Iran is trying to resurrect the Mahdi using nuclear weapons. Afghanistan is going to hell. Obamacare is on life support and most Americans want to pull the plug. So where's Obama in all this? He's running errands for Mayor Daley. He's off to lobby Chicago's case to host the 2016 Olympics. This continues a pattern of behavior. When the going gets tough, Obama gets going. During previous difficulties, Obama has gone on late night television, gone out for burgers, and attended Broadway shows. During the pirate incident earlier this year, he went into hiding.

Afghanistan has been a quagmire for outsiders attempting to occupy and control that god-forsaken land. The British got bogged down and eventually had to withdraw. The Soviets went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan. Now, it’s America’s turn to try and solve the riddle of victory in Afghanistan. The only real power in world history to successfully wage war in that land were the Mongols. The succeeded through terror and atrocity. With that kind of history, how does America emerge victorious?

Firstly, pulling out the troops and waging an air war won’t work. Senator Carl Levin and columnist George Will are wrong. That is essentially a return to the Clinton Era strategy that led to 3000 dead on 911. Wars are won on the offensive and with boots on the ground and not from 30,000 feet.

A second option would be to prop up a strong man and let him rule as he sees fit. While tempting, replacing one dictatorship with another is a Cold War relic. We do need to build up the military as much as possible so they can take over security functions and combat threats in the tribal regions, from Pakistan, and within their midst. However, the world has had enough Pinochets.

The third option is giving the generals what they want. Boots win wars. The side with the initiative wins wars. America beat Japan because MacArthur wanted to fight the Japanese as opposed to playing defense. Right now, the Taliban and their allies have the initiative. To counter this and take the offensive, General McChrystal needs boots. Instead of trying to pass a healthcare plan no one wants, perhaps President Obama needs to give his generals the tools they need to take the offensive.

This is a true story. I know a retired couple.  They lived on a GM pension and GM Health Benefits. Those GM Health Benefits no longer exist because of the government sponsored bankruptcy. Essentially, Obama cut off their health benefits. When they applied for Medicaid, they were denied. So, the Obama Administration cut off their health care AND refused their Medicaid request. They need help. She needs life saving surgery, but Obama denied it. Perhaps those death panels really do exist.

I quit my job a few years ago to return to school. Upon completion of my program, I was excited to find a job and start earning some money. That was April, 2008. Here we are approaching eighteen months after graduation, and I can not find anything. I am a certified teacher, but I have a M.A. That makes me more expensive. It also makes me one of the last to get called for "lesser" jobs. Why not hide the degree? The internet and background checks make that difficult. So, why is it that 3 in 4 college graduates from 2008 and 4 in 5 college graduates from 2009 can't find work? The government destroyed the real estate market. That caused a ripple throughout the economy. Had the government not ordered banks to loan to high risk clients, I would probably have a job. So, with that in mind, why would we turn health care or anything else over to these clods?

This is a continuation of the examination of the Post-Progressive Presidents. These are the presidents that served between the end of World War I and the end of World War II. Their policies were either a reaction to or influenced by the Progressives that ruled between 1901 and 1921.

 

Herbert Hoover followed Coolidge. He could have been a Democrat, but joined the more popular of the two parties. Shortly after assuming office, the economy collapsed. The main cause of the collapse was under consumption of products. In other words, people stopped buying goods. As a result, credit collapsed, people lost their jobs, and the stock market collapsed. Hoover should have been the right man for the job. He led European relief efforts during World War I. He seemed overwhelmed and inadequate. On the other hand, Hoover did attempt to use government to fix the economy. He failed. He does not get credit for what he did try because his efforts were dwarfed by the New Deal. Hoover became synonymous with poverty. New words entered the vernacular under Hoover's watch. Hoovervilles were shanty towns. A Hoover blanket was a newspaper. This combined with his dour personal image doomed his re-election effort.

Franklin Roosevelt came in like a breath of fresh air. He instituted the New Deal. This was a massive governmental effort to end the depression. Some programs worked while others failed. The idea was to try something. Roosevelt’s greatest success was saving the banks and saving capitalism. Upon entering office, he declared a bank holiday and closed the banks. People were taking everything out of the banks. FDR stopped them and thereby stopped the bank failures. When the banks reopened, deposits far exceeded withdraws.

FDR never scrapped capitalism. In fact, today’s leftists, liberals, and progs resent him for not instituting socialism. While some of his policies were antithetical to laissez faire capitalism, they did manage to save and restore capitalism. In an age where fascists and communists were eliminating freedoms worldwide, and some in this country advocating these types of policies, this is no small achievement.

Despite saving the system, the New Deal did not end the Depression. Instead, it was World War II that got people working again. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the unemployment rate collapsed. People were back to work. However, it would not be until the Eisenhower Years that the economy would truly recover.

As commander-in-chief, Roosevelt would save the world and his historical legacy. By leading the “arsenal of democracy”, he supplied the allies with wartime materiel. By pushing the Atlantic Charter with Winston Churchill, he offered an alternative to Nazism and Communism. By leading the coalition, choosing the military leaders, and allowing the generals to do their job, he liberated Western Europe. In the end, Roosevelt saved capitalism, democracy, and the world.

In sum, each of the Post-Progressive Presidencies were influenced by the Progressive Era. Warren Harding wanted to return America to normalcy, end the aggressive foreign interventions of Woodrow Wilson, and work on arms control. Calvin Coolidge operated a minimalist government with the only reform being in the tax code. Herbert Hoover attempted an unprecedented governmental response to the Great Depression. Roosevelt was Hoover on steroids. However, his economic policies ended up creating a barter economy not unlike Medieval Europe. Roosevelt’s saving grace was his leadership through World War II.

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I finished watching "The Enforcer" and noticed something quite disturbing. The bad guys in the movie were essentially radical leftists that talked and walked a lot like Van Jones. They kidnapped and killed people without batting an eyelash. They had to have been based on The Weather Underground and Obama buddy William Ayers. Now, we know Jones is an avowed Communist, 911 Truther, and all around nutcase. Other administration officials have equally wacky beliefs. Some believe in forced abortions and sterilizations while others applaud Hugo Chavez's crackdown on free speech. So, here's the question...these guys were thoroughly discredited in the seventies and eighties, so how is it that they are back like a herpes infection, cockroaches, or a horror film villain???

Woodstock provided the high point of the sixties generation. The older generation expected disorder and chaos. They did not think the youth could organize a festival on that scale without it turning into a riot. However, the hippies pulled it off. The Age of Aquarius had arrived. Then, it was gone. Everything the nameless faceless mass of hippie humanity created was quickly destroyed. The beginning of the end came with the Tate and LaBianca murders. The destructive vibe continued throughout the year and the 1960s finally came to an end with the Manson Family on trial for murder.

Manson had already murdered before the Tate Murder. Once the story broke, everyone was spooked. The family wrote messages in blood taunting police. They stole Helter Skelter from the Beatles. This immediately tied the murders to younger perpetrators. The family was later arrested for auto theft. Eventually, the police were able to tie the murders to Manson. Once paraded before a judge, the public saw hippies. The Silent Majority's worst fears were confirmed. Not only were hippies radical leftists and un-American, but they were homicidal. These were the same people that rioted in the streets, brought down the 1968 Democratic Convention, and were dodging service in Vietnam.

Around the same time of the break in the Manson case, the Rolling Stones held a concert at Altamont. The band decided to put on their own Woodstock in California. About 300,000 would attend and four of them died. Two were hit by cars, one drowned, and one was murdered by security. The Stones decided to use Hell’s Angels to provide security. The Angels roughed up concert goers and stabbed one to death as the Stones broke into Sympathy for the Devil. Mick Jagger attempted to stop the out-of-control Angels, but failed. While Woodstock was peace and love, Altamont was a nightmare and further sullied the reputation of the sixties generation.

As the hippie generation were being dirtied by violence, their icons began to die off. Jimi Hendrix left in September, 1970. Janis Joplin followed that October. Drugs killed them. The drug scene had become a downer. Originally, young people hoped to expand their consciousness. Instead, they became junkies. Beatle George Harrison was among the first to recognize this. He traveled to San Francisco and instead of nirvana, he found junkie nation. At that point, he swore off the hard stuff.

In the eyes of the general public, even straight laced youth were being brought down by these hippies. On May 4, 1970, four students walking to class were gunned down by National Guard troops. The troops had panicked during an anti-war protest at Kent State University. To the average person on the street, those hippies were killing their children.

A month after Kent State, Charles Manson went on trial for murder. Family members continually disrupted the trial. Witnesses were threatened. Manson even charged the judge. It became a media circus and President Nixon attacked the press for glamorizing Manson. The accused were convicted and sentenced to death. Unfortunately, the death penalty was ruled unconstitutional and Manson has escaped the hangman.

Manson was on trial for murder. However, the hippie generation and culture was on trial as well. Those series of events beginning with the murders and continuing throughout 1969 and 1970, called into question the judgement and character of the counterculture. It is true that violence occurred before Manson and these events. However, it was easily explained away. The urban riots were a black phenomenon. The violence at the 1968 Democratic Convention was a Communist plot. The antiwar protests had become more accepted and more mainstream. Kids may have had bad drug trips, but they were not overdosing. Then, Manson struck into America’s living room. Good kids were being gunned down walking to class. A generation’s heroes were overdosing. The Who’s Pete Townsend summed up the feelings of many when he wrote Won’t Get Fooled Again. Some believe it is a shot at the system. However, it is Townsend’s shot at a whole generation. In the end, the counterculture became disillusioned and America sunk into the malaise that was the 1970s.