The Vision Revealed?

A brief followup to my previous post on Robert Reich... Please see the excellent American Spectator commentary on Robert Reich's testimony to House Ways & Means. The author gets right to the crux of the problem with Reich and many of Obama's followers (if not Obama himself), and of leftist ideology in general:

In Reich's worldview, it's groups that matter and individualism that's the enemy. "The American myth of the Triumphant Individual may have outlasted its time," Reich has explained. "The story of the little guy who works hard, takes risks, believes in himself and eventually earns wealth, fame and honor" is outmoded.

I believe this is what divides supporters of market-driven and planned economies, of republican democracy and totalitarianism, and increasingly, of free speech and "political correctness," the Maoist phrase that has eerily become a commonplace in American vernacular. It's time for us all to re-read Atlas Shrugged, as well as the Communist Manifesto. That so many of our countrymen and women voted for the latter last November is surprising, and troubling.

There is a good chance, however, that most of them did not vote for socialism, or whatever you want to call Obama's or Reich's central-planning ideas, but that they voted for its obtuse facade: Change.

Week by week, we are seeing the facade fall away and expose the aspirations of the new regime. Fortunately, there is always a gap between the aspirations of a regime, and its actual achievements. The tug-of-war around the so-called Stimulus Package is a good example. As presently constituted, it is a third pork, 50 per cent political payoff to groups like ACORN, the teachers and public service unions, etc., and 12-20% stimulus (dependong on the source) -- spending that we know will enter the economy quickly and result in hiring.

Of course, Obama does not need any Republican support to pass this bill as presently constituted. He needs their support only for political cover, to share the blame if things don't go as planned (a near certainty in the execution of government programs).

Instead of using his bully pulpit to cajole his Congressional majority to strip the bill of things unrelated to job creation, yesterday Obama used it to mock Republican (and a healthy number of Democrat) critics. One week he says he is interested in ideas that produce results, not ideology. The next week -- with a trillion dollars hanging in the balance -- he is taking a party line. This is disappointing.