Obamamania

February 12, 2007
     You've really got to feel sorry for whoever gets sworn in as president in 2009. Whichever of the candidates gets there, he or she will be walking into a shit storm of trouble much worse than the domestic political turmoil that Lincoln faced in 1861.

      By January 2009 we will surely be reeling from the "work out" of peak financial excess represented by the hedge fund fiesta and the reckless mortgage fiasco (from which the housing industry as we have known it will never recover). By 1/20/09 (inauguration day) the global oil crisis will be accepted as self-evident even by Cambridge Energy Research Associates (and its clients in the oil industry). By 1/20/09, we will have gone through two more global warming hurricane seasons. By 1/20/09 we will have spent several hundred billion dollars more maintaining our garrisons in the Middle East and elsewhere -- and the strategic concerns that have required them will still be there.

     This translates into severe socioeconomic hardship at home and deteriorating influence on the geopolitical scene. Under the circumstances, Senator Barack Obama seemed perhaps oddly serene in last night's interview on CBS's "60 Minutes" with newsman Steve Kroft. It was not an idle, unmindful serenity, though. Obama, who spent many childhood years in Hawaii, seems to know what it's like to stand on the beach and watch a killer wave roll in. Just knowing that the killer wave is only one in an infinite succession of waves that will roll in eternally lends more dimension to this essentially tragic view -- and the tragic hero is typically the person required by destiny to get hammered by the killer wave, but goes forth to greet it anyway. Perhaps Obama's most appealing quality is his stoicism in the face of this awful assignment.

     His most telling answer was to Kroft's question: "Why are you in such a hurry to become president?" Obama replied succinctly that "we may not have ten years" to get our national act back together. By saying this, he managed to get across what most Americans over eleven years of age must suspect in their heart-of-hearts, no matter how hard they are partying, or working to cover their re-set mortgage, or praying to Jesus for a winning lottery ticket: that circumstances will compel us to live differently, whether we like it or not.

    Obama's stoicism extends into the minefield of race. He typically refuses to act as a shit-magnet for white America's obsessive guilt, especially the discomfort of "progressives" ever-desperate to prove their moral rectitude by groveling, patronizing, pandering, and disingenuously dancing the brotherhood shuffle. (The recent dust-up over Senator Biden's use of the word "articulate" in reference to Obama was a typical case of whites' discomfort with the inherent contradictions of their own "diversity" politics, with its separate-but-equal language code.) I would also like to be a fly on the wall of the figurative woodshed when Obama has a one-to-one with somebody like Al Sharpton.

     For the record, Obama would be older on inauguration than several other presidents were, and he will have had more political experience than one-term congressman Abe Lincoln.

      I would like to be a fly on the wall of the deluxe hotel suite where Senator Hillary tries to shake down Obama with the offer of a vice-president slot on her ticket. Never will Hillary's mouth scrunch into a tighter rictus as in the moment when he stoically tells her to go get fucked (so to speak).

     Anyway, Obama's moment of launching has now come and gone. He flared off the pad in Springfield, Ill., last week and now the focus has to shift on what he actually thinks about this country and the behavior of its citizens. For now, he comes off as a straight-talking, competent person, comfortable in a difficult role -- and in these times of disappointment with virtually all authority figures, this is enough to inspire near-hysteria.

      There will not have been a longer election campaign season in our history. We have all of this year and most of next to endure before the levers are pulled, or the chads punched, or the touch screens touched -- or whatever new fucked-up technology we devise for voting. The candidates (including Obama) may run out of things to say, or they may be overwhelmed by events. A dark horse may emerge from some surprising quarter and steal their thunder. Maybe next December 24th, Santa Claus will declare he's available for the job. (Americans would like that!) A nuke may go off in an uninspected shipping container in some port city. George W. Bush might impose a 50-cent-per-gallon war tax surcharge on the gas pumps. Who knows. . . ?

Comments

[Dumas]

Mr. Kunstler is well known for, ahhh..."controversial" predictions, so this is the perfect forum for such.

Dem ticket for 2008, will win by a landslide: Gorabama.

You heard it here first.

[grok]

My pick is Edwards-Obama.

[kd]

My thought/hope exactly, Dumas.

Possible dark horses?

[Patrick]

Interesting post--I just wonder how Obama and other anti-war candidates will be seen if Bush and friends decide on some sort of military action in Iran.

If something like that happens and we're fighting three wars (Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran) by the time the general election rolls around--an anti-war candidate might seem a risky bet for the rally-round-the-flag majority.

[Euthydemos in Athens, GA]

OT slightly, but I couldnt resist posting this as well:

"Housing starts will merit more attention than usual after last week’s bombshells about bad home loans and slower orders for new homes. Britain’s HSBC Holdings Plc warned of rising defaults in its U.S. mortgage business that caters to Americans with poor credit histories, while luxury home builder Toll Brothers Inc. projected a 19 percent drop in home-building revenue in the first quarter."

From MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17072819/

[Rostig Louis]

Why do you people worship this stupid black man? Is your civilization and party and people so lame that this is the best you could come up with? What a bunch of stupid liberals you all are.

[Isaac]

Patrick-
If Bush rolls into Iran anytime soon, I'm quite sure that by 2008 an anti-war candidate would win by a landslide.

[walt]

Obama can't save us. No one person can.

What we have to do is fight The Big Lie that controls the political discourse in this country. They control the media, the spin, the discussion. If there's a loony Alice-in-Wonderland aspect to our political debate, this is the reason.

We can pretend "our" issues will somehow rise to the top. Really? How?

[Isaac]

Hey troll, a.k.a. Rostig Louis

Who the fuck said anything about worshipping Obama? I read some speculation about what he might face as president.

Learn to think, dipshit.

[dangerbird]

As usual, super-revved-up-hyper-hyperbolic-hyperbole is your operating procedure. Domestic turmoil worse than 1861?! You're dreaming. What a demagogic delusionoid. Where's the armed, uniformed, secessionist rebellion, brilliant boy? The Dixie Chicks? Is that all you've got?

Well Jimmy. You wouldn't be the first to count us out. Nor will you be the last loop-di-loo on a stump predicting an end that is nigh. But like the herd of loons in the past, you are, and will be just as wrong. So quack on, loon. Maybe you can eventually join Art Bell on overnight talk radio. Thats the place where discredited, insane, incessant, and always wrong predicters go. The two of you could salve each other over how you saved the planet from a Y2K disaster. At least you can take comfort in knowing that you will always have something of a fan base for your daily deusional drippings.

I'm not predicting elections here. Nor your and your colleague's ability to whip up a mob into a frenzy enough to manufacture some crisis or another. Stop all oil exploration in this country, denounce alternatives, stand in the way of nuclear energy, etc. etc. etc., and then declare an energy crisis. Priceless.

The cost to undo the damage you are doing. Possibly incalculable. But thats probably okay with you. Judging by your stated sentiments, you want to destroy the present order, which you think is defined only by suburbia. Thats nothing new either. In the ongoing war against supposed bourgeois sensibilities, Suburbia is just the latest battleground. Same song different era. Keep on singing, Jimmy. Your little ditty of doom is always a good seller. Right next to the Che Guevera, and Manson t-shirts.

[Isaac]

walt-
The Big Lie machine couldn't stop 70% of the country from being against the war, despite their best efforts. It couldn't stop the public from turning on Bush either.

An already irrelevant institution is starting to be seen as that, more and more.

[bulldozer]

It took Lincoln a lot of delicate talk to get the Abolition of Slavery rolling. Revisionists and Confederate Apologists use this as an excuse to say the Civil War wasn't about Slavery.

Is it possible for a candidate to be elected President by speaking candidly and directly about the real challenges the United States faces, and the real shortcomings it contains?

[Carolyn Damon]

Well, now that we have bashed liberals, Obama, and the dire predictions, it seems to me that what got us to the edge of this precipice is a group of elitist, authoritarian, conservative white men bent on catering to the military oligarchy of this country, in order to collect some the spoils dripping down to them. Keep yakking, no one is listening to you anymore. "brittany"

[Cleveland Bob]

Regardless of one's personal affinity for or against Sen. Obama, there remains a looming threat to his candidacy.

He's a man of color and he inspires people to dream of lofty goals and aspirations. These kinds of dreams make some people very angry.

My prediction? He'll be murdered on the campaign trail by some sociopath who at this very moment is plotting his heinous strategy.

And then we'll unfortunately have St. John McCain to swoop in and be our 44th CIC. Sad, but true.

Here endeth the lesson.

[Robert]

How about the diminishing returns of blogs? Every oinker gets his snort in...oink! :)

[Dumas]

Dear kd,

I'm not 100% up and current in US races, just handicaps them as I sees them.

Hillie Filly is weighed down by hubby-jockey and the Obama Whamma is strictly long-odds with the general admission crowd down at the ringside.

Now, Gorabama is a good win-show duo. Comfort, nostalgia and justice for past unfairness in Gore - progressive, hip and hope on the O'Baughma side. I even hear he comes from County Cork (grin).

Regards

[Robert]

"Obama can't save us. No one person can."

it'll be a crucial time for a halfway conscious leader no matter what, every little bit will count

[bestwishes]

sadly, Cleveland Bob, i think you might be right.

this one (from jhk) had me laughing out loud:

"Never will Hillary's mouth scrunch into a tighter rictus as in the moment when he stoically tells her to go get fucked (so to speak)."

he really hates hilary. i don't much care for her myself, but i think jhk has ex-wife issues.

dangerbird says:

"So quack on, loon. Maybe you can eventually join Art Bell on overnight talk radio. Thats the place where discredited, insane, incessant, and always wrong predicters go. "

and then later:

"The cost to undo the damage you are doing. Possibly incalculable..."

dangerbird, i am trying to square this up so i can understand your point of view. can you tune us up here at cfn regarding the state of the US economy, the health of our representative democracy, or maybe the texture of american culture ten years from now after we explore the tundra, nuke up, and keep islamia safe for american interests ???

[one Eye Open]

"My prediction? He'll be murdered on the campaign trail by some sociopath who at this very moment is plotting his heinous strategy."

Hey Cleveland Bob,

Shut the fuck up. That is just the type of speculation we do not need. It is irrresponsible to the nth degree and only encourages nut jobs. It is also time for the fucking idiots in the press to stop putting the question to Mr. Obama about his fears of such an event happening. I mean I know a nice little assasination or an attempt at such would help them sell some newspapers or Viagra or whatever but give me a fucking break.

Rostig,

Stupid black man? Do a little homework. You may not agree with him but that does not make him stupid. You, on the other hand, appear to be pretty fucking STOOPID.

[Cleveland Bob]

BTW,

Did anyone else notice that rostig's email address is:

rostiglouis@tacobell.com

Taco Bell? Really? Wow, he's a regular Anthony Bourdain.

[Barry]

OEO - kudos!!

[Cleveland Bob]

"Shut the fuck up. That is just the type of speculation we do not need. It is irrresponsible to the nth degree and only encourages nut jobs".

=============================

Umm. Yeah, right. My comments on CFN are the tipping point that will put some mouth breather over the top.

[Ken]

"George W. Bush might impose a 50-cent-per-gallon war tax surcharge on the gas pumps. Who knows. . . ?"

Well Jim, we have a fuel tax that is close to $5.00 a gallon in the UK.

Current fuel price is around $6.50 per gallon,and our "sky has not fallen in yet", life goes on as usual, we just drive smaller, less thirsty cars

Saw UK TV pictures last night from New Orleans taken last summer showing the post Katrina devastation, it is clear that the current Administration has done nothing to clear up down there, with 15 mile tracts of suburbia, reduced to matchwood. Has this all been swept under the carpet - does the plight of the Katrina victims still make primetime TV news?

I hope Bush does something to tidy his own back yard, before he starts manoeuvring his position to justify a military strike on Iran - but all the right making political noises are being made.

2007 to 2009 may prove to be an eventful 24 months.

[Weaseldog]

http://www.upi.com/International_Intelligence/20070208-100038-4021r/

At a farewell reception at Blair House for the retiring chief of protocol, Don Ensenat, who was President Bush's Yale roommate, the president shook hands with Washington Life Magazine's Soroush Shehabi. "I'm the grandson of one of the late Shah's ministers," said Soroush, "and I simply want to say one U.S. bomb on Iran and the regime we all despise will remain in power for another 20 or 30 years and 70 million Iranians will become radicalized."

"I know," President Bush answered.

"But does Vice President Cheney know?" asked Soroush.

President Bush chuckled and walked away.

[one Eye Open]

"My comments on CFN are the tipping point that will put some mouth breather over the top."

Hey fucklips,

It is the stupid, day in and day out conjectures, of moronic pinheads like yourself, that start out like the cute chirpings of a cricket and end with the maelstrom of a locust infestation.

I don't care where the insinuation is made it is picked up by the wind and falls on the ears of the deranged who find succor in the thought that the siren call they initially imagined has taken form in the pages of their favorite papers or on the screens of their preferential blogs. So, shut the fuck up. Little snipers have big ears. Nuf said.