Aug 01 2009

Nation’s Political Industrial Complex Under Attack, Off Balance

The nation is coming of age politically this year. It is shedding its naive ‘follow the experts’ mentality that had us a nation of drones listening with awe to the talking heads (media and pols) who saturated the air waves since the days of World War II. With control over the message the nation the political industrial complex – made up of politicians, their media lackeys, the media’s preferred list of expert opinion makers and the power brokers behind the scenes pulling all the strings – basically had the nation under a trance. They told us what to think and made gobs of money for themselves.

But now in the age of the internet, the 24 hour news cycle and a blogosphere that can bring to bear the largest number of sharp and experienced minds outside of DC (and probably on the planet given our cultural and technological edge over the rest of the world) we see that trance breaking. We see the nation not only waking up but finding its voice. And it is not happy with the Political Industrial Complex that has grown up inside the snobby, elite halls of DC and NY City and LA. I am a product of this rarified community, and I can see quite clearly that these people are attempting to batten down the hatches behind their gated communities, they are hoarding their ill gotten gains and trying to throw their opposition to the sharks anyway they can.

It is a nauseating but needed spectacle, not unlike lancing an infected wound. 

The Political Industrial Complex has survived by pitting us against ourselves. They rail against the Military Industrial Complex – which provides a majority of our technological edge in the world markets. It rails against the Hollywood Industrial Complex – which has many times provided us vision, historic perspective and morale lessons. The Political Industrial Complex has railed against religion – which gives many the faith and energy to make it through hard times and heart breaking events.  They go after educators, power companies, etc. They are professional whiners nagging everyone else doing the work of this great nation.

They are now railing against our health care system – which has saved lives and made life better for millions upon millions of people. All in a transparent effort to transform our nation into their idiotic vision of what it should be. No one gave the authority to implement their personal world views by hook or crook, but that is what they are doing. We have a snobby, elite, clueless and inexperienced group of know-it-alls running this nation from their Political Industrial Complex (where they all pretend to fight then go party at night as best of friends), and they spend all their time trying to dupe us into not knowing what they are planning to do.

But they are now butting up against the actual heart of this nation – the people who make it great every day in millions of ways small and large. The Political Industrial Complex is run by the extremists – the fringes. They do not like the center, in fact they despise it. For all their spouted claims of revering this great nation and its innovative answer to tough solutions, the Political Industrial Complex does not like us to make our own choices, come up with our own solutions, voice our own ideas that typically bridge the gap between the extremes.

 One large indication of the battle between the liberal old guard inside the Political Industrial Complex and the rest of the country is the compromise made in the House Energy and Commerce committee:

Seeking to dampen liberal anger about deals cut with centrists, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said House leaders have agreed to allow a floor vote on a government-run, single-payer system.

“A lot of members on our committee want a vote on that,” said Waxman said in an interview. “I believe their wishes will be accommodated.”

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) offered a single-payer amendment in the Energy and Commerce Committee on Friday, but withdrew it after Waxman said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had promised a floor vote. 

This will be rich to watch. A government monopoly on this nation’s health care is only desired by a small and extremely naive element of the country. 80% of this nation are happy with the quality of their care and would not trade quality for saving some money. This concession indicates an important break between the liberal extremists and the rest of the nation. Now these liberals will have to convince the immutable opposition inside the GOP and centrists Dems to not get slaughtered in a floor vote. Yeah. like that’s not going to happen.

But the GOP part of the Political Industrial Complex is just as much at risk for credibility damage. I really, really admire Mark Steyn, but today I think his paranoia got the better of him as he put out the worse political advice possible for Republicans:

Health-care “reform”? As we’ve seen this past week in the House of Representatives, put not your trust in “Blue Dog Democrats.” And, as we’ll no doubt see in the weeks ahead in the Senate, put not your trust in “moderate Republicans” whose urge to “reach across the aisle” is so reflexive it ought to be covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The president needs to get something passed. Anything. The details don’t matter. Once it’s in place, health-care “reform” can be re-reformed endlessly. Indeed, you’ll be surprised how little else we talk about. So, for example, public funding for abortions can be discarded now, and written in — as it surely will be by some judge — down the road. What matters is to ram it through, get it done, pass it now — in whatever form.

If this seems a perverse obsession for a nation with a weak economy, rising unemployment, and a war on two fronts, it has a very sound strategic logic behind it. As I wrote in National Review a week or two back, health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture. 

I don’t think allowing for insurance collectives or pools for small businesses and individuals will be the end of western civilization as we know it. The Medicare Rx benefit enacted under President Bush which is a purely market driven benefit is not the end of the world, but is the kind of free market alliance with the federal safety net programs which serves both interests well – not to mention all the people getting the benefit.

Steyn is fallowing the Amnesty Hypochondriac path which destroyed the GOP governing coalition in the first place. You can find imperfections in any approach and then exaggerate them into end of the world scenarios all day long. That takes no talent or genius or leadership. I hate to say it this bluntly, but losers and failures always find excuses not to take a risk and possibly succeed. It is the security blanket of the status quo types – find some reason to be frozen in place.

The Political Industrial Complex is now under attack and off balance. It is, once again, attacking the centrists with end of the world nonsense. And it is attacking anybody from Main Street ready to take the risks to move this country forward. And the best example of this fear based lashing out is Sarah Palin, as John Hawkins accurately notes today:

Then along came Sarah Palin, whom most conservatives viewed as the lone bright spot of the 2008 campaign. Here’s a woman that many conservatives identify with not only because they believe she really shares their values, but because she is genuinely what so many other politicians pretend to be. She’s a person who got where she is based on merit and she found success without the advantage of being born in the right family, being wealthy, or being given a break because she went to an Ivy League school.

Even after the GOP lost the election, the all-out assault on Sarah Palin and her family continued. Why attack a mere governor of Alaska as opposed to Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, John Boehner, Mitt Romney, or Mike Huckabee? Because Palin managed to generate more enthusiasm amongst conservatives than all of those people combined. Liberals correctly identified Sarah Palin as the biggest danger to them in the entire Republican Party and they’re doing everything they can to eliminate that threat.

An unspoken assumption was made by many conservatives: Palin is like me and the real problem that Palin’s enemies on the right have with her is that they’re snobs and they don’t accept common people like me in their leadership.

Given the way that conservatives are regularly betrayed and the contempt for them that some Republicans have shown over the last few years, that assessment is probably correct more often than not.

That’s why a lot of conservatives react to criticism of Palin from the right the same way that they react to criticism of Reagan. Granted, Sarah Palin is no Ronald Reagan. But one of the seldom discussed reasons conservatives love Reagan so much is because he was the personification of their principles. This was the man who put what conservatives believed in to the test in the real world and proved the worth of their ideas. An attack on Reagan from the right was not just considered to be a slap at a politician, politician, but was also treated like an assault on the value system of “Reagan conservatives.”

Sarah Palin has become the lightning rod for the panicked Political Industrial Complex. They know if Palin succeeds there is an army of normal Americans who will stand up and run against the idiots now in power. They know the entire Political Industrial Complex would be re-staffed. They know if anyone like Palin ever gets a foot hold their golden goose is cooked.

And if you doubt that look what has happened to Obama – who is about to be sacrificed on the altar of self preservation of the Political Industrial Complex. I agree with John at Powerline that the damage to his credibility that he took over his failed stimulus package, the jaw dropping deficits and his Obamacare debacle have left him permanently damaged goods:

As a candidate–especially, as a candidate almost wholly unscrutinized by the press–he could try to be all things to all people, with some success. But a mere six months in office have revealed the real Barack Obama: a hard-left liberal. Hence this survey from today’s Rasmussen Reports. Seventy-six percent of likely voters now classify Obama as a liberal, with a remarkable 48 percent terming him “very liberal.”

Rasmussen1184.jpg

I don’t believe anyone who was generally regarded as “very liberal” has ever been elected President; not since Franklin Roosevelt, anyway. So I don’t think it is unreasonable for us conservatives to hope for the best of both worlds: a modest recovery in our 401Ks, and a new President in 2013.

What will happen to liberals after their floor vote on a government take over of health care fails miserably? The only way to pass that abomination was under the cover of a ruse, to dupe America into believing it was something else – like lowering cost and increasing access. But now it is going to be out in the open, naked to national scrutiny.

When the polls start coming in showing America would prefer a war with Iran over nationalized health care, what will happen? Centrists are the targets of both fringes right now. Both fringes are pushing the panic button, screaming the end of the world is nigh if centrists rule the day.

It is a strange time for our nation when DC is basically at war with the nation it pretends to represent. What will be the result? Will the political industrial complex, in sheer panic, pull a coup d’etat? Or will the centrists rule out and bring the nation back into balance. Time will tell.

14 responses so far

14 Responses to “Nation’s Political Industrial Complex Under Attack, Off Balance”

  1. […] Nazi whose left arm — quite involuntarily — keeps springing up into the Heil Hitler salute. Nation’s Political Industrial Complex Under Attack, Off Balance – strata-sphere.com 08/01/2009 The nation is coming of age politically this year. It is shedding […]

  2. WWS says:

    What makes you think the floor vote on health care will fail? Waxman’s committe just passed the bill, and it turns out the “blue dogs” bought into the left wing agenda hook, line, and sinker.

  3. kathie says:

    Add to the list of Obama’s negatives, “the cops acted stupidly”, not knowing the facts. A rush to judgment a thoughtful person should not have made. And as written today at NRO, why won’t Obama release his original birth certificate and college transcripts? He has spent millions protecting the original. However President Bush had to defend a DUI he got in his youth, and a forged letter that said, he supposedly bought his way out of Vietnam.

    I’m ready for “regular” people to run this country. Actually George Bush spoke to me as a “regular guy”.

  4. owl says:

    I don’t always agree with Steyn because I see him as having moved a few degrees in the last couple of years. This time I do. He is so correct about the president MUST get something passed. At this point, it does not matter to them what it is………..just get it passed so he can carry on the charade that he is making it all happen. Then………………

    He is coming back at a different angle.

    Difference between Dims and Pugs? Dims never quit. Never. They fight. Congressional Pugs are just now even considering the idea that they should stop being ladies and gents.

    But………………The Won is a different Dim. I would not put my money on Blue Dims. I did bet the imaginary ‘million’ with my spouse in 2004 that The Won would win.

    No health care reform any any form at this point. Nothing until tort reform. Pugs should be shouting about the money for lawyers. This is not the same as immigration reform with Bush in the WH.

    Yep, Dims correctly identified Palin from the beginning. She was their threat. Their only threat but McCain would not fight. But I still hear the Pug elite not understand what an gem Palin was for the Pugs.

    Obama was not hard to understand. He came from the Neighborhood. He told us straight out he intended to change America. He had enough dirt that he should have been buried 10 times over in scandal. The threw the woman that raised him over for a race baiter. He said our electric bills would be higher. He told the woman her mother maybe should have taken the pills and died. He gave the finger on national TV. He told us he was transparent and then hid all his records. In our faces.

    Now he told people he would reform healthcare. He didn’t really say how. The Won will reform the money in healthcare to fit into his ACORN view. This is the time for Pugs to really become the party of no. If those Pug Congressional critters ever give him one inch, forget it, it’s done.

    Hillary could not beat him.

  5. AJStrata says:

    Owl, the fear of progress is the road to defeat.

    Stop worrying about Obama and Dems and Pugs. You are way of focus.

    What will fix things for most Americans? Solve this and the rest disappears into history.

  6. AJStrata says:

    WWS,

    You’re kidding- right? The bill that passed stands without a government run option. That is why the libs were given a floor vote to add it back in – which will fail because the blue dogs and GOP will vote against it.

  7. bobsunshine says:

    The MSM keeps telling Americans that we have to fix our healthcare system, when in fact it is the best in the world.

    Here is an excerpt from the Hoover Institution (h/t HotAir). Read the whole thing.

    http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/49525427.html

    1. Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers.
    2. Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians. 3. Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries.
    4. Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians.
    5. Lower-income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians.
    6. Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the United Kingdom.
    7. People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed.
    8. Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians.
    9. Americans have better access to important new technologies such as medical imaging than do patients in Canada or Britain.
    10. Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations.

  8. crosspatch says:

    I was, as I am known to do, over checking out Instapundit when I noticed a picture of a tea party in Columbus, Ohio. Over 7,000 people and the crowd was still gathering. And nearly all of them are just average folks, no move-on or code pink or other coordinated agitation groups pretending to be grass roots, most of these people came as individuals not associated with any organized group.

    Now think about that for a minute. The current protests against the policies of our government are larger than the anti-war protests against the war in Iraq. These aren’t paid “rent-a-mobs” as were used against the Bush administration policies. They aren’t professional “activists”. They are just average people. Thousands of them. None of these “tea party” groups have a central funding mechanism along the lines of the Tides Foundation and Heinz Foundation funding that fed the anti-war groups. They don’t have their message centrally managed by the likes of Fenton Communications who kept everyone “on message” and coordinated the rhetoric of the anti-war astroturf groups such as Win Without War, Veterans For Peace, and Code Pink.

    What you are seeing are the true feelings of real people.

    Why this phenomenon isn’t a huge media story is beyond me because it really is amazing.

  9. Mike M. says:

    AJ, I think Steyn is right. Wariness is strongly indicated. Once the Left gets a foothold with socialized medicine, they will expand it infinitely. This needs to be stopped on the beach.

    Now, if somebody wants to try to organize a group policy for people who are not part of a group…that is another matter.

  10. kathie says:

    Sunday news……..we have walked back from the brink of depression because of the policies we put into place 6 months ago. Do we blame Bush or praise him for TARP.

  11. AJStrata says:

    Mike M,

    There is a huge gap between wary and paranoid to the point of stopping anything form passing.

  12. WWS says:

    AJ – I checked. The amendment to strip out the public option *failed*.

    The Bill as passed by the blue dogs, has a strong public option.

    Your moderates have failed.

    http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D99PPHV80&show_article=1

  13. owl says:

    AJ, it’s not progress I fear. I wanted something done about immigration (I actually know Mexicans) and Bush was as good as it was ever going to get. English would have been a good first step. Simple, but true.

    I have also pointed out several holes in our health system that many people can not get around. They need fixing. They truly are horrible and the lucky ones that never manage to hit those snags are ……………………………very, very lucky. Some smart, but I say lucky. Tort reform would be a very good first step. Simple, but would solve a lot of problems. Something to address the restrictions on previous medical history would be a nice second. There really are some big, bad problems but I still believe that nothing good can come from anything Obama signs. Just because some are in the holes, don’t dump everyone into it.