By Bob Barr
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Decades ago, Mike Kelley was fighting a war against
communist tyrants in the jungles of Vietnam. Fortunately, Kelley was able to
escape that war with his life -- something more than 50,000 other American
service members were not able to do. Last weekend, however, Kelley once again
found himself side-by-side with hundreds of other veterans, in the newest front
in the war for freedom. This time, though, the battle did not take place in
thick jungle or dry desert, but on the streets of our nation’s capital.
Kelley, a resident of Grand Lake, Oklahoma, made the trip
to Washington, D.C. to take part in the “Million Veteran March,” which was
organized to protest the Obama Administration’s decision to close the nation’s
historic landmarks, including the many war memorials spread around the City. “I
saw WWII veterans not being able to get in their memorial,” Kelley told The
Grove Sun. “I got angry and frustrated and said, ‘I'm going.’”
Kelley’s frustration reflects a sentiment growing among
millions of Americans, especially veterans, as the government “shutdown”
continues – the result of Obama’s refusal to negotiate with members of Congress
on budget matters, or on changes to his beloved “ObamaCare.” Over the weekend,
even as Kelley and other veterans moved aside barricades placed by the National
Park Service designed to keep citizens from visiting the Capital’s open-air
memorials, Obama rejected yet another budget deal from House Republicans that
would have ended the shutdown.
Obama, however, did find time to order riot police --
armed with steel batons and handcuffs -- to greet the peacefully protesting
veterans. It was a scene reflective of the 1930s, when military veterans
marched on the nation’s capital to demand wartime bonuses owed to them for
their service in the First World War. Obama’s show of force was something not
employed even when the hooligans of the “Occupy DC” movement tried to hold the
city hostage two years ago – a movement actually praised at the time by Obama
and his sidekick, Vice President Joe Biden.
The use of riot police to confront peaceful veterans and
Tea Party demonstrators is the latest evidence of the widening gulf between
Barack Obama and the American public. As the shutdown now extends into a third
week, there is a growing divide between what Obama and his supporters stand
for, and what the rest of America believes. It is a disconnect as wide as it is
deep; and it portends a troubling future.
Americans clearly want an end to the President’s petty
political shenanigans; they want our shared national treasures – owned, after
all by the citizenry and not the President -- to be re-opened. Obama
overreacted to this understandable frustration by sending in armed police to
harass protestors. On Capitol Hill, Republicans tried several attempts to pass
limited funding measure to cover important needs, such as paying for military
death benefits to families who have lost loved ones in our country’s ongoing
military operations. Obama responded by refusing to negotiate with what he
termed “extortionists,” and House Minority Leader Pelosi referred to as
“saboteurs.”
The simple fact is, it is the Obama Administration that
is holding America’s war memorials as hostages; not the citizens.
The frustration that gave rise to last weekend’s
confrontations is only a symptom of a much larger problem; and that is, the
tension between law-abiding citizens and a government forcing them to accept
government-defined health care whether they want it or not. It is the
frustration felt by families working hard to pay their bills while food stamp
recipients strip a WalMart’s shelves bare in a bizarre spending spree
occasioned by a government snafu in its Electronic Benefit Transfer card
system. It is a frustration exacerbated by seeing welfare recipients loudly
protesting a move by the state of Georgia to charge them $5 a month for
cellphones given them for free by Uncle Sam at taxpayer expense. And it is
reflected in the growing fear of a federal government monitoring the phone and
internet communications of law-abiding citizens with no oversight.
The gulf between Obama's America and Real America is
growing. While the rest of the nation suffers because of his refusal to
negotiate in good faith with Republicans, Obama seems content to weather the
storm from the backdrop of the Oval Office. After all, it is not him or his
Washington Team who are suffering; their “let-them-eat-cake” attitude appears
unshaken. The battle, meanwhile, for the future of America is no longer
smoldering; it is visibly burning.
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