11/27/2013
DEOS ESCRIVE DIREITO
GOAFS II: #70
DE0S ESCRIVE DIRIETO
11.27.13
Thanksgiving,
2013
Some
years ago when Joan’s Uncle Andy had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and
was in the not very long process of dying, I did some illustrations on the
computer and labeled them “Eternity.”
Eternity
#5
At
the same time I wrote a poem:
UNCLE
ANDY
And
he showed me a pure river of water of life,
clear
as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God
and
of the Lamb. Revelation 22.1
The
dark ring slowly closes
Around
his flickering fire.
The
coals are slowly growing cold
Like
all of life's desire.
Outside
the shrinking ring of light
Lupine
eyes are glowing bright.
The
smoky souls of ancient trees
First
burn his eyes then usher in
Troops
of dancing memories
Of things
that were and other things
That
might have been.
Time
flees away before his eyes
That
day by day are growing dim.
Words
move too fast for his slow ears
His
sleep is troubled by a host of fears.
And
so he prays by night and day
And
sings the Psalms that make it clear
In
Jesus' fold he need not fear.
Just
when the future's narrowed
To a
point, and darkness seems complete
He
steps across and sees the Son
And
worships at His piercéd feet
And
shouts with joy for all things new
That
faith has always held are true.
He
walks the streets of gold like glass
While
endless ages slowly pass
And
time, though passing, never presses
For
He who made him always blesses.
8/03
About
this same time I stumbled across Dana Gioia. He is a modern poet of some
substance. Google him and read about it on Wikepedia. Few modern poets have
anything to say to the man on the street, with the possible exception of a few
rappers. Here is his poem that sticks with me and relates:
The future shrinks
Whether the past
Is well or badly spent.
We shape our lives
Although the forms
Are never what we meant.
The older I get the more this truth
becomes self-evident.
One more piece completes these
thoughts. It is an old Portuguese proverb:
As
we celebrate Thanksgiving this year, let us not forget who we are, Who God is,
what He is doing day by day, (He is busy writing straight along crooked
lines—whether we understand it all or not) and where it all ends.
Jerry
Sweers
cmudgeon@windstream.net
11/19/2013
SCHADENFREUD
GOAFS II: #69
FANTASTIC SUCCESS
11.20.13
"Schadenfreud" is a German word for which there is no exact English equivalent. It means, "the joy one feels at the misfortune or failure of others. Often as not it springs from "hubris," a Greek import which means, "the sinful pride or arrogance that causes someone to believe he has a godlike immunity to the rules of life." As we watch the long, slow-motion train wreck of President Obama's socialist dream, it is hard not to think of these two words. Obama's hubris exceeds that of any president in my memory and the conservatives schadenfreud is in full voice.
While it is easy to take pot-shots at the bloated, slow-moving target of affordable healthcare that is already neither affordable nor caring, we need to remember that it is a deadly serious business that is mocked, now, even by some of its creators and best friends. The attached article by Wayne Allen Root is a perspective on the dark side. He makes a very good case in saying that the mess we are sailing into is neither the product of ignorance nor of incompetence--but of the malign intention to drive America into the arms of the single-pay socialized medicine that we observe with horror in Canada, England and other progressive liberal countries.
Why Obamacare is a Fantastic Success
By Wayne Allyn Root
November 2013
There
are 2 major political parties in America. I’m a member of the naïve,
stupid, and cowardly one. I’m a Republican. How stupid is the GOP? They still
don’t get it. I told them 5 years ago, 2 books ago, a national bestseller ago
(“The Ultimate Obama Survival Guide”), and in hundreds of articles and
commentaries, that Obamacare was never meant to help America, or heal the sick,
or lower healthcare costs, or lower the debt, or expand the economy.
The GOP
needs to stop calling Obamacare a “trainwreck.” That
means it’s a mistake, or accident. That means it’s a gigantic flop, or failure.
It’s NOT. This is a brilliant, cynical, and purposeful attempt to damage
the U.S. economy, kill jobs, and bring down capitalism. It’s not a failure,
it’s Obama’s grand success. It’s not a “trainwreck,” Obamacare is a suicide
attack. He wants to hurt us, to bring us to our knees, to capitulate- so we
agree under duress to accept big government.
Obama’s
hero and mentor was Saul Alinsky- a radical Marxist intent on destroying
capitalism. Alinsky’s stated advice was to call the other guy “a
terrorist” to hide your own intensions. To scream that the other guy is
“ruining America,” while you are the one actually plotting the destruction of
America. To claim again and again…in every sentence of every speech…that you
are “saving the middle class,” while you are busy wiping out the middle class.
The GOP
is so stupid they can’t see it. There are no mistakes here. This is a planned purposeful attack. The telltale
sign isn’t the disastrous start to Obamacare. Or the devastating effect the new
taxes are having on the economy. Or the death of full-time jobs. Or the
overwhelming debt. Or the dramatic increases in health insurance rates. Or the
70% of doctors now thinking of retiring- bringing on a healthcare crisis of
unimaginable proportions. Forget all that.
The
real sign that this is a purposeful attack upon capitalism is how many Obama
administration members and Democratic Congressmen are openly calling Tea Party
Republicans and anyone who wants to stop Obamacare “terrorists.” There’s
the clue. Even the clueless GOP should be able to see that. They are calling
the reasonable people…the patriots…the people who believe in the
Constitution…the people who believe exactly what the Founding Fathers
believed…the people who want to take power away from corrupt politicians who
have put America $17 trillion in debt…terrorists?
That’s because they are Saul Alinsky-ing the GOP. The people
trying to purposely hurt America, capitalism and the middle class…are calling
the patriots by a terrible name to fool, confuse and distract the public.
Obamacare is a raving, rollicking, fantastic success. Stop calling it a failure. Here is what it was
created to do. It is succeeding on all counts.
#1) Obamacare was intended to bring about the
Marxist dream- redistribution of wealth. Rich people, small business owners, and the middle
class are being robbed, so that the money can be redistributed to poor people
(who vote Democrat). Think about it. If you’re rich or middle class, you now
have to pay for your own healthcare costs (at much higher rates) AND 40
million other people’s costs too (through massive tax increases). So you’re
stuck paying for both bills. You are left broke. Brilliant.
#2) Obamacare was intended to wipe out the middle
class and make them dependent on government. Think about it.
Even Obama’s IRS predicts that health insurance for a typical American family
by 2016 will be $20,000 per year. But how would middle class Americans pay that
bill and have anything left for food or housing or living? People that make
$40K, or $50K, or $60K can’t possibly hope to spend $20K on health insurance
without becoming homeless. Bingo. That’s how you make middle class people
dependent on government. That’s how you make everyone addicted to government
checks. Brilliant.
#3) As a bonus, Obamacare is intended to kill every
decent paying job in the economy, creating only crummy, crappy part-time jobs. Why? Just to make sure the
middle class is trapped, with no way out. Just to make sure no one has the
$20,000 per year to pay for health insurance, thereby guaranteeing they become
wards of the state. Brilliant.
#4) Obamacare is intended to bankrupt small
business, and therefore starve donations to the GOP. Think
about it. Do you know a small business owner? I know hundreds of them. Their
rates are being doubled, tripled and quadrupled by Obamacare. Guess who writes
75% of the checks to Republican candidates and conservative causes? Small
business. Even if a small business owner manages to survive, he or she
certainly can’t write a big check to the GOP anymore. Money is the “mother’s
milk” of politics. Without donations, a political party ceases to exist. Bingo.
That’s the point of Obamacare. Obama is bankrupting his political opposition
and drying up donations to the GOP. Brilliant.
#5) Obamacare is intended to make the IRS
all-powerful. It adds thousands of new IRS agents. It puts
the IRS in charge of overseeing 15% of the U.S. economy. The IRS has the right
because of Obamacare to snoop into every aspect of your life, to go into your
bank accounts, to fine you, to frighten you, to intimidate you. And Obama and
his socialist cabal have access to your deepest medical secrets. By law your
doctor has to ask your sexual history. That information is now in the hands of
Obama and the IRS to blackmail GOP candidates into either not running, or
supporting bigger government, or leaking the info and ruining your campaign. Or
have you forgotten the IRS harassed, intimidated and persecuted critics of
Obama and conservative groups? Now Obama hands the IRS even more power. Big
Brother rules our lives. Brilliant.
#6) Obamacare is intended to unionize 15 million
healthcare workers. That
produces $15 billion in new union dues. That money goes to fund Democratic
candidates and socialist causes- thereby guaranteeing Obama’s friends never
lose another election, and Obama’s policies keep ruining capitalism and
bankrupting business owners long after he’s out of office.
Message
to the GOP: This isn’t a game. This isn’t
tiddly-winks. This is a serious, purposeful attempt to highjack America
and destroy capitalism. This isn’t a train wreck. It’s purposeful suicide.
It’s not failing, it’s working exactly according to plan. Obama knows what he’s
doing. Stop apologizing and start fighting.
Oh and one more thing…Conservatives aren’t “terrorists.” We
are patriots and saviors. We represent the Constitution and the Founding
Fathers. We are the heroes and good guys. Unless you get all this through
your thick skulls, America is lost…forever.
+++++++++++++++
Wayne Allyn Root (born July 20, 1961) is an American politician, entrepreneur,
television and radio personality, author, and political commentator. He was the 2008 Libertarian
Party (LP) vice-presidential nominee. Root is a former CNBC host and anchorman, and a columnist and commentator for FoxNews.com. His political talk radio show, W.A.R: The Wayne
Allyn Root Show is broadcast in New York City, Los
Angeles and Chicago. Root is a frequent guest on several nationally syndicated radio shows such as Savage Nation, The
Jerry Doyle Show, and Mancow's
Morning Madhouse. He makes frequent appearances
on various programs on the Fox News Channel, and is a frequent speaker at Tea Party events across the United States.
Root's political columns appear
on various conservative web sites, including FoxNews.com, TheBlaze.com, HumanEvents.com, Townhall.com, Breitbart.com, Dailycaller.com, PersonalLiberty.com, Newsmax.com, as well as The
Washington Times and Las
Vegas Review Journal.
At the 2008
Libertarian National Convention, Root
was eliminated on the fifth ballot in a bid for the party's presidential
nomination. He subsequently became the 2008 LP vice presidential candidate
alongside Libertarian nominee Bob Barr. In 2010, Root was elected to the Libertarian National
Committee (LNC)and re-elected in 2012. He resigned from that position later
that year to rejoin the Republican Party. Root endorsed Mitt Romney on Fox News
in September. He was later named as Executive Vice Chairman of The Conservative
Caucus (TCC) in Washington
D.C.
Root has announced he is
exploring a run as a Republican for U.S. Senate in Nevada in 2016. From Wikipedia
JERRY SWEERS
cmudgeon@windstream.net
11/13/2013
THE TITANIC
GOAFS II: #68
THE TITANIC
11.13.13
These are days that are ripe with metaphors. Last week I gave
you a mildly scatological one. This week’s metaphor will be a historical. As we have watched
wheels come off the progressive socialist utopian dream night after night on
the evening news, the sinking of the Titanic has come to mind. Each evening,
the monstrosity called Obama Care disintegrates a little more.
Here are a few parallels.
First, the
Titanic was doomed from the moment it struck the iceberg at 11.14 PM on the
night of 14 April 1912. It took just a little less than three hours to sink.
History will finally be the judge but given the fact that the
Affordable? Healthcare? Bill (The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) was
constructed behind closed doors, not read by anyone in the house or Senate, and
rammed through the Senate without a single Republican Vote in 2010, it is not a
stretch to suggest it was doomed from the beginning as well.
Second, The
Titanic cost $7.5 million dollars to build and was supposed to be state of art,
absolutely unsinkable.
The cost of the Obamacare website alone will soon sail past
this at flank speed and that doesn’t even count the overall Affordable?
Healthcare? costs that are rapidly expanding in every direction.
Third, there
was plenty of blame to go around when the ship sunk. The Captain was on his
final voyage before retirement and in a big hurry because the Managing Director
of the White Star Line was aboard and insisting on a record time for the
crossing. The Captain did not take the fundamental precautions demanded,
ignored 7 iceberg warnings, and refused to slow down in thick fog. The
shipbuilder used substandard rivets that failed under pressure. The architect
was forbidden to extend his waterproof bulkheads high enough—because the owners
wanted more first class space. All together the catastrophe was a lethal
compound of human arrogance, incompetence, greed and ignorance.
I will leave it to you to make the comparison with Obamacare.
It has been loaded with all these things from the beginning.
Fourth, the
ship was designed to carry 64 lifeboats that would each carry 65 people. (4160
passengers—there were only 2223 passengers and crew on this trip) It actually
only had 20 lifeboats and the first one off the ship had only 28 passengers. It
was estimated that 50% of the total passengers on board could have been saved
had all 20 lifeboats carried 30 or more passengers. Actually only 31.6% of the
passengers and crew survived.
There are obvious parallels with Obamacare. It was designed to
help everyone but shot through with mistakes, miscalculations, lies and
deceptions. It would be very generous to say the 30% of those it was intended to
help will probably be helped while most if not all of the remaining 70% will be
seriously damaged by government takeover healthcare that is now neither
affordable nor healthy.
Finally,
the most interesting parallel involves three captains. While
Captain E.J. Smith was making a speed run at night in heavy fog through
ice-berg infested waters, Captain Stanley Lord of the Californian, who had sent
the final iceberg warning to the Titanic had stopped for the night about 19
miles from the place the Titanic hit the iceberg. He had set a good watch with
lots of lights. His radio operator had turned off the radio and gone to bed. A
while later when his lookouts reported rockets, the Captain Lord assumed that
Captain Smith had done the only wise thing, and they were having party. Had
they turned on the radio, they would have heard the Titanic’s distress messages
and could have saved all of the passengers.
Today, the
Captain of the Good Ship Obamacare, worshipping his schedule above all other
considerations, has tied himself to the mast, lifted his regal chin into the
wind and shouted,” Damn the Republicans (and everyone else), full speed ahead.”
Some have suggested that President Obama’s Plan B is a single
payer plan that should look good to his ever gullible dependents after the
train-wreck in process has gone on long enough to destroy what was not perfect
but was clearly the world’s best medical care system. There are even some who
suggest this failure was part of the Presidents’ plan A all the time. I would
not disagree with these prognosticators, but I think the timing is pretty dicey
for the progressive liberals to hang in there with the big lie in order to retain
control of the Senate in November 2014 and then nationalize healthcare in Obama’s
last two years.
I suspect the massive miseries of ObamaCare are peaking too
soon. They are already putting the control of the Senate in 2014 at risk. Last
week 15 Democrats in the Senate went to the President on bended knees, pleading
for delay, long enough to get them re-elected next November. Thus far, it
appears their answer was some lofty weasel words followed by “Damn the
Republicans, full speed ahead.”
This week even the Democrats who are not at risk in 2014 are
seeing the light and beginning to take some action to forestall total disaster
for progressive liberalism.
Many
of you are old, like me, and on Medicare—probably resting in
the thought that the sinking of Obamacare will not cause waves big enough to
reach you. But beware; if the progressive liberals manage to ram through a
single-payer system, there won’t be nearly enough money or doctors, or
hospitals to go around—geezers like us will be at the top of the death panel’s
agenda every month. After all, when an unproductive 70 year old retiree needs a
hip replacement, why shouldn’t the scarce funds be used to provide one to a 50
year old IRS agent who is essential to the systematic extraction of the money
it takes to fund Leviathan?
If this is all news to you, and if you get your news from the networks
or CNN, you may not have heard there is a problem. Some of you may dislike Fox
News, but this would be a good time to give them a try.
JERRY SWEERS
cmudgeon@windstream.net
