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Is It ‘Conspiratorial’ to Discuss Obama’s Authoritarian Tendencies?

Those who casually dismiss such fears about Obama should first consider the evidence.

by
Mary Grabar

Bio

September 14, 2009 - 12:35 am

Michael Medved placed Georgia Congressman Paul Broun’s comments about Obama wanting an authoritarian regime into the category of “conspiracies” on a recent “conspiracy Friday” show. He said that such statements did not “help” the conservative cause.

Medved echoes what I hear from some conservative colleagues in the academy who do not want to be labeled “extremist,” who would like to wait for all the evidence, archived and footnoted, to come in before they draw conclusions.

History will tell if Congressman Broun is right. But history most often tells us what happens when individuals are afraid to take action, when they wait.

Last summer many saw a professor and former Harvard Law Review president and could not think of him as harboring any authoritarian tendencies, even though the evidence was there. Several conservatives supported Obama over McCain. Peggy Noonan was waxing poetical about history.

In the meantime, the common folks “clung” to their religion and guns, and bought even more guns and ammunition. Some of these folks have parents who remember what it was like to live defenseless under a communist regime that controlled the media and everything else. Some, having had to live and work in the real world for generations, have a healthy skepticism of elites.

Well, history tells us that most terroristic socialist regimes were started by disaffected intellectuals, who learned their theories in universities and then imposed them on the “people.”

History, however, is less likely to tell about tragedies that are stymied by individuals not afraid to speak up. History will not give us the footnoted evidence about the citizens who were propelled to take action by Congressman Broun’s words.

We will never know what would have happened had decisive leaders like Ronald Reagan not challenged the Soviet Union or invaded Grenada. We don’t know what would have happened if Saddam Hussein were still in power.

We do know the mistakes of waiting too long, of paralysis. We know that by the 10 million killed under National Socialism and 100 million killed under communism.

Extreme?

Could all those post-election presidential well-wishers on the air, the intellectuals, the “moderates,” including the 2008 Republican presidential candidate, have predicted the extreme actions of this president after only seven months in office? Would they have predicted Obama nationalizing car companies and banks, firing the CEO of GM, and setting salaries; stoking racial fires with unsubstantiated evidence, while appointing an attorney general who has allowed voter intimidation; appointing a racist judge to the Supreme Court for her ability to “empathize”; moving the census to the White House; going on an apology tour to all our enemies after declaring himself a “citizen of the world”; using public funding for a civilian corps of youths; seeking to advance his political agenda through the arts and schoolchildren; demonizing private citizens who express criticisms of his policy; attacking the opposition media; and instituting a shadow government of “czars”?

Some of these czars, like Carol Browner and Van Jones, are communists and socialists. Jones, like his recent boss, specializes in fomenting racial, ethnic, and class hatred, a favorite tactic of socialist dictators, like Lenin, Hitler, and Hugo Chavez.

It was not moderates or academics who pressured Van Jones into resigning, but researchers like Trevor Loudon, who, back in April, started detailing Jones’ disturbing background. It was Glenn Beck who dared to publicize Jones’ past on Fox. (Beck also is the only one, as far as I know, who has had historians Ronald J. Pestritto and Robert Gellately on to provide the historical context that the “moderates” are afraid to mention.) And Cliff Kincaid’s column should put the lie to any distance Obama attempts to place between himself and Van Jones.

The mainstream, Obama-enthralled media has not bothered to dig into Jones’ past and simply repeats Jones’ charges of a “smear campaign.”

But it won’t be the establishment — the reporters who are invited to the White House or the professors at the Ivy League universities — who will save us from this administration.

It will be outraged parents and bloggers who can see the indoctrination in the leading questions sent out by the White House to children captive before the beamed image of their president.

It will be the tea party protesters who do not need policy wonks to tell them what they clearly see coming down the pike with Obama’s nationalized health care: rationing and “death panels” — like panels of Nazi doctors who decided what life was not worthy of life.

Those who work and worship quite happily with citizens of other races (like Sergeant Crowley and his fellow police officers) see that we’ve got a president who foments racial strife; he appoints people who specialize in that tactic and use “crises” to their advantage.

They see that Obama seeks control of industries, the media, the schools, charity, private business, financial institutions, and our health, including matters of life and death.

They see that he has appointed radicals who display no respect for the Constitution, the law, or American sovereignty; who are or have been members of communist parties; who believe they know what’s best for the American people and believe it is their job to force it upon them, whether by rushing a phony “stimulus” bill through in the dead of night, by subverting the election process, by threatening with “pitchfork mobs,” or by scheming to outlaw forums for speech like talk radio.

The president’s www.BarackObama.com website called us who oppose his health care bill “right-wing domestic terrorists.” Fidel Castro echoes the common charge of Obama and company that any criticisms arise from a racist right wing. Marxist authoritarian leader Hugo Chavez (who was paid a friendly visit by Obama last spring) said Honduran protesters against Chavez-supported ousted president Manuel Zelaya were aligned with the “extreme right.” Need we say more about the tenuous situation in Central and South America with Marxist regimes supported by Iran, all under the approving gaze of Obama?

Can we dare to make comparisons to fascist and communist regimes of the twentieth century as Congressman Broun did?

Do we need more evidence of “authoritarianism”?

Mary Grabar earned her Ph.D. in English from the University of Georgia and teaches in Atlanta. She is organizing the Resistance to the Re-Education of America at www.dissidentprof.com. Her writing can be found at www.marygrabar.com. Subscribe to dispatches here.
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