Malaise Is BACK! ... J. D. Longstreet

Malaise Is BACK!
American Optimism Lowest Since Carter Administration
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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"Fewer than four-in-10 Americans (39 percent) rate the US in a positive manner – the most negative feedback the country has produced since 1979.

A new Gallup poll finds that Americans are as negative about the country’s prospects as they have been in more than three decades. Americans are more upbeat in their predictions of where the U.S. will be in five years (48 percent positive), but this is the lowest rating since an August 1979 Gallup poll was conducted."  SOURCE: http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/01/22/gallup-american-optimism-hits-lowest-point-since-carter-administration/

No kidding?  Why, I thought everyone was ecstatic now that America is a socialist country.   Well, news like this makes one wonder if ole Winnie Churchill was right when he said that under socialism everybody SUFFERS equally, huh?

Enjoy these halcyon days while you can because it is all downhill from here. All these  idyllically calm, peaceful, happy, and tranquil days are just a facade. Actually the facade is not very convincing either.   Otherwise, we'd not have such a report from Gallop.

Remember the "malaise" of the Carter years?  Well, if you're an , uh, older American you do.  I remember it well.  I can't don a sweater today without thinking of the Carter administration.  I rarely wear sweaters anymore. 

Well, Obama's malaise has set in.  And it will eat at the core of the nation for the next four years slowing sucking the life out of our economy, and depleting the energy level of the American people. 

Remember what I have written over and over and over about the acceptance of MEDIOCRITY under Obama's brand of socialism?  Well, America, you have just gotten a teensie little taste of it.

The dirty little secret about Obama's socialism is this:  It EXCELS at mediocrity.     
See, socialism does not bring everyone UP to the same level.  No.  Just the opposite.  It lowers those already at a higher level down to the lower level.  That's what socialists mean by equality, by fairness.  We all suffer equally. 

Already the middle class is disappearing in America.  When Obama has completed his "fundamental transformation" of America, there will be NO Middle Class.  Oh, there will be two classes, the lower class and the power elite -- the folks who run everything. See they are MORE EQUAL than you and I.

The process has already begun.  Now we watch the inevitable slide from American excellence, or what we used to call "American Exceptionalism," to, well, mediocrity as the new normal.

Gone are the days of the unlimited horizon.  Gone is the belief that nothing was impossible for the Americans.  Obama has led us to the outer limits of the possible and shown us that, indeed,  we ARE limited.  He has shown us that fairness dictates a limit to progress, to innovation, to dreams.  For America, there is nothing left to discover, to invent, to explore, to build or rebuild, to dream of, or hope for.

America is no longer the country every other country wants to emulate.   Even our President is the butt of all sorts of jokes, from racial to locker room humor, around the world.  Our national pride has taken a huge hit.

How did we get here?  Through ignorance and apathy and the application of a well thought-out process. 

"Barnum was right. There is a sucker born every minute. As of right now, the American public is that sucker and it is being taken for the ride of its life by a very shrewd and manipulative political process that is capitalizing on its fears and frustrations by promising it the world with a song and a dance. Before this song and dance are through an awful lot of dazed and confused dullards are going to be in for the shock of their lives. And the worst thing of all is that these dullards willingly lined up for the shock."  SOURCE:  http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/10/29/dumbing-it-down-the-pursuit-of-intellectual-mediocrity-in-america/

THIS is malaise.  It's real and it's ugly and very dangerous. It will sap a nation's strength and lay it's defenses low.  It makes a nation vulnerable, especially to the miscreant with "all the right answers."

Having lived and worked through the Carter years, this is all recognizable to me.  America was being micro-managed by a strong central government during those years.  And I do mean MICRO MANAGED.  I recall conversations with a local civil preparedness supervisor who had been tasked with spot checking businesses to make sure the building thermostats had been set to the government approved settings. (No -- I am NOT kidding!)  Even though he was a member of Carter's democratic party, he was furious at being tasked with spying on his friends and neighbors.   He has long since passed on but were he alive today he would not believe the depth of government intrusion into the everyday lives of Americans.

Reagan rescued America then.  But Ronald Reagan was one of a kind.   Where is the right's champion today?

© J. D. Longstreet