sam Harris or Joseph Hall, D.D., late lord bishop of Exeter and of Norwich?”

For anyone who does not understand the economic implications of Barack Obama's policies, let's try a couple of illustrations. If we can laugh now, perhaps we won't be crying later.

How would an Obama supporter distribute candy at Halloween?



I am told that the following is a true story.

A man was entering a restaurant in New York City. Outside the restaurant, he noticed a homeless man who was wearing an Obama sticker. He thought nothing more of it and went in. When he ordered his meal he noticed that the waiter was also wearing an Obama sticker.

When it came time to pay the check, the man gave the waiter precisely the cost of the meal, but no tip. The waiter was quite angry at this. Expecting this response, the man approached the waiter and explained:

"I see that you support Barack Obama for President. You must also therefore support the forcible redistribution of wealth from those who work to those who don't. So I am giving your tip to the homeless man outside."

Pat Buchanan (quite reasonably) sees this as President Obama leaves the starting blocks ("Obama's First 100 Days").

Your children will grow up (and themselves have children) in a radically different America.

The only hope for some moderation in this Pelosi-Reid supported agenda is ...

 

(1) Obama has run as a centrist, covering over many of these issues, such as abortion, homosexual marriage and amnesty for illegal aliens;

 

(2) popular outcry against some of these measures by (oddly) surprised middle America will restrain House and Senate members facing re-election in marginal districts within two years;

 

(3) his natural concern to maintain his legislative majority by not repeating Clinton's mistakes leading up to the 1994 GOP midterm Congressional victory, and of course to see himself re-elected in 2012.

Obama told his followers several weeks ago "I want you to argue with them and get in their face,", and we have seen a general uptick in aggression, as several of David's posts here have shown. Here is another example of the thuggishness that has always typified hard Left. It is now going mainstream, apparently.


After releasing this morning’s numbers showing McCain ahead in Ohio and Florida, the Strategic Vision polling company received several death threats through the contact e-mail on the company’s web site. David Johnson, the CEO of Strategic Vision, shared the messages with National Review Online.

One of the messages stated:

Another stated:

A third message stated:

The company has contacted the FBI and appropriate authorities, Johnson said. There was, thankfully, nothing in the messages that indicated that the sender had actually sought out the location of the company or its employees. Johnson noted that while the messages came from different addresses, they all came within a short period of time, and that it was possible they were from the same person. Johnson said he’s not fearful, but taking appropriate measures.
“It’s probably just a bunch of nut cases, but this is first time we’ve ever experienced something like this,” Johnson said. “It’s highly, highly unusual. We get messages in the vein of 'your numbers are wrong, the other guy's numbers are right' all the time. But this has never happened before.”

That's because we are into a new and despicable era in our political history; never before has the fascist Left been this numerous, and this out in the open. Force and fraud: the time-honored way of the world prior to the American experiment's first ever attempt at government through reflection and choice. The constitution and polity described by the Federalist Papers recede ever further into the rear view mirror.

Someone putting himself forward to be President of the United States should know at least the basics of economics. But the Democrats in general show little evidence that they know anything of the subject. They seem more concerned about what they call "fairness" than about general prosperity.

For example, after the Democratic Congress passes Barack Obama's tax increases on "the wealthy" and sends checks to everyone else--thus establishing "fairness"--48% of the voting population will be paying no federal income tax. Another 11% will be paying very low taxes.

Surely, you can see the problem. What do you think happens in a democracy when the majority of the people pays no taxes, and yet has the power through Congress to raise the taxes of those who do pay, and gives itself ever increasing benefits with other people's money?

After passing that tipping point is there any going back? Why would people who pay no taxes vote for going back to paying taxes? They will view freedom from taxation as an entitlement. Tax cuts will become a thing of the past. Any proposed tax cut would be a "giveaway" to the rich because they would be the only people left paying any taxes.

But as government spending for those who pay nothing goes up and up, and the tax rates on an ever shrinking minority get increasingly burdensome, those who pay the bills will have ever incentive to work, or at least to work in America. Again, you see the problem. Eventually, in the throws of national bankruptcy and poverty, seeing that we have killed the goose that lays the golden egg, or driven her into exile, we will have to mend our ways and resume the broad civic responsibility of paying taxes. In the meantime, we will see likely two generations of unnecessary suffering.

Adam Lerrick, economics professor at Carnegie Mellon University, explains this crisis in "Obama and the Tax Tipping Point" (Wall Street Journal, Oct. 22, 2008). Michael Boskin mentions the same point today in "Our Next President and the Perfect Economic Storm" (WSJ): "[Obama's] refundable tax credits will raise the share of those making no contribution to the funding of general government to 48% from 38%, hastening, perhaps cementing, the unhealthy budgetary dynamic of a majority of voters receiving more in public payments than they pay in taxes."

Here is a different approach to the same lesson stated more playfully and perhaps for that reason more effectively:

How Taxes Work ? or, 'How to Pay for Beer'

"Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. 'Since you are all such good customers,' he said, 'I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.' Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?'

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.


So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free.

But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.


'I only got a dollar out of the $20′ declared the sixth man. Then he pointed at the tenth man, 'but he got $10!'


'Yeah, that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man. 'I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!'


'That's true!!' shouted the seventh man. 'Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!'


'Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison. 'We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!'

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

This illustration has been attributed to David R. Kamerschen, a professor of economics at the University of Georgia, but on his webpage he denies authorship.

Snopes.com has investigated all leads on the authorship of this brilliance and come up dry.

Always check your sources! Always footnote!

David Brooks anticipates one or the other of these two Obama presidencies based on his historical and psychological assessments ("Thinking About Obama," New York Times, October 17, 2008):

And it is easy to sketch out a scenario in which he could be a great president. He would be untroubled by self-destructive demons or indiscipline. With that cool manner, he would see reality unfiltered. He could gather — already has gathered — some of the smartest minds in public policy, and, untroubled by intellectual insecurity, he could give them free rein. Though he is young, it is easy to imagine him at the cabinet table, leading a subtle discussion of some long-term problem.

Of course, it’s also easy to imagine a scenario in which he is not an island of rationality in a sea of tumult, but simply an island. New presidents are often amazed by how much they are disobeyed, by how often passive-aggressiveness frustrates their plans.

It could be that Obama will be an observer, not a leader. Rather than throwing himself passionately into his causes, he will stand back. Congressional leaders, put off by his supposed intellectual superiority, will just go their own way. Lost in his own nuance, he will be passive and ineffectual. Lack of passion will produce lack of courage. The Obama greatness will give way to the Obama anti-climax.

This dispassionate observer stance is ideal for a lawyer or professor, but not for a president. Obama has passed through life while barely touching it. You can read how this has been true at every stage of his life in "Obama is All About Obama."

But behind Barack is the very angry and activist Michelle whom Barack said would be his chief advisor. Expect a Michelle driven domestic policy. Look out, America! You're going to make her proud! And you won't recognize yourself when she's done with you.

So what will the Obama years bring us? Here are two reasonable projections, one domestic and the other international.

The Wall Street Journal projects what an Obama led, liberal Democrat government will do based on the bills that failed to pass the recent Congress ("The Liberal Supermajority," Oct. 17, 2008).

Medicare for all - "the Obama plan would shift between 32 million and 52 million from private coverage to the huge new entitlement. Like Medicare or the Canadian system, this would never be repealed."

The business climate - "Democrats could cause the economic downturn to last longer than it otherwise will by enacting regulatory overkill like Sarbanes-Oxley. Something more punitive is likely as well, for instance a windfall profits tax on oil, and maybe other industries."

Union supremacy - "The "Employee Free Choice Act" would convert workplaces into union shops merely by gathering signatures from a majority of employees, which means organizers could strongarm those who opposed such a petition. ... This would be the biggest pro-union shift in the balance of labor-management power since the Wagner Act of 1935."

Taxes - "Taxes will rise substantially, the only question being how high."

The green revolution - "Cap and trade would hand Congress trillions of dollars in new spending from the auction of carbon credits, which it would use to pick winners and losers in the energy business and across the economy. Huge chunks of GDP and millions of jobs would be at the mercy of Congress and a vast new global-warming bureaucracy."

Voting rights - "national, election-day voter registration. This is a long-time goal of Acorn and others on the "community organizer" left and would make it far easier to stack the voter rolls."

Free Speech - "the Fairness Doctrine is likely to be reimposed either by Congress or the Obama FCC. A major goal of the supermajority left would be to shut down talk radio and other voices of political opposition." On this last issue, read "Dems Get Set to Muzzle the Right" by Brian Anderson of City Journal (New York Post, Oct. 20, 2008).

On the international front, Joe Biden himself said recently, "Remember, I said it standing here, if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy." Obama is known to be not only inexperienced, but also an appeaser, a talker, a man eager to be liked in foreign affairs. Enemies around the world who are not nearly as enlightened as the Harvard educated Obama will seize the opportunity the gain ground on America and on their neighbors while the pup's eyes are still opening.

Ralph Peters ("America the Weak: US risks turmoil under Prez O", New York Post, Oct. 20, 2008) foresees "an avalanche of confrontations."

Al Qaeda - "al Qaeda will pull out all the stops to kill as many Americans as possible - in Iraq, Afghanistan and, if they can, here at home - hoping that America will throw away the victories our troops bought with their blood."

Pakistan - "the save-the-Taliban elements in the Pakistani intelligence services and body politic will avoid taking serious action against "their" terrorists...The Pakistanis think Obama would lose Afghanistan - and they believe they can reap the subsequent whirlwind."

Iran - "Even without nukes, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would try the new administration's temper in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf."

Israel - "Obama's election would be read as the end of staunch US support for Israel. Backed by Syria and Iran, Hezbollah would provoke another, far-bloodier war with Israel. Lebanon would disintegrate."

Saudi Arabia - "Convinced that Obama will be more "tolerant" toward militant Islam, the Saudis would redouble their funding of bigotry and butchery-for-Allah - in the US, too."

Russia - "Vladimir Putin, intends to gobble Ukraine next year... 2009 may see the starkest repression of freedom since Stalin seized Eastern Europe. Our Georgian allies should dust off their Russian dictionaries."

Venezuela - "Hugo Chavez will...export his megalomaniacal version of gun-barrel socialism. He'll seek a hug-for-the-cameras meet with President Obama as early as possible."

North Korea - "will regard an Obama administration as a green light to cheat." (DCI - as they did with the Clinton and Bush administrations)

Peters states the obvious when he says, "an Obama administration would be a second Carter presidency - only far worse." The most catastrophic foreign policy blunder of the Carter foreign policy was the mishandling of Iran leading up to the fall of the Shah. That was thirty years ago. We are still living with the consequences and perhaps we have yet to see the worst of them should Iran obtain nuclear weapons. Even just four years in power will very likely bring immeasurable suffering to the world and far-reaching compromise of American security.

Having Joe Biden at the young president's elbow will only make matters worse.

Here is an ominous prediction of global economic collapse from Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan, and Benoit Mandelbrot, known for his work in fractal geometry and chaos theory.

Listen to the Paul Solman interview here.

Says Taleb, "I don't know if we're entering the most difficult period since -- not since the Great Depression, since the American Revolution."

Says Mandelbrot, "The word 'turbulence' is one which actually is common to physics and to social scientists, to economics. Everything which involves turbulence is enormously more complicated, not just a little bit more complicated, not just one year more schooling, just enormously more complicated. ... In fact, the basis of weather forecasting is looking from a satellite and seeing a storm coming, but not predicting that the storm will form. The behavior of economic phenomena is far more complicated than the behavior of liquids or gases."

Taleb's fear is chilling: "Now you understand why I'm worried. I hope I'm wrong. I wake up every morning -- actually, I don't wake up every morning now. I start to wake up at night the last couple of weeks hoping that I'm wrong, begging to be wrong. I think that we may be experiencing something that is vastly worse than we think it is. ... Of all the books you read on globalization, they talk about efficiency, all that stuff. They don't get the point. The network effect of that globalization, OK, means that a shock in the system can have much larger consequences."

This is a British interview with Taleb on the same subject:



You can read the PBS interview: "Top Theorists Examine Rippling Economic Turbulence." You can also find a video link to the interview.