President Obama has elevated the art of national self-loathing to new heights, and seems to delight in prostrating the most powerful nation on the face of the earth before its critics and rivals, especially on foreign soil.”

Remember President Thomas E Dewey? At least three major newspapers hit the streets election night with banner headlines DEWEY WINS. A few hours later, when all the votes were counted the people had rejected the New York governor and elected a man from fly-over country, Harry S Truman. So take the polls with the same skepticism as you take the pols.

If you doubt it, you just have not been paying attention. Remember Karl Marx formed his ideas around the notion “From each according to his ability to each according to his need”. Translation – take by force of government, assets from those who earned and own them and give to those who did not and do not.

Bill Whittle at NRO has the very best commentary. Here is a link to the audio/video with Obama’ own words. .    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iivL4c_3pck#

You must have heard the audio by now but do not miss Whittle’s commentary. It is clear, succinct and very much to the point. As a bonus he has an interesting story to tell about how this tape surfaced.

James Pethokoukis, blogger for the US News and World Report says, uh huh, looks like it is.

How are Venezuela’s equity investors doing now that their country has gone totally Socialist? Does Cuba even have a stock market? If, just if, Obama is a genuine Socialist what can we expect from the US stock market? The answer is we should expect to see just what we are seeing in the US stock market today.

But we have a problem with such a conclusion. This is a worldwide crisis, not just a US crisis. I know, Obama has said he is going to change the World, not just the US but too much of the world is favoring Obama to conclude his election is a matter of worldwide economic concern.

Then there is this concept. The US is the dominant economic power in the world. What is bad for the US is bad for the world. We have a problem with this idea too. First, it’s pompous beyond reality. Second, there is no evidence the rest of the world sees it that way.

Let’s look at another idea. There was a government sponsored housing bubble. Bubbles bust. This bubble burst big because it flattened the financial foundation of the nation. Then the sinkers of the ship swore they should be selected to save our souls and it seems we are saying yes.

Investors put their money where their expectations are. It would be reasonable to think they have researched the background of Barack and found he is simply not capitalism friendly. Obama confirmed what many had already concluded with his “spread the wealth” comment and investors may have found it sounding too much like “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs”. If you do not know where that quote comes from, please check it out.

A Socialist president is enough to scare any investor and investors shun scary things. If McCain wins and the market rallies we will know it was an Obama market. Other scenarios won’t tell us much.

This column by John Howard is an absolute must read.

 Family Security Matters » Publications » Exclusive: Obama – The One They’ve Been Waiting For (Part One of Two)

It will send shivers up your spine greater than those that went up Chris Matthews leg.

Obama’s charismatic control of an audience has caused women to faint. His hubris has led him to assert he will quell the rise of the oceans, and that he has come to save the world, not just the United States. Sound preposterous? Google it. Bypass bloggers claims, go for the video clips.

The not so reverend Farrakhan has preached from his pulpit “this man is our Messiah”. And Farrakhan is not the only one who accepts Obama’s assertion that he is the one the people have been waiting for.

Don’t be taken in. Ayers and Obama are soul mates through the common bond of Saul Alinsky. Part of the Alinsky approach is, first you need to obtain the power, then you can bring about the Revolution. As recently as 2001 Ayers showed his contempt for the USA with the infamous photo of him proudly stomping on the American flag.

Ayers undoubtedly realizes his murderous history (the Weathermen killed 3 people in an effort to raise money for their cause through armed robbery) is diminishing the chances of achieving step one, obtain power. Any Marxist true to his cause will deny even his deepest beliefs if the denial will further the cause of those deepest beliefs. Hence cometh Ayers cartoon as a means to diminish voter concerns over Obama’s relationship with an unrepentant bomber. To that end he comes close to volunteering to join grandma along with all the others already under the bus.

I hope you read the script in the cartoon. Ayers remains unrepentant. He says in essence ‘at my age people have regrets’ but he never says he has any regrets.

The third frame appears intended to deny he meant bombings when he said in 2001 “We did not do enough”. The inference is there but he stops short of denial. In the same frame he implores more people should have done more. More what ? More bombings ?

Nowhere to date has Ayers expressed any regret or condemnation for terrorist style bombings. Nor has Obama thrown Ayers under the infamous bus, at least not yet. The essence of Barack’s response to questions about the Ayers connection is “He’s just someone I know, don’t blame me for what he says”. Like Wright and Farrakhan, Obama cannot bring himself to condemn what these people stand for until political expediency demands it.

During the primaries Hillary cornered him into denying Farrakhan. Public opinion combined with Wright’s National Press Corps speech forced Obama to add Wright to the Greyhound Condominium. Thus far he has not been pressed enough on Ayers to squeeze him under there too. Obama’s reluctance to condemn these, his personal anti-American heroes, is all I need to know to decide he is not my choice to lead America.

Webster says “conventional” means conforming to accepted standards and taste. I doubt the Conventions will be conventional. But they will be fun.

I presume the Democratic Convention, about to start in minutes, will begin with the National Anthem. Will Barack hold his hand over his heart? Will Michelle stand?

As they said in China, Let the Games Begin !!

The Short answer is the ‘likely voters’ are getting to know Barack Obama. They are discovering his associations with Rezko, Wright and Ayers are not mistakes he made along the way. Rather they are what defines the man. It is becoming apparent that this candidate who never crossed the party line on a controversial issue has no grounds to call himself more of a unifier than a maverick from the other side. Likely voters are turning from a candidate with a Messianic image to one who is an earthly straight shooter.

From Saddleback Mountain to Georgia, McCain shines while Obama demurs with responses like “That’s above my pay grade”. The Rev Warren’s debate was as fair as it gets and the American people know that. Obama came out number 3 in that 2 man contest. And on Georgia, McCain condemned Russia immediately for their invasion of a free and democratic sovereign nation. It took Obama 3 tries and 3 days to do the same. This did not go unnoticed.

To some Barack may be the Messiah they have been waiting for, but others are coming to see him as just another garden variety Democrat and one who is something less than presidential at that.

Have you wondered what is Liberation Theology anyway? I had never heard of it before Barack Obama introduced America to Rev Jeremiah Wright. In my naiveté I even wondered if it had been a development of the Rev JW. Not so.

I turned to Wikipedia for help. I love Wikipedia but one has to read it with a grain of skepticism, more than a grain on ideological subjects. Here we discover the key is the concept that poverty is the source of sin thus theologians must be politically active, to eliminate poverty, hence sin. Sounds a bit Marxist and leaves unexplained how this accounts for preaching the likes of “white mans greed leaves a world in need” and other racially divisive screeds.

I was recently reading some papers by A.F. Hayek, author of The Road to Serfdom, when to my amazement I see Hayek defined it many years ago. Hayek can be tortuous to read so let me first interpret then give the full quote.

Interpretation

The ‘liberation’ is liberation from personal restraint. The restraint includes restraint from harboring and expressing hostility toward others who are not like yourself, as well as

liberation from various personal responsibilities.

The rational for calling it ‘theology’ is not explained by Hayek. An inference could be taken that it is because the idea was popularized at one time by a faction of the Catholic Church. It seems to me not to be theology at all.

After waxing eloquent about Rousseau, Foucault and Habermas ‘ Hayek says, quote:

“On a less sophisticated level the argument against alienation are the demands for liberation from the burdens of civilization including the burdens of disciplined work, responsibility, risk taking, saving, honesty, the honoring of promises, as well as the difficulties of curbing by general rules one’s natural reactions of hostility to strangers and solidarity with those who are not like oneself, an ever more severe threat to political liberty. Thus the notion of liberation, although allegedly new is actually archaic in its demand for release from traditional morals.

Those who champion such liberty would destroy the basis of freedom, and permit men to do what would irreparably break down those conditions that make civilization possible. One example appears in so called ‘Liberation Theology’, especially within the Roman Catholic Church in South America.”

A. F. Hayek, in The Fatal Conceit

So there you have it, freedom from personal responsibilities and sanction to be racist, according to Hayek. All that’s left is to consider how Wright’s specifically Black Liberation Theology fits into the picture. And then consider implications of Barack Obama’s devotion to it.