Politicians

Obama’s 26-year-old Speechwriter, No Wonder!

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No wonder all of his speeches are shockingly naive and uninformed.

I just stumbled on an article from back in January that Newsweek did on the 26-year-old toddler who writes Obama’s speeches, Jon Favreau (no, not that one). Not that I’m biased against youth (being a little over 10 years older), but when so many important issues rely on having experience — and frankly more knowledge of history than what was freshly force-fed by reliably liberal professors — and when precious votes hang in the balance, I want someone with the seasoning of their own perspective to be putting ideas in people’s heads. Much as I wish this country could be full of the well-read and the historically-perceptive, oh, and the reality-tactile, it isn’t.

It follows, obviously, but should be pointed out, that this is precisely why Obama’s speeches are empty of ideas and perception of the real roots of these issues, and full of wide-eyed child-like liberal cluelessness (uh, when in doubt, put “change” down a lot, my professors said Bush was bad, so “change” will sound good).

By the way, in case you hadn’t read it in class, socialism doesn’t work (and frankly can’t without theism). I’ve lived in it and seen the bright awakening as the socialism turned to capitalism. When you live in it, and everyone around you is living witness to the rotten stagnation of it, you gain that valuable judgment experience I was discussing earlier. Thanks Jon, but page 457 of whatever textbook you’re working from only provides enough information to fool the uninformed. It’s not enough on the reality of peoples and governments to write intelligent campaign speeches to the knowing. Perhaps that’s the point. Sucker the suckers, their votes spend just as well, sadly.

When asked…

“What got you into politics, what got you interested?”

Favreau told him about the social service project he started in Worcester, defending the legal rights of welfare recipients as the state tried to move people off the rolls and into work.

Your witness.

Ich Bin Ein Beginner, Obama Spews People’s Party Bolshevik

Tickler 2 Comments

Listen to this…

“Now is the time to join together through constant cooperation and strong institutions and shared sacrifice and a global commitment to progress to meet the challenges of the 21st century.”

Is it suddenly 1917 Petrograd again? Is anyone listening to this? Here’s the translation for those who don’t speak liberal.

“Now is the time to join together through world government and mo’ better of that government. I’ll put America on the stick to sacrifice much more freedom and treasure, and we’ll do our best to weaken America so it can be less intimidating and on equal footing with Europe (and someday the paradise Kenya), to meet the challenges of defeating the formidable patriotic and hard-working folks on the U.S. Right.”

The Sock Puppet is reliving the halucinations from his father (or as best he can remember having spend 1 visit with him). Not sure why he chose to write a book with a title referencing a man he never knew, and by behavior shouldn’t have wanted to.

“This is the moment when we must build on wealth that opens markets have created and share its benefits more equitably.”

I don’t need to break that down for you. Government regulated and enforced wealth redistribution, in plain terms. I’m always surprised when liberals say this out in the open. I’m even more surprised we don’t all pick up rocks. Wake up America, this guy is as scary as they come.

Glenn Beck commented on that last quote as follows…

I’ve always wanted to be able to write music. I can’t write music. I can meet with composers and I can say, you know, I want it to feel like this, I want it to do this, but I cannot write music. Should John Williams share his creativity with me? Should he ‑‑ he’s got a wealth of strong writing ability. Should I force him to share that song writing ability more equitably? That’s his gift. He chooses to use it. I have met people with gifts of music, with gifts of business, with gifts of comedic talent, acting talent, business talent that don’t use it. It’s their loss. Shared prosperity, sharing the benefits more equitably. It goes against everything that America stood for. What we share is an idea and we want that idea to spread and, that is, man is free, man is free to create, man is free to do as he sees fit. That is the only thing that we should be sharing more equitably. We should be sharing it to every corner of the globe. We should be sharing it with everyone who will listen and if you don’t listen, that’s fine. You don’t want freedom, that’s fine. If your people want freedom, we stand with your people. If your people decide they don’t want freedom, they’re happy living under totalitarianism state, they’re happy handing their power back over to a totalitarian guilt of the like they do in Russia, that’s fine, but not here and we’ll continue to share that wealth of that idea that you can be successful, you can be happy, you can be rich, you can be poor, you can have all of the benefits because there is no end to wealth, there is no end to happiness. It is an infinite idea. It’s a never ending idea. It is as vast as the oceans and far beyond. Why should I share the oceans more equitably? There’s enough water in there for all of us. Stop diminishing the size. Stop telling me that the ocean is a pond. It’s not. Get into the water. It’s fine. You might need directions to the beach, but I ain’t putting a fence around that beach just for you. I’m not telling people who have been on that beach and use that beach and get into that water and swim and boat and water‑ski and turn it into energy, I’m not telling those people, no, no, no you can’t because someday these people may need that water brought to them because they can’t go to the beach, they don’t believe in the beach, they just want all the benefits of the beach. The only thing we share is an idea and a love of freedom.

Thanks Glenn. Well put.

(Credit to Michael Ramirez for the “ich bin…” line, clever fellow.)

Hard to Make Fun of Barry Obama? Nah.

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There’s a surprisingly entertaining op-ed in the L.A. (Left Apologist) Times today by Joel Stein, about the wonder boy-nerd. I knew I was going to enjoy this one when he lobs the first volley…

“…comedians have appeared on every news outlet to whine about how hard it is to make fun of Barack Obama. Really? They have an arsenal of jokes to use against a 71-year-old ex-POW cancer survivor and Obama is too touchy a subject?”

There are several really great points, here’s just a few…

“He’s A Nerd. …Compare Obama with other 46-year-olds and he’s Urkel. He’s the kid at the Model United Nations conference who says, “Guys, guys, c’mon. Let’s not make fun of Eastern Europe.” And the brutal truth is, even if women faint at your rallies, you’ll never feel cool inside when you have Alfred E. Neuman’s ears.”

“He’s ridiculously earnest. …Comedian Marc Maron does a really smart bit about how Obama stares out into the distance while giving a speech. “The first time you see him you’re like, ‘What’s he looking at?’ But then you’re like, ‘I don’t know, but it’s good and full of hope. And he’s the only one who can see it. If we vote for him, maybe he’ll take us there.’ ”

“He called his own grandmother a racist. We all have racist grandmothers, but we don’t brag about it to everyone. I like to imagine that his granny wasn’t that bad and that Obama was just super-sensitive. Like she would tell him it was bedtime and he’d yell, “Oh, I have to go to bed because I’m black!” Or she’d tell him to clean up his room and he’d start yelling, “Oh, clean my room, huh? My people stopped obeying the white woman 100 years ago, Grammy!” Then they’d both laugh and she’d whip him.”

I know it’s nit-picky on my part, but I should share my personal favorite of B.O.’s presentation flaws: his hard left, hard right, hard left, hard right head movements while delivering his ethereal speeches (of course ethereal in the insubstantial, not heavenly, meaning). Perhaps it’s in his script.

  1. Look down as if to read from the podium (don’t worry it’s on the teleprompters)
  2. Lift head looking to the hard right, teleprompter #1
  3. Deliver half the sentence
  4. Whip head hard left (with the urgency of change!), pick someone adoring in audience, preferably female (to feed your ego delivery)
  5. Deliver second half of the sentence off of teleprompter #2
  6. Whip head hard right again. Rinse. Repeat.
  7. When finished, be sure to shake hands in the middle to regain folks who got nothing but profiles for 20 minutes

He’s a sock-puppet. Anyway, read the article, not to be missed.

Obama’s Grand Energy Plan…

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Here’s the word for word on his latest ad…

On gas prices, John McCain’s part of the problem. He and Bush support a drilling plan that won’t produce a drop of oil for seven years. McCain will give more tax breaks to big oil. He’s voted with Bush 95% of the time. Barack Obama will make energy independence an urgent priority, raise mileage standards, fast-track technology for alternative fuels, a $1,000 tax cut to help families as we break the grip of foreign oil. A royal plan and new energy.

“…Obama will make energy independence an urgent priority…” – Wow, if only it were that simple greenhorn.

“…Raise mileage standards…”

Wow, great idea. Once again, if only it were that simple greenhorn.

“…Fast-track technology for alternative fuels”

What, like ethanol, which practically takes as much energy to produce as it provides? Oh, and that production energy comes from oil because the Left is afraid of nuclear. Make no mistake, I’m ALL about alternative energy and the environment, (that and animal rights are categories on which I tend to agree more with the Left), but stating the generalities makes his clear lack of ideas painfully obvious. And what’s worse, he obviously hasn’t been able to hire anyone with ideas or his rhetoric would eventually present one. Fishing from an empty idea pond…

“…a $1,000 tax cut to help families…”

Throw out one from the Right strategy of lower taxes to seem reasonable and score points, before it counts. They’re so out of ideas that they’re using ones from the Right?

The Left must know their candidate has the same leadership experience, but less street smarts, than his driver, but that bed’s made and that’s the best they could do (giggle). That said, it’s not all that different from the Right. No idea how it happened, but we ended up with the worst of the initial bunch (save Paulson). McCain’s in dire need of someone with some economic savvy and real world experience in the private sector (Romney).

All I know is that as oblivious (i.e. Left) as McCain is on many subjects, he’s significantly less dangerous than the horror of letting a blind-eye to history Soros-sock-puppet pull this country’s pants down.

Kenyan Economist: Stop The Aid To Africa!

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There’s a incredibly insightful article in Spiegel about the damage foreign aid brings to third world countries in very plain language. These are things I and others have been saying for years, but when you have an economist from Kenya saying the same, maybe people will believe it now.

The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem.

SPIEGEL:

Mr. Shikwati, the G8 summit at Gleneagles is about to beef up the development aid for Africa…

Shikwati: … for God’s sake, please just stop.

SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty.

Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If the industrial nations really want to help the Africans, they should finally terminate this awful aid. The countries that have collected the most development aid are also the ones that are in the worst shape. Despite the billions that have poured in to Africa, the continent remains poor.

SPIEGEL: Do you have an explanation for this paradox?

Shikwati: Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa’s problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn’t even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.

SPIEGEL: Even in a country like Kenya, people are starving to death each year. Someone has got to help them.

Shikwati: But it has to be the Kenyans themselves who help these people. When there’s a drought in a region of Kenya, our corrupt politicians reflexively cry out for more help. This call then reaches the United Nations World Food Program — which is a massive agency of apparatchiks who are in the absurd situation of, on the one hand, being dedicated to the fight against hunger while, on the other hand, being faced with unemployment were hunger actually eliminated. It’s only natural that they willingly accept the plea for more help. And it’s not uncommon that they demand a little more money than the respective African government originally requested. They then forward that request to their headquarters, and before long, several thousands tons of corn are shipped to Africa …

SPIEGEL: … corn that predominantly comes from highly-subsidized European and American farmers …

Shikwati: … and at some point, this corn ends up in the harbor of Mombasa. A portion of the corn often goes directly into the hands of unsrupulous politicians who then pass it on to their own tribe to boost their next election campaign. Another portion of the shipment ends up on the black market where the corn is dumped at extremely low prices. Local farmers may as well put down their hoes right away; no one can compete with the UN’s World Food Program. And because the farmers go under in the face of this pressure, Kenya would have no reserves to draw on if there actually were a famine next year. It’s a simple but fatal cycle.

SPIEGEL: If the World Food Program didn’t do anything, the people would starve.

Shikwati: I don’t think so. In such a case, the Kenyans, for a change, would be forced to initiate trade relations with Uganda or Tanzania, and buy their food there. This type of trade is vital for Africa. It would force us to improve our own infrastructure, while making national borders — drawn by the Europeans by the way — more permeable. It would also force us to establish laws favoring market economy.

SPIEGEL: Would Africa actually be able to solve these problems on its own?

Shikwati: Of course. Hunger should not be a problem in most of the countries south of the Sahara. In addition, there are vast natural resources: oil, gold, diamonds. Africa is always only portrayed as a continent of suffering, but most figures are vastly exaggerated. In the industrial nations, there’s a sense that Africa would go under without development aid. But believe me, Africa existed before you Europeans came along. And we didn’t do all that poorly either.

SPIEGEL: But AIDS didn’t exist at that time.

Shikwati: If one were to believe all the horrorifying reports, then all Kenyans should actually be dead by now. But now, tests are being carried out everywhere, and it turns out that the figures were vastly exaggerated. It’s not three million Kenyans that are infected. All of the sudden, it’s only about one million. Malaria is just as much of a problem, but people rarely talk about that.

SPIEGEL: And why’s that?

Shikwati: AIDS is big business, maybe Africa’s biggest business. There’s nothing else that can generate as much aid money as shocking figures on AIDS. AIDS is a political disease here, and we should be very skeptical.

SPIEGEL: The Americans and Europeans have frozen funds previously pledged to Kenya. The country is too corrupt, they say.

Shikwati: I am afraid, though, that the money will still be transfered before long. After all, it has to go somewhere. Unfortunately, the Europeans’ devastating urge to do good can no longer be countered with reason. It makes no sense whatsoever that directly after the new Kenyan government was elected — a leadership change that ended the dictatorship of Daniel arap Mois — the faucets were suddenly opened and streams of money poured into the country.

SPIEGEL: Such aid is usually earmarked for a specific objective, though.

Shikwati: That doesn’t change anything. Millions of dollars earmarked for the fight against AIDS are still stashed away in Kenyan bank accounts and have not been spent. Our politicians were overwhelmed with money, and they try to siphon off as much as possible. The late tyrant of the Central African Republic, Jean Bedel Bokassa, cynically summed it up by saying: “The French government pays for everything in our country. We ask the French for money. We get it, and then we waste it.”

SPIEGEL: In the West, there are many compassionate citizens wanting to help Africa. Each year, they donate money and pack their old clothes into collection bags …

Shikwati: … and they flood our markets with that stuff. We can buy these donated clothes cheaply at our so-called Mitumba markets. There are Germans who spend a few dollars to get used Bayern Munich or Werder Bremen jerseys, in other words, clothes that that some German kids sent to Africa for a good cause. After buying these jerseys, they auction them off at Ebay and send them back to Germany — for three times the price. That’s insanity …

SPIEGEL: … and hopefully an exception.

Shikwati: Why do we get these mountains of clothes? No one is freezing here. Instead, our tailors lose their livlihoods. They’re in the same position as our farmers. No one in the low-wage world of Africa can be cost-efficient enough to keep pace with donated products. In 1997, 137,000 workers were employed in Nigeria’s textile industry. By 2003, the figure had dropped to 57,000. The results are the same in all other areas where overwhelming helpfulness and fragile African markets collide.

SPIEGEL: Following World War II, Germany only managed to get back on its feet because the Americans poured money into the country through the Marshall Plan. Wouldn’t that qualify as successful development aid?Shikwati: In Germany’s case, only the destroyed infrastructure had to be repaired. Despite the economic crisis of the Weimar Republic, Germany was a highly- industrialized country before the war. The damages created by the tsunami in Thailand can also be fixed with a little money and some reconstruction aid. Africa, however, must take the first steps into modernity on its own. There must be a change in mentality. We have to stop perceiving ourselves as beggars. These days, Africans only perceive themselves as victims. On the other hand, no one can really picture an African as a businessman. In order to change the current situation, it would be helpful if the aid organizations were to pull out.

Shikwati: … jobs that were created artificially in the first place and that distort reality. Jobs with foreign aid organizations are, of course, quite popular, and they can be very selective in choosing the best people. When an aid organization needs a driver, dozens apply for the job. And because it’s unacceptable that the aid worker’s chauffeur only speaks his own tribal language, an applicant is needed who also speaks English fluently — and, ideally, one who is also well mannered. So you end up with some African biochemist driving an aid worker around, distributing European food, and forcing local farmers out of their jobs. That’s just crazy!

SPIEGEL: The German government takes pride in precisely monitoring the recipients of its funds.

Shikwati: And what’s the result? A disaster. The German government threw money right at Rwanda’s president Paul Kagame. This is a man who has the deaths of a million people on his conscience — people that his army killed in the neighboring country of Congo.

SPIEGEL: What are the Germans supposed to do?

Shikwati: If they really want to fight poverty, they should completely halt development aid and give Africa the opportunity to ensure its own survival. Currently, Africa is like a child that immediately cries for its babysitter when something goes wrong. Africa should stand on its own two feet.

Interview conducted by Thilo Thielke

Translated from the German by Patrick Kessler

READ IT HERE

SPIEGEL: If they did that, many jobs would be immediately lost …