The economy is sliding badly and the dollar is endangered, TSA's aggressive insistence on harassing American fliers, worldwide chaos

Thankless in Obamaland

By Daniel Greenfield
Saturday, November 27, 2010

This is one Thanksgiving weekend which finds Americans with little to be thankful for. The economy is sliding badly and the dollar is endangered, which could potentially wreck the nation’s economy long after Obama is gone. Flying was a more unpleasant experience due to the TSA’s aggressive insistence on harassing American fliers, rather than Muslim terrorists. Then there’s the worldwide chaos, which now threatens to open up a whole new war in Asia.

With a political beating in the midterm elections and a confused administration, even liberals seem to have little to be politically thankful for. But even mentions of Thanksgiving seem inevitably accompanied by historical revisionism which reduces the contact between specific groups of European settlers and certain Indian tribes to a one-sided narrative whose goal is to delegitimize the very existence of the United States. Everyone from PETA to indigenous activists to Michelle Obama’s fat insanity has tried to have a go at it.

Thanksgiving is problematic for many on the left because it provides a positive view of American settlement and the interaction between European settlers and Native Americans. Which is why liberals will try to subvert the story of Thanksgiving by depicting the settlers negatively. This is almost universally common on television nowadays. And for those activists obsessed with what people eat, Thanksgiving with its obligatory heavy turkey dinner, is also a major target. So we get HRH Michelle Obama telling Americans what they can and can’t eat for dinner. http://weaselzippers.us/2010/11/24/good ... nksgiving/ The difference is that Americans eat their own food. Unlike Michelle and her husband who eat at taxpayer expense.

The protests over the TSA have also failed to lead to a serious dialogue about what we should be doing to fight terrorism. Instead junk catchphrases and people stripping to their underwear while flying have turned media coverage of the situation into a series of running gags. Drudge forced media coverage of the backlash, but he steered it into freakshow areas. The media responded by running stories to pick up some of the traffic, but the stories they ran were more about the publicity stunts, while their above board coverage defended the Obama Administration and the TSA. It’s a ridiculous situation when people can Tweet that they’re going to fly in their underwear and get major news organizations to go and film them, that does nothing to address the problem. Instead it quickly leads to viewer fatigue and disinterest. And that means the policies will stay in place.

Too much of the backlash has focused on what people don’t want, rather than what they do want. That has allowed the Obama Administration to frame it as a choice between security and privacy. When it’s actually a choice between good security and bad security. That isn’t entirely accidental. Too much of the coverage was led by sources who don’t think that there even is such a thing as terrorism. Drudge and other blogs linked to content from 9/11 Truther Alex Jones and Prison Planet. This was Jones’ most successful effort to embed himself among conservatives to date. For those such as Jones or Ron Paul, there is no terrorism. The whole thing is a government conspiracy. The way they fed the story, was the way it got told. And an opportunity to actually reform airline security was missed.

And so what should have been an upbeat time, a harvest festival and a reunion with friends and family, instead is tinted in haze. And that seems par for the course under Obama.

In the UK there’s controversy over radical left faux artist Banksy’s gallery promoting a picture of the 7/7 bombing by Mark Sinckler, a Muslim who moved from metro vandalism to poorly done collages. http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/11/uk-mu ... tacks.html All the attention paid to this just means mission accomplished for Banksy, who has successfully ridden and ridiculed an art world, where the only coin that matters is notoriety, not talent.

The entire thing is hopelessly cynical. Sinckler’s Age of Shiva is a cynical parody of British sensibilities over the 7/7 massacre. Cynically marketed by Banksy’s Marks and Stencils gallery, which was also set up to mock art galleries and public sensibilities, it’s the work of emotionally dead people who believe that by mocking everything that other people value, they remain above it. As always the joke is on the average person, the bourgeois, the same type of person who was riding a bus when it was blown up.

The controversy will move up Banksy and Sinckler further up the ladder. The careers of both derive from vandalism and end there. First vandalism of public spaces and then vandalism of public faith and public values.

Meanwhile in Israel, Netanyahu once again finds himself in another Wye situation, caught between signing on to what Obama wants and betraying his country, or resisting and standing up to Obama. It’s not a pleasant situation to be in. Last time around Netanyahu failed the test when he gave in to Clinton. It seems as if he may be failing it again this time. (Latma has their usual scathing take on it.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_bUgtl2 ... re=recentu

Meanwhile Turkey’s Islamist thug Erdogan “the minarets are our bayonetsâ€