Obama=Socialism

An old friend called me from London on Nov. 5 last year and said "what a fantastic day for America; we can all like them again now Obama won." He asked me what I thought and I asked him if he remembered the socialist UK government of Jim Callaghan. There was a pause for the thought, a tired sigh and all of a sudden the conversation made a left-turn, if you'll pardon the pun.

Callaghan was a disaster for the UK in many ways. In the early 1970s Britain was the most financially backward, badly governed socialist state since East Germany. It was the Britain of run-away unions strangling the country with demand after demand, the garbage filled streets that housed hoards of breeding rats, the three-day week, and power outages that stopped the populous dead in its tracks after 7 p.m. (although candle manufacturers made a killing, so I'm sure those days bring back dewy-eyed memories for some.)

In the coming months we'll all have many words to write about Obama as he tries to come to grips with a failed/failing US economy (using a pork-laden "Stimulus" package), the oncoming disaster that will be Universal Healthc- are and the lovely jokesters from Hamas and their paymasters in Iran doing their level best to obliterate Israel. Plus, you have the bare-faced lie that is man-made global warming, and it all adds up to nothing but storm clouds, bum deals - mainly for us taxpayers - and laughing terrorist-supporting nuclear powers.

Obama is being viewed, although I have no idea why, as some sort of savior figure for America and the rest of the world. There must be something in the water, because it is quite plainly, a joke. America has voted in the most left-leaning President in US history and he will take this country in a socialist direction never previously thought possible and it's not going to be pretty.

Like any incoming president he has inherited some of the problems left by the outgoing commander-in-chief, but I have a sneaking feeling that Obama will be the creator of his own problems (that ultimately become our problems) and within six months will pretty much own everything that's been going on he will have created. All who voted for this man have been bawling for universal health care, and they will probably get it. Let me say this once, just so you understand: Universal Healthcare doesn't work, never has, never will. The National Health Service has been tottering on the brink of disaster almost since its inception in 1948. By the 1980s it was in free-fall. Doctors were working 80-90 hours-a-week, nurses were looking for jobs in the private sector and, hospitals were cold, dank, badly light hellholes that invited death rather than fought it and it's not much better now, despite what Michael Moore so blatantly lied about in his propaganda piece "Sicko." I spoke to a bunch of friends and relatives who saw that movie, and they said it was a "lie."

"The NHS is still in shambles", said one, "you still have to wait months, sometimes years, for a surgical procedure and when you eventually get to the hospital, your doctor will make a call on whether you deserve it, based on whether you're young enough." This is the kind of third world attitude Obama will bring to what is a healthcare system that is the envy of the world. I have had a few "procedures" and within days, sometimes weeks, everything is taken care of and I can get on with my life.

Now, I'm not saying that people without health insurance should not get care, they should. What I am saying is that this system is better, because of what it is than how Obama wants it to be. Universal health care will cause far more damage than it will create good. Take it from someone who knows.

Another thing that greatly disturbed me is the way that Obama became president.

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The first time I ever saw him was in 2004. I was visiting Dallas at the time and a friend of mine had the TV on, and a he was giving a speech at the DNC espousing all that was good about then Democrat John Kerry (who was running against Bush at the time). The audience was in ecstasy, my friend was crying, and I thought I'd seen a fine public speaker who was being given more plaudits than were necessary. I couldn't work out the reaction of the public and the press.

Four years later that reaction had developed into adoration. Spurred on by the use of the words "hope" and "change," Americans fell for this man and, therefore, embraced a lie. But the lie wasn't just in their heads to begin with; it was created by the bone-headed press and TV airheads that foul our airwaves with their version of Pravda propaganda and embarrassing man-crushes.

"News" channels like MSNBC (with professional Obama lickspittle Chris Matthews, the factually-light Keith Olbermann and his asinine protégé Rachel Maddow leading the way), CNN (with David "Rodham" Gergen, Gloria Borger, Skeletor himself James Carville and "The Forehead" Paul Begala, and ABC and CBS scattered whatever credibility they had left to the four winds by gleefully discarding any remaining editorial control in favor of kneeling in the direction of Grant Park, now the Whitehouse, and praising this new "messiah." It was all so terribly gruesome.

True journalism, I can't help but feel, was stabbed in the back by this bunch self-serving overpaid bottom-feeders who have forgotten everything they were taught and once tried to uphold and honor. Instead what we got was sobbing reporters witlessly jabbering about their various irrelevant paternal memories/issues while ignoring what they should have been doing and what they were being paid to do: report on a presidential election. You could almost hear a certain Mr. Murrow trying to drill his way out of his casket to put his hands around their collective necks.