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The year that wasn’t

They say two thousand and thirteen party over, oops!

Fucked ourselves!

So for now we oughta party like its two thousand and twelve!

Since licensing and copyrights are as doomed to imminent collapse as the rest of civilization I will appropriate my soundtrack from Prince and he can come collect if he wants. That’s not just me talking, with the collapse stuff. Not anymore. Ben Bernanke publicly declares mystification that his voodoo economics have come a-cropper. Bill Clinton and Al Gore are driven to public denunciations by their disappointments with the President, each of which are cataclysmic one way or the other. The most damning news comes from the Great Man’s own mouth in his brief (for a change) address of last night. Obama arrives to disclaim the actions and events of the last two years excepting only the Abbottobad triumph [1]. You remember that, when the President headbutted Osama and snapped his neck like so much celery? But no fear, he’s now on the job; rested, ready, with a four handicap and prepared to tackle the crapulent legacy that is America.

You are getting the Reverend Wright treatment, folks. Understand, the last two years you THINK you recall, in fact never happened. Obama calls for a RESET, as he once proposed to our ancient allies the Russians. He asks for a mulligan; a wink and a ball drop on the green. This is today’s stratagem. Witnesses to the memory-holed events are inconvenient to say the least. You are under the bus and rattling up against the axles. “Why, this? This is not the America I know”, Obama says in sorrow and surprise. And for once he is right. We are not the starving, starstruck mass Mr Obama expected. Given his experience on the campaign trail with all the Messiah stuff etc this particular misapprehension is forgivable. We do not, the most of us, yearn for a place at Obama’s trough. We know where the slops in the trough come from. We are not a proletariat or hoard of helots waiting a firm, generous hand on our reins. We have no reins. We will wear no bit, and it is a surprise not just to Obama but to the global community of genius to which we are supposed to defer, to our benefit of course. We are not Sweden. We are not even Denmark. Nor are we Russia, England (that one should be obvious), Indonesia, Iran or even Kenya. Even more are we not a fantasyland powered by rainbows and unicorn farts. We are no clan of bigoted troglodytes, not even us honkies, no matter what you read in school. We are not clay to be molded nor obstreperous servants to be chastised. As Leonidas put it so well, Mr Obama meets free men here and should have a care. It seems only now is he even aware of our existence. His feet have touched the filthy earth and he does not like its feel on his Bruno Maglis. This is America, bitch! Enjoy your stay, I doubt it will be a long one but it could prove instructive.

We have much to teach if only Barack is willing to learn. For twenty-nine months now the lessons have been accumulating, most on the subject of what Mr Obama is not and what the Presidency, indeed the Federal Government are not. The Presidency, for one thing, is not a kingship. History is not this fellows strong suit but even he might remember we had a little war about this once and a bit of bother about it since. Again, Obama may be forgiven this error for early on at least, he certainly was treated like a king. His clearly illegal actions during the auto bailouts screamed nothing if not, L’ etat? C’est moi! as he looted fat targets and enemies and poured the proceeds onto his proven allies in the UAW. Nowhere, not even from his supposed opposition, was a peep of protest heard, as any king would expect. No, the office he sought so naively is more complex and less powerful than he anticipated and that must be a bummer indeed. But knocking the crown off Barack’s head is not sufficient. He is also in sore need of an aura-dectomy; a halo is not a good look on a man, few can pull that off, but no one in a position to do so was prepared to explain to Barack that while yes, a certain brand of fool finds you charming, you are not in fact, charmed. Neither are you anointed, fated, destined or even owed one damn thing. This also has been a shocker for a  lifetime beneficiary of affirmative action of the cultural variety even more so than the de jur. The first real job this specimen ever landed was the Presidency of the United States. Could anyone expect a better result? It is plain that Mr Obama is actually not even very bright. He has demonstrated a bit of animal cunning but nothing approaching that of a cornered Clinton nor even the pig-headed but productive stubbornness of the defenestrated W. If Bush was an empty suit, or an empty head perched above an empty suit, Obama is merely an emptiness; a void more vast than even Clinton’s appetite and Obama has no idea with what to fill it. This is not far from his own self-description, in his Autobiography, The First, as a tabula rasa. That this is classically a description of a new born baby and not a man in his prime seeking high office seems either beneath or above his notice.

But perhaps this can work to our mutual advantage, providing Mr Obama a chance to salvage some of his precious dignity and the rest of us to salvage something of our freedoms, our fortunes and our sacred honor. Allow Barack his mulligan. If he wants his tenure in office to date forgotten there are few who desire mightily to recall it. This will be a nothing but a national attitude of forgiveness and forbearance. Let us agree that Mr Obama bears no responsibility for any of our diverse calamities, of course this means he can claim no credit either. We will of course exclude his skillful assassination of Ossama bin Laden, for who could forget THAT [2] anyhow? But the stimuli, the auto and finance bailouts, the money printing, the subsidies, giveaways, gravy trains, slush funds, persecutions, flip-flops, lies, denunciations, backstabbings, abdications, malefactions and perfidious statements of all sorts will either be forgotten or ascribed to the Bush ledger. Hey, it’s what the guy wants, right? So fine. But there will be consideration.

It will take a Constitutional Amendment. That seems no great hurdle if everyone gets on board but here is the proposal: cancel the balance of 2011 and a commensurate fraction of 2012. Just wipe it off the calendar as a matter of law at the federal level. The most immediate and obvious effect is that the election will be only a few months away. This will spare us yet further exposure to the Republican Primary struggle which is already at a pitch more appropriate for an election year. Mr Obama gets to avoid 12 months where, come on, things can only get worse absent some radical branching of our path which is far more likely to occur with this shock therapy than the benumbing status quo. With his tapping of our emergency petroleum reserves to tamp down already subsiding gas prices we see he is governing as if there were no tomorrow anyhow, having spent yesterday like there were no tomorrow; well tomorrow has come. We call it today and we can’t wait for another, not in our current condition. So one standard year just evaporates: July 4th 2011 yields to July 5th 2012 and all federal actions are equally affected. So if you are turning 64 on July 5th, congratulations, as far as the gub is concerned, you are now eligible for the full spectrum of geezer feed. If you are twenty years old, hey! it’s boozin’ time! At least on federal land. If you are in the military, your four year hitch concludes after three so if you are the recalcitrant type that doesn’t like the changes in the wars and armed forces, you are free to check out, no hard feelings. Federal prisoners will have a year removed from their sentences. Also those troublesome waivers to Obamacare will suddenly have gone sour. They have lately proven burdensome to the President so they will not be missed. Likewise all those wondrous provisions in that Act that we are assured will solve our temporary issues will be suddenly in force so we may see their benefits for a few months before going to the voting booth. Mr Obama will be nearly assured his opponent of choice; the Generic Republican otherwise known as Mitt Romney so that is a real sweetener for him. But the most important alteration from this near-magical hyperacceleration of our reality is that the so-called Bush Tax Cuts will expire not in eighteen months time but right after next Christmas and without Obama’s cooperation there will be nothing the Republicans can do to stop it. This has to be a compelling opportunity for Mr Obama and the Democrats in total. As they explain to us over and over again, NOT raising income taxes about 10% across the board LAST year, as the sunset clause [3] then threatened, is the complete explanation for why government coffers are draining and our economy is stumbling. That proposition must be tested and the quicker the sooner.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. This one at least holds peril and promise for all Americans equally, including Barack Hussein Obama. It could prove disastrous. It could prove pointless or it could just prove to be the kick in the shins this old lumbering steam engine needs. In any case, it is something which makes it more than anything else on offer. When in doubt, stand on the gas, should be our motto. It’s not quite E Pluribus Unum but no one knows what the hell that means anyway.

 

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