I have been feeling for some months now that some corner has been turned, some existential threat has been mitigated; and not just in the United States, but worldwide. What was once going to be, is now not going to be.
Speaking in concrete specifics, it appears the reaction against Obama–and this is not a “reaction” in the sense of landed class interests reacting, but rather the very middle class Obama appeals to rhetorically–has been become self sustaining. For all those people who fought long and hard to introduce some common sense into the American political landscape–David Horowitz is the one with the longest history, but obviously this would include Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Michael Medved, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter and many others–the effort is finally bearing widespread fruit. Conservative ideas–Liberal ideas, in my construction–are not just resonating with angry old white men. They are resonating across the political landscape because they are TRUE, and this now MATTERS. The time is over for pie-eyed experimentation.
FDR had Hoover to blame, in order to get all his silly ideas implemented, generating a much longer downturn than was necessary. Plainly, Hoover was President when the Great Depression began, even though it was clearly the actions of the Fed that caused it. For his part, Hoover began the New Deal, but got no credit for it. This allowed FDR, in combination with corruption of a sort that would make even the Obama Administration look saintly, to get his four elections.
For my part, I cannot say how much effect I have had, but I can speak to the amount of work I have done, and it is prodigious. Thousands and thousands of pages, easily.
I am tired. I look at all this new found enthusiasm–for history, for grasping what Communism was and is, for understanding how economics actually works–very gratifying. I am not sure I was ever needed, but I feel much less desire to spend as much time putting ideas out there on a daily basis as I once did.
I am far too wordy to stop blogging, but I think I am going to try and redirect that voice in a more focused direction, that of my book on finance. I am currently reading a book on the IMF. Typically, if I read a book or two, spend some time smoking and thinking, I have what I need, or think I need.
After this, I have many other projects.
Net, I may start posting a bit less, but I’m still busy. I can’t help it.
It’s funny, too: I look at the silence that follows virtually all of my posts, and it feels like the silence that comes with new snow in the frozen north. I like it, and can’t say why.
When a couple of weeks drop on me at once, and I get tired, irritable, and stressed, I always emerge in the end smiling and singing country songs. Circumstances can push down on me, but they can’t break me.
Life is good. May you be well.
And I’ll probably add a postscript five minutes from now!!!!