A few weeks ago on my Internet Radio Program, "The Marcus Carey Perspective" I said that somewhere toward the end of March through the end of April that the media would begin reporting that the economy was improving. I suggested that this would be due to a combination of factors not the least of which would be the raging horsepower of the American engine which has been sitting at idle waiting for the first sign that it was time to take off again.
But I also suggested that the timing of the change in the tone of the news would coincide with warmer weather, which naturally increased optimism, and the desire of the media to drape credit for the improvement around the shoulders of Obama like the robe of a savior.
What I didn't forsee, however, was this dangerous combination of events as appeared in today's headlines on Drudge. The ground work for giving victory to Obama is being laid, but at what cost to liberty?
Here are the two THREE headlines:
WORLD MARKETS SURGE AS US DATA BOOST RECOVERY HOPE
POWER: GEITHNER WON'T RULE OUT REPLACING MORE CEO'S
***UPDATED***
WALL STREET JUMPS
The danger here lies in the fact that not only will the press now begin to give Obama credit for success in rescuing the economy, they will encourage people to view the socialist agenda he has been pursuing as an acceptable "change" for America as evidenced by that success.
And joining our press in working this evil angle will be reports out of Europe that Obama is seen as "a rock star". For those Americans who felt President Bush had given us a bad reputation oversees, Europe's love for Obama will be a salve for their wounded psyche.
Problem is, Europe is becoming increasingly more socialist, increasingly more dependent on Russian gas and oil and increasingly less willing to join the USA in defending liberty around the world.
Perhaps it is time to recall the words of Ronald Reagan from twenty years ago:
The way I see it, there were two great triumphs, two things that I'm proudest of. One is the economic recovery, in which the people of America created - and filled - 19 million new jobs. The other is the recovery of our morale. America is respected again in the world and looked to for leadership.
Something that happened to me a few years ago reflects some of this. It was back in 1981, and I was attending my first big economic summit, which was held that year in Canada. The meeting place rotates among the member countries. The opening meeting was a formal dinner for the heads of government of the seven industrialized nations. Now, I sat there like the new kid in school and listened, and it was all the Francois this and Helmut that. They dropped titles and spoke to one another on a first-name basis. Well, at one point I sort of leaned in an said, "My name's Ron." Well, in that same year, we began the actions we felt would ignite an economic comeback - cut taxes and regulation, started to cut spending. And soon the recovery began.
Two years later another economic summit, with pretty much the same cast. At the big opening meeting we all got together, and all of a sudden, just for a moment, I saw that everyone was just sitting there looking at me. And then one of them broke the silence. "Tell us about the American miracle," he said.
Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words: "We the people." "We the people" tell the government what to do, it doesn't tell us. "We the people" are the driver, the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Almost all the world's constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which "We the people" tell the government what it is allowed to do. "We the people" are free. This belief has been the underlying basis for everything I've tried to do these past eight years.
But life has a way of reminding you of big things through small incidents. Once, during the heady days of the Moscow summit, Nancy and I decided to break off from the entourage one afternoon to visit the shops on Arbat Street - that's a little street just off Moscow's main shopping area. Even though our visit was a surprise, every Russian there immediately recognized us and called out our names and reached for our hands. We were just about swept away by the warmth. You could almost feel the possibilities in all that joy. But within seconds, a KGB detail pushed their way toward us and began pushing and shoving the people in the crowd. It was an interesting moments. It reminded me that while the man of the street in the Soviet Union yearns for peace, the government is Communist. And those who run it are Communists, and that means we and they view such issues as freedom and human rights very differently.
Finally, there is a great tradition of warnings in presidential farewells, and I've got one that's been on my mind for some time. But oddly enough it starts with one of the things I'm proudest of in the past eight years: the resurgence of national pride that I called the new patriotism. This national feeling is good, but it won't count for much, and it won't last unless it's grounded in thoughtfulness and knowledge.
An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over thirty-five or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn't get these things from your family, you got them from the neighborhood, from the father down the street who fought in Korea of the family who lost someone at Anzio. Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed, you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that, too, through the midsixties.
We are indeed, and we are today, the last best hope of man on earth.
