Posted on 10/30/2009 9:59:51 AM PDT by Schnucki
My friend Peggy Noonan has written a powerful piece on the decline of optimism and confidence in the future among what she calls the American “leadership class” – the business and opinion-forming elites who determine the effective state of mind of the country. The present economic crisis, she says, is unlike previous recessions (in which the hard facts of economic life were sometimes worse) in that there is now a sense of defeatism and resignation which is quite new to America’s conception of itself.
What she senses is that no one believes any longer in the possibility of a political solution. No one is saying that the Democrats under Obama are bound to find a way through if only they can triumph over their critics, or that the Republicans would be able to save the day if only they could recover their nerve. There is, in other words, a feeling that governmental remedies are in themselves useless and discredited. The people who were once the motor of the great American economic miracle are giving up: all that they can see before them is a vision of more taxation, more regulation, more interference, more medication to alleviate the symptoms of the previous prescriptions – and nothing, they realise, will work.
Well America, welcome to the place where Britain and Europe have been for roughly two generations. What you have discovered are the limits of Big Government – the no-hope, tried-everything, dead end of centralised formulae for ever more socially-engineered national “happiness”. Please don’t give up. If any nation in the world is capable of seeing the real lesson in this, and of saving itself from the despair and cynicism which are now commonplace on this side of the Atlantic, you are. You could still teach the world to sing.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
Peggy Noonan wrote something powerful?
Ugghhh - and Peggy Noonan sure is familiar with the “elitist political class,” isn’t she?
Anyone who thought we were exaggerating when we called the media/bureaucratic complex a new ruling class might want to reconsider. Noonan is very much a part of that class and the difference between her and her liberal friends is nowhere near the difference between them and the rest of the country, whom they hold in contempt.
This is coming from the many immigrants that have come to America in the last 10/15 years or so.
They bring the thinking of their former countries with them, and thus many like the ideas of many of the failed policies in their country of origin.
So with the younger generations that have been educated to not believe in America they make a large number of us.
Many do not get past the ideas of free health care, and free education, and free food stamps, and recently freely getting into homes they can not afford. etc. Plus living on huge credit card charges they can not afford. !!!
MOO
ARGH!
God help us in our day, in Jesus name, amen.
Try reading it before criticizing. I’m no Noonan fan, but it was a good article this morning, especially the “punch line.” Basically she was saying, we’re going to see an Atlas Shrugged scenario.
Here’s an excerpt and a link to the article if you’d care to read it before criticizing it.
We are governed at all levels by America’s luckiest children, sons and daughters of the abundance, and they call themselves optimists but they’re not optimists—they’re unimaginative. They don’t have faith, they’ve just never been foreclosed on. They are stupid and they are callous, and they don’t mind it when people become disheartened. They don’t even notice
http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html
My only objection to the article was that she still attributes this to naivete and the fact that this generation has “never suffered.”
That may have been what got Obama elected, and may even have been what motivated Peggy to become an Obama flack for awhile. But the truth of the matter is that Obama and the people around him know perfectly well that they are destroying America and this is what they WANT to do. It’s no accident.
High tail it to Galt’s Gulch.
Noonan dislikes Sarah Palin, rigth?
I thought her point, especially concerning the businessmen was that Washington doesn’t understand that you can’t take, and take, and take without having the consequences of your actions/taxes,etc. come back to haunt you...in the form of people dropping out of the system (she mentioned the insurance guy in regards to this.)
Don’t have a clue. I don’t follow Noonan’s work, but I did read her article this morning in the WSJ.
What she’s describing is nihilism. I’d rather see this country go down in flames than succumb to that self-pitying world-weariness that is European nihilism.
I don’t think giving up on a political solution is the same as giving up. There are other ways to win this war.
Yes, I think that’s a good point. My only objection was that she seemed to think this was an unepexected consequence of Obama’s actions. I think it’s expected and hoped-for.
All we need to do is make enough to hand over enough to the government to keep Obama’s greens fees current. That’s really all Marxists want.
Headline?
Aging radicals, followers lack experience; full of zeal for change
Obama White House Is Not A Real Administration
1960s Marxist street radicals, adherents want "social justice" not America. "Bring it all down, man."
After siding with Obama and his communist takeover, wherein you derided Sarah Palin and her very clear promotion of common sense conservativism, you owe the American public a very public apology.
Until then, Peggy, you're just a knee-pad mouthpiece of the communist machine.
We’ve been through despair before: Carter, FDR, Hoover. We always get tired of it and get back to the basics of being American.
So, Peggy, let’s not get to teary-eyed about our elites.
Most of us out here in the Red Zone think that the elites are complete morons anyway. So don’t sweat it, honey.
Damn straight.
We always get tired of it and get back to the basics of being American.
I like your spirit, reminds of a quote regarding the Marines, went something like this: If wars were fought intelligently there would be no need for the Marine Corps.
Or a more succinct quote: Just Win Baby.
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