The Winter Of Our Discontent
February 1, 2012 by John Myers
Any notion of growing disappointment was left out of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech last week. It shouldn’t have been.
The seeds of discontent are being sowed across America. Obama is more prolific than Johnny Appleseed. Obama hit on the familiar: The wealthy are not paying enough; the middle class is getting shortchanged. Noteworthy was that Warren Buffett’s secretary Debbie Bosanek had a seat to hear the speech. It’s too bad for Obama that they couldn’t make room for Buffet’s many housekeepers and groundskeepers.
Obama did not and will not admit this fact even though America is struggling to sustain an economic recovery while energy costs are rising and the budget deficit is in uncharted territory. However, he did immediately hit upon the wealthy. Just as Congress had taken their seats, the President said: “We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by.”
Toward the end of his address, Obama said: “Now, you can call this class warfare all you want.” That’s exactly what Obama is calling it.
Had Obama been honest, he would have admitted that the United States is an empire in decline and that his Presidency has only accelerated the Nation’s demise.
I wonder what author John Steinbeck would think of the current State of the Union. After all, his masterpiece was The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1939. It is a fictional account of personal hardships brought about by the Great Depression.
King Barack
The title of Steinbeck ‘s last book, The Winter Of Our Discontent, was derived from the first line of William Shakespeare’s play “Richard III”: “Now is the winter of our discontent.”
Richard III died more than a century before Shakespeare wrote a play about him. History made note of him because he dragged England into one of its bloodiest civil wars.
Richard III was also the basis for Shakespeare’s fictional king, a man who was cunning, conniving and charismatic. It was his charisma that made it so difficult for those that opposed his rule and who wanted to expose his evil.
Shakespeare’s Richard III presents himself as the rightful heir to the throne, pretending to be a modest and devout man, lacking of great ambition. What the audience already knows is that Richard is devoid of all these qualities. He even announces it: “I am determined to prove a villain and hate the idle pleasures of these days.”
So begins the story of destruction at the hands of a tyrant who has created a poisonous atmosphere within his court and even beyond its walls.
Some people might suggest that nowadays another real-life Richard III has taken up residence in the White House. I don’t know about you, but I feel like I have been strapped down and forced to watch this tragedy play out.
Already the dominoes of America’s demise are lined up. They all will tumble if Obama is re-elected.
A Global Tragedy
In Shakespeare’s play, Richard says: “The world is grown so bad.”
Last April, Obama said: “We’ve got some global enormous challenges out there.” The President could easily have said the same refrain as Richard.
Like Richard III, Obama has done much to make things worse as was pointed out earlier this month when the GOP Presidential front-runner appeared on NBC’s Today Show, hosted by Matt Lauer. According to Mitt Romney, Obama is creating an atmosphere that is dividing the country, especially with regard to the public protesting that happened late last year.
Romney said:
I think it’s about envy. I think it’s about class warfare. I think when you have a president encouraging the idea of dividing American based on 99 percent vs. one percent, and those people who have been most successful would be in the one percent, you’ve opened a whole new wave of approach in this country, which is entirely inconsistent with the notion of one nation under God.
The Washington Examiner agreed wholeheartedly with Romney. A Jan. 12 editorial read:
Liberals like Lauer may not like to hear that Obama is sowing envy and class warfare by attacking capitalism, but two new polls from the Pew Research Center show that is exactly what is going on. Two weeks ago, Pew released a poll showing that support for capitalism has fallen since Obama began promoting the issue of income inequality. Not only that, but most people in three demographics highly supportive of Obama (the young, liberals, and African-Americans) told Pew they now support socialism. Except for blacks, that was not true before Obama was elected.
… Pew has released a different poll showing growing numbers of Americans believe there are deep conflicts between rich and poor. Overall, 66 percent of Americans now say there are “very strong” or “strong” conflicts between the rich and poor, a 19 point increase since 2009.
Representative Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) called Obama “a divider, not a uniter.” He added that Obama is trying to promote envy among lower-income Americans who are struggling to find work so he can expand the government.
“He’s using class warfare; he’s dividing America,” Gohmert said in an interview with the Daily Caller. “He’s trying to say, if you don’t have a job, then you need to look around and be jealous of people who have money, who have a job, and want what they have.”
Dividing a nation for political and personal gain was what Richard III did. Obama is no different. We can only hope that like Richard III, Obama loses his realm; that last week’s speech was his final State of the Union Address.
It may take a revolt on the part of Democrats to save the Nation. Keep in mind Richard’s downfall came during the Battle of Bosworth Field only after his loyalists deserted him.
As Shakespeare wrote, the battle raged and Richard was knocked from his horse crying: “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”
He never got that horse. Only then did England rebuild and unite.
Yours in good times and bad,
–John Myers
Editor, Myers’ Energy & Gold Report
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