Malaise is here -- Misery Index On The Way ... J. D. Longstreet

Malaise is here -- Misery Index On The Way
"Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin"
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
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You DO realize this is President Jimmy Carter's third term -- don't you? 

Yeah.  I KNOW that's not funny.  There hasn't been much fun for a long time now.

During the Carter era years I was trying to run a profitable business, keep all my employees on the payroll, and figure out how to comply with all the ridiculous regulations handed down from DC -- up to and where, exactly, to set the heating and cooling thermostat in my office!  YES!  It WAS just that ridiculous.

The picture of Jimmy Carter in a cardigan sweater sitting in front of a fireplace with logs burning cheerfully in the background still haunt my nightmares to this day.

You know, Obama was not the first President to be referred to as the Messiah.  Carter owns that irreverent title. At some point during that trying time some one tacked a photo of  Jesus Christ with Jimmy Carter's face superimposed on the head of Christ on one of our studio's bulletin boards.  It came down when Reagan was elected.  

It was, indeed, a miserable time.

The country was wallowing in syrupy malaise.  And then there was the misery Index.  (You find the misery index by adding the unemployment figure to the inflation figure.)   It was pure-"T" awful under the Carter Administration.

Jimmy Carter delivered the famous or infamous televised "Malaise" speech on July 15, 1979. That was 34 years ago.  

Recently Laura Ingram said the following:  "Friday marked the 32-year-anniversary of Jimmy Carter’s “crisis of confidence” later pegged “malaise speech,” a nationally televised and ill-received address trying to combat what Carter saw as apathy and doubt among Americans concerning politics and the energy crisis. In the days following the speech Carter fired cabinet members feeling that his administration failed to capitalize on a window of opportunity, which some believe was the beginning of the end for Carter and his ability to appear as a strong and significant leader.

Thirty-two years later another first term Democratic president faces a crisis of continued economic decline and failure to bridge heated political differences from Capital Hill to Main Street. Ingraham’s audio suggests that like Carter, Obama is failing to step up as a strong and believable leader in the eyes of Americans looking to him in a time of crisis."  SOURCE:  http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2011/07/16/laura-ingraham-airs-scary-obama-remix-of-jimmy-carters-malaise-speech/

My friend Alan Caruba said recently:  "The current economic malaise has affected everyone in some fashion—losing a job, having a job converted to a part-time status, having work hours limited, possibly facing foreclosure on their home, experiencing extremely low interest rates on their savings, the higher cost of gas and groceries, all without seriously affecting Obama’s job approval ratings or popularity."  Source:  http://www.factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-economy-it-must-be-gops-fault-right.html

If you recall, Carter's Malaise speech, otherwise known as the "Crisis of Confidence" speech you will instantly note that it sounds exactly like speeches given by President Obama today. 

For instance Carter said:  "I ask Congress to give me authority for mandatory conservation and for standby gasoline rationing. To further conserve energy, I'm proposing tonight an extra $10 billion over the next decade to strengthen our public transportation systems. And I'm asking you for your good and for your nation's security to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel. Every act of energy conservation like this is more than just common sense -- I tell you it is an act of patriotism."  SOURCE:  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/carter-crisis/

Of course we knew it was more an act of desperation on Carter's part than it was patriotism on the part of the American civilian population.  We weren't as dumb then as we are today. For evidence, note that WE DID NOT REELECT CARTER TO A SECOND TERM!

A year ago I wrote the following:  "Malaise in an individual is bad.  Malaise in a nation can be fatal.

America is currently mired in the worst case of malaise in my lifetime.

I’ve been around since FDR was President.  I have experienced American national malaise twice in my lifetime.  Both times it was during the administrations of Democratic Party Presidents.

The first case of American malaise (in my lifetime) was under the administration of the 39th President of the United States—Jimmy Carter.  It was BAD.

I was trying to run a business—and it was pure hell.  All business could do was hunker down and wait for a flicker of light at the end of that very long and very dark tunnel.

When it came, it was not a flicker—it was a sunburst by the name of Ronald Reagan.

America came roaring out of her national depression and raced back to the to the top—turning on all the lights as they went —illuminating “the shining city on a hill.”

Now, under the Obama administration (another Democratic Party President) here we are—in an even deeper national depression—or malaise—than we were even under Jimmy Carter.  This time—there is no Ronald Reagan waiting in the wings. In my opinion THAT is why THIS malaise is even deeper than Carter’s."  SOURCE:  "America’s Malaise Is BACK!" at: http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/48449

I wrote those few words BEFORE the 2012 election.  As I said in that piece, there was a sense of impending doom which spanned the entire right side of the political spectrum in America.

A year ago, when I wrote those words,  America's future doom, under an Obama second term, was as clear as the writing on the wall at Belshazzar's Feast. (You'll find the story in the fifth chapter of Daniel in the Old Testament of the Bible.  We recommend you read it.  It certainly won't hurt -- and you just might learn something about what lies in America's immediate future.)

The moving fingers wrote: מנא, מנא, תקל, ופרס
or: "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin." 

So what DID those words, written by the hand of God, announce to THAT corrupt King of Babylon: "And this is the writing that was inscribed: mina, mina, shekel, half-mina. This is the interpretation of the matter: mina, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; shekel, you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting; half-mina, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians." — Daniel 5:25–28

Suppose, just for a moment, that that feast was a state dinner at the White House and the reigning king was Obama.  To whom would the hapless kingdom of America be about to fall?  Who ARE the modern Medes and Persians?

Well,  Easton's Illustrated Dictionary lists the Medes as part of the Assyrian Empire, which covers the area of today's IRAQ, SYRIA, and LEBANON.

The Persians are still Persians, of course, but Persia is known today as -- IRAN. 

Of course, we are thousands of years removed from that feast, but, isn't it strange how ancient scripture and modern history seem to interlace, seem to be spun and twisted together?  Interesting, what?

Is America modern Babylon?  Judge for yourself at:  http://www.beaconoftruth.com/babylon.htm

I'm no prophet, or "seer."  I just pay attention with, possibly, a higher than usual degree of situational awareness. That's all.

America's state of national malaise bespeaks a people who are uneasy about something very bad they sense is in the offing for their beloved country.  They can't get past the feeling that our shared malaise is a signal and/or a symptom of a very unpleasant future.

Whatever the reality is, we can all be sure it isn't the the future scenario, the President and his cronies are painting, of a prospering America returned to her days of glory as a result of his socialist "share the wealth" agenda.   Reality by definition is real -- and it does not match his words.

© J. D. Longstreet