COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Saturday, October 18, 2008

"We're going to change the country and change the world."


Barack Obama vows to 'change the world'
Barack Obama has vowed that he will "change the world" even as he urged his supporters to guard against complacency.

By Toby Harnden in Londonderry, New Hampshire
Telegraph 18 Oct 2008

The supremely confident demeanour and exalted rhetoric of the Democratic nominee at a New Hampshire event betrayed that he is a man convinced he is poised to make history.

While his Republican opponent John McCain, trailing in the polls, is pursuing a strategy of eking out a victory in traditional swing states, Mr Obama is transferring resources to conservative strongholds like Georgia, West Virginia and even Kentucky in pursuit of a landslide victory.

Speaking in an apple orchard against the picture-perfect New England backdrop of an red, green and yellow autumn foliage on a stage adorned with pumpkins and hay bales, Mr Obama reminded voters of the dangers of hubris.

Polls indicated that the young Illinois senator was cruising towards a crushing victory over Hillary Clinton in the state's Democratic primary. His rallies were two or three times the size of hers. The media had declared him the victor, a conclusion shared by Obama aides.

On election day, however, Mrs Clinton won. "We are 19 days away from changing this country. Nineteen days away. But for those who are getting a little cocky, I've got two words for you: New Hampshire," said Mr Obama.

"I learned right here, with the help of my great friend and supporter Hillary Clinton, that you cannot let up, you can't pay too much attention to polls. We've got to keep making our case for change. We've got to keep fighting for every single vote. We've got to keep running through the finish line."

At a glitzy fundraising event in Manhattan at which Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel performed Mr Obama warned high-roller supporters: "Don't underestimate the capacity of Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Don't underestimate our ability to screw it up."

But much of Mr Obama's speech in Londonderry - punctuated by cries of "We all love you Obama", "I love you" and "We will work with you" - was devoted to the kind of quasi-religious sentiments and motivational-coach style exhortations, the kind of pride that set him up for a big fall in January.

"I want you to believe," said the candidate, clad in an open-necked shirt and barn jacket. "Not so much believe just in me but believe in yourselves. Believe in the future. Believe in the future we can build together. I'm confident together we can't fail."

There was a carnival atmosphere among the crowd of some 4,000, who almost drowned Mr Obama out as he reached his crescendo and said: "I promise you. We won't just win New Hampshire. We will win this election and, you and I together, we're going to change the country and change the world."

Mr Obama was described as "preternaturally confident" in a gushing endorsement by the Washington Post on Friday.

His supreme self-belief has also been the target of late-night comedians. "With just 19 days left until the election, Barack Obama warned supporters today to guard against overconfidence," Tina fey of Saturday Night Live reported.

"Then he boarded Air Force One, blasted 'We Are The Champions' and shouted 'I'm King of the World'."

Both Democrats and Republicans in New Hampshire appear convinced that Mr Obama will win.

"We feel we're on the brink of a whole new life in this country," said Betsy Whitman, 69.

"Sure, he'll win," said Marlene Hulme, 70, at the Londonderry event. "Our expectations were high today and he knocked it out of the park."

A lone McCain supporter at the rally said she too was convinced that the Republican nominee was finished. "McCain has lost," said Deborah Barnhart, 48, who runs a landscaping business.

"He's lost because the Messiah has spoken and we're going to change the world. That's all people want to hear after eight years of Bush. Obama thinks he's won. Everyone here thinks he's won."


39 comments:

  1. George Bush's legacy gift to the planet.

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  3. Measured by any reasonable risk/reward standard or by any historical standard of performance, Mr Bush has led the US to a worse position than he found it.

    I do not spend much time, jwillie, on the WTC scenarios, except when doug brings it up. It is not one of my storylines, it just dovetails into the greater thread.

    Four years ago, we were reading of a GOP realignment that would usher in a new age. Now I read that Obama and the Democrats will "Change the World". One assumes the folk supporting this change believe it for the better.

    Neither claim will be seen as accurate, in hidsight.
    But the election of McCain would not change the course the Country is on. No even by degrees.
    All that would change, the skits on SNL.

    The problem is not in the candidates, it is in the power and authority the Federals have usurped in the past 100 years, with an acceleration of centralization in the past 60 years, post WWII. How that is rolled back, that is the real question.

    Armed revolution will not be the answer. Ask Bill Ayers and his fellow travelers about that pathway to power. They abandoned it, and chose to game the existing System, instead.

    Judge their success, for yourselves.

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  4. 900-Pound Giant Squid Joins Cast Of 'The View'
    The View's sassy cephalopod opens up about life, love, and it's feud with Joy Behar.

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  5. As to Danny Ortega and his position in Managua.

    Ousted by Reagan's policies during Bush41's tenure in 1990.

    Out of power during the Clinton years

    Returning to power, in Nicaragua, on 5NOV06 in the midst of Team43's time on the field, Daniel Ortega returned in electoral victory. Garnering 37.99% of the votes cast, which he rode into the Presidental Office in Managua.

    The White House confirmed on 8 January 2007 that U.S. President Bush also had called Ortega to congratulate him on his election victory.

    wiki

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  7. pro-Barr

    2.2 Environment

    We support a clean and healthy environment and sensible use of our natural resources. Private landowners and conservation groups have a vested interest in maintaining natural resources. Pollution and misuse of resources cause damage to our ecosystem. Governments, unlike private businesses, are unaccountable for such damage done to our environment and have a terrible track record when it comes to environmental protection. Protecting the environment requires a clear definition and enforcement of individual rights in resources like land, water, air, and wildlife. Free markets and property rights stimulate the technological innovations and behavioral changes required to protect our environment and ecosystems. We realize that our planet's climate is constantly changing, but environmental advocates and social pressure are the most effective means of changing public behavior.

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  8. Obama: Overselling to the very end:
    We will win this election and, you and I together, we're going to change the country and change the world."

    How can the man possibly deliver on his promises? He has sown the seed of hope but the fruit could very well be dashed hopes and faith in government and a more cynical, desperate electorate.

    Obama is either very naive or shameless.

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  9. Fan reaction to the giant aquatic invertebrate has been mostly positive. A recent ABC poll claims that the squid is connecting well with housewives and single mothers over 35.

    "I like the squid," said Chicago resident Anna Herskowitz, 46. "I really relate to it. More than I relate to Elisabeth Hasselbeck, anyway."

    Some viewers, however, have complained that the squid is too conservative. During an interview last week with Republican presidential candidate John McCain, the squid sat silently sprawled across the center of the studio and didn't ask the senator a single hard-hitting question.

    "That squid is there for one reason, and that's to push its right-wing conservative agenda," Denver, CO viewer Mary Foley said. "Come on, give us viewers a little credit here."

    Critics have also noticed some tension between the squid and the rest of the cast. The squid has been known to start arguments with Behar by wrapping one of its 27-foot tentacles around Behar's torso, lifting her into the air, and drawing her toward its powerful beak. The producers, however, say that such spur-of-the-moment conflict is what makes The View what it is, and that the attack was not personal.

    In an interview last Friday, Behar voiced her support of the creature.

    "We might argue on set—I might jokingly call the squid 'disgusting' or 'decomposing' or 'stupid,' and poke fun at its awful stench, and it might sometimes try to shred my body with its razor-sharp radula—but once the show is over, we're all friends," Behar said. "The squid even came to my daughter's piano recital."

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  10. That sounds like a pilot for a combined spinoff from Spongebob Squarepants and the Simpsons.

    Rumor has it that, Howdy Dougy has been approached for a starring role.

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  11. Obama: The Oak Grown from Acorn
    The radical group is front and center when it comes to voter fraud.

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  12. I ain't workin with Whoopi and Behar!

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  13. Worth noting this morning.
    Pakistan Strikes Militants.

    Militants Fighters who we dare not define lest we upset their supporters or coreligionists.

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  14. Doug:
    How do you like the left's pushback that this is not voter fraud?

    Okay, so technically its voter registration fraud. But as we all know, it certainly helps to steal an election when you have the fraudulent registrations in your pocket.

    Geez..

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  15. Oh, I forgot to add that the other pushback talking point is that these allegations are overblown and the actual proven cases of voter fraud are insignificant. In other words, "it ain't happenin', folks."

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  16. Oh, I see, this could explain the story about Pakistan's offensive against "militants."

    Pakistan Seeks Cash

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  17. Pakistan requires an immediate commitment of at least $2 billion to restore confidence in the country after an alarming slump in its foreign reserves, economists say. Up to $8 billion more will be needed to repay sovereign debts due to mature in 2009, they say.

    Perhaps General Musharraf can loan them the money.

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  18. The press doesn't want to specifically identify the militants attacked by Pakistan. "Afterall," they say, "They could be a group of fundamentalist, anti-abortion, Creationist Christianists. We just don't know and it would insensitive to attach labels."

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  19. I added the video clip above on Obama wanting to give illegals driver's licenses.

    Fact: The 19 terrorists involved in 9/11 obtained 13 driver’s licenses, as well as 21 federal or state-issued ID cards. Eight of the 9/11 terrorists were registered to vote.

    [Source: Wall Street Journal column by John Fund, Nov. 2, 2007]

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  20. Si, Senora.

    But I'm feeling a little better after I went back to bed.

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  21. Glad to hear it, but just in case, here you go:

    http://www.youtube.com/
    watch?v=z9opdQcowXs

    Que Sera, Sera

    A bit more jaunty than the original.

    Doris Day's gift to all humanity - along with a smile that can melt ice at 50 paces.













    It's Saturday, whit.

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  22. Unearthing the Weather Underground

    Many of these atrocities are recounted in an excellent article by Deroy Murdock recently posted on NRO. Several merit mention here for their all-out assault on the American legal system, our Armed Forces, and the democratic political process. In February 1970 the Weather Underground firebombed the home of John Murtagh, a New York City judge, with his entire family barely escaping the conflagration. On March 6 a massive nail bomb intended to kill and maim soldiers at Fort Dix, NJ prematurely detonated in a townhouse in Greenwich Village, killing three members, Ted Gold, Diana Oughton, and Terry Robbins, while two others, Katy Boudin and Cathy Wilkerson, managed to elude capture. “Operating under the logic that ‘the bigger the bang the better,’” Dan Berger notes, “the action was to be a pre-emptive strike against those who would soon drop bombs over Vietnam, thus ‘bringing the war home’ with all the intensity the slogan implied.”

    On May 10 the National Guard Headquarters in Washington, D.C. became a target, and in October a “Fall Offensive” commenced with attacks against the Long Island City Courthouse in Queens, NY and the Marin County Hall of Justice in California. There was no let up in the following years. On February 28, 1971 the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, DC was hit; in May, 1972 the Pentagon was bombed, causing tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage; and in May 1973 the 103RD Precinct of New York’s Finest was targeted. There were dozens of other attacks against federal offices, state corrections facilities, and corporate headquarters.



    A BLOODTHIRSTY VALKYRIE

    Bernardine Dohrn, as many readers know, is not only Bill Ayers wife but was a prominent leader of the Weather Underground. She has flown below the radar screen in much of the recent discussion about Ayers and Obama, yet she emerges as a bloodthirsty Valkyrie in Berger’s book, which plumbs the depths of her depravity. At the 1969 “War Council” in Flint she expressed solidarity with, of all people, Charles Manson. As Berger retells it, “raising three fingers to signify the fork used as a murder weapon by the Manson ‘family,’ speaker Dohrn praised the recent murders in Los Angeles.” In May 1970 she was the sole signatory of “A Declaration of a State of War” aimed at the United States, which asserted that “[w]ithin the next fourteen days we will attack a symbol or institution of Amerikan injustice.” True to her word, the Weather Underground bombed the New York City Police Headquarters. She signed the communiqué that followed, which boasted, “[e]very time the pigs think they’ve stopped us, we come back a little stronger and a lot smarter.

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  23. Que Sarah, Sarah, Indeed!

    Drives cultural elitist snobs like Chrissie Buckley and Peg Nooner, and Buttfuck Brock, stark raving nutso.
    Prostituting the lifetime "conservatism" at the Alter of the Messiah.

    Dumb Fuck Ivy League Whores.

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  24. "their lifetime "conservatism""

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  25. Which was preceded by Friday and some outstanding mojitos in some awfully good company.

    I'm set to be blithe until it starts raining.

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  26. I think I'll join you, Senora.

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  27. See the USA in your Chevrolet, Corvette.

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  28. How did you know? I love that version of the song, Doug.

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  29. IZ. It's the acoustic guitar. Sweet and simple.





    And while we're on the subject of the uplifting:

    http://www.youtube.com/
    watch?v=II0aUmRrZ4s

    It plays on television and radio every day here at 6PM. And for the rest of my life will send shivers down my spine. (Or a tingle up my leg?)

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  30. Barry says they're mean to Labor Organizers.
    Shame!

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