Now it Begins

Finally the wait is over. President Obama has taken his place on this historic day as the new leader of the United States of America. The first minority to do so, which is a feat we should all celebrate. 

Lets be honest given the fact of the terrible economic situation we are in , the amount of money spent on this inauguration was absurd. I have no problem with the money spent on security for the event, but everything else was excessive. Especially given all the talk about doom and gloom with our economy. I think this event is truly worthy to celebrate but the expense is not justified. I guess it is just everyone else but the government  that should penny pinch.

We as nation need to keep careful watch of this administration. Let us not get caught up in all of the Hollywood Glamor.  We need to pay attention to President Obama’s message and his actions. He again repeated the fact that he feels it is the governments responsibility to provide for such things as universal health care and that people should look to the government for help. This didn’t work for Roosevelt and it won’t work for Obama. And let us not forget most of President Clinton’s success  came in working with a Republican Congress.

I wish him well, I hope he leads this nation in the direct it should be lead. I suspect though that him and his  liberal cronies will lead us straight down the path of socialism and bankruptcy.

Good Bye 2008, Look out for 2009.

History will look back at 2008 as one of the most historic years in our nations history. It was a year that saw the United States go through many changes and face many challenges. At the international level this maybe the year where we look back as a nation and say this was the year that signaled the beginning of the end of the United States as the lone world super power.

Looking back I can see this being the case for several reasons. The first reason is the inability of the United States to effectively keep Iran in check. Iran with its nuclear ambitions has continued to move forward with little or no resistance from the international community. Russia has stepped up to become a relevant power again. While there economy is hurting again like everyone else’s they have taken advantage of the high oil prices over the last few years and have used that money to reinvest in their military. Russia has flexed their muscle in places like Georgia and has also sent war ships to the Western Hemisphere for the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis to have military exercises with Venezuela. While it appears our government has stood by and watched this with little or no response.

Even our traditional spheres of influence such as Latin and South America seem to be waning. These countries have increasingly fallen into the hands of socialist leaders.

While there is no doubt that the war in Iraq has alienated many of our allies that traditionally take a passive view to resolving conflict and take a reactionary view to defense, I think there has been a fundamental shift in world view of the United States. There are many factors including, ineffective polices, a government that actively sought to undermine the President, and a national media that had its own agenda to shape America rather than just reporting the news.

We also have to recognize that we took an important step as a nation when it came to politics. For the first time ever we had both an African-American and a woman as a viable candidates for the office of the President of the United States, and further more we elected the first African- American as President of the United States. No matter what you political party affiliation is, one has to agree that this was truly an historic moment in our nations history.

With that said though we may look back at 2008 as the year we began as a nation the move toward socialism. We have bailed out our finance sector along with our auto industry and we have done this with little oversight. President Bush has even acknowledge that while he believes in a free market economy that he was willing to jump into a little socialism to save these companies. And we have elected what is widely acknowledge as the most liberal President in American history who has been quoted in saying such things as “spread the wealth”, and that he wants universal health care; which gives us a dangerous combanation of factors pulling us toward a European socialist type of government.

This year was one of the most challenging years of my generation because ofthe state of the economy, and the collapse of the sub-prime leading market that lead to millions of people losing their homes. The stock market lost over 25% of its value and all of us lost money in our 401k’s. Companies that we thought would never close collapsed under the weight of greed and poor management. We also saw gas shoot as high as $4 a gallon and come crashing back down to $1.50 a gallon in the course of a few short months. We all have been touched in a negative way by the events over the last year.

While 2008, feel will be looked at as an historic year; I feel that 2009 will go down as a turning point for our nation. Will we willingly and blindly as a nation let our media, our leaders, and government takes us down the road of socialism? Or this will this be the year we begin to revolt as people and begin to take back our nation and hold our governments responsible for their actions. I am hoping that with the negative reactions to the government bailouts, and the slow realization by many that Obama is just another politician that we may have hit rock bottom as a nation and that the people will take back our government.

There are many issues that need to be resolved in the coming year. We live in the most challenging times that have faced this nation in decades. We the people can no longer take a passive stance like most of our politicians when it comes to solving our nations problems. We must rise up and come together as people to find a balance between dealing with international affairs and fixing our problems at  domestically. We must be willing to make sacrifices and in turn we must demand our government  make the same sacrifices without raising our taxes. Tough choices must be made and we need to demand our leaders make the choices or leave office. If we don’t 2009 maybe known as the year Socialism began in the United States of America.