How Barack Obama Will Ruin America
Think a fancy new President will fix everything? Think again.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news. But reports about America “turning the corner” and our country waking to the dawn of “a bold and brilliant new day” have really missed the mark. I cannot deny that history was made with the election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. But this milestone is not a good thing.
It may seem like a good thing because Oprah cried and Jesse Jackson cried and the Obama girls were promised a new puppy… but trust me, this is not good. In fact, if I may be so bold, I’d like to predict that our long national nightmare has just begun. Thanks to the record breaking efforts of a 52% majority, America has secured itself a first-class, one-way ticket to Total Armageddon.
Even worse? It’s not a direct flight. There are scheduled layovers in Pure Anarchy, Fiery Chaos, Sheer Agony, Bitter Disappointment and Lynchburg.
As you read this, you may be shaking your head in disbelief. That’s completely understandable. After all, the first stage of grief is shock and denial. I figured it wouldn’t be easy for most of you to accept the idea that your velvet-tongued harbinger of Hope and Change is actually a fork-tongued weasel in tailored slacks. But hopefully, once you absorb some of the evidence presented below, you will skip right to stage two: anger and drunken ranting.
According to a very close friend who works in Washington DC, Barack Obama will enact a super secret 5-point plan once he has assumed total control of the United States. My close friend was able to obtain a photocopy of this 5-point plan, which he promptly re-photocopied and transmitted via fax to my home office.
Barack Obama’s 5-Point Plan for Ruining America
1. Solve problems. Rather than launch costly foreign wars and attempt to rewrite the U.S. Constitution, Obama plans to fix things that are broken. His highfalutin’ plans include the economy, national health care, and clean energy. But what Mr. President-Elect fails to understand is that by seriously attacking these problems, he puts the country at risk of solving them all. What happens when all of our problems are solved? I’ll tell you what happens, people get bored. Then they get restless. And then they become cannibals.
2. Get smarter. You’d think the guy was smart enough already, but it seems like he has plans on getting even smarter. He plans to do this “learning” by reading newspapers, security briefs, and probably some heavy books without pictures. Apparently he will also find people who are even smarter than him, ask them questions, and listen to their answers. This kind of behavior will inspire the nation’s idiot population to better themselves. And once you thin the idiot population, there are likely to be much fewer new reality shows on television. Fewer reality shows on TV means more empty time slots for reruns of “CSI: Miami.” More “CSI: Miami” means more David Caruso. And prolonged exposure to David Caruso has been proven to cause infertility in women. What good is book learning when babies become extinct? Think about that.
3. Provide leadership. This one’s a doozy. It seems that Mr. Obama isn’t interested in becoming a cartoon character of ideological catchphrases and buffoonery. He’s genuinely interested in leading our nation with common sense, action, and vision. Great. You know what happens next? He gets us believing we can accomplish anything we put our minds to. And he gets us turning our dreams into reality… which is all innocent fun until little kids start dreaming that they can fly. How is “leadership” going to help when it starts raining 6-year-olds?
4. Mend foreign fences. Obama’s big idea is to substitute diplomacy and negotiation for those sweet-ass, computer-guided missiles. Instead of carpet-bombing civilians, bullying small countries and giving unsolicited, sensual backrubs to foreign heads of state, he wants to work on “being best friends forever” with our global neighbors. That smells like trouble to me. You don’t need to be Dr. Phil to figure out what happens next. There will be a few countries who want to be “more than just friends.” And it will probably be skanks like Belarus or Moldova. We’ll say something that will upset them and then they’ll get all bitter and psychotic. We’ll get a restraining order against them because they keep messing with us at work. Months later we’ll run into them at the United Nations and they will have spread all sorts of vicious lies about us to Russia, China, and Israel. Then when we get upset and raise our voice, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon tells us to sit down… and suddenly we’re the asshole? What a headache!
5. Inspire Americans. I’m most shocked by the idea that Obama plans to inspire us with his sheer awesomeness. I mean, just because you’re cool, intelligent, and more than capable of transforming the nation and the world… does that make it right? You know what happens if the last eight years of shame and disappointment are replaced by pride and honest-to-God patriotism? I’ll tell you what happens. We’ll stop being fat, lazy, and dumb. We’ll stop being selfish, angry, and afraid. And then we become cannibals.
Obviously we have made a tremendous mistake.
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Pete Humes
Pete Humes is a husband, father and writer who lives in Richmond’s North Side. He enjoys coffee and owns way too many records.
Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
Silly me. I actually thought rvanews was going to post an opinion piece from the other side. Boy you sure had me going there. While I don’t subscribe to some Conservatives’ viewpoint that Obama is going to be the downfall of the Nation, I also don’t believe he’s our “savior” as many obviously do. Obama is a man who is charismatic and makes amazing speeches. For now that’s really all we know about him. I’d save a little adoration for later if/when Obama can pull the Nation out of the economic doldrums we are in. For the time being I hope that people, the media especially, try to start treating him as human being and not a God.
You kill me, Humes. Figuratively, so far.
Obama isn’t God? Damn, I wish I knew that before I voted for him. I feel cheated…
Fiscal policy (tax policy): set by Congress
Monetary policy (interest rates and such): set by the Fed
The Pres does not set/change either. How that office does affect the economy: appointments, vetos, cajoling, etc. It thus strikes me as not quite right to credit the single office of the Pres with good/bad economic times, or to expect that office to be able to make it all better. Maybe that’s why, post election win, Obama is saying that it will be a long uphill road ahead.
can a pres fix the economy? – The captain of the ship doesn’t personally steer or work the engines, but he sure has the responsibility to make sure the whole thing doesn’t run aground, dump thousands of gallons of fuel all over the place, kill countless species and create a legal nightmare for his parent company or he’s in some hot water, that’s for sure.
I keep hearing people say “The President doesn’t have the power to change this or that.” and “Barack can’t change everything, he’s only one man.” I couldn’t agree more. I believe that having 158,923,336 people who aren’t ashamed to call themselves Americans anymore and who aren’t affraid to turn on the news for fear of what our leaders might have said and done will be able to change things.
and remember, Obama isn’t the president until next year. Until then, Dubya is manning the helm.
Jason, Exxon has still never fully paid the Valdez settlement, despite record profits.
BTW, there are some preidictions that we will see at least one more big terrorist attack before Bush leaves office.
Sure, Congress votes on the budget, but the policies of the president go a long way to guiding the economy. That’s exactly why the George Bush tax cuts are called the George Bush tax cuts. By the way, who do you think appoints members to the fed? Hint: not congress. The argument that a president does not affect the economy is intellectually dishonest.
But let us talk about something important. No Bopst show today?
Yes, let us worry about the important things.
I had to leave town last week and couldn’t get a show together for today. I’ll be back next Monday.
Back to the issue at hand…
Humes nailed this one. Of coarse time will tell if Obama is the leader his supporters believe he is, but it ain’t just about him folks. It’s about all of us. He is inheriting a mess of heroic proportions that no one man (or woman) can fix with one mighty stroke. This is a mess that will take years to correct and it’s going to take all facets of government working together to work through them. It would be like so totally awesome if it was all Obama’s problem but it isn’t. It’s all our problem. I’m just glad we finally don’t have an idiot as our figurehead.
George W. created the mess Obama will inherit. W squandered the Clinton surplus, waged a trillion dollar unnecessary war, allowed U.S. infrastructure to crumble, gave tax cuts to the mega wealthy, and gave life to the neocon policy of deregulation formed during the Nixon years. W held an eight year epic frat party on American soil. Now we have to clean up the piles the brat boy has left.
My hope is that Obama will not continue with W’s policies such as the patriot act, wire tapping, war in Iraq, etc.
this is a good start…
http://washingtonindependent.com/17763/early-obama-initiative-the-end-of-guantanamo-bay
Was not suggesting the Pres does not affect the econ. Rather, was suggesting that any effect is necessarily indirect, through others, as the Pres is not given a lever that directly operates on the economy. I know that some folks are well aware of this point, but thought I’d raise it lest others who say some variation of ‘I hope so-and-so (fill in the blank with whomever) can fix things’ hadn’t considered this detail.
The only people who are suggesting that Americans believe Obama is “our Savior” all seem to be the folks who voted for McCain. Listen, most voters are intelligent and know Obama cannot perform magic. It simply seems to be a sarcastic response from folks who do not support him and it illustrates how little they understand the folks who do support him.
You are correct, Mr. or Ms. Tiny.
I am certainly excited about what an Obama presidency will bring to our beleaguered nation. He is very articulate to be sure, and seemingly has the intellect and composure to be successful in the highest office of the most powerful nation on earth. However, I am a little skeptical about his level of experience, alleged ties to unsavory organizations and religious affiliations. I voted for him, primarily because of bitterness at the incompetence of the Bush administration. I remain disenfranchised with America so far in the 21st Century, and came across a political graphic that does a fairly good job in capturing this sentiment.
aren’t we all…
Claire, his ties are probably the thing that bother me the most. The Unions aren’t necessarily good bedfellows, especially at a time when the US needs to be competitive in the global market. All they seem to do these days is drive up the cost of labor and ensure mediocre productivity. But I certainly like his tax plan more than McCain’s… based on the little I know about the economy, the middle class will actually put the money they make back into the economy as opposed to stashing it away in tax shelters.
And here I thought Humes was going to provide a scathing look at Obama’s cabinet members … but instead we get more of what everyone needs, sarcasm-lite. Yay.
It will be a sad day when ever-so-committed comedians from the left realize that its business as usual with Obama, as evidenced by the Clinton/Reagan crew and other Goldman Sachs fucks moving into his private quarters.
Sure, some things will get better (SC appointees for one). But the overall trajectory ain’t going to change, especially when truth-speakers like Ralph Nader are considered “jokes.”
The looting has just begun, yo.
as the Carpenters once sang, “We Have Only Just Begun”…
We need to re-tool Detroit and kick ass worldwide in electric and hybrid cars, why not low power nuclear cars? if we do this we’ll be in the drivers seat yeah..drivers seat
The economy will never be “fixed” until the Fed is gone.
I agree with Jason: the Prez is not at the economic control panel (nor, for that matter, is the Fed). The election isn’t itself the “change”; it is merely a precondition for change which will be executed at some future time, contingent on political conditions.
It’s up to us to hold a Democratic executive and legislature accountable for the promises they made and the areas where they still buck the national interest. I fear too many people will think that this past election was the victory, as if pushing a button on a screen is the sum total of our duty. It’s not – it’s the beginning of the struggle with power.
Protest against the Richmond Fed on Nov 22! endthefed.us
I tithed 10% of my income to The Savior Obama, and have killed four goats to stay his fierce wrath. But I don’t think he’ll fix the economy.
No Fed? Anyone recall (or heard of) the inflation that Volcker squeezed out of the system? Would the public have been happier living under high wage/price inflation instead?
The Fed not being at the economic control panel? Through the reserve requirement, the discount rate, and open market operations, the Fed directly affects the money supply, and in turn price levels (inflation and its variants) and interest rates. To say nothing of the credit/liquidity functions it serves, which may seem mundane under normal circumstances but are key to keeping the gears in motion in less than usual circumstances. As an example (The Role of the Federal Reserve System — In Extraordinary Times; Region Focus, Fall 2001)… Following 9/11:
* The Fed entered into exchanges of credit with the ECB and other central banks to add additional dollar reserves to the banking system
* With air transport moving slowly if at all, check volume had built up around the country and arrived for clearing in a fell swoop, which the Fed handled (consider what it would mean if checks weren’t getting cleared)
* In instances in which Bank A’s operations were impacted such that it could not get funds transferred to Bank B per the usual, the Fed loaned funds as necessary
The above is not to be construed as saying that the Fed is the only entity that affects the economy. But the Fed sure does have an effect. And having lived in a country that does not enjoy such institutions, I would rather suffer some economic messiness as the Fed et al. chase after relative stability than suffer more dramatic economic outcomes absent their presence.
Hilarious. Per the Guantanamo Bay closure, I heard that on the radio yesterday, and I was so shocked that I almost drove off the road. After years and years of a president that plays fast and loose with human rights and uses legalisms and cowardly semantics to justify secret prisons and indefinite detention and torture–I had forgotten that it could ever be any different. Could it be possible that our President actually has a solid grasp of right and wrong? And he plants to ACT ON IT? My God. Now I know that not invading countries and not torturing people is a pretty low standard of leadership, but still. At this point in our history, HE MIGHT ALREADY BE THE GREATEST PRESIDENT EVER.
I do. I also remember he did the most damage of anybody this century to the family farm, and caused a lot of people to lose their homes.
A good source for this is Greider’s “Secrets of the Temple” for an imminently readable narrative of the Volker years. He may have saved our system (for better or for worse) but it came at a huge price for working people. And it’s not like the Volcker Fed had any idea what they were doing at the time (since stagflation was a new beast).
Also, keep in mind that a lot of what happened in the 70s is arguably traceable to the 2 decade spending orgy called the Vietnam War and the arms race. It is the liquidity and flexibility provided by Fed policy that arguably makes these kinds of expenditures possible. I think we’re experiencing something very similar now because of the massive spending on the Iraq War.
Of course. The question, though, is not whether or not they can merely affect it, but whether they can consistently take an action and get a predictable response. This is not at all clear after some 90 years.
And now you see the Fed stepping into a greater role than it has ever played before, propping up failed businesses directly. Not only that, few realize that there was a $650 billion dollar injection into the money supply that actually preceded the $700 bailout. There may be a way to justify these actions, but only in the most narrow of interests.
Well, the Fed is just one part of the overall corporate structure of our economy, although it is a pillar. The question as I see it is whether you see the corporate economy as an end in itself, to be preserved at all costs, or whether there’s a public interest that above and beyond the narrow interests of the financial sector. How is it not on the Fed to demonstrate this in contradistinction to decades of favoritism to Wall Street and corporate America?
Right, because this had nothing to do with Fed policies in the first place. And inflation isn’t a total break for everybody – for example, debtors get to pay back loans with currency that is less valuable than the currency they borrowed. Inflation is often correlated with higher wages – and the attempts to curb it often cost the most vulnerable workers their jobs.
I’ve no doubt the Fed thinks they’re at a control panel of the economy, and that sometimes they can effect changes. The problem is that they have a particular idea of what a healthy economy looks like, and it always puts us working people at the bottom of the pyramid.
lol at the descent of horrors ending with lynchburg. that really gave me a much needed laugh.
i do have alot of hope for obama but i cant say that i believe he will deliver as much as everyone else seems to. We will see what comes next but my gut feeling is that his presidency wont be the huge turn around in politics and will just be the standard stuff again.
but everyone can agree on this. he will be better than bush, no one can do that poorly
Pete — “Lynchburg” — WTF?!
Pete, America is already ruined. Get it together man
Pete, America is already ruined. Get it together man.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/03/news/economy/karydakis.recession.fortune/index.htm
I read about Obama and cut a fart, he stinks!
hes defintly going to destroy the econonmy, none of the stuff he says even makes sense, just people in America are to dumb to get that.
if mccain won he defintly wouldve been more protecitve of the terrorist threats and bomb threats coming into america, such as russia. obama is making “social peace” with the world. Do you think the world is going to actully all of sudden like america?
no.
because we are the number 1 country and everyone is jealous of us!
Caputo, et al vs. Obama.
I want to start a Class Action Law Suit against Barack Hussein Obama for putting me, my Children and my Grand Children $800,000,000,000.00 Billion Dollars in debt and destroying their future.
Anyone out there want to join me in this Class Action Law Suit?
Any Lawyer out there want to handle this Law Suit?
Tony Caputo of Sarasota County, Florida…..August 27, 2009.
ps: In the ‘short scale’, which is used predominantly by America, a billion is 1000 million: 1,000,000,000.
Is their a correlation with Obama taking office and the number of celebrities that have died this year?
You can’t blame Obama alone, the overall Republicrat duopoly has ruined the country. But let’s be fair, the ‘leadership’ had help from citizens who turned their back on personal reponsibilty and accountability.
Vote Green!
http://gp.org/index.php
I am not really certain what to believe about obama. Yes he is very charismatic. Is he the Antichrist? No I don’t think so. At least not intentionally. I beleive that Obama really would like to fix many of our problems. However I think many of his ideas are more like cheap bandaids. International healthcare is honerable yet foolish idea. Just ask canada.. Our econemy is not merely suffering inflation but deflation currently. I blame much of this on scandals of the super rich..citigroup to name one..and “Financial Derivatives” if we are to come out of our debt EVER. There has to be immediate reform of our economic foundation, patience and constant review. One simple idea is marijuana.. personally I don’t and have never used it. However illegal a very large percentage of our population smoke this drug. So legalize marijuana, set the age to 21, tax the hell out of it. Everyone knows that govornment weed is the best weed available. Cashflow to forein druglords would diminish and if say a 6 gram bag costs roughly 5 dollars for the govornment to produce. 5 dollars for cost of production and than 2 dollars for a cashflow surplus. Throw about 30 dollars of govornment “tax” steep as that sounds that same 6 gram bag is 150 dollars for “quality” weed on the streets right now. Medical Marijuana is more potent, safer and of great quality. Also many myths on marijuana have been proven false. I do not condone the use of other drugs as they are dangerous and could kill you. Alchahol will kill you before marijuana. Alchahol often causes people to act eratic and violently. Marijuana usually puts the user in a good mood, stimulates brain cells (in close moderation) and if anything will make someone very hungry. The only issue I can see is if this somehow promoted national lazyness… anyways I rant and rave but does anyone agree with me? Oh and also I think the tax on auto parts should increase by a small fraction of a percent. We always need them so you have to buy them regardless. And a .5 – 1.5 increase would not be felt much by the consumer and could add a good additional cashflow to squander this national debt. Inflation will ultimatly lead to higher taxes. Another note taxes need to be reformed so that businesses and super rich individuals are paying their fair share of taxes. Finally I want to know why only 20% of the taxes paid by taxpayers ever surface again in any form or record.
eff this website. i thought there was really going to be something legit on here.
I regret to inform you that a fly has apparently gotten into your father’s semen, and I feel sorry for your brain washed ass.
Q: What’s the difference between Obama’s cabinet and a penitentiary?
A: One is filled with tax evaders, blackmailers and threats to society.
The other is for housing prisoners.
Q: What does Barack Obama call lunch with a convicted felon?
A: A fund raiser.
Q: Have you heard about McDonalds new Obama Value Meal?
A: Order anything you like and the guy behind you has to pay for it.