Obama's DNC Speech - Do the Arithmetic

My apologies to my faithful readers for being absent from my blog for so many days.  I was quite ill.  I’m still not up to speed.  However, I couldn’t let any more days go by with responding to Obama’s DNC nomination acceptance speech.

He began his speech by going back eight years to 2004, when he addressed the DNC as its keynote speaker.  The keynote speaker is generally regarded as front-runner for the next election.  By all accounts, he gave a great speech.  The reason it was a great speech was because it was a Conservative speech aimed at swing voters.  They remembered his speech – and what a great speech they thought it was – and voted for him.  His 2008 opponent, John McCain, a notorious moderate and aisle-crosser, white-haired and hand-picked by RNC Chairman Michael Steele, was a sure-loser.

Obama’s policies over the last four years have failed miserably.  The country is $16 trillion dollars in debt.  We’re practically owned by China.  If any U.S. companies are solvent it’s because they’ve been bailed out by the government, otherwise known as the taxpayers, or they’ve moved their operations overseas.  The U.S. has the highest corporate tax rate in the world.

The first time I addressed this convention, in 2004, I was a younger man — (laughter) — a Senate candidate from Illinois who spoke about hope, not blind optimism, not wishful thinking but hope in the face of difficulty, hope in the face of uncertainty, that dogged faith in the future which has pushed this nation forward even when the odds are great, even when the road is long.

Eight years later that hope has been tested by the cost of war, by one of the worst economic crises in history and by political gridlock that's left us wondering whether it's still even possible to tackle the challenges of our time. I know campaigns can seem small, even silly sometimes.

Trivial things become big distractions. Serious issues become sound bites. The truth gets buried under an avalanche of money and advertising. And if you're sick of hearing me approve this message, believe me, so am I.

Silly?  You mean like decades—old  tax returns?  Bringing out opponents divorce records?  Or maybe birth certificates that your own attorneys admitted were forged?  Or your wife’s outrageous fashion expenses or extravaganzas to exotic locales?  Are those trivial distractions you’ve spent an “avalanche of money” trying to bury?

Or is the truth about the $900 billion dollars you sent to Palestine to flower the Arab Spring while you admittedly plan to downsize our own military.  You had a lot of nerve touting our own military, which your opponent admittedly did not do.  Only he isn’t planning to downsize the military until they’re paper soldiers with nothing to fight with but slingshots.

You think the economy is doing better at 8.5 percent.  If anyone is working it’s your union buddies in the manufacturing and education industries, not to mention your Wall Street cronies who supported your campaign in a trade-off for regulatory favors and considerations.   Sure they’re doing fine and we’re not.   It’s our money and jobs you gave them.

Over the next few years big decisions will be made in Washington on jobs, the economy, taxes and deficits, energy, education, war and peace — decisions that will have a huge impact on our lives and on our children’s lives for decades to come.

And on every issue, the choice you face won’t just be between two candidates or two parties. It will be a choice between two different paths for America, a choice between two fundamentally different visions for the future. Ours is a fight to restore the values that built the largest middle class and the strongest economy the world has ever known —  the values my grandfather defended as a soldier in Patton’s army, the values that drove my grandmother to work on a bomber assembly line while he was gone. They knew they were part of something larger — a nation that triumphed over fascism and depression, a nation where the most innovative businesses turn out the world's best products, and everyone shared in that pride and success from the corner office to the factory floor.

My grandparents were given the chance to go to college and buy their home — their own home and fulfill the basic bargain at the heart of America's story, the promise that hard work will pay off, that responsibility will be rewarded, that everyone gets a fair shot and everyone does their fair share and everyone plays by the same rules, from Main Street to Wall Street to Washington, D.C.”

If America elects you, they’ll be electing you Liar-in-Chief.  Who do you think you’re kidding with that blarney, “Ours is a fight to restore the values that built the largest middle class and the strongest economy the world has ever known?”  Your own avowals have been to turn us into a Third World country – to make us equal to the poorer countries in the world.  Don’t you remember your Berlin speech:  “America thinks it’s exceptional the way every country think it’s exceptional; the way Great Britain thinks it’s exceptional.  The way Greece thinks it’s exceptional.”  Yeah, Greece is exceptional, all right; exceptionally bankrupt.

You certainly trot out your grandparents when it suits your political convenience.  According to our biography, “Dreams From My Father,” they were wealthy enough to own their own home in a middle class neighborhood, saved enough to send you to the exclusive Punaho School, yet you were ashamed of your middle class upbringing when you were invited to swim in wealthier classmate’s pool.  Yet still, you longed for the swampland, Indonesia home of your stepfather Lolo, where you had to watch out for alligators.

According to rumors, you weren’t above using your stepfather, Lolo Soetoro’s name to get into private schools in Hawaii, as a foreign exchange, and then into Occidental and Columbia.  But you consider those college records trivial matters that would be a waste of taxpayers’ money to pursue.  Still, you want to see your opponent’s previous tax returns for whatever class warfare dirt you can dig up.

Those independent voters you’re courting, the middle class suburbanites you deign to protect should know just how much your hate and despise them.  They should know of your Building One America plans to destroy their suburbs, to warehouse suburbanites in high-rise buildings and cluster buildings, how they plan to annex entire suburbs under the auspices of one city, so that you can appropriate their tax money.

“Dreams From My Father,”  “Cities Without Suburbs” and “Metropolitics:  A Regional Agenda for Community and Stability” all drip with such loathing for the middle class.  In “Dreams From  My Father” Obama calls his black grandfather, Oniyanga, a “House Nigger” [his words, not mine] for allowing himself to be educated and acculturated by the British, and for opposing his father’s marriage to a white woman.

Obama must have read the polls for he backtracks on his stance on Israel and Iran.  But remember:  this is only a speech to win an election.  He has to try to win over a doubtful Jewish vote.                

Terrorist plots must be disrupted. Europe's crisis must be contained. Our commitment to Israel's security must not waver, and neither must our pursuit of peace. (Cheers, applause.) The Iranian government must face a world that stays united against its nuclear ambitions. The historic change sweeping across the Arab world must be defined

He goes on to brag about how he ended the War in Iraq (wasn’t it already over by Bush’s administration?) and will end the war in Afghanistan.  That might not be as easy as he thinks.  There are two problems:  The Taliban, which just won’t seem to go away with a wave of O’s magic wand, and China.

My opponent — my opponent said that it was tragic to end the war in Iraq. And he won't tell us how he'll end the war in Afghanistan. Well, I have, and I will. (Cheers, applause.) And while my opponent would spend more money on military hardware that our Joint Chiefs don't even want, I will use the money we're no longer spending on war to pay down our debt and put more people back to work — (extended cheers, applause) — rebuilding roads and bridges and schools and runways, because after two wars that have cost us thousands of lives and over a trillion dollars, it's time to do some nation building right here at home.

We owe China a whole bunch of money, and with our increasingly devalued currency, if China calls in the debt, we'll be in a big hole.  What China wants isn’t our worthless money, though; what she wants is our energy-rich land – and Afghanistan’s, which is chock full of rare earth minerals.  Even though she has more manpower, as part of our debt, she wants the U.S. to spend our blood and treasure to get rid of the pesky Taliban.  Once they’re out of the way, China can safely mine all the deposits she’s laid claim to.

Finally, Obama promises to protect the middle class financially.  What middle class?  By the time he’s through in another four years, there won’t be a middle class.  There will only two classes:  an upper class running the government-chosen industries and the lower class, dependent either on low-paid union jobs with no chance of advancement or on the government largesse.

Here’s Obama’s “American Dream”:

You can choose a future where we reduce our deficit without sticking it to the middle class.  Independent experts say that my plan would cut our deficit by $4 trillion. And last summer I worked with Republicans in Congress to cut a billion dollars in spending, because those of us who believe government can be a force for good should work harder than anyone to reform it so that it's leaner and more efficient and more responsive to the American people.

I want to reform the tax code so that it's simple, fair and asks the wealthiest households to pay higher taxes on incomes over $250,000 —  the same rate we had when Bill Clinton was president, the same rate we had when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs, the biggest surplus in history and a whole lot of millionaires to boot.

Maybe it’s because he grew up in a backwards country like Indonesia, and took his life’s trek from Kenya, but Obama equates tax breaks and cuts with an increase in taxes.  What tax cuts means are cuts in budgets, not taxes.  Cutting budgets saves taxpayers money, although those benefitting from government programs don’t work out so well; like the college kids getting government college loans, failing businesses receiving stimulus money, and people who can’t afford homes getting CORA grants.  What Obama wants to do is take away money from the military (although he oozed with love for them) and give them to people who can afford to buy their houses.  Thanks to Building One America, though, they will.  The plan is to squeeze us taxpayers into housing projects and send the no-income squatters to occupy our homes.

Then there’s Social Security and Obamacare:

And we will keep the promise of Social Security by taking the responsible steps to strengthen it, not by turning it over to Wall Street. This is the choice we now face. This is what the election comes down to. Over and over, we've been told by our opponents that bigger tax cuts and fewer regulations are the only way, that since government can't do everything, it should do almost nothing. If you can't afford health insurance, hope that you don't get sick.  If a company releases toxic pollution into the air your children breathe, well, that's the price of progress. If you can't afford to start a business or go to college, take my opponent's advice and borrow money from your parents.

By the time Obama was ready to run for the Illinois senate, he was already married to Michelle.  He couldn’t tell her, though, that he’d already rented the office but didn’t have the money for the next month’s rent, the staff, or the literature he’d need.  So, he had to beg from every big Fat Cat Democrat donor in Chicago in the city to raise the money, not to mention the dirt-diggers to get all the bad news on his opponents, who all wound up dropping out of the race.  But that’s not what we’re all about.

You know what, that's not who we are. That's not what this country is about. As Americans, we believe we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, rights that no man or government can take away. We insist on personal responsibility, and we celebrate individual initiative. We're not entitled to success. We have to earn it. We honor the strivers, the dreamers, the risk- takers, the entrepreneurs who have always been the driving force behind our free enterprise system, the greatest engine of growth and prosperity that the world's ever known.

Doesn’t that just sound so wonderful?  So inspiring coming from a young man whose stepfather adopted him as an Indonesian and supposedly enrolled in college as a foreign exchange student – Barry Soetoro?

But we also believe in something called citizenship —citizenship, a word at the very heart of our founding, a word at the very essence of our democracy, the idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations.

Not to sound like a “birther” but if he entered school as a foreign exchange student, when exactly did he become an American citizen again?

We believe that when a CEO pays his autoworkers enough to buy the cars that they build, the whole company does better.

I’ve never heard of an autoworker who couldn’t afford to buy the car his company manufactured.  I’ve heard of autoworkers who wouldn’t buy the car.  In any case, union workers make better salaries than the rest of us.  Unless they worked for Mercedes Benz or Lamborghini, it’s hard to imagine they couldn’t afford to buy their company’s car.

We believe that when a family can no longer be tricked into signing a mortgage they can't afford, that family's protected, but so is the value of other people's homes — and so is the entire economy.

                                   
Tricked?  Tricked?!  There wasn’t a single homeowner during the housing crisis who didn’t understand what an ARM (Adjustable Rate Mortgage) is.  They were playing the Ponzi Numbers game and they knew it.  Some broker offered me an ARM and my brother tried to urge me into one.  I told them to go fly a kite to the moon.  I do have a problem with town councils that gave the thumbs-up to McMansion developers, knowing that future owners would default on their mortgages and houses.  I took just a dim view of cluster housing and apartment buildings with renters who would pay no property taxes and tangle up their towns with impossible traffic.  I feel no sympathy for any of them and resent the fact that my taxes are bailing them out.

Over and over, we've been told by our opponents that bigger tax cuts and fewer regulations are the only way, that since government can't do everything, it should do almost nothing. If you can't afford health insurance, hope that you don't get sick.

Believe it or not, you can get low-cost health care.  I just signed up for some today.  Mind you, it’s the very basic, bare bones care.  For $192, I get hospitalization, accident, dental, vision, and prescription drugs.  The one item the policy doesn’t cover is catastrophic illness.  I figure if I have a cat illness and they take my house, I’m not going to need it anyway.  The other thing it doesn’t cover is doctor visits.  It even covers vitamins.  When I consider my employer’s plan basically cost me my job (even for the COBRA extension, the cost was $520 a month), $192 per month isn't so bad.

Finally, at the end of Obama’s speech, he enjoins with these parting words:

If you reject the notion that this nation’s promise is reserved for the few, your voice must be heard in this election

Well, since it’s Obama’s notion, not ours, we certainly do reject it – and Obama

If you reject the notion that our government is forever beholden to the highest bidder, you need to stand up in this election.

Another reason to reject Obama; he was responsible for selling out us to the highest bidder.

If you believe that new plants and factories can dot our landscape, that new energy can power our future, that new schools can provide ladders of opportunity to this nation of dreamer.

So long as we tax corporations at usurious rates, no plant or factor in its right mind will do business in America, unless the government bails them out.  So long as schools teach socialism and climatology, instead of basic education, our students will be the idiots carrying baskets of rice for the Chinese.

If you believe in a country where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share and everyone plays by the same rules, then I need you to vote this November.

Everyone in America already gets a fair shot.  Not everyone does their fair share, collecting welfare and other government entitlements.  And you, Pres. Obama, are the last person to play by the rules.  How many Executive Orders have you passed now?

America, I never said this journey would be easy, and I won't promise that now. Yes, our path is harder, but it leads to a better place.  Yes, our road is longer, but we travel it together.

No, you never said it would be easy.  What you said was you would transform American and spread the wealth.  Your road is certainly going to longer because it is not going to lead to a better place.  Your road is longer because we have no intention of traveling it together; we will do everything to wake America out of the stupor in which you placed, throw roadblocks in your way, and reveal to American the truth about what you are.

We don't turn back. We leave no one behind.  We pull each other up.  We draw strength from our victories. And we learn from our mistakes. But we keep our eyes fixed on that distant horizon knowing that providence is with us and that we are surely blessed to be citizens of the greatest nation on earth.

You don’t turn back because you’ve been indoctrinated in socialism and communism for decades.  You’ve left plenty people of behind, particularly the middle class because they represent success, exceptionalism and peace.  Socialism and Communism have been around for over a century and you still have learned from the mistakes; in fact, you go out of your way to repeat them.  I wouldn’t count on providence being with you; providence doesn’t favor liars and manipulators don’t point to a distant horizon that is a mirage.  Finally, we already are the greatest nation on Earth.  If we’ve tumbled from our pedestal

 Thank you, God bless you and God bless these United States.

God may bless those of us who believe in the United States, and He may be bless and protect our country.  But unless I’m very much mistaken, God has a very different fate in store for you and your followers, Barrack Hussein Obama.