Just over fifty years ago, Harding College produced a series of films “to create a deeper understanding” of American culture. This one, Make Mine Freedom, has been “re-discovered” in recent days and is making the rounds quite a bit across the Internet. Personally, I found it to be uncannily prophetic about the country we are living in today. Perhaps we should begin considering the wisdom of the past.
Here is Make Mine Freedom…
Jack Kemp was one of the best people in modern American politics who never became President.
I’ll be even more blunt: when the 1996 elections came around, Kemp was the only reason why I not only voted for Bob Dole, but put up a huge campaign sign for “Dole-Kemp” in our front apartment window (yeah my roomie was rootin’ for ’em too).
And I can’t help but wonder: if he had been vice-president under Reagan (I’ve heard plenty over the years that he was highly considered for the job by Reagan himself, but the party bigwigs wanted George Bush as his running mate instead) then this might have been a far different… and far better… country today. Kemp was a man of real ideas, particularly in regards to economic growth.
Jack Kemp – former NFL football player, member of the United States House of Representatives, and Secretary of Housing ...
Found this political cartoon and couldn’t resist posting it here…
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So the senator from Pennsylvania today declared that his party affiliation “has not defined who I am”.
And as an act of faith, the first thing Arlen Specter did to demonstrate his proclaimed values was… change parties.
Think about that for a moment.
Why should any person who claims to not be defined by party affiliation, even care enough to so grandiosely publicize that he or she is switching parties?
And wouldn’t a person supposedly not defined by a party, in keeping with his or her principles, choose NOT to belong to any party at all?
All Specter is proving is that America has scarce few real leaders. What America does have is an excessive amount of damned fools who aren’t shy about their willingness to be yanked around by their noses by whatever “the party” tells them. And Arlen Specter is one of ’em....
The words I never, ever thought I’d hear a President of the United States tell the country…
“Your warranty will be safe. In fact, it will be safer than it’s ever been, because starting today, the United States government will stand behind your warranty.”
And you thought “womb to the tomb” policies were bad. Now the federal government has got your car covered bumper to bumper.
And Obama’s firing the head of General Motors apparently didn’t take well with the markets today: they were down all over, including the Dow at -254 points.
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The head of the European Union has described President Obama’s plans to spend the United States out of recession as “the road to hell”.
Great Britain is running out of money.
China wants to dump the U.S. dollar as the de facto global currency.
And now the United States Postal Service is beginning to beg for a bailout.
What’s that Chinese curse? “May you live in interesting times”, or something....
Terence Corcoran of Financial Post has written a sobering article on his blog about the decline of the United States across the spectra of finance and politics…
...As an aghast world — from China to Chicago and Chihuahua — watches, the circus-like U.S. political system seems to be declining into near chaos. Through it all, stock and financial markets are paralyzed. The more the policy regime does, the worse the outlook gets. The multi-ringed spectacle raises a disturbing question in many minds: Is this the end of America?
Probably not, if only because there are good reasons for optimism. The U.S. economy has pulled out of self-destructive political spirals in the past, spurred on by its business class and corporate leaders, the profit-making and market-creating people who rose above the political turmoil to once again lift the world out of financial crisis. It’s happened many times before, except for once,
If the United States keeps “spending a bunch of money we don’t have”, it faces a collapse of its economy much like what has happened in Zimbabwe, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford predicts.
In case you haven’t heard, the financial hyper-inflation which has rocked Zimbabwe has led that country to issue a one trillion dollar bill as part of its currency. For one of those legal tender notes, you can currently buy a hamburger or two.
Sanford gets what’s really going on. Too bad there doesn’t seem to be many other elected officials who are likewise calling for fiscal sobriety right now....
According to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, since Barack Obama has been sworn in as President the United States Congress has voted to spend $1.2 trillion… which breaks down to an expenditure rate of $1 Billion per hour. That’s during a 24 hour day, not just when Congress is in session (unfortunately).
Anyone else wondering where the heck this money is coming from to begin with?...
What is going on in recent days with the Republican Party and its adherents who still proclaim to be “conservative” reminds me terribly of the events of John Carpenter’s The Thing. The men of Antarctic base Outpost 31 in that movie grow increasingly paranoid, even violent toward each other. As Wilford Brimley’s character tells MacReady (Kurt Russell) at one point: “I don’t know who to trust.”
I don’t think the Republicans have been infiltrated by aliens just yet (as happens in another John Carpenter movie, They Live) but ever since this past weekend’s annual Conservative Political Action Conference you would think that the party is divvying up and preparing to go at it with flamethrowers and fire axes. But I think that the “mainstream press” (now more worthless than ever) is missing the real story here. This power struggle among so-called “conservatives” is only happening because the Republicans ...