Today President Obama said he has "no intention" of running GM...as he announced that he had demanded and received the resignation of GM's CEO, Rick Wagoner, and as he let Fiat and Chrysler know that they were being given 30 days to get their affairs in order and up to his administration's satisfaction.
I hope it goes without saying, that the President of the United States of America, has no constitutional power whatsoever, to demand the resignation of any employee, of any business, in any industry, anywhere in the nation.
None. Zero. Nada.
With this, he has announced that he has discarded the rule of law. The principle is out the window.
Prior to today's bracing announcement, last week Geithner announced his intention that,
"Firms that are deemed to be systemically important large institutions must be able to give the government a comprehensive report on their aggregate counterparty risks exposures "within a matter of hours."
If business's spend bunch's of money to lobby and persuade legislators to alter prepositions, verbs and nouns in legislation now, in order to get a little bit more favorable of an angle on their business, can you imagine what is going to happen, when the favorable view of legislators, and their staff, have the ability to determine whether or not your business is a "systemically important large institution", and whether or not those staff members, legislators or even the President himself, considers your current decisions to be politically useful for sending a message that "... it will take a new vision and new direction..." to influence the market and his polls?
Oh. My. God.
Do you realize the sheer political power that each and every bureaucrat involved in this process, is going to have and command? As I said in my previous post, this has little or nothing to do with 'fixing' GM or any other business, this is about seizing power, pure and simple.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I hate to borrow a phrase from our non-representing-representatives, but we've got to do something, and do it fast! I don't know if these Tax Day Tea Parties are promising or not, but it's something while we're trying to figure out a worthwhile plan to counteract this madness!
Oh... wait a minute. Maybe too late there too... "A tea party to protest government spending and taxing is canceled. Canceled by the government."
Ladies and Gent's, you've heard of 'Tipping Points'? Which way are you going to let the nation tip towards, Freedom or Tyranny?
Your choice.
Great post, Van. Thanks for the update. The comments to the article are the best part :-)
ReplyDeleteI’ll be on travel week of the 11th and sooooo wish I could go “ta da big one”.
On a related…I called 2 Border’s Books at lunchtime and our local mom & pop book store – completely out of Mark’s book. The local store clerk said, “We sold the last of our 5 this weekend. Wait, I’ll order you one..type type type..” before I could say "no, that’s alright," the thing beeped and she said, “they’re ‘out of print’”.
But I wanted a couple more forda peeps 'stockinings with care'.
:,-(
...this is about seizing power, pure and simple.
ReplyDeleteYup. Now is the time, they know it.
BTW, if you're into storing up ammo, there's none to be had right now in this town. Never thought I'd see that day, not really.
You are correct Van. It is outside the limits of the Presidents power to demand such a thing. I just wish that the automobile industry and the banks had not made it so easy for there to be a grab for power like this. It seems like they really screwed themselves and in doing so screwed us as well.
ReplyDelete“just wish that the automobile industry and the banks had not made it so easy for there to be a grab for power like this. It seems like they really screwed themselves and in doing so screwed us as well.”
ReplyDeleteOoh… I’ll go along with that… but probably not in the way you mean.
For instance, in 1935 Congress passed the Wagner Act, which was “a 1935 United States federal law that protects the rights of most workers in the private sector to organize labor unions, to engage in collective bargaining, and to take part in strikes and other forms of concerted activity in support of their demands.”
Translation: it forced private businesses to bargain with union thugs, and to go along with being blackmailed to accept “an offer you can’t refuse”.
Detroit, and all the other corporations, with very little fuss (at least relative to the assault on their rights which it represented) went along with it. They then went along with union/govt requirements for benefits, retirement, ridiculous work/layoff rules, and on and on and on… going along to get along. I’m quite sure that many Detroit corp bigwigs were supportive of, not just Obama, but nearly every senator and congressmen who glad handed them and called them ‘friends of the working man’… probably surprised the heck out of Wagoner to wake up fired as CEO.
Shouldn’t have surprised him a bit. Or any of us. Most definitely, "the automobile industry and the banks " - HAVE - "made it so easy for there to be a grab for power like this"... we stood by and allowed our sacred rights to be trampled for feel good ends justify the means PR and sparkling benies. We’ve allowed this horror to build step by step over the last 80 years, and I promise you unless we stop it - NOW – we haven’t seen nothing yet.
Gotta go, but this will resurface in the next ‘Justice’ post… hopefully soon.
Excellent post, Van. I also appreciate your required reading list. I have read "Less Than Words Can Say" and consequently became a fan of Mitchell.
ReplyDeleteI also wish to add my 2 cents to this discussion. Power over others is partly an illusion. The government's ability to control us requires our participation. As soon as we realize that this relationship is not worth the trouble, it will break.
The Almighty God will be what corrects the path we are on. Anything short of this is just a "bailout" of water from a sinking dingy in the vast ocean of His re-aquainting Man with accountability.
ReplyDelete-comment at American Thinker
Practice SURFING.
Ex-Dissident said “I have read "Less Than Words Can Say" and consequently became a fan of Mitchell.”
ReplyDeleteWelcome, and thanks. “Less than words can say” is a particular favorite of mine, it was the first book of Mitchell’s that I read (and unfortunately the only one I have as an actual bound-book) and it was an eye opener for me, bringing a number of inklings and vague ideas I had into solid shape. Through the site I’ve linked there, I’ve read (and printed) and reread all his books & newsletters over and again (they’re free to download, as per Mitchell’s request). He is one rare find, a fine mind that sees clearly and shows us what we might otherwise have missed in what we ‘see’ before us every day; and of course his “Graves of Academe” and “Gift of Fire” are highly recommended to all.
“Power over others is partly an illusion”
Well… yes, but as many people walk out of a magic show in awe of the magician who ‘sawed the lady in half’, just because it is an illusion, doesn’t mean that it is powerless. Taking it up (down?) a notch, Evil is incredibly weak and powerless, it is nothing but a parasite of lies… but people’s willingness to give more credence to it’s lies than their own experience of reality and truth… that is it’s power, not it’s lies and illusions, but people’s willingness, even eagerness and desire, to pretend that what is false can in fact prevail.
Real power is the ability to influence people to act, and to activate extended relationships of people in accordance with that influence. That is not dependent upon facts, but you’re right, it sure is vulnerable to facts… providing they are imaginatively presented.
One of the things which Mitchell points out in ‘Graves of Academe’, is that the imaginative, the conceptual, is being silently ‘bred out’ of us through our educational systems pounding into kids only the perceptual-level thought, through data and dates (ever read a textbook? A boring barrage of facts and figures, with either no inspiration, or only appallingly bad caricatures of it); but it is that higher imaginative faculty which is vital to Reason, otherwise you find yourself just watching the magicians misdirection’s, and oohing and awing at his tricks while knowing them to be merely tricks, such people are left with only a mirror image of imagination, and the materialistic cynicism which accompanies it.
But… and it is a big but, while such people can be controlled, they are also susceptible to being ‘awakened’, and that is a constant fear of the ‘powerful’, one which scares the bejeeber’s out of ‘them’. It only takes an awareness of real imagination and inspiration, to wake a people up. The hard core leftist hates even more than America and the Right, instances of imagination and inspiration. “Star Wars” got even more sneers from the intelligentsia, than Reagan! (“’heroes’?! How simplistic and juvenile!”) Harry Potter gets a special kind of condescension from them, to say nothing of the Founding Fathers, a healthy family, or proper religious issues.
So yes, power over others is an illusion, but if they buy into it, it is far more than partly powerful – it has the power over us which we give it – however…
“The government's ability to control us requires our participation. As soon as we realize that this relationship is not worth the trouble, it will break.”
As soon as we realize what we’ve lost and can regain, then… yes, it can be punctured with an imaginative pinprick of truth, which is why our schools are pin-free zones.
;-)
Excellent post, Van!
ReplyDeleteCan't there be lawsuits brought over the President and his minions seizing and exercising unConstitutional power?
I realize such lawsuits would take several years to be resolved, if they are possible but it seems like an avenue we must pursue, among many, to counter this power grab.
"Real power is the ability to influence people to act, and to activate extended relationships of people in accordance with that influence."
I concur. Also, if they can get folks to be apathetic, on top of the poor to nonexistant education they receive in public schools, that works in the favor of the power grabbers as well.
As President Reagan said, the scariest words you'll hear is "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
Unfortunately, our present government's idea of "help" involves ignoring our Constitution, class warfare, nationlization and more control over our banks and businesses, and the list goes on and on...down the road to socialism.
Ironic the Russia, France and Germany would be warning President Obama about the dangers of the very socialistic ideas he intends to impose.