I’d like to comment, if I might, on the Obama phenomenon, this as one who has now spent 30 months in Iraq as a civilian advisor to the Iraqi police.

My comments, however brief, I think touch upon, however anemically, at least some of the things upon which both you (The Long March) and have Roger Scruton (An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Culture) have already poignantly and mellifluously written.

As has been observed, one can certainly concede how voting for McCain might not exactly confer upon one the Matthewsesque tingle up one’s leg (however irksome the imagery). Nonetheless, the Obama phenomenon has left me deeply concerned about the state of our society and democracy; this, as so many people seem to be so fully taken in by the theatrics of Obama’s soft, or “benign” demagogy. That rhetorical style and aesthetic imagery in this presidential election should now so dramatically come to trump executive substance and character, particularly in such troubled times, is truly stifling. That a man who, by virtue of his utterly self-absorbed biography and very self-serving life story, and very dubious “accomplishments”; that a man who is so little connected to the traditional narrative and values of this country, can ascend to the presidency– on a platform of implicit international apology for who and what we are as a nation– is to me both staggering and demoralizing.

For some time now, I’ve been concerned that our society has been becoming more and more debilitated by a culture of victimization, entitlement, and self-deluding fantasy. To my mind, the social and cultural phenomenon of Barak Obama is very much a product of this cultural malady. At the same, Obama, through his cult of personality, feeds into and perpetuates this cultural disorder, enjoining people to surrender the very real challenges of freedom for the illusory and nebulous promises of security and “change”. The Obama phenomenon, I suppose, is now but the logical consequence of this slowly metastasizing civic pathology in America– of social escape, cultural amnesia, and existential surrender. By my lights, it is a malignancy stoked by, among other things, the ceaseless proliferation of surreal forms of technology and superficial distraction in our very post-modern society, all of which tend to make the challenge of real living but an undeserved and inconvenient imposition, at worst, and a strange and curious mirage, at best. Meanwhile, amidst the creeping darkness of this election cycle (when we learn, by stark observation, that the democratic institution of the media in a free society, whose existence we once very much assumed, no longer exists in this country in any legitimate sense); amidst this growing dusk that announces the gathering storm of our American social and political infirmity; the values of personal discipline, responsibility, focus, and individual accomplishment/achievement are nowhere to be found.

It is not that America and Americans do not need myths. We do. In fact, it is the essence of human beings that we live through symbolic representations. Rather, it is a matter of asking what are the myths, and who are the myth-makers: what, exactly, is the national vision, the civic ideals, set forth? As for the mythmakers, what is their character? What are their accomplishments? What values do they represent?

All this, then, in a time of war and terror, leads one to ask: what exactly is the national myth that Obama is creating? What is his vision for America that will inspire Americans like myself, both in the military and in law enforcement, to render themselves willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for this country’s welfare and defense? To defend, after all, is to preserve. It is to conserve. It is not to “change” and subvert. But radical and careless subversion under Obama, however subtle and nuanced (or perhaps not), is, I suspect, exactly what we should prepare ourselves for.

Though, this impending demolition of America’s history and her traditions, the Great Erasure of America’s sacred myths, will not be borne out of malice, per se. Rather, it will be one borne of sheer carelessness, of fundamental ignorance. After all, from a man totally unconnected, on any personal level, to America’s sacred narrative and its traditions, little awareness about the value of what is being destroyed can be expected. So just as Hegel’s owl of Minerva flies at dusk, we may only be able to survey the full gravity and extent of the national damage after the smoke of the Obama presidency clears, at which time, we’ll hear the familiar refrain: “Oh. I didn’t know…”

For a man who joined the military at 17 inspired by the social, political, and cultural revolution of Ronald Reagan, and then who, at 34, sat for 3 days transfixed, and in tears, as he watched the Reagan funeral (the event that inspired my decision thereafter to deploy to Iraq as a police advisor), this, the “era of Obama,” is truly a journey of wandering in the wilderness.

For my part, the Obama myth is simply not one that I recognize.

Best,

Gerard Meehan

Meanwhile, noted radical communist rag, The Economist endorses Obama.

The Republican ship is sinking; the smarter rats have swarmed off long ago, but there’s still time. Kimball is determined to go down, apparently he’s not one of the smarter rats on board.

Perhaps, but where is the proof of that in deeds… any act in furtherance of such? I hear the rhetoric, witness the calm demeanor, absorb the dulcet tones…and then am jarred back into reality by the fits of pique upon rare inquiry of this ticket and slips of the tongue in unguarded moments that betray the subconscious mind by Obama/Biden.

When they said that he would bring about change that was revolutionary, perhaps I misunderstood what they meant.

Or is he a more radical character who has cultivated suit-and-tie respectability in order to get elected, after which he will pursue radical, redistributionist policies economically, socially, and in foreign affairs?

I don’t know…I can’t know. He has spirited away to a secret vault virtually all of the remnants of his past. What is available has been shuttered from view and vaporized upon discovery. The entrenched media operates as a shill machine, alternately pumping out glorified advertisements posing as “news” coverage, and then clubbing the opposing ticket with everything from faked magazine covers, withhheld tapes, and catty fashion attacks and beyond.

What do we know about Senator Obama? I mean, really know? Facts, evidence…that hasn’t been filtered through a prism, but is just a basic catalogue item about his life until this moment in time?

We do know that his life has been surrounded by people who hold some pretty radical extremist views that are antithetical to mainstream America. This cannot be denied. Frank Marshall Davis, radical professors at college, Jeremiah Wright, Michael Pfleger, Michael Klonsky, William Ayers and his wife, Rashid Khalidi etc…perhaps Khalid al Mansour, maybe others.

To suggest that none of that lifelong pattern of voluntarily seeking and choosing to attach to that very familiar ideology, was because of some reason other </i? than a fatal attraction to it…is to suggest something that has not witnessed one shred of proof or evidence by deed or act. I would be willing to listen to an explanation, perhaps there is one…but nobody seems inclined to even ask. Certainly nobody that the campaign will speak with, anyway.

This is not to say that Senator Obama attaches to the methodology espoused by these folks. Nor does it suggest that he approves of the means. It does, however, suggest a kindred spirit in achieving the ends.

In his own words, talking in a soothing manner…will ratchet back the fears. If that makes Senator Obama’s words more acceptable, it still does not move the goalposts. The end game remains the same.

Barack Obama, Sr. wrote passionately about how he viewed the government’s obligations to distribute wealth. “Frank” spoke and wrote passionately about not selling out and buying into the American Dream. Saul Alinsky wrote a primer on how to achieve radical infiltration. Ayers and Dohrn and Klonsky and Davidson have an exhaustive record of espousing cultural revolution and meeting with sworn enemies. James Cone built a political cover for venom disguised as religion. Jeremiah Wright and Michael Pfleger took Cone’s ball and ran with it. And they did so while lionizing Louis Farrakhan. Rashid Khalidi and Edward Said and Ali Abunimah link the Ayers/Dohrn flag stomping with an Israeli flag stomping.

And upon which road do all these voices intersect? How do we explain that? What does it mean? We don’t know and we can’t know. Because nobody seems to want to ask, at least nobody that the campaign will speak with.

Is this fatal attraction not some “passing youtful fad”, but a glimpse into a worldview that defines a lifetime attachment? Where is there any…any…evidence that his divergence from their worldview is not on substance, but rather on the mechanics of achieving it?

By all outward appearances, he is drawn to radical extremism like a moth to a flame. The blazing heat of that boiling anger, fuels his passions. He seems to want to captain a ship upon a raging sea. In what way has he moved to quiet the rage or bridge the divide?

Ever?

In putting a Mideast pre-cabinet together, the Walt & Mearsheimer bible apparently must be sworn upon to gain admittance. Foreign money may fuel his campaign coffers. Anti-Semitic despots cheer on his ascendancy.

When the truth is held hostage, who pays the ransom?

The best reply I’ve found to this redistributionist nonsense is here.