Growing up, one of my favorite music groups was the English rock band Pink Floyd. When I was about 6 years old, they released an album called “Wish you were here” after one of their tracks on the LP as they are called in the business (or were back then).
The song goes like this:
So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have you found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.
It seems that the crisis mentality driven by politics, years of easy credit and western lifestyles has made too many so eager to trade their rights, freedoms, and liberty in order to avert conflict, unemployment and economic downturn. In other words, too often we’ll trade our freedom for stability.
There is no real way to guarantee employment, good health or longevity in life. Prosperity can be fleeting, success can be followed by more failures. The most healthy among us could drop dead suddenly or be hit by a bus. Anybody (including very hope-inspiring Presidents) who tells you otherwise is either a liar or a fool (or quite possibly both).
During the last 7 out of the 8 years George W Bush was President of the USA, we were subjected to daily diatribes about how he had made a mess of the world, trampled the US Constitution and ruined the reputation of the USA in the eyes of the world on his misguided mission to “protect us” from what critics said was impossible to defend (i.e. terrorism as some sort of “thing” in and of itself).
Perhaps they were right.
Bush was indeed wrong to not make his war on “terror” a war on al_Quaeda and any organizations that used “terrorism” as a primary vehicle to induce “change”.
He should have asked, no – DEMANDED – an official declaration of war from the US Congress. Instead, he took the easier way out and allowed for the b.s. resolution that authorized the use of force… yada, yada, yada. We all know the rest.
He was also criticized for taking too much power and putting it into the hands of the department of “Homeland Security”. They were making terrorist watch lists and issuing alerts and the like and no one seemed to know what they were really doing and to whom.
Bush’s plans to enable a computer system to analyze phone records without a warrant on persons in the US made many uneasy and there were calls for his impeachment by the far left.
There are no such calls for Obama’s removal – yet.
He has amassed more power than Bush and in a much shorter time period under far less of an “emergency” (aka the financial meltdown of 2008/2009).
The automobile industry is either directly or indirectly under his control (GM & Chrysler C-Level staff dare not oppose him or face a pink slip), the banks (especially those who took TARP money by government force or not) are desperately attempting to extricate themselves from the grip of government micro-management by committee, energy companies are on notice that they had better go green with their buddies in auto manufacturing and health care industry participants are all uneasily waiting to see what he has in store for the “grand” remaking of their livelihoods.
Lost on everybody is the fact that the US Constitution does not grant him (nor his cohorts running Congress) the power to do any of this (even if he says it is all for our own good).
Obama tells us that we must trade our heroes for ghosts (FDR, Stalin), our “walk on part” in a war for a lead role in a cage (stop war and start Obama-Care). Freedom is never free – it is priceless. Change requires that you prepare for those changes. Obama will have you stripped of that responsibility in lieu of a government nanny.
Nanny Guv will oversee your health care (to make sure it is cheap enough – and free enough, and most of all – not your responsibility anymore), your automobiles (to see that they are “green enough”), your banks, your power company, and finally YOU.
YOU will be compelled to lead a better life (in the eyes of Obama). YOU will keep your home warmer in summer and cooler in winter so that you don’t use too much energy (as determined by Obama). Coal plants will give way to windmills (hot ashes for trees, hot air for a “cool breeze”). YOU will retrofit your home to be more environmentally friendly and YOU will eat the foods that are deemed appropriate by his highness.
The helping hand of the state run US media will make us all, Comfortably Numb.
Don’t forget – he will also be watching a list of “terror suspects” in case they want to buy a gun. He will decide who still has rights under the 2nd amendment. Isn’t that special?
It may be 2009, but it feels more like 1984.
President Reagan, Pink Floyd is on like 3, a “Mr. Floyd” is on line 3,
Wish you were here.
//
//
//
//
//
//
//
