Although a dismal economic forecast spells defeat for Obama in 2012, a huge proportion of people ignorant of political issues or dependent on government handouts, or both, will support him.
A CNN reporter recently asked First Lady Michelle Obama about the 2012 election, “It’s going to be quite vicious, isn’t it? How do you prepare for that?” Her answer: “You know, it’s…we’re ready…Fortunately, we have help from the media.”
This election season, just as in 2008, journalists have partnered fully with the Left, as a CNSNews.com commentary points out. The politically ignorant supporting Obama will comprise millions counting on federal programs. The Federal Catalog of Domestic Assistance (FCDA) lists 2,185 federal assistance programs for specialized groups and individuals. The most familiar entitlement programs, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, are not even included in that listing. These three programs, plus the Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and Supplemental Security Insurance, altogether, cover millions and millions of people, with more than 58 million on Medicaid services alone.
Many of those depending on Federal entitlements are misinformed, ignorant, over-promised and have been lied to for 2 ½ years. For instance, in the Sept. 2 Wall Street Journal, Stephen Moore wrote “Congressional Research study finds that per unit of electricity produced, for every two cents of tax subsidy for Big Oil, Big Green (wind and solar) get close to $1 in handouts.
The Administration’s myth of “Green” energy is almost universally believed by voters. Obama has told us renewable energy will replace fossil fuels. But they won’t, even though heavily subsidized, as they are today.
A huge voting block, the elderly, has been told by Democrats and the media repeatedly that Republicans want to “end Medicare as we know it.” No one provides the truth that Republicans are trying to save Medicare before it goes bust.
Ignorance abounds among some of Obama’s strongest supporters, Subjects in Harlem, interviewed after the 2008 election, when prompted, said they like Obama because of his stand for the surge in Iraq and for abortion, neither of which he supported. They even said they approved of his “vice presidential choice of Sarah Palin.”
True democracy demands an informed public. “Voters who lack sufficient knowledge may be manipulated by the elites,” according to Ilya Somin, assistant professor of law at George Mason School of Law. It is true today as in past election cycles, he told me. Probably much more so today.
“Scholars have long documented the limits of voter knowledge about the institutions and policies of government,” Somin has written. Today’s federal government, under Barack Obama, is more enormous than it has ever been. Never before have so many Americans been dependent on its largess.
So, our Pied Piper President leads the “have-nots” and labor unionists, deeply resentful of the capitalist millionaire and billionaire “haves.” All, of course, have jet airplanes.
Safety net programs include the refundable part of the earned- income and child tax credits, which use the Internal Revenue Code to help low-income and moderate-income working families. Supplemental Security is for the elderly or disabled poor and unemployment insurance income. Nine million people are collecting unemployment insurance. About 1.3 million households live in public housing.
Seven provisions of the so-called Recovery Act in 2009 are said to have kept 6 million additional people out of poverty, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Thirty million American school children get free or reduced meals at school. Nearly half of Americans pay no federal income tax.
“We have a crisis on our hands when it comes to civics education,” said Sandra Day O’Connor, who founded Civics.org. The achievement gap between blacks and whites in civics was 29 points according to the latest National Assessment of Education Progress.
A Rasmussen opinion poll Aug. 31 found that 30 percent of the public favors hiring, at least temporarily, one million more people going to work for the federal government.
Obama’s proud achievement, national Health Care, an attempt to make the citizenry dependent on government for health care makes up many of the 430 programs under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
A simple example of one dependency program that has gone awry is the $45 billion food stamp program, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Beneficiaries now use an electronic card when they buy food. February 7 at Angelis County Market in Menominee, MI, one SNAP purchaser rang up a $141.78 bill consisting solely of cold water lobsters, porterhouse steaks, and diet Mountain Dew. This was confirmed to me by the store manager.
Historian Rick Shenkman in his book “Just how Stupid Are We” laments the evidence that Americans are doing little to educate themselves about our leaders and their policies.
Before the 2008 election, levees break in New Orleans. Iraq descends into chaos, the housing market teeters near collapse. Americans think that something has gone terribly wrong with American politics. Democrats blame Republicans, greedy corporate executives, faulty voting machines, irresponsible defense contractors. Most Democrats were considered blameless. Obama promised Hope and Change (Translation: spread the wealth and transform America).
In Just How Stupid Are We?, best-selling historian Shenkman takes aim at our great national piety: the wisdom of the American people. “Voters are paying less and less attention to truth in politics. Television has dumbed politics down to the basest possible level, while the real workings of politics have become vastly more complicated,” Shenkman argues, “we must reform ourselves.” Popular culture has coarsened us, made us self-centered.
And don’t forget billionaire George Soros’s support.
A Patriot Post columnist Aug. 29 wrote “There is only one real division between all people… maturity versus immaturity.” Immaturity has become a permanent part of their being. They solve their problems “via an illusion designed to hide failure…..The matured wishes to protect and preserve his country and his country’s culture …The immature…sloughs off upon his country …the price of his irresponsibility…”
Aldous Huxley, the British author of “Brave New World” in the 1930s feared that humanity eventually would become a trivial culture.. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and George Orwell, with his book “1984” did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
Orwell feared those who would ban books. Huxley feared there would be no reason to ban a book; there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture with an appetite for distractions. Huxley, in Brave New World, foresaw people controlled by inflicting pleasure. Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.
If what we love is personal security at government’s expense, is our future possibility Huxley’s forecast? Could be under Obama.
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