Doomed to Repeat?

The exact quote escapes me, as does its attribution, but it's something along the lines of, "Those who do not understand History are doomed to repeat it."

Boy is it ever true!

Here we are repeating history in so many ways. I have to wonder, is the Great and Powerful OB really aware of what utter failures his policies were in the past? Does he know that and just not care, because power is his ambition? Or does he think they somehow did it wrong back then, and he knows how to do it right this time? Or is he simply ignorant and dismissive of history?

I can't think of any alternatives to those questions, which gives me heartburn.

Let's go back.

FDR took office shortly after the economic collapse that spurred the Great Depression. His response was to implement massive new socialist programs. Many citizens apparently loved him for that, but did they actually work? As far as I can tell, and from what a pretty high number of economists smarter than I have determined, they did not. In fact, they served to deepen and entrench the Depression. It took World War II and the optimism in its aftermath that turned things around.

Now some say that the GI Bill was responsible for that turnaround, and perhaps it had a positive impact. But raising taxes on the rich to an 80% top marginal rate and giving it to politicians and bureaucrats to dole out a small sliver to the needy obviously did much more damage.

What about LBJ and his Great Society? Did it work? Definitively not. Welfare programs that hand out a subsistence-level lifestyle create a permanent underclass of dependents. It's so amazingly clear, yet so many refuse to acknowledge the truth of it.

Then there's Jimmy Carter and his weak, naive foreign policy. There's no way to spin the fact that Jimmy's weakness led to the regime change in Iran that's front and center in today's immediate threats to our own security.

So the Great and Powerful OB is eager to assume the mantle of FDR, LBJ, and the peanut farmer. Luckily his poll numbers are falling, indicating more Americans are catching on. But it seems still over half the population is happily skipping behind his pied piper tune toward the cliff.

Next up, 10% unemployment. Devalued Dollar. Federal bankruptcy, along with bankruptcy in many states. Attacks on the homeland by nuclear Iran and North Korea, not to mention the odd terrorist bombings. Illegal immigrants flooding over open borders to either accept under-the-table jobs or terrorize the citizenry with drug trafficing and gang violence. All while the military and defense systems are de-funded to clear the way for federal socialized medicine.

Our only hope is that those Emerald City OB worshippers awaken from their trance in time.