The Forgotten American (Americanus oblitus)
Listening to the give-and-take entitlement bidding war between Hillary and Barack, I thought there must have been a number of Americans—tens of millions in fact?—whom they have more or less forgotten. Who are they?
The forgotten American day in and day out pays off his monthly mortgage—$1000, $1500, $2000 a month perhaps. That his house went up in value was no reason to take out a second for a new car or kitchen or to max out the charge cards or to trade up to a home he could not afford, power, or maintain. He was happy his equity went up and upset it went down, but he planned on paying his mortgage either way. When he got the flyer in the mail promising a “fixed” 1.9% interest rate he threw it away with the male enhancement and no-pain diet ads, knowing that anything too good to believe is too good to believe, and that his 5.8% fixed 30-year mortgage wasn’t all that bad anyway.
The forgotten American may have empathy for those who took out no-down payment loans, balloon payments, and interest only plans, but would never do so herself. She’s more worried about putting away $500 a month or so away for her kids’ college, since she assumes there is no scholarship waiting for her own, and doesn’t want them to go into any more debt than is absolutely necessary. So she passes on the bigger home, the Vegas vacation, and the SUV to ensure her children graduate without crippling loans.
The forgotten American has worries about Iraq, and while he claims he doesn’t think it is now a good idea, he admits at one time he did. He wants out and is tired of Iraq, but after we’ve come this far hates the idea of losing the war more than he does the war itself.
He doesn’t like Guantanamo, wire taps, and all the other security measures, but for all the rhetoric also doesn’t feel he or anyone else he knows has had his liberties abridged. He cares about charges the innocent might be unjustly targeted, but notices the last six years that in any given month someone from a mosque, a Middle East charity, or a community center is indicted or on trial for disseminating jihadist literature, raising money for terrorist groups, or recording anti-American radical Islamic propaganda—and he makes the connection between that activity and the sort of landscape that allowed the perpetrators of 9/11 to operate so successfully inside the United States.
The forgotten American likes it when we are liked abroad, but doesn’t much care if we’re not—since those who burn our flags, storm our embassies and damn us on television live in societies of the sort that few others want to visit, much less live in. We assume that the shaking fist on TV is not as representative as the near million who cross our border illegally to have what we take for granted.
The forgotten American has no grudge against Muslims, and wishes the Middle East well. But he doesn’t have much guilt over paying $100 a barrel oil, or the tens of billions in handouts to Egypt, Palestine, Iraq, and Jordan. And when he sees the young bearded Muslim male shout ‘Death to America!” whether in Pakistan, Iran, or Egypt, or the paid intellectual on CNN rant about Americans from dictatorial Jordan or theocratic Saudi Arabia, he either turns the channel or the TV off altogether.
The forgotten American doesn’t know much about Harvard or Princeton, or private school for her kids, or prep schools she never went to, or jobs that pay over $300,000 a year, or million-dollar homes. But she is pretty happy to be an American and the chance to have a comfortable house, car, good food, security, and a clean, safe, and good community. As far as her own country’s past goes, she knows it was not perfect, but still good enough—and far better than the alternative, then or now. She doesn’t just see a past America of racists and sexists, but one far more complex whose toil and sacrifice built the roads and bridges she uses, the house she lives in, and the airport and train station she travels from.
The forgotten American gave up a long time ago on Hollywood—he doesn’t watch the Oscars or see the new movies, or know the names of the latest actors. A Sean Penn, or George Clooney or Tim Robbins is a blur, a vague memory that very wealthy people who fret over hairlines and wrinkles also feel bad that their politics aren’t listened to.
He likes a little action, mystery, and comedy in his TV fare and film, but he accepts that ultimately the villain is going to be a white guy, the more southern, pink, obese, and Christian the better. The American corporation—remember Hollywood is not run by corporations that cut costs and charge high prices, but rather by noble artists who “collaborate” and have neat logos and clever trademarks that pop up on the screen with cool music—usually has robbed or killed the heroine, or made medicine that crippled the third-world noble infant or weapons that killed the innocent and idealistic reporter, student, or social worker. He accepts generals are bad, and naïve privates good; that the robber and hustler in film are far better, not to say more interesting, than the fat balding wimp behind the desk. Teachers are heroic, never lazy, but they work in schools that are underfunded, yet full of Einsteins, Mozarts, and Shakespeares that remain undiscovered because of racism and sexism. And the forgotten American knows that in every film, in every episode that he watches now there is a conspiracy of some shady government entity or corporation that is out to “get” the whistleblower, the reporter, the writer, or soccer mom.
The forgotten American worries about health care and wishes everyone were covered somehow. But for now when her son turned 23 she helped him take out a catastrophic policy, and when he forgets to make the $200 a month payment, she ensures that it is paid.
She knows that she can scarcely, as it is, balance work, housekeeping, and kids—and would not be able to at all if just once she weakened, and smoked a joint before work, drank during the day, or popped pills at the office. She is sorry that others do and wants them to get help—and accepts that her government, or society, or parents, or some –ism or -ology, or she herself in the abstract will be blamed for others indulging in what she would not.
The forgotten American always pays his FICA and Medicare taxes, but assumes he may not get the Social Security payout that he’s been promised, and that more will go to those who either did not pay into the system or paid very little or saved not at all for their old age. He doesn’t know much about the stock market, but manages to save or have deducted $200-500 a month to put in a 401K or SEP account, counting on no one but himself, and assuming the government cares more about those who didn’t do what he did than those who did.
The forgotten American knows that if Obama is elected she and her husband will pay $4000 or $5000 more in income tax, and that or more when the Social Security cap on income is raised or abolished, and her children far more when they inherit what she’s already paid tax on once. But she doesn’t think the extra money will go to pay down the deficit, or make government run the country more effectively, or make the additional recipient of her redistributed money either better off or happier for it.
The forgotten American has respect for the illegal alien from south of the border who hammers shingles, and lays cement and is out cutting grass when too many strapping young suburbanites are still asleep from a long Friday night of video games and mall cruising. But he also knows that the mindset that says it is fine to break the law and enter a country illegally that is not your own, is not sustainable for the host, and establishes a precedent for the transgressor that all subsequent laws and regulations and protocols are similarly to be followed when helpful—and not at all when inconvenient.
The forgotten American listens to Hillary and Barack and thinks all these promises are nice and well and good, but figures that they expect someone like herself to pay for all those programs for all those who chose to live life differently than she did—for whom in most cases there was as much or more chances than she had. She wants to pay taxes and help, but shrugs that those who receive think it’s never enough—resentment, not gratitude is their more appropriate response for government help. And she assumes that Hillary and Barak, given what they make, don’t much care whether they pay a few thousand dollars more in their own taxes, and that they, like a John Edwards or John Kerry or Al Gore or Ted Kennedy, are rich enough to feel everyone else’s pain but her own.
I don’t know how many forgotten Americans there are out, but I have a feeling the answer may well determine the next election.
The Forgotten Issues
Consider: $100 a barrel oil/$4 a gallon gas; $25 a bushel for March spring wheat; $1.50 Euro; 1 trillion dollars of government bonds in Chinese hands. These are symptoms of a alternate reality that the candidates of both parties are not debating: the world in the last twenty years has copied U.S. economic practices, gotten very good at it, and now wants what we have and is planning to take it. So everything from fuel to food is up for global sale and billions abroad have the money now to bid on it. People abroad who used to work in stupid fashion, now work smartly—and in some cases harder, and longer, and more effectively than do we.
The U.S. will either rise to the challenge, improve our educational system, relearn the work ethic, encourage discipline, and unleash our talents and creativity and praise those who succeed—or fade, blaming others, ourselves, our parents, our ancestors for our current decline, trying to legislate what we can’t produce or fix, fearing rather than welcoming the challenge.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq?
Sen. Obama did not understand that al Qaeda in Iraq is there and it was started by Zarqawi who was there in Iraq before we arrived. The problem is that Obama has not studied the war or the nature of Pakistan’s Waziristan, so he continues to make these astounding assertions—anytime he speaks off the cuff, in reaction to charges he is too vague, strange things can happen.
It doesn’t compute
Obama was rightly chagrined by Hillary’s attacks on his kindergarten essays, but now he’s claiming that living in Indonesia at that age constitutes foreign affairs experience or at least sensitivity to different cultures. Hillary has bragged, by the same token, about her First Lady experience but now disowns NAFTA—everything bad Bill’s; everything good hers.
She’s right out of Sophocles now—eirôneia: every theme she’s long embraced—identity politics, multiculturalism, big-ticket entitlements, media favoritism, and race/class/gender pandering—has been trumped by the smoother, younger and more “authentic” Barack Obama. Now she’s complaining about the left-wing media bias!
Even her loose canon Bill is out loosened by his Michelle, who has been under wraps (?) much more than Bill has—lest she prove to be a Teresa Kerry. But then it’s a long campaign and whenever Michelle speaks, her eyes flash and she goes into the “I’m addressing another guilt-ridden white elite audience who must be reminded what they owe me for what I’ve suffered” mode. Serving up charismatic contempt for such people is all fine and good (I enjoy watching it), but it won’t work in East Los Angeles or Akron.
Obamamania now is based on our collective infantilism that we all want to be liked, to feel good, and so the country can find an easy fix to racial tension and unfair depiction here and abroad by taking 500mg 2x daily of a dashing, eloquent African-American novel candidate who offers ourselves painless absolution and turns the tables on our multicultural critics abroad. He is a vast void and anyone can put anything they want into him—ACLU liberal, across the aisle healer, kind moderate, you name it. He is a mirror and reflects what anyone wishes to see.
More on Obama
Obama is elegant and poised, but he has never run a campaign against a vigorous opponent or addressed hostile audiences or faced a mean press, or debated hard-core effective conservatives. So we don’t know how he’d react to the strain. Thus I don’t how he’d react if Sen. Clinton asked him the following tough questions that are legitimate concerns—other than to decry “guilt by association” and “McCarthyism”.
Why Sen. Obama do you belong to a church whose very platform and principles would mean that your own mother could never have really been welcomed? But that’s no doubt a minor and irrelevant point.
Why Sen. Obama would the racist Louis Farrakhan speak for two hours in praise of your candidacy? But that’s no doubt a minor and irrelevant point.
Why would your wife not once, but twice say that she’s never had pride in the United States until your ran for President? But that’s no doubt a minor and irrelevant point.
Why would MoveOn.org that called General Petraeus a betrayer endorse you? But that’s no doubt a minor and irrelevant point.
Why would you have accepted donations from Bill Ayers who said that he had not done enough terrorist bombing against the United States in his youth? But that’s no doubt a minor and irrelevant point.
Why Sen. Obama are so many of your advisors—Ms. Power, or Mr. Malley, or Mr. Brzezinski–so critical of Israel, and so sympathetic to the Palestinians? But that’s no doubt a minor and irrelevant point.
But why, Sen. Obama, are there so many of these minor and irrelevant points that continue to be raised?
The answer is simply that Obama is a man of the hard left, and thus one must always worry about extremists or extremist themes that drift in and out of that general landscape. It won’t do to tsk, tsk Farrakhan anymore than it would a conservative to do the same with David Duke. The only difference between the late Timothy McVeigh and Bill Ayers was a question of magnitude and efficacy—not evil intent. Both targeted US governmental facilities with bombs. No politician would have visited a McVeigh (who likewise prided himself a pundit) to sound out his ideas or pay a cordial visit.
The net result is that Obama’s entire past coterie of associates should be reexamined. He should have daily tutorials on the major countries involved in the war on terror and the problems with each—and drop the talk about his foreign experience as a toddler in Indonesia.
The Colonels’ War
I have written often in the past about the role of the colonels in Iraq and why they should be promoted when up for general, since they are a singular generation with exceptional experience.
Despite the agony and ordeal of the US Army the last five years, we have witnessed a gifted cohort of officers below the rank of general essentially reverse the course of the entire war. The experience they have gained is invaluable and as a nation we can only pray that they are retained, and rewarded for their courage and brilliance. At some point, as was true in 1940-1, there has to been a generational change in the military, in which a David Petreus, not a Tommy Franks, is the model that guides our forces this next half century.
Nothing will bemore important than the news from the next round of military promotions, especially the type of colonel that is promoted and the reasons why. We are at a crossroads. Twenty-years from now we need 4-stars protecting us who once were colonels that saved Anbar.
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40 Comments
shelley:Dr. Hanson:
This is your best Works and Days yet, talking of “The Forgotten American”, along with your interview with the German-Swiss paper in Private Papers on ‘Mexifornia’ and the US/European relationship. I would like to hear your thoughts some time about the so-called North American Union, and why this re-creation of the EU is apparently in the process of being brought here.
Feb 27, 2008 - 8:07 pm Robert Mandel:Professor,
The very fact that the leading democratic candidate is Obama reveals more about them, the party, and worse, the direction the country is heading. They are taken in, religiously, by a man who offers them the hope of the promised land, redemption from past “sins”. I find it equally amusing and frightening that it is he, not his agenda, that drives his cult followers.
Thanks once again for a masterful description of the predicament we are in. Hopefully the campaign will reveal the empty shell that Obama is. But if McCain cannot do it, and we will not pay enough attention, then we as a nation deserve an Obama presidency. Heaven help us.
Feb 27, 2008 - 9:08 pm gs:VDH, you’ve made a promising start on the acceptance speech that McCain should give.
Feb 27, 2008 - 9:10 pm Kim Slater:Dr Hansen,
Feb 28, 2008 - 2:14 am a Duoist:Thank you for this Works and Days.I am one of many forgotten Americans you wrote about and I am so frustrated with our choice of candidates.I give 35% of my middle class income to all the various taxes and I will not vote for a Democratic candidate who will demand more. Why don’t they get it? It is if they are from another planet.But I guess midwestern values are foreign to them all. Thanks again. Kim Slater
Very nice essay. Irony might well be one way to defeat Senator Obama; but using humor to defeat him might be Senator McCain’s most effective strategy, leaving the ‘attack dog’ style for the VP (Condi Rice?) nominee.
Feb 28, 2008 - 2:37 am James- The Historian:As a member of the forgotten American family, thanks for making such a plain and simple case for sanity.
Feb 28, 2008 - 6:54 am Allison Aller:Thank you for Americanus Oblitus! This is what I’ve been hoping you would address for awhile…the solid core of who we still are as a nation. I have hope…but not the kind B.H.O. wants me to have!
Feb 28, 2008 - 7:02 am Trudy B. Taylor:this forgotten american knows we need a base in iraq–which, by the way, WAS discussed during the lead-up to the ‘03 invasion–that is manned by sufficient personel to provide stability in-nation and tactical ground backup for our interests in the area. our primary interest in the middle east being to assist our navy in keeping the shipping lanes open for the movement of oil. since no other nation’s navy, including india’s, is large enough to do so, it falls to us. japan depends on the m.e. for up to 80% of it’s oil. our use is comprised of around 16% m.e. oil. we are, again, doing the free world’s work.
this forgotten american knows it doesnt make sense for a healthy 20-something to have mandatory comprehensive health insurance, let alone dental insurance, and he/she should have the right to opt out until later in life. disability and life insurance–well that is a different story, and you dont hear any politician extolling the benefits of those policies, do you? here’s the point-our young, who, in part, make up our wonderful volunteer army, are smart enough to cobble together health plans -independent of jobs-when the time comes into their lives to do so.
this forgotten american knows that “paying yourself first” works and funded post-secondary school accounts for both of her kids by squirrelling away $250 a month for years. we never missed the money, and suddenly, one day, it was there for us to use on college(cost effective campuses and majors, by the way).
this forgotten american remembers a time a decade and a half ago when americans were convinced the japanese were buying up the entire u.s.(remember tom clancey’s “rising sun”?). in a global economic network, perhaps it’s not a totally bad thing that the chicoms are having to eat some of the bad debt generated by the hedge funds and sovereign wealth “exotic securities” which bundled subprime debt. it’s almost enough to make me believe in karma.oh yeah, and this forgotten american does not want those very hedge fund directors and sovereign wealth based banks bailed out with taxpayers’ money. crybabies.
finally, this forgotten american could not agree more with dr. hanson’s take on obama&obama-the grooviest thing to come down the pike since the beatles’s magical mystery tour.
I shall remember to check on the career progress of those colonels of yours…
Feb 28, 2008 - 8:09 am newguy40:You certainly described my family’s situation to a tee.
Keep up the great work. Thanks.
Feb 28, 2008 - 9:03 am Bowden Russell:Consider: $100 a barrel oil/$4 a gallon gas; $25 a bushel for March spring wheat; $1.50 Euro; 1 trillion dollars of government bonds in Chinese hands. These are symptoms of a alternate reality that the candidates of both parties are not debating: the world in the last twenty years has copied U.S. economic practices, gotten very good at it, and now wants what we have and is planning to take it. So everything from fuel to food is up for global sale and billions abroad have the money now to bid on it. People abroad who used to work in stupid fashion, now work smartly—and in some cases harder, and longer, and more effectively than do we.
I’m curious, at what point does the body politic realize that they’ve been sold a bill of goods w/r/t “Free Trade.”
We’re entering a deep, long recession and this should NOT be happening given the promises of the Utopia of “Free Trade.”
China has leverage over our financial well-being due to “Free Trade.” $100-plus oil is also due to the failure of “Free Trade”. The degredation of our manufacturing industry again lays at the feet of “Free Trade.” Yet no one dares question if the continued policy of “Free Trade” is a wise policy?
We didn’t have this bogus trade policy when Reagan was in office and we had a spectacular economy and a vibrant industrial base.
That is but a memory now, due to “Free Trade.”
Feb 28, 2008 - 9:43 am Jeremy:Mr. Hanson,
Feb 28, 2008 - 10:38 am Junius:You are a brilliant man and I love your columns. You really get it. However, if your description of the forgotten American rings true, Republicans could not ever win the white house or many senate seats. While its hard to fit too many people perfectly in to your description, the forgotten american is much more conservative then you think. These forgotten Americans give Republican candidates atleast a shot to win. They may be a bit cynical but they see through the liberal crap that is Hillary or Obama. I am not worried about how the forgotten american will vote, its that we now have too many stupid americans that will vote the other way and put someone like Obama in the White House.
May I add, “Does Farrakhan’s praise and continued bigotry after your “denunciations” of him, reveal how ineffective is your rhetoric”?
Feb 28, 2008 - 12:30 pm David Smith:A wonderful post - thank you.
I may have said it before, but why anyone would believe that a man whose success is predicated upon moving up through the Chicago Democrat machine is going to be pure and sweet and bring us together and overcome partisanship is simply beyond me.
Feb 28, 2008 - 12:50 pm Count Grecula:I don’t get it. Just a few months ago you were saying- correctly I think - that this election would be decided on the battlefield. If there was any justice, the recent success in Iraq would indicate rising prospects for conservatives. Clearly something else is afoot. How can this be?
Feb 28, 2008 - 1:40 pm P. Ami:I can’t speak for other countries but regarding the “Forgotten Issues” paragraph, I can tell you that efficiency and ingenuity are not particularly apt forms of describing the Chinese environment. There is something to be said of the way by which they effectively copy our brands and mimic or steal our inventions. In terms of inventing and creating items that the world requires through their own ingenuity, in creating a system that can be both just and available to the general population, in effectively facilitating meritocracy, and in education the Chinese are not particularly special. What makes China effective is a centralized power which can control the images the public sees and interprets, in facilitating production while keeping the means of its control in the government’s hands, and in keeping the Army growing and influential in national and international discourse. If the point being made is that what we lack in population, centralized authority, and thought or action control we can overcome with better education and work ethic then I agree. China is no paper dragon but it has population to waste and the resources to compete with a lazy giant.
Feb 28, 2008 - 3:39 pm David L. Allen:Your essay The Forgotten American, is one of your best. It captures the feelings of many of us who feel that we are part of that vast financial dairy herd that Clinton and Obama will milk even harder to further their dreams of increasing the redistributing of income.
DLA
Feb 28, 2008 - 3:41 pm Ralph S Campanella:God Bless you Mr Hanson for reminding me of The Forgotten American. My mind has been attacked and polluted lately by the lukewarm slogans being spewed; “Change We Can Believe In,” “Yes We Can,” “The Audacity to Hope.” It has been cleaned and refreshed by your words, like the flame of a blow torch, pure white-hot. Let it be proclaimed at The Gate leading Home; “Well done, good and faithful servant…”
PS My Dad, Lt. Ralph S Campanella USAA, was a B-29 Bombardier in the Pacific Theater WWII.
Feb 28, 2008 - 6:53 pm cfbleachers:VDH,my admiration has been stated previously and continues unabated, but I believe you are wrong in your premise. The American you describe indeed exists. In greater numbers than perhaps we know. But they are not forgotten by the hard left. They are not ignored. They are unbidden.
The Unbidden American is the butt of the “inside joke” that only leftists are nuanced enough to get.
The Unbidden American is caricatured, lampooned, denigrated, disparaged, falsely attributed with ugly physical, mental, spiritual and emotional attributes.
The Unbidden American lives in “fly over” country, and would receive snickers, sneers and not so furtively rolled eyes in Berkeley, Hyde Park and SoHo.
The Unbidden American is an unwelcome guest at the Euro-Socialist banquet table. Oh, they can help pay through mandated pickpocketing of their January through May paychecks, but they are specifically disinvited to share in the bounty. They are not forgotten, they are met by bouncers at the door.
The Unbidden American isn’t forgotten by Hollywood, he’s slandered by it.
The Unbidden American isn’t forgotten by the MetaStasisMedia, she has faked photographs,forged documents, untrue allegations and smear campaigns foisted upon her.
The Unbidden American feels patriotism and is called jingoistic.
The Unbidden American feels an attachment to her religion and is called a bigot and a believer in fairy tales. She isn’t forgotten, she’s blemished.
The Unbidden American sees our enemies as our enemies. When they say and do things detailing how they want to harm us, and they want to destroy our way of life, he believes them. He is called xenophobic. He is told he isn’t bright enough to comprehend the “root causes”.
And the Unbidden American is not welcome and will be shunned by Hillary and Barak, John Edwards or John Kerry or Al Gore or Ted Kennedy, because “I’ve got mine, now THEY get YOURS” limousine leftists get votes being charitable with her money. She doesn’t have a trust fund to hide behind.
The Unbidden American shakes her head at Ted Kennedy telling her that her morals are out of whack if she doesn’t worry about someone trying to make our banks and drowning.
Sen. Obama is a product of the hard left. And there exists a particularly suspect attachment to the Jimmy Carter wing of that leftist subset.
He has shown a sympathetic ear for people who hold some very antagonistic views of this country. His wife has no pride in it, because it does not yet represent the Rev. Wright, Farakhan, Dorhn, Carter extreme left Worldview.
I have very little doubt that Sen. Obama represents change and hope. If we are interested in becoming Euro-Socialists, that would be quite a change. And for the MetaStasisMedia, Hollywood, Carterites, that represents hope.
For the Unbidden American, you have been in the way, you are to blame for all of our ills, you don’t pay enough money, you have to have your Worldview “adjusted. Get ready for some “payback”.
Feb 29, 2008 - 1:24 am Dark Helmet:Explain to me ,please , how a person who is as much white as they are black, can claim to be anything other than mixed?
Remove the fake race issue and look at him based on who he really is, barak hussien oboma. Does that sound like an American to anyone?
Feb 29, 2008 - 5:45 am GGA - Dublin, Ohio:Dr. Hanson -
Thank you for a refreshing and insightful post, which rang true at several levels for me and resonated deeply. I also greatly enjoyed your interview with the “Junge Freiheit” (posted on your website).
That interview was especially fascinating, given that, the first few questions dripped with condescension, and yet, after you nailed those answers (seemingly against the grain of what was expected from you), the interviewer seemed much more interested in tapping into your wisdom to understand the problems facing Europe. It is a shame that more American journalists (and politicians) do not, or will not, likewise tap into your wisdom with a view to sharing your insights and wisdom with a wider American audience.
More generally, I treasure your posts, essays, and articles, as they are always full of useful insights and analysis without resorting to name-calling, personal attacks, or other tedious inflammatory rhetorical devices. This is why I find them to be especially refreshing and in stark contrast to the normal fare found in the lame-stream media.
I only wish there were a way to help your voice to reach more people. I am concerned that if we Forgotten Americans do not come out of our slumber soon and speak up, we will awake to find the politicians’ policy prescriptions have made our national maladies even worse.
Keep up your great work!
Kind regards,
Feb 29, 2008 - 7:48 am jambrowski:GGA - Dublin, Ohio
Dr. Hanson,
Feb 29, 2008 - 8:22 am Trudy B. Taylor:Thank you! and thank you cfbleachers, you both are absolutely correct. We are the enemy, the so called flyover country, but alas I don’t think my brothers and sisters in the ‘bread-basket’ will pander to Obama’s empty tunes much longer. Especially when he keeps making statements like his blunder on Iraq and Al Qaeda. Please continue the good fight.
Cheers,
dr hanson: if i need to change something concerning my post of 2-28, and if it is possible for you to send it back to me; i will be glad to attempt to modify it. thank you for your time.
Feb 29, 2008 - 10:43 am Trudy B. Taylor:mr. russell:
we no longer live in the world of ronald reagan.
neither bush1 nor clinton nor anyone offered us a “utopia” with NAFTA or our trade agreements with other nations in the global economic network of this new millennium. they exist, so we must deal with them. free trade is just that, freedom to take advantage of any trade aspect your country is able to cash in on (pardon the pun).
you should shun the possibility of utopias, for they are the la brea tar pits of the mind. utopias are the goals of top-down, command societies entrenched in nativistic protectionism. these sticky, yet ethereal ideas bog a people in bureaucracy, isolationism, and webs of anti-entrepreneurial regulation.
the u.s. needs to clean it’s own house vis a vis border security and revamping immigration laws, then enforcing them, and let china, mexico, canada et al take fair advantage of the trade laws as they exist today.
Feb 29, 2008 - 2:27 pm zhombre:Trudy: one small note. “Rising Son” was a Michael Crichton novel, not a work of Tom Clancy.
Feb 29, 2008 - 3:50 pm Lewin Wickes:Dr. Hanson: Excellent article. Obama says we are strapped by fighting two wars at once, one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, and that we are losing in Afghanistan. What is his solution? He plans to lose the war we are winning in order to go win the war he thinks we’re losing. And he thinks such a lunatic policy will defeat Al Qaeda generally? I am amazed that he can even suggest such folly with a straight face. I hope you have the opportunity to advise McCain on how to counter Obama’s suicidal rubbish.
Feb 29, 2008 - 5:25 pm Jack Marcotte:Essential vdh
I am surprised that no one has commented on the fact the Barak Obama and his wife are the fruit of the anti Americans PC love affair with Affirmative action. Not enough Americans have been paying attention to this and this is our payback.
One should be asking why Obama as the first African American presidential candidate? Why Obama when we have real Americans who are African in descent like Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams and Clarence Thomas. Supreme Court Justice Thomas, his Grandfathers Son, his grandfather a real American not an affirmative action anti American committee. Check out the difference. There are many others of African American descent who represent the best in America who have not discredited American values.
These Core American values have given all real hope and opportunity not as a cynical political slogan that has no meaning but as a reality—only in America—values and opportunities that for African Americans has existed at least since the civil war bought and paid for by thousands of other Americans. Not easy, consecrated in blood, and real. Abe said so at Gettysburg with a simple description that Obama and his wife have yet to read or if so cannot possibly have understood it. African American freedom has been paid for in blood. Get off the you owe me politics.
Those real Americans of African descent are not some recent mishap of anti American globe trotting socialist–who missed the communist ship. Nor are they flim flam artists like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who have made extortion and political black mail acceptable in America due to a PC psychosis of the public corporations in America who spend stock holders money.
Is the best we can do a democratic candidate that between him and his wife sound more like a 3 year old complaining about a road trip in a Cadillac provided by their “rich” Daddy.
The question is—why the implied Anti Americanism coming from them. It is obvious that they are even restraining themselves.
The daddy of this descent into hell for America is the PC Affirmative action academic committees–anti American to the core. A process that allowed them to matriculate through various expensive educational processes, which they are still paying
for at great hardship-With salaries given to them essentially in the same way they got their education. It proves that something from nothing is still nothing.
With all of this what we hear from them sound like cry babies who have still not gotten (been given) what they deserve. Their speeches indicate that not only do they intend to get it they intend to give it to others from others since they themselves will never have enough and America owes them more.
I hate to reference any Kennedy or his speech writer but now is the time to “Ask”. What have they done for America, their country? other than to promise to give it away to others who will not “earn it” nor appreciate it.
I am glad they were potty trained before the PC affirmative action people got them in their politically motivated and anti American grasp. Their self serving condition cannot be their fault.
No one could have survived their attitudes in the real world. Only in the PC world of politics underwritten by local and federal taxes can this level of of incompetence and parasitic life style survive.
This racial and class warfare discourse is not American in nature. It does not even sound like something that should be in America. It sounds primitive and tribal. Voting blocks created by tribal attitudes not individual responsibility take the place of family and real American values.
We in America by in attention and allowing fictitious guilt to create spoiled monsters we have asked for it and now we have it–the perfect result of affirmative action in a political candidate for president—and they promise much more of the same to other non productive even non citizens taking from productive other Americans who will not be able to keep working for long due to government taxation and intervention.
Obama and his like by their nature create warring tribes out of Americans. It reflects their “roots” not black but communist socialism. Not since Lenin’s coffee house discussions on the west bank of Paris have we heard such class warfare rhetoric simply to gain votes. Their ammunition and power is from the growing ignorance of Americans and the open borders streaming additional victim voters who can not even read or write English. I know, the ballots where I vote are also in Spanish.
Every body but you, including non citizens should now with Obama’s promise be on the make. The only qualifier will be what voting block do you and they belong to. Giving up your freedom of decision to get something for nothing should not be that big a deal—right? When the
Mar 1, 2008 - 2:29 pm bustoff:“new Americans” streaming across our borders discover that the Potential in America no longer exists that problem may go away. But then again we have generations that have been on welfare since the Great Society of LBJ.
I take pride in identifying with The Forgotten American and The Unbidden American. I am repulsed by any urge to join the sycophantic supporters of Mr. Obama — whose words assuage their inbred liberal guilt complex and make them feel all good about themselves again. Thank you Dr. Hanson for a truly insightful and inspiring article!
Mar 1, 2008 - 2:48 pm bustoff:I take pride in identifying with The Forgotten American and The Unbidden American. I am repulsed by any urge to join the sycophantic supporters of Mr. Obama — whose words assuage their inbred liberal guilt complex and make them feel all good about themselves again. Thank you Dr. Hanson for a truly insightful and inspiring article!
Mar 1, 2008 - 2:48 pm Katherine Konopka:Is it the years of studying Classical literature that have informed the poignant lyricism of your writing? Americanus oblitus strikes me as quintessentially Western, and I thank you for inspiring my most profound respect and admiration.
Mar 1, 2008 - 7:43 pm Jason:VDH: “Obamamania now is based on our collective infantilism”
The author is not a stupid man, but he assumes that Sen. Obama’s supporters are a naive, cultish mass of morons, stupified by “taking 500mg 2x daily of a dashing, eloquent African-American novel candidate”.
This is a well written critique of Obama, but offers nothing but a fleshed out version of the same bumper-stickers slogans that have so far failed against the “man of the hard left”.
It also reads much like a viral e-mail going around right now called “The Angry White Man”, which also claims to describe a supposed silent majority of red blooded anti-liberal voters that will decide the election.
What VDH overlooks is the cold hard fact that Bush and Clinton were deeply flawed candidates who won twice largely because of their personalities. On paper, they were lousy. On the campaign trail, they were undefeated.
Do not assume that voters will be making a rational, unemotional choice this November. They never do.
Mar 2, 2008 - 8:30 am Claire W Solt, PhD:This year echos 1968 sometimes. Then, after all of the street protests and riots the Silent Majority elected Richard Nixon instead of the raving anti war leftists. The Silent Majority and Forgotton Americans are similar. You did not mention how infuriating it is to be flooded by oportunistic anti American propaganda.
Mar 2, 2008 - 8:47 am talnik:I’m posting this everywhere. If you’ve seen it, forgive me, if not, watch it please.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl32Y7wDVDs
Mar 2, 2008 - 11:33 am Trudy B. Taylor:mr. marcotte,
you ask why the thinly veiled anti-americanism oozing from barack obama? part of it is a general, pervasive depression you can trace back to the child being abandoned by his father. this requires the wearing of a mask of distance and disdain 24/7. the real danger inherent in handing over the reins of government to a person who has been treated as mr.obama has by his father is that an insecurity can set in. an insecurity which does not lend itself to bold and decisive decisions and actions, especially when it comes to asserting the u.s.’s military options–look at the degree clinton was hampered in this area. and all his daddy did was have the bad sense to go out and get himself killed before william jefferson blythe was born.
as if an absent barack obama sr. wasnt enough of a hurtle for young “barry”, couple him with a disillusioned, embittered, fellow-traveler, anthropologist of a mother, who married two of her research projects. anne dunham was a wishy-washy marxist who never ginned up the guts to declare herself an outright communist, but you better believe she taught her son well. she instilled in him that haughty disdain for the father culture you see flicker in his eyes when he says things like “you’re likable enough,hillary.”
another reason for the anti-americanism can be traced to who barack picked for his life mate. michelle’s rank disdain for mainstream american culture, and her very verbal concurrence that blacks are chronically mistreated and victimized by mainstream [white} america is no secret. for some reason, she has never been comfortable reconciling her accomplishments with her skin color. this was publicly apparent as early as her sr. thesis in college.
and then finally, you describe the coup de gras–the anti-americanism of politically correct affirmative action, which condones and nurtures a sad victimization in individuals like mr.and mrs.obama. it is indeed a shame, they could’ve done so much for their country if they hadn’t become burdened with the wasteful hatred of pc victimization.
mr. marcotte, you brought up great society welfare. that is an interesting subject. the pre-great society welfare was hard to get and barley allowed one to keep body and soul together. no one wanted to stay on it very long, nor could one do so if one wanted to. the great society changes to welfare have left this country with whole neighborhoods of welfare generation “families”. i hesitate to use the term family with these folks because one of the most egregious results of great society welfare “improvements” was to effectively kick the father out of the home. which closes the circle on abandonment by fathers…
Mar 2, 2008 - 12:54 pm David:How about a third moniker: The Irrelevant American. Not just “Forgotten” or “Unbidden”; no, instead, I’m simply dismissed. No matter my grandparents were all European immigrants who hardscrabbled a ranch or struggled up to professional lives they would have never achieved anywhere else. No matter my dad “did” Normandy that early morning in June, then Belgium and Germany. No matter my parents professed their faith, paid their bills, and nurtured “hopes” for change whose outcomes they felt chiefly responsible for themselves, and so on. They had the audacity not to hope some messianic figure would lead them sheep-like to a green pasture; rather, they expected to move themselves and their progeny part way there by their own work and sacrifice.
The gilded, feel-good rhetoric urging us towards a promised life in a heavenly realm here on earth has no use for me and my attitudes…and I have no desire to find consensus with notions I find offensive or foolish.
Hence, I am Irrelvant to my old Party– sadly yet proudly so. I belong most, it seems, to this blog. Perhaps we should form a coherent movement, put out feelers…and make our own relevance (an idle– perhaps idyllic–Sunday afternoon thought
Mar 2, 2008 - 1:38 pm Consul-At-Arms:I’ve quoted you and linked to you here: http://consul-at-arms.blogspot.com/2008/03/re-forgotten-american-americanus.html
Mar 2, 2008 - 4:21 pm L Nettles:What an extraordinary week for your readers. This post together with your report from Iraq http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson030208.html
Mar 2, 2008 - 4:32 pm Paul G.:are amazing in their scope. Thank you.
An extremely well-written article, Mr. Hanson, and one that reflects many of my own thoughts on Obama’s campaign. However, may I ask what this means?
Why Sen. Obama do you belong to a church whose very platform and principles would mean that your own mother could never have really been welcomed?
Are you suggesting that it is somehow wrong for him to chose a different religion than his parents? If his mother was alive today, would he be wronging her by remaining a Christian?
Mar 2, 2008 - 9:32 pm MartyVice:Paul G.,
Here’s the answer to your question:
It’s not because Obama’s mother is a non-Christian, it’s because she is white.
Mar 3, 2008 - 6:17 am Trudy B. Taylor:paul g: mr. amd mrs.obama’s church (trinity united church of christ) would have effectively excluded mr. obama’s mother because she was white.
Mar 3, 2008 - 6:27 am Bowden Russell:To:Trudy B. Taylor
Sorry Mr/Ms. Taylor, you can’t have it both ways. If you’re going to embrace “free-trade” you have to accept the open-border. “free-trade” is like water and it seeks the path of least resistance-lower wages.
So if you embrace GATT/WTO/NAFTA you have to accept a loss of sovereignty and control of your borders.
I like how you also wish to run away from the failed promises of said agreements. They promised us encomic paradise and if anything all we’ve gotten for our efforts is cheap Chinese products for our efforts and a terrible economy.
Mar 3, 2008 - 7:29 pm