Rusted Sky

As I watch Obama, I see an incipient dictator plying his trade. First you have to persuade the people to get you into power.

There are, unfortunately, enough people who look at the "D" behind his name and think that's all they have to know. Their concept of Democrat is a lot like a sports team alignment - their feelings are a bit upset when their team doesn't win, but they know there's going to be another game, and then their team might do better. They might not like some of the players on the team, but they self-identify as Democrats and that's how they'll vote.

Then there's the ones who really, seriously WANT to control how other people live. The radical left, the radical right - both sides of the same coin. The thing is, the radical right shot their bolt back in the '80s with the "Moral Majority", and it wasn't much of a bolt in the first place. It's really hard to be authoritarian when you'll take "NO!" for an answer.

But in order to be a dictator, you've got to establish a mindset that encourages subordination to the will of the dictator. We've already seen, through Michelle Obama's proxy voice, how "he won't let you do things as you've been doing them." Today, another fine speech is coming to the fore, when he was playing to the crowd in Oregon -

"Pitching his message to Oregon's environmentally-conscious voters, Obama called on the United States to "lead by example" on global warming, and develop new technologies at home which could be exported to developing countries.

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," Obama said.

Note the theme, though. Sacrifice - so other countries will like us.

The radical left eats this up with a spoon. However, through environmentalism, global warming, and a host of 'good intentions' their plans and dreams could quite literally turn our civilization inside-out. We need energy - yet there's been very little in the way of feasable alternative energy coming down the pike. Windmills are all well and good - but not everyplace is good for them. Same with solar. Tidal? The same. Windfarms off the coast? Seriously slowed. ANWR is off limits, as is the oil shale in Colorado. The moratoriums on drilling off Florida and California are still in place. Nukes? Don't even go there.

Barak, it would seem, would follow them all - regardless of what people actually want.

We won't go into the various 'isms' that must be adhered to. Multiculturalism. Global Warmism. And in the end, fascism. Why that? Let's look at the definition.

Fascism is a government, faction, movement, or political philosophy that raises nationalism, and frequently race, above the individual and is characterized by a centralized autocratic state governed by a dictatorial head, stringent organization of the economy and society, and aggressive repression of opposition.[1] In addition to placing the interests of the individual as subordinate to that of the nation or race, fascism seeks to achieve a national rebirth by promoting cults of unity, energy and purity.

How is that not fascist?

The funny thing is - you don't get all the goodies and advancements of technological civilization which have made the radical left even POSSIBLE without cheap energy. It just doesn't happen. And the 'greens' have been fighting cheap energy for decades - with the result that cheap energy has gotten a LOT more expensive lately.

And that's where Obama comes in. The man's slick. Real slick. He knows how to play an audience, he knows how to get people to BELIEVE in empty rhetoric. And it doesn't help that people are frightened. Frightened people are easily manipulated - and tend not to think things through.

The average Joe gets bombarded with bad news daily. For the last 7 years it's been bad news after bad news. If it isn't a recession scare, it's global warming. If it isn't global warming, it's a mortgage crisis. If it isn't a mortgage crisis, it's trumpeting the latest unemployment numbers like they're the second coming of the Great Depression. Or pointing out over and over and over again how unprepared the government was for a Katrina-scale disaster. (Never mind that NAGIN never did what he was supposed to, and the LA government fell down on the job.) And if THAT plays out, they'll go with the missing photogenic bimbo of the week - anything to keep the tension on.

What does Obama offer? "Change" and "Hope". "We're not going to do the same old failed stuff!" But what constitutes a failure? Have we failed in Iraq? Or is it a failure - regardless of progress - if the media labels it so? All the 'failures' of the last 8 years are being directly laid on Bush and the Republicans... but are they failures, or not complete successes?

Does it matter? The point is to have people ready and primed for someone who can come in and 'save' them - through being granted extraordinary rights. He'll toss out all the old, failed stuff. And bring in new ideas, new thought... new ways of dealing with our enemies.

And that they don't work means little - it's the intentions that count for the Democrats. Appearance over substance. His INTENTIONS would be GOOD, and that's all that matters.

That's been all that's mattered for the left-supported dictatorships in the 20th Century. Why should things change now?

Obama in '08 - we need a dear leader for life!

J.