Policies no, Obama maybe…
Barack Obama is charismatic. He can charm, and has mastered the art of set cadence, pause, articulation, and voice modulation, in the manner of a JFK. He has appeared on television far more in nine months than have prior presidents in an entire administration. But his problem is that his policies—cap and trade, nationalized health care, $2 trillion deficits, fringe-politics czars, therapeutic foreign policies, etc.—poll below 50 percent. So his advisors quite understandably assume that by sheer magnetism Obama can still sell the public a product they doubt—sort of like GM’s top salesman thinking he can sell a Honda Accord buyer a new Malibu. (trust me, it does not work)
In response to his own declining polls, his initiatives are stalled—and, more importantly, his centrist Democratic supporters are themselves dug in, fingers in the wind, waiting until his polls go back up to 55%.
When in doubt…
Barring sudden changes in the economy, or a Clinton-like 1995 flip to the center, the Obamians feel that they can still overwhelm the public through two strategies: have subordinates (but never the White House) demonize opponents as “racists”, and unleash Obama on the media, convinced that his attractive personality can become persuasive as well (the two are not the same: I like Bruce Springsteen’s music and enjoy his occasional talks, but would never follow his political advice; Tommy Lee Jones is one of my favorite actors; but would never follow his enthusiasm for Al Gore).
Wolf, wolf and more crying wolf…
A variety of liberal icons has weighed in on the racist theme. What is again sad is that many of the most prominent accusers have forfeited credibility, given their own past record of wolf-crying.
I remember in the campaign that most of the race embarrassment, in fact, was on the liberal side: the imbroglio over Bill Clinton’s charges about the “race card” played on him; Joe Biden’s “clean” black remark and Indians in donut shops; Howard Dean’s wild charges about Republicans and black servants; Geraldine Ferraro’s suggestion that being black helped, not hurt Obama; the 95% black majorities in the primaries that voted in bloc fashion against a white, very liberal candidate; Obama’s own racial baggage with Rev. Wright, “clingers”, typical white person, etc.
In other words, eighteen months ago at this time, Obama was struggling with the suggestion that his past record illustrated that he was close with racists like Wright, and saw the election in racial prisms. Meanwhile, liberal rivals had tried to emphasize those very contradictions, often in clumsy terms. Currently, he vehemently denies a racial component to criticism against his policies (he reads the polls that to do so is political suicide), but oddly apparently does not privately send the word out to his operatives in the media and in Congress to cool it, since he also sees political advantage if such charges blunt criticism of his unpopular initiatives. (A note: part of the problem is that elites dominate the issue: calling someone “racist” does not work in the workplace for most people who are not so easily intimidated; but our talking heads and journalists are themselves passive-aggressives who are as timid in real life as they chest-thump in public.)
But is there any credibility?
Fast forward: I just read the charges of Bob Herbert, the New York Times columnist, who now swears racism fuels anger at the Obama new deal. He even cites the Kenney assassination as dire warning. But, wait—JFK was killed, as the Warren Report detailed, by a pro-Soviet, Fair Play for Cuba Marxist.
Bob Hebert himself not long ago alleged on television that a McCain ad was abjectly racist because it had two supposed phallic symbols in the background: those Freudian bogeymen, the leaning tower of Pisa and the Washington Monument.
The racists in the McCain campaign, Herbert swore, used subliminal imagery to scare us about purported black sexual prowess. But wait once more: Herbert crafted all this. The image was simply the Victory Column in Berlin. It was chosen as a backdrop to remind viewers of the pomposity of Obama himself using the icon (after being turned down for wanting the more presidential set of the Brandenburg Gate). Even grade school students can distinguish the Washington Monument—and most likely the leaning tower of Pisa as well. (By the way, given the hysterics of the New York Times in its Obamania and the lengths to which it has gone, and given its dire fiscal condition, and given the federal bail-outs under Obama, and given the spread of czardom, we know what will follow very soon….)
And on and on…
Maureen Dowd had no evidence of racism either. No matter once more—she inserts the word “boy” into Joe Wilson’s unfortunate “You lie” rude interruption, to invent a racist rather than a merely boorish remark. But with all due respect once more, why believe Ms. Dowd, who just recently lifted sentences from another writer, used them as her own, and then, when caught, claimed she absentmindedly cut and pasted from an email?
well, things could always be worse, right?
:)
Dr. Hanson, well done. I’ve no doubt that you’re correct about the racial proclivities of the overwhelming majority of Americans; there aren’t any. For most, the racial debate is over. Many years before Barack Obama was elected, few Americans doubted that a black could–and would–one day be elected president. Likewise, few doubt that the same is true for Asians, Hispanics, women and just about any other elite-identified or self-identified victim group. There is simply nothing blocking the path for virtually anyone anymore. This is a good thing, a thing that could only happen in America (Let’s not mention that it was a white Republican–George W. Bush–who placed more competent, qualified blacks in the highest levels of government than any other president, shall we?).
The bad thing is that by continually crying racism where none exists, by trading on victim politics, by falsely demonizing those who hold no ill will, Democrats perpetuate, even inflame, that which they so claim to oppose, to say nothing of seriously angering and alienating those who might otherwise be inclined to support them. The civil rights cause has long ago been vindicated, its goals won. Learn to take yes for an answer.
But, as John Belushi used to say, nooooooooooo! MIchelle Obama, speaking only days ago, now seeks to convince American women that they are an enormous victim class, abused by their very families for whom they must manage health care! Only the embrace of government, represented by the loving arms of Michelle Obama, those arms so beloved of journalists, those arms of song and story, drooled over, fantasized about, can provide blessed relief to a victim class comprising 50% of the population. Now if only her arms can convince all those women to become SIEU and ACORN members, perhaps even to file class action lawsuits against their husbands, doctors and children–runny nosed little oppressors–we can really move America forward, back to the dismal days of an undisputedly racist past where victims were ubiquitous. After all, what’s a community organizer to do when there’s no one left to organize?
How else do you expect Matthews and MoDo to earn TARP money to bail out MSNBC and the Times? As for thinking she knows anything about the City and its City Hall in the Seventies, as a San Franciscan from birth who was working there, Nancy must be relying on Hollywood. She lives up to what her name means in Italian.
“…sort of like GM’s top salesman thinking he can sell an Honda Accord buyer a new Malibu. (trust me, it does not work)”
Barack Obama simply does not know what he’s talking about regarding the crucial issues of the day. Nobody halfway sensible agrees with the president’s nonsensical claims that he is going to cut healthcare costs while increasing quality. The best advertising executives are unable to create effective campaigns to sell millions of twenty-year-old computers or rusted out 1998 Chevys. Moreover, the more you push these products of zilch value—the sooner the typical consumer learns not to take them seriously. In other words, the advertisements backfire. They cause more harm than good.
The odds are that Obama’s overexposure will turn him into such a laughingstock that he even a Jon Stewart will start making fun of him. He may even experience a mental breakdown. Obama has mostly lived a charmed adult life and appears unable to handle severe setbacks. On top of that, he is shallow and poorly read and lacks the necessary knowledge on how to turn things around. Vice-President Joe Biden will take over the reigns of government before the end of the next six months. I can’t see how this might be avoided.
Selling Make Believes
By Robert Winkler Burke
Of inthatdayteachings.com
Copyright 4/11/2009
Listen to the cadence of that one who leads,
Voice high, then low, then a pause,
Using mesmerizing to sell make believes,
Filling jet plane tanks for a cause.
Who the leader is it doesn’t matter,
Political, business, religious: the same,
We must fill jet tanks of mad hatters,
We must give everything we have for this bane.
Prosperity church teaches me to give to ones,
Far, far richer than I,
Who tell me I’ve done good to wait for sums,
So they can fly, fly, fly!
Political leaders tell me times are harder,
We must pay more and more tax,
They’ve had to bail out the business partner,
They’ve met on airport tarmacs.
We are the used-up, fly-over people,
Giving our all,
To business, capitol and steeple,
Too big to fall.
We have been mesmerized and used,
To pay jet-set lifestyles,
Of theo-economic gurus,
Who sell make believe wiles.
Who taught us to be mice so still,
And easily eaten by cats?
Public teachers, religious shills,
And fawning media mats.
This isn’t America of old,
This isn’t my father’s army,
Let’s reject what we’ve been sold,
And say no to the vile smarmy.
We’ll not cut their lousy throats,
But rather, their make believe: stealing other people’s money,
No more funding for the bloats,
We shall earn, and keep and taste liberty, our chosen honey.
Now we say enough,
To mesmerizing wiles,
We’re not weak, we’re tough,
We see through fake styles.
We shall have our Founding Fathers’ liberty,
And you leaders shall be vexed,
Stand down you fey deceivers, it’s not pretty,
What may be coming next.
Our ancient relatives of old,
Fought mysticism and tyranny,
Now we shall acquit ourselves bold,
And fight once more to be free.
And surely it will be said a thousand years from now,
On exotic moons, planets and in far away space,
Our sons and daughters must be vigilant somehow,
Or mystical tyranny will be the trump card ace.
Whether too lawless or too many a law,
Let’s cut out the mesmerizing rap,
Liberty’s constraint commands our awe,
America keeps it on the map.
VDH
My best wishes for a speedy recovery from the nastiness of the early flu season. Can’t wait for the four newest entries into my library.
With the passing of Irving Kristol, it brought to mind something that I would like to weave into my response here….quite often things are not what we call them these days, and certainly not what they appear…when placed in the hands of those with an agenda.
I have always been a bit perplexed at the term “neoconservative” in defining what I have always seen as “liberalism for adults”.
“Classic” liberalism may unrecognizable to those who get their information from our diseased and corrupted information stream, now dominated by the hypocrisy, distortion and fraud of leftism gone berserk.
Modern liberalism is not liberal at all. It is fascist distortion, propaganda and faux erudition, combined with fraudulent hucksterism. It is one part Bohemian (slovenly, sloppy, lazy and plagiarized), one part elitist and exclusionary…looking down its phony “intelligentsian” nose at the “commoners”, and one part phony populist…pretending to care about that very same shunned “commoner”.
Neo-conservative is simply a way to denigrate a liberal who has grown up. Post-modern “liberals” are frauds and hypocrites of the first order…and are “liberal” in nearly NONE of their foundational beliefs or actions.
They care not one whit about open dialogue, they plot to deny voice to ANY dissent. They use cheap theatrics and a stranglehold in virtually every venue for public dissemination of “pop culture” opinion shaping.
They charge racism where there is none, because they wish to stifle dialogue, dissent and brook no opposing voice. The charge of racism is rooted in the design of the unrelenting battle to CREATE DIVISION…class divisions, race divisions, religious divisions, age divisions, gender divisions.
The post modern hypocrite…finds a way to denigrate America AND ITS ALLIES…and to promote her enemies…open, sworn and nakedly partnering to diminish our standing in the world.
That is NOT a “liberal”…that is a seditious traitor.
And those who oppose those treasonous scum are not “neo-conservatives”…they are men and women of honor and conscience.
We no longer own our own language. Our own words. We are described and defined by the enemies within, who own the arena where all the word games are invented and mostly played for mass consumption.
A “real” liberal would recoil at the dishonor and robbing of the notions of freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, freedom of democracy…and their replacement by the cheap theater of distortion and fraud…the war being waged upon our country and countrymen by false accusers with an agenda.
Will MoDo then take a pay cut?:
Obama open to newspaper bailout bill
- 09/20/09 04:24 PM ET
The president said he is “happy to look at” bills before Congress that would give struggling news organizations tax breaks if they were to restructure as nonprofit businesses.
I think the Obama act is wearing out. Since pushing through the stimulus, what real success has he had? The GM/Chrysler bailout was an extension of Bush policy, and not really his own initiative. An act works if it is successful; had he suceeded with any significant health bill by now he would be seen as an awesome force, but he has used all of his weapons and most of his ammo to little effect. Indepents and many Democrats are bored with him and his true believers are frustrated and disappointed.
It is your upcoming novel that I look forward to the most.
Keep churning and producing….more power to you, Herr Doctor!
I’m eager to read the new books.
I don’t care about the inverse racial profiling personally. I want more people to hear and see the media do it. The political backlash will increase.
On one hand, November 2010 is a long way away. On the other hand, it’s coming up fast.
Obama bribes big. I just wonder if he’ll pay off his buddies to bring the stock market up to 12,000 or more by then. It’s under control.
Except for talk radio, the internet, and Fox. God bless ‘em. Let freedom ring.
As with every double standard sanctimoniously conveyed with the imprimatur of progressive enlightenment, there is nothing more nasty and brutish than a racist, but self-referenced racial identity somehow never suffers any opprobrium when it appeals to the cult of the person-of-color, to the aspiration for an utopia of white dhimmitude, or to the right of entitlement to tribal spoils in tribute to the syncretic spirit of redistibutionalism.
Could there be anything more appropriate for the legacy of our historic first Islamic apostate president’s single-party rule in office than to blame any failure of his on racism?
“..the poor whites of southern Michigan seem to be far worse off economically than Hispanics in Selma or Reedley in central California.” And to make things even worse, the poor whites will be shoveling snow in about a month!
Southeastern Michigan can be a tough, tough place to live. Having grown up there, I don’t understand why they make it worse by keeping Carl Levin in the Senate.
One additional reason for playing the race card now: it helps rally support from the base, who we know have bleeding hearts for poor victims like Obama. His biggest concern now is losing his base support, but how can they be angry at him when they are feeling sorry for him?
Greetings, Dr Hanson, from Germany. I always enjoy reading your posts—maybe I’ll drive down to Munich next May and see if I can catch that boat!
A little reminiscence that might be of interest, and that I hope has a point: I lived for a time in the Belgian Ardennes, a 5-minute walk from US V Corps headquarters during the Battle of the Bulge. I spent many interesting days traipsing around the Ardennes visiting battle sites. I’ve stood in what I believe to be the foxholes where Captain Charles B MacDonald (author of A Time for Trumpets: the Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge) and his company from the 2nd Infantry Division defended against the 12th SS Panzer Division (Hitlerjugend); explored the Schnee Eifel ridge, where most of the US 106th Infantry Division was cut off and surrendered; visited the pillbox where LTC Creighton Abrams’s task force from the 4th Armored Division broke through to relieve Bastogne; and much more.
In 1994 I was privileged to help guide a large group of American veterans, visiting for the 50th Anniversary of Normandy and other battles in the European Theater. They were a thoroughly admirable group of men, and without wishing to sentimentalize them (which they would scorn), surely among the finest representatives of the Greatest Generation. I’m British, and for some reason some of the vets wanted to tell me (without me asking) how they had no time for President Clinton. Some were quite vehement about this, and one went so far as to say “He’s not my president.” I can’t say how widespread this feeling was and I did not want to pursue the subject. But it disturbed me.
Later, after 9/11, I made myself a “little bit” unpopular with European acquaintances by defending President Bush. While one could agree or disagree, his actions seemed to me a reasoned response to the attack on America and the threat of rogue states seeking to acquire WMD. And I said so through eight long years of “Bushitler” garbage. Even so, I disliked the personal destruction aimed at Senator Kerry during his presidential run.
And now there’s President Obama. Politics as a contact sport is fair game; treating it as a blood sport may be going too far. One of many things I like about your articles, Dr Hanson, is that I think you see the red line that shouldn’t be crossed in being critical and oppositional. And you bring a historical understanding that helps put things in some kind of perspective. The whole world likes to give America advice, so my two euro cents worth to conservatives and libertarians would be to remember what John Wayne said about President Kennedy, something like “I didn’t vote for him. But he’s my president, and I hope he does a good job.”
There are big issues at stake (aren’t there always). Opposition and dissent from both sides, yes, but it can’t do America any good to aim at President Obama’s destruction any more than it did to aim at President Bush’s. Remember, the world is watching, and not all of it—by a long way—has America’s interest at heart.
Interesting article. For a guy with the flu, lots of feverish comments (meant in a good way). Maybe I should stay away to avoid the flu . . . :)
They do it to each other, also. Having had some experience working with union organizers, I saw it often. It seems to be a way of getting over on each other, and enforcing a rigid kind of thought control. Blacks accuse whites, whites accuse whites. “Sexist”. “racist”, “homophobic” et al, the accusations fly about with carefree abandon. It’s all part of a hyper PC culture I imagine they aquired in college. Weeding out the idependent thinkers, as it were.
Racism is alive and well in the USA I think they call it the Democratic Party.
Stoking racial discord is not going to end well for Obama or his supporters. If this is the best defense he and his team can muster, please step aside and do not run in 2012. America deserves better.
Once I had to attend a “training” on multi-culturalism, and the subject of prejudice and race of course came up. Overwhelmingly, older participants felt strongly that America was racists, and overwhelmingly the younger ones disagreed. The charge of racism is usually made by people 50+ years, and I think that for those under 40 racism is more abstract and puzzling over-all. Dr. Hanson I think is spot on with Obama and liberals regarding racism. It’s just too bad that liberals seem to be so selective on who is deserving of their utopia, rather than being more consistent on applying their grandiose dreams to everyone. If liberals truly want to be tolerant and eradicate prejudice, what gives with pretty much all of Obama’s buddies?
The more they keep drawing the racial line in the sand, the more they force people to choose one side or the other. If they keep it up they won’t like the result. They are still badly out numbered.
Why do people think conservatives are “stoking racial discord”?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul_TpDvxUJM&feature=ytn%3Amptnews
It’s not going to end well for Republicans. America deserves better.
Raaaaacist!
NaziNaziNaziNazi…..
One other word that has now lost its punch is “hypocrite”. The elitists yelling Racist/Nazi (Van Jones, Pelosi, Carter etc., etc.) are surely hoping to confine that word as well to the linguistic dustbin of history.
Race baiting has become an industry, big business. The Pols use it for personal advantage, and the likes of Jackson/Sharpton for pecuniary reward. There is, indeed, a downside. More and more the racist epithet is recognized for what it really is- a calculated, callous, cynical manipulation of the truth. And those who resort to it are viewed as disingenous or dishonest. Unfairly painting a large group of people with the broad racist brush is also generating considerable anger and risks a backlash that will undue fifty years of progress vis a vis race relations. Pity. That is the real downside.
VIVO:
Yes, yes. Stay away.
we have been at war for some time now. us against them.
them’s are still trying to define us’s
…its the tribe thing.
“The GM/Chrysler bailout was an extension of Bush policy, and not really his own initiative”
No exactly. The idea of pouring money into those ratholes was a (foolish) Bush idea. But using Mob-like strongarm tactics to hand control of those companies to the United Auto Workers was pure Obama.
Barrack Hussein Obama is a shallow person devoid of character or substance. The persuasiveness and success of the tools of his trade rely on the same personal short comings existing in those that serve and support him; with one exception.
With or without racism; no matter how hard they try, human nature will never allow them to respect Obama as a man.
“… the leaning tower of Pisa and the Lincoln Monument.”
“Lincoln Monument”?
One doesn’t care in the least whether the President’s name is Paddy O’Brian, Sven Sternenbord, Stash Kowalski, Sara Goldberg, Trevor Hunter-Smythe, Anais Troisrivieres, Diego Sanchez, Anatol Motzart, Kimiko Mashura, Hung Shuan, Ali Mahmoud, or whatever.
When a President shows every intention of enlarging the government to unconscionable size, changing the very nature of America’s still relatively private and free market, Europeizing America’s comparatively effective and scientifically creative medical system, unilaterally disarming America’s nuclear arsenal, preaching and promoting collectivism over liberty and self-reliance, starting a trade war that will increase prices to Americans, taking sides against the rule of law in Honduras and taking sides with a would-be dictator, proposing to “share the wealth” by force of the tax code and, just the latest outrage, considering selecting certain newspapers for government “help”, one must oppose him/her.
Simple as that.
25. Carla
Watch out. He’ll call you a racist.
; – )
NOWANDTHEN:Just watched your youtube clip. Where’s the racism? I think maybe you ought to go look in the mirror. I think that really, youre the racist. Suddenly black people are OK when you get one in office who agrees with you who happens to be just the kind of black guy that doesnt scare white liberals? hmmm? You dont have to clutch your man purse when he gets in the elevator with you and and couple other effeminate guys in turtlenecks… I’d be willing to bet you are one of those guys who feels all liberated because he has ONE black acquaintance. My recommendation: go make some actually black friends who you dont keep around just to prop up your precious worldview.
14: “… I disliked the personal destruction aimed at Senator Kerry during his presidential run.”
It greatly annoys me when telling the truth about a candidate is called “personal destruction”. The Democrats are masters at having their MSM lapdogs attack Republican candidates with fictitious charges — Dan Rather, Bush and the Air National Guard incident — but when an unpleasant fact about a Democrat candidate comes up, it is an attack of personal destruction.
It’s not as if there isn’t plenty to of Republican faults to bring up. However, the Democrat candidates have so many flaws and their ideas are bankrupt.
We spoke to our elected representatives in August, just like we were supposed to. We petitioned our Government on 9-12, just like we are supposed to.
For all of that, they, the Democrats and the media, spit in our faces.
Where do we turn now?
In other words, eighteen months ago at this time, Obama was struggling with the suggestion that his past record illustrated that he was close with racists like Wright, and saw the election in racial prisms.
What’s most ridiculous about your argument is your apparent belief that the Democratic party is full of racists. And yet, no examination of the Republican party. A person with a working hemispherical connection would immediately see through this. But for the others who read this regularly, here’s some things to think about:
a) how likely is it that there are no racists in the Republican party, given the regions in which it is dominant? Those are regions that fought tooth and claw against civil rights legislation just twenty or thirty years ago.
b) how likely is it that the party with no black senators or congress people is immune from racism?
c) why are the teabagging protests almost exclusively armed with white people? Why is Obama’s Islamic name and foreign born father so fascinating to the right wing?
Some questions for you to ask. Certainly, its quite possible to oppose Obama for non-racist reasons. I know more than my share of people on the left who oppose almost his entire platform and people in the center–those who really do believe in civil liberties and understand the constitution and its history–who oppose him for the same reasons they opposed Bush.
But you people…well, once you’ve actually looked at the movement, its fantastical precepts and imaginary issues, Occam’s Razor leads you to only one area of reality. Sorry, losers; next time hide it better.
Obama has, I suggest, used various tactics of ‘divide and conquer’ all his life. I feel that he long ago, as a teen, moved into a psychological cocoon where the only reality is the one that he allows into this realm – and that reality is made up of people and events that he controls. That’s pathological narcissism.
His strategies of control are constant misinformation (aka lying); emotional manipulation using fear and hope; and accusations of bias if you disagee. If he can’t control you, then you cease to exist for Obama.
The emotional manipulation uses a ‘divide and conquer’ tactic – and Obama’s focus on it during the campaign, with his assertion that he will to do the opposite was actually an indicator that he uses such strategies.Result?
America is more divided, politically, racially, class, economically – than ever before. The emergence of these polarities is completely due to Obama who has talked endlessly about them all – and set up Americans into ‘groups’ antagonistic to each other. Why?
Obama refuses to acknowledge that criticism of His Policies has any validity. If you dislike Him or His Policies, he makes it clear that the fault is in you, not Obama.
So, you dislike his policies because you are ‘weak’ and dislike Change. Or, you have a grudge against ‘Government’..i.e. you are a rebellious teenager who doesn’t like rules.
Or, you are ideologically partisan. Or, a closet racist..you don’t even know you are racist but you are. Or you are wealthy and wealth, according to Obama, is due to and only to – greed. You must give up your hard won wealth and repent of your sins.
If you are against His Health Care Plan, you are never against it because of its flaws, for Obama has no flaws. The flaws are in you.
Obama is the UpFront Salesman for the radical socialists that have taken over the Democratic Party. But, Obama’s pathological narcissism requires constant and ever increasing adulation. Can the Party keep him constantly onstage, in controlled and programmed public events,..enough to satisfy this growing need? Will the public tire of his shallowness and rants? Can they prevent his ad hoc disastrous comments?
The question then becomes – can Obama’s strategies of misinformation, manipulation and divisiveness work in populations larger than his local contacts?
Does the Democratic Party have to, as in all dictatorships, take over the MSM? They’ve already moved to control NBC/ABC. What papers will they move to control?
What about those policies? His domestic ones are a travesty; his foreign policies are a travesty. Can the Democratic Party maintain its power?
And will Obama,as David Thomson suggests, crack under the pressure?
What has never been mentioned in the debate on racism and what now must be mentioned is BLACK RACISM. It is the belief by blacks that the cause of each and every problem is whitey. I have no proof but believe that most US blacks (as opposed to those from the Caribbean or Africa) are told at every turn (see: Rev Wright)that whitey did it. And,again, by those other blacks that make a good profit from reenforcing the thought.
Hey! 98% of blacks voted for Obama because he is black. Is that racism? No, it is simply natural and logical ethno-politics.
I, myself, although I detest McCain, voted for him because he is white. Not’n wrong with that.
“We no longer own our own language. Our own words.” Good post.
The original meaning of the word “liberal” is gone forever. Bill Clinton re-defined what “is” is. And now Obama works over the meaning of the word “tax”, with a media lackey playing Devil’s advocate, citing Websters dictionary to no avail. Add that to all the other words he has butchered in an attempt to control the narrative.
Obama is sort of “like god” or something, isn’t he. The ability to transmogrify semantic meaning is surely evidence of divinity, right?
Uh, only to the “highly educated” fools who worship him. To the rest of us it’s just gibberish, like speaking in tongues.
Another profound article, Dr. Hanson; Thank you.
I’d like to add that “race”, in the United States, has become an industry of it’s own. With the discussion of it, on a daily basis, in every avenue of media, it, in itself, generates an enormous amount of capital only rivaled by other, well established, corporeal activity.
The life of the “racism industry” owes it existence to our founding premise. And is one industry, at this time, that is flourishing quite well, no one will deny.
#35 MOHO: The Republican Party abolished slavery (Abraham Lincoln) and passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, again abolishing slavery and guaranteeing equal treatment of all citizens under the law. It was the Democratic Party that supported racial segregation – the southern Democrats.
Wow! We whites are so racist that all other non-white races force themselves into our neighborhoods through unconstitutional laws and want to live right next to us!
Moho you moron, the Demographic Party likes to play the race card. Disagree with THE ONE and you will be accused of racism at each and every opportunity. This makes them opportunistic racialists and your pathetic statements make you the perfect spewing mouthpiece for their pathology. Good job.
#35
“b) how likely is it that the party with no black senators or congress people is immune from racism?”
Senators and congresspersons are elected by the people. Republican party officials do choose their RNC leader. He is a black man. Can you read this, Moho? HE IS A BLACK MAN. A black SCOTUS judge is a conservative black man. Other blacks are prominent conservative intellectuals. When many Dems are thrown out of office in 2010, there will be many more opportunities for black conservatives to be elected to the Congress.
Cut the crap, Moho. Cut the lies, Moho. Though I’m really sure you are a fine American, this type of comment just makes you look like a jerk.
MoHo:
Functionally, your concept of Occam’s Razor has left you with a lobotomy. Apparently, bigotry, prejudice and racism only reside on the Right-wing side of your brain. You are incapable of seeing the same behavior on the Left.
BTW, adopting a simplistic explanation such as yours would be an insult to Occam.
David Thomson,
So, some year pre-2012 brings us President Joe Biden and Vice President Hillary Clinton. She performs like Cheney, letting everyone know she’s the one who’s in charge. She runs against Sarah Palin in 2012 on the I-told-you-so platform. “Do you want another flashy, untested newcomer? I’ve served as Senator, Secretary of State, and Vice President. My opponent makes good speeches.”
My nightmare is complete.
34. HARRY:
We spoke to our elected representatives in August, just like we were supposed to. We petitioned our Government on 9-12, just like we are supposed to.
For all of that, they, the Democrats and the media, spit in our faces.
Where do we turn now?
We don’t know yet about our elected reps, but if they do it, we turn to our electoral process once again and get them out in 2010. Next, we turn to the example of the brave colonists who forged this nation and we repeal the intolerable acts that would leave us depressed and indebted to foreign powers.
Take heart, fellow American.
And the left posters can’t control themselves and cry racist. They just can’t seem to help themselves.
There are racists in the Republican party. I also know more than a few Democrats who are vililent racists, sexists and a few other “ists”.
The left should turn around and stand with the right in support of the vision of Martin Luther King, that every man should be judged on the quality of his character and not the color of his skin.
The left just can’ stand someone disagreeing with them and their only recourse seems to be the racist or sexist card. Sad that that is their best card to play.
“And will Obama,as David Thomson suggests, crack under the pressure?”
I am somewhat amazed that I seem to be the only one predicting a relatively near future Obama mental breakdown. Am I getting too carried away with what I believe to be convincing evidence? After all, I am not a credentialed psychiatrist or therapist of any kind. Could it also be that others are afraid that I am right—and subconsciously prefer not to think about the unthinkable? A mentally unstable president is a very frightening thought. If nothing else, this individual has access to the red phone. What constitutional protections are set in place to prevent a tragedy?
4. “Vice-President Joe Biden will take over the reigns [sic] of government before the end of the next six months. I can’t see how this might be avoided.”
David, I wish you’d elaborate. I cannot imagine how anyone can step over Rahm ‘dead fish’ Emanuel to take the helm of the WH. I think that BO & Co. are right where they want to be with regard to what all they have accomplished so far. The only way I can imagine that BO can be extricated from office is if anyone up there musters the cajones to lodge charges against BO and start the ball rolling towards impeachment.
It must suck not to be able to play the victim/race card any longer when you’re the most powerful man in the world.
MOHO: You and your buddy NOW and THEN:I think it’s extremely important to note that the VAST MAJORITY of people shrieking about racism are…white liberals. It’s also very important to note that to them, black people are the most important stage prop in their cosmology. They dont care about black people anymore than they cared about the well being of the troops in the war. They are the face of racism today.
When terms such as “racist” “bigot” et al are used, isn’t it a sign that the user of such terms is lacking in persuasive arguments to address the issue in question? For example, the question of The President’s fitness for office, or his position on the so called “health care bill”, are debatable issues which deserve public discussion. Instead those who oppose the “health care bill” because they fear the inceased intrusion of the federal government in their personal lives, and because the bill is still largely undefined, are met with accusations of being “Nazis” “selfish” “uncaring” and now racist. Many young people see no need for health care coverage at this stage of their lives. Instead they will be forced to bear the burden of paying for the care of others without any assurance that they will be provided with care when their health begins to fail
The fawning news coverage of the President himself by the MSM is unprecedented in this country. Certainly it evidences a conceit and an attitude of arrogance on the part of the MSM, precluding legitimate debate in their publications.
The President and those around him (Emanuel and others) want to create what they have conceived in the inner recesses of their minds, disguised during the campaign for the Presidency. They do not have the good of the people of this country in mind, but rather want to create a dependent majority in this country who will be most likely to support whomever promises the most. And that in itself bodes ill. Self reliance will be replaced by government control of our lives to a degree unknown in the United States and in the last analysis to the detriment of all.
Dr. Hanson; I know you tend to take the tragic view of history, but I have to say there are incredible bright spots in America now. The people liberals need to keep marginalized (as they do so effectively in the great urban dependencies) are speaking out, on sites like Gay Patriot and Another Black Conservative. The latter, btw, provides some great links, and is very active in promoting new voices, such as Mary Baker. That last one alone should clear your flu :)
“Jimmy Carter, at 84 no less, of course had his say. In blanket fashion, without qualification, he blasted opponents of Obama as racists. Projection?”
Given the Democrat Party’s history (defense of race-based slavery, institution of Jim Crow, imprisoning Japanese-Americans just because they’re Japanese-Americans, etc.) one can hardly take their bogus complaints seriously.
Democrats complaining about racism is about as impressive as Nazis complaining about anti-semitism.
MOHO:
The Democrat party owns racism. It’s race baiting any time, all the time. It’s your prefered excuse for personal and professional failure. It’s the magic wand that protects you from scrutiny (or at least used to). It’s your favorite mewl. But oh, oh Moho, the charge is losing its potency because you’ve overplayed it ad nauseum. And Americans are getting wise to you. And beginning to laugh at you. Bad news, fella.
http://wp.me/pC0V8-cG
Here are some of the names used to describe conservative protesters by those who claim to be enlightened and champions of justice: Heirs of Bin-Laden, Anti-Democratic Forces of Hate, Brain Dead, Functionally Retarded, Neanderthals, Un-American, False-Witnesses, Political Terrorist, Right Wing Thugs, Radical Fringe, Nazi’s, Brown Shirts, Racist, Klu-Klux-Klan, Angry Mobs, Evil-Mongers, Fear Mongers & Demagogues, Loonies, Idiots, Stupid, Prefab Right Wing Mobs
How are these slurs different than kike, honky, slut, gook, faggot, blanket-ass, or wet-back? Are political slurs exempt from civil human interaction and debate?
I really actually love it when you people call me a moron for pointing out the obvious. Its actually the kind of reaction I’m looking for, because it proves that you can’t defend your points.
As for the idiot that said that appointment of Michael Steele somehow balance out the fact that the Republican party–that is the members of the party–won’t elect a black man, I’m still having trouble believing you think that is an argument of any kind for anything. A class in elementary logic would serve you well.
“Could there be anything more appropriate for the legacy of our historic first Islamic apostate president’s single-party rule in office than to blame any failure of his on racism?”
This basically sums up why the race card is being played in the first place. Thanks buddy.
MOHO: You’re not a “Moron.” Obviously you have the capacity to use a computer on a rudimentary level. You are either a paid troll or you are a person who does not have the depth of character to understand your hypocrisy. Cognitive dissonance is painful and takes honesty. It you are coming to this place to be right, it’s just an ego proposition: a wish to feel superior to the “little people.” This is the primary motivator for modern liberalism.
All of the affirmation that you get from fashion magazines and pop culture make this a difficult challenge for young people in our culture. It takes character. So far you’ve failed, but a little more honesty could do the trick.
As a case in point in how full of crap this whole obfuscatory “race card” card is, here is an excerpt from an exchange I had with Clayton Cramer
Moho:
Kliff K. Klaven, you are brilliant. If something happens to one person in Florida, it proves your point on a societal level.
Clayton Cramer:
There being no one in this comment thread by this name, I guess Moho thinks that he is being clever by suggesting that I am some sort of secret Klansmen.
1. I never suggested that one such incident proves my point. I pointed to it as an example.
2. Your implication with the Kliff K. Klaven dig that there is some racial element to this matter is quite interesting. Moho, are you saying that bullies are black and their victims are white? I wouldn’t say such a thing, nor do I think that. But you seem to think that. Why?
Moho:
I find it interesting how quick you are to play the race card. Its obvious that my reference was to Kliff Klaven from Cheers, a know it all who is ultimately proven to be completely ignorant. If you took it another way, that is for politically correct nannies like you to worry about. Imputing motives into speech is exactly what your colleagues here seem to be railing about all the time. If calling into service a metaphor about a monkey when talking about Obama was completely innocent of racial overtones, then too was this by the same logic. That logic is–>”its not because I say it wasn’t”. In fact, I never wrote “KKK”, you did. Why are you trying to divide America? Why are you trying to deny me free speech? Is any criticism of Kliff K. Klaven automatically reverse-racism. In summary, self-pwnage is tragic, but there is help, Kliff.
This to me is the obvious outcome of continuing to play the race card card. You people continue to impute charges of racism into any criticism against you, while simultaneously claiming that anyone who imputes racism into your comments is playing the race card. Well, given the pea brains God blessed the rest of us by giving you, you’re going to get confused on the principle quite often, thus proven that you’re movement is run on clean-burning bs.
MOHO:
I never called you a moron That would impugn genuine morons. You are an abortin. Just thought that I should clarify that.
MoHo:
Why do you persist bathed in hurt and pain. It is the deep anger that is tormenting you. There are a thousand friendly hands reachng out to help you over the dark forces destroying your soul. Let go of the hatred. Let go, before it is too late. For the childrens sake.. Face your demons, don’t capitulate. Help is near. Together we can overcome this plague on your spirit. The first step is always the hardest. Try, MoHo, try. Have a blessed day, sister.
A Community Organizer can deliver
the community vote on election day;
What happens if he fails to deliver
the goodies to the voters later on ?
Dual Query to both the President and
the entrenched Big-City Democratic
administrations; What happens when
the Entitlement Programs go away ?
Hint: The same thing that happened
to the old-time Big City Bosses,
but with more, ah, _vigor_. :>
Since 1980 the republicans have actually done quite well developing their “b” side base and capturing the king of the hill wing of the democratic party in the south and n other parts of the country along with the “zinger” religious factions in other areas. Unfortunately, what they didnt bargain for is the overal progressive nature of the country. Racism became “so twentieth century” while within the ranks….certain segments continue to hang on to it for the votes. Its not the future. They would have a chance with progressives like Powell, Snowe and Arnie but instead they settle for Rush, Palin and Wilson for their intellect and future vision. Who knows? it could be a stroke of genious…but many dont believe that.
The Community Organizer-in-Chief is fomenting racism by playing the race card; this is a typical tactic of divide & conquer from the Left. However, I am not surprised to see this tactic so artfully explode in the Left’s faces because, over the years, the race card has been overplayed to the point where it has lost all meaning. However, the fringe media will continue with the racism meme until the hole is so deep & vast they will be unable to get themselves out.
President Obama’s press overexposure has not helped him since he has not said anything new, but is repeating the same old BS he’s been shoveling since April. I am also not suprised Obama himself is clueless why his words are not working anymore. Obama’s credibility is gone. Dust. But Obama himself does not see it.
I never called you a moron That would impugn genuine morons. You are an abortin. Just thought that I should clarify that.
When insulting someone in this way–which I have no problem with–you should take care to look over the spelling before you publish. Otherwise you look like an idiot. By the way, to the moderators who often have a little bit of secret fun with the posts of people they don’t like, I’ve taken a screen shot of my original post. Have a nice day.
@6 cf bleachers: “That is NOT a “liberal”…that is a seditious traitor’”.
ditto, therefore I would say he has been an impostor.
Anyone who would admit support for B.O. right now is suffering from overdose: they are burned out by overexposure of the ad-product.
And this puts the B.O’s brand in the red. What a surprise!
And now the down side takes hold: high blood pressure, frushstration, rejection, ridicule, cravings for the poison; all things not beneficial for self esteem.
The irony is that the left’s agenda is working him overtime. no matter what he throws them, they grow more rabid with ravenous appetite. He stood weak to their terrible two’s; it is they he should have brought to heel.
As I see it, the only future for the party and the electorate he hoodwinked is to bookend the malignant narcissim of Carter with that of B.O.
Here’s looking at you kid.
His divide and conquer strategy has backfired into the dynamic of his own party. A revolt within the party to regain lost cred’s is become a chair-side occasion, but game time keeps getting postponed.
Its as good an opportunity as is likely to come, if a Henry Jacksonian leads a charge and re-establishes autonomy of that dormant wing in the face of B.O, Axelrod, and that other chicago belly dancer with the two brothers.
I hope you guys like that stew; you made it. And ironically (again) its got an awful lot of pork in its base. And no beef in its bullion. Have a nice day.
63. Ginnie
I almost want to be a troll just to hear you say calming things to me (when you’re not too sarcastic).
Moho
Racism comes from everywhere. Blacks who hate whites and Moslems who hate Jews are just as bad as the Klan. Both political parties have the bad fringe.
The real division of the mind is the group composed of Nazis, Communists, Moslems, secular Despots and anarchists against the USA, Israel, Christians and Jews.
The former groups exist for conquest, power and violence. The latter exist for survival, peace and democracy. Democrats and Republicans become irrelevant to that divide.
Moho:Funny how you are incapable of responding to my observations… Don’t want to draw any attention to that stuff, do you?
David Thomson – I agree with you that a pathological narcissist, as is Obama, could have a total psychological collapse when his ‘cocoon’ of control, that realm where he feels that he can control all interactions – is breached.
I also agree that Obama has never been in a position where that safe haven, that cocoon wherein he controls all people, could be breached. He’s kept himself immune to accountability all his life.
The question then becomes – will he, in his cocoon, in this totally new position – b vulnerable to breaches of its walls? This is where I differ from you.
First, I suggest that Obama’s narcissism is so pathological, so massive, that he cannot even ‘feel’ or ‘see’ dissent and criticism. His safeguard against any breach of his Walls, is that he simply ceases to ‘see’ or ‘hear’ any criticism, any dissenter, anyone who objects. You don’t exist for Obama.
Someone who would collapse under the assault of questions and criticism, which is what you are suggesting, is still..let’s say..’alive’, reactive, ethical, has integrity. Obama has none of these characteristics. None.
What I see, instead, is Obama becoming entrenched in HIS opposition to opposition, so to speak. He’ll chastize Americans more and more, telling them that THEY are the problem. That the reasons they are against His policies is because they can’t handle change; they don’t like government; they are ignorant; biased; racist; partisan..whatever. It’s their fault; not his.
And Obama will isolate himself from American by his absolute refusal to recognize ‘them’. As I said, if Obama cannot control you, then for him,you cease to exist.
But, he still requires LOTS of high-maintenance care. He needs lots of public venues, filled with scripted, programmed, adoring crowds. And this will increase as his isolation from Americans increases.
My question then, is..can the Democratic Party continue to maintain this high-maintance neurosis? Can they keep him constantly on the go, campaigning every day, giving speeches? What if no-one shows up? How much do they pay people to do so?
And above all,what if ordinary, unscripted Americans not only no longer listen to Obama, but more and more,reject him? The Demcrats set up Obama as Their Salesman. What if he’s no longer doing the job? Will they dump him?
Or, will they first manufacture a crisis? Obama lives for crisis situations..will the Democrats create a crisis to ‘renew the Obama-Bond’?
So, I understand your analysis that Obama will crack.it’s just that I think he’s too far-gone in his delusions to permit the realworld to enter..and thus, doesn’t even acknowledge problems. I see the other situations within the Democratic Party as more plausible.
Excellent! As a Brit it half amuses/half disturbs that the most powerful country in the world with, I assume attendent intellects, can fall into precisely the same traps our Labour, soon to be evicted, government has pushed us all into.
Here the real opium of the masses, easy money and credit lulled our electorate into the false assumption that all was well and that ‘they’ knew what they were doing.
We, in a kind of narcoleptic trance, groaningly endured similar race canards, only this time Muslims were the protected species and even when they murdered 52 of our subjects we were told time after time that this was an abheration.
Subsequent foiled attacks still did not awaken the sensibilities of the rulers and the imbalance proceeds merrily, I assume until the seconds before the obvious oblivion steaming our way, down the tracks.
Cue the anti Islamic BNP party and their astounding successes in local and European elections. Europe is also experiencing this upsurge of desire to preserve ancient and tested national identities with Gert Wilders playing a blinder in the Netherlands.
Vlams Bloc in Belgium, Berlusconi in Italy, right wingers winning hands down in Poland, the list encompasses the continent.
And why? Because we’re all sick and tired of being called racist xenophobes by socialist governments intent on creating a Eurabia in the lands which gave us Mozart, Shakespeare, Milton, Gallileo, Gutenburg, Turner and the other restless geniuses who created a universe of progress and beauty whilst the calliphate withered and offered not one jot to humanity when all this gorgeous adventure was going on.
Our mainstream parties are dumbfounded as is our MSM and where it not for the online media we’d be as uninformed as a pre printing press, Dark Age peasant.
It’s all changed and changing but unlike the ‘living, breathing constitution’ which seems a wonderful thing to the Obarmy’s this is change they don’t particularly welcome in their world of, if we do it, great, if you do it it’s racism, or some other such juvenile epithet.
For a quick romp through the follies perpetrated in the name of liberalism I’d recommend the Politically Incorrect Guide to American History which exposes who really are the intentional or otherwise racists and social wreckers in our midst. Either as a stand alone tome or a jogger to further written truths it is quite an eye opener.
Unfortunately it ends in the Clinton regime but I’m sure we’ll all recognise the historical stepping stones of the, ‘will they ever learn’ repetition of the mistakes, lies, obfuscation and idiotic excuses poured out by self loathing liberals who inhabit the ring fenced ivory towers these parasites so love.
derned open tags: apologies, but as long as they are still left open, let’s not fail to include Valerie Jarrett among that bevy of chicago belly dancers listed above.
“David, I wish you’d elaborate. I cannot imagine how anyone can step over Rahm ‘dead fish’ Emanuel to take the helm of the WH.”
You grossly exaggerate the power of Rahm Emanuel. Obama’s top people will not be able to prevent Joe Biden from taking over the responsibilities of the presidency when it is deemed necessary. Edith Woodrow was able to pull off her scam job almost a hundred years ago. However, this is not likely in our present era. Too many people are closely watching the president. Hiding him from public view is no longer a realistic possibility.
Our “kind of like a god” in-chief is on a fast track to the looney-toon bin.
He thought he would stroll on into the White House and pass his cap-and-tax, socialized medicine, Wall Street takeover, kill social security and medicare, let Iran nuke Israel, North Korea nuke South Korea, Russian take over Eastern Europe (again) agenda and the American public and Congress would roll over and pant “Arf! Arf!”
. . . and it all blew up in his face.
Facing massive resistance, he resorts to what has worked in the past:
The Campaign.
And he’s failing miserably . . .
The public now yawns, overexposed to his empty rhetoric and scared to death that the nation is on the brink of bankruptcy.
What a nightmare!
VDH,
In the past you could marginalize an idea whose time has come by effectively destroying the reputations & careers of the speakers of that idea in a democracy.
You can’t do that with the Internet. Ideas have to fight it out on their merits and not via the career destruction of their carriers.
We are now in an age where politically incorrect truths that were previously left silent — for fear of the huge price to be paid by the people who expressed them — are now freely said.
This has huge implications in issues of race and Federal Government patronage.
I fear the biggest legacy of the Obama Administration is the reemergence of a post MLK, Strom Thurmond style, racial white consciousness in American as far as government patronage is concerned.
President Obama’s concentration on his “authentic black identity” has marked him by that identity first.
My parents are reacting exactly as if their Medicare patronage was being stolen from them by a “Black President,” not an American President.
They are very angry and unafraid to express that anger.
And they are not alone.
The AARP has found out that there are tens of thousands just like them destroying their membership cards.
The Obama Administration and Democrats in general may well find out what that means in future elections.
If everyone is a racist for opposing Leftist political policies, then no one is because racism meaning has changed…or if it is illegal to discriminate on race or gender for some, it is illegal for all including minorities against white and especially white males.
You know that Democratic identity politics has come full circle with the white majority feeling entitled to use the same identity politics on minorities, and _MSNBC_ is actually reporting on it:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32899516/ns/us_news-race_and_ethnicity/
Analysis: ‘Racist’ claims defuse word’s power
With the word being used so often, it’s harder to define its meaning:
>snip<
Black identity politics
This infinite loop is the inevitable result of years of black identity politics, which created a blueprint for whites who feel threatened by America’s changing demographics, says Carol Swain, a Vanderbilt University professor and author of “The New White Nationalism In America.”
“We need to rethink what is racist and who can legitimately call whom racist,” Swain said, citing the argument that blacks can’t be racist because racism requires power.
“With a black president, a black attorney general, and blacks holding various power positions around the country, now might be a time when we can concede that anyone can express attitudes and actions that others can justifiably characterize as racist.”
Perhaps this is even a strange symbol of racial progress — equal-opportunity victimization, so to speak.
“In 100 years, when people chronicle how America got past race,” said McWhorter, “the uptick in white people calling blacks racist is going to be seen as a symptom of the end.”
67. Moho:
Couple of things, tool. The moderators don’t trash your comments because they want to have a little fun with people they don’t like. It’s because your comments add nothing to the discussions and are rather intended to hijack the discussions. The above quoted exchange with Clayton Cramer is a good case in point.
Another matter to ponder. The distinction for being the first black elected to the US Senate since the days of reconstruction was Ed Brooks, a republican from Massachusetts, who held the office for 12 years.
It’s really not too difficult to figure out the ethos of liberalisms penchant for declaring all things race. They see in others what is really in their own hearts and minds. Freudian defense mechanism of projecting. Liberalism is just the systematic ordering of grievances. Whether it’s class against class or ethnic group against ethnic group, liberalisms understanding of the world is ordered by this basic orientation.
Since when does a difference of opinion or world view make you a racist?
“writing mea culpas that they are not racists.”
Correct me if I’m wrong here, but why should we waste time on this? If the accusation is made with intent, does not the burden of proof lie with the prosecution? Let them gather their evidence and prove it, you should not do their homework for them. But they better by God have solid proof and not just empty words. Take them to court unless you have something to hide.
I am not so concerned with the color of this man’s skin as I am with the color of his politics.
“the vast majority of Americans of all races, who see race as incidental rather than essential to their personas.”
I’m afraid i don’t think this is true. Ethno centricity is natural – (along a very wide spectrum from mild to extreme). What’s happened is 60 years of pressure on white people to suppress that natural instinct among themselves while at the same time encouraging the opposite among other ethnic groups.
Will the people who gain wealth and political power from identity politics stop doing this voluntarily?
I disagree with characterization of this as a “depressing” debate. It is not depressing… it is liberating.
For how many years have Republicans been gratuitously labelled “racist” not for anything we have written, said, done, or thought, but for having checked off a particular box when we registered to vote?
It’s finally hit critical mass. Charges of being a “racist” are now being properly identified as simply an expression that the target holds different political opinions than the one making the accusation.
Surely, even such blatant racists as vivo, Moho, and the rest of the liberal trolls here realize that, even if their paymasters refuse to allow them to express it.
I am sorry, but as much as I agree with most of your points, your opening sentiment totally puzzles me. I am used to listening to speakers to get information, to understand their thinking and to judge for myself their honesty and intentions. The utter lack of all of that makes it impossible for me to appreciate whatever oratorical talents he may have.
There is an old trick that you can easily apply to any speech: If the opposite of what the speaker says is totally absurd, then what he/she said is of no value (i.e. “children should not go hungry”). Try it sometimes and you will see that Obama never says anything that informs. It is always platitudes and generalities designed to imply some deeper thinking or noble purpose – but really intended to sell his programs and ideas or to obfuscate their down side. There is no amount of eloquence or speaking skills that overcomes this for me. Besides, his reliance upon text written by someone else and read from the teleprompter prevents eloquence and real connection with anyone but his ardent supporters. Abraham Lincoln wrote and felt every word of the Gettysburg Address as he gave it. Even the inarticulate George Bush tried to connect with his audience and sometimes paid the price with grammatical gaffes. I never thought I would long for one of those speeches.
Here’s just a taste of the true Obamessiah: uber corrupt Chicago career politician off the frozen backs of his largely black tenents a la Tony Rezko taxpayer funded slum housing scams, and a life of being totally supported by and a close friend of Marxists, Islamists and other fascist radical nihilists. For Ayers, John Holdren and more, visit the great zombietime com, obamawantsyou com, thepeoplescube com and lookingattheleft com. Colonel Robert Neville blogspot com.
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2008/07/photo-gallery-results-of-obamas.html
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2008/05/six-degrees-of-barack-obama-updated.html
I live in Central Texas and I know racist. Most of them don’t bother to vote. There is nothing subtle in their hate; it reminds me of the Bush hate. Very few Republicans are in favor of lynching,
I was against Hillary health care; though I did vote for her as the least weak.
Vote with your dollars. I am sending mine into overseas stock index funds and saving my money so I can go to Singapore to buy my knee replacements in 20 years.
My wife and I took a train trip to Chicago; I don’t have to live the Amtrak Chicago way. My Grand Mother taught me I am happy; my Grand Father taught me I can do anything with my hands or head; Boy Scouts taught me all I need to survive.
@ David Thomson
No, you’re not the only one that sees the potential for an Obama mental meltdown. I agree with you even as I recognize that my own insights are largely intuitive. We trod on squishy ground here. Psychology is not a hard science like physics or math.
Nevertheless, an Obama failure is guaranteed. If his agenda becomes law, America loses – loses everything it ever was, is, or might have the potential to become. If the Obama agenda loses (increasingly likely), then America suffers another failed presidency. Our republic has survived worse.
It’s going to be a long, strange trip before events sort themselves out. Dick Nixon held out for months against overwhelming evidence of his complicit criminality before his final demise. Obama will do the same. The difference is that Nixon was a skilled politico while Obama is a rank amateur.
Where the red button is concerned, you need to console yourself with the knowledge that our military is not staffed by automatons. No one is going to execute an order to nuke Moscow, or Tel Aviv, or Topeka on the whim of a madman. It’s just not going to happen. There’s a little corner of S.E. Washington known as Eighth and Eye. It’s a marine corps barracks set up primarily for ceremonial duties. I call it “Ace in the hole.” Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
Let not your heart be troubled. Semper Fi and God save the republic!
To Mr. McDaniel, #2:
In re your comment:
For most, the racial debate is over. Many years before Barack Obama was elected, few Americans doubted that a black could–and would–one day be elected president. Likewise, few doubt that the same is true for Asians, Hispanics, women and just about any other elite-identified or self-identified victim group. There is simply nothing blocking the path for virtually anyone anymore.
**************
My objection is to your comment about women as a victim class and secondly, that you think any woman can now get elected president. Did you watch the primaries last year? Hillary is ten times more qualified than Obama and was treated to a crap sandwich by the media daily. She was vilified at every turn while he was given a pass. Palin later received the same appalling treatment.
The misogyny that bubbles under the surface in this country was revealed in all its ugly splendor.
Yes, the race card is a false meme and should not be played. But to think that we have come the same distance in re woman is ridiculous. Obama was wholly unqualified for this office and disingenuous to boot. Yet the DNC awarded the nomination to him. Let us not pretend that women are on a level playing field. We found out last year that is simply not true. Biden made one assinine statement after another — no penalty. Palin — raked over the coals. The double standard is still firmly in place.
Illness out of town, now that is no fun at all. At least it isn’t Libya this time.
Enjoyed the comments. Some of what we have witnessed the last few days is puzzling. Race is a factor whether we like it or not. Another poster mentions Jackson/Sharpton. They are the ones to worry about and have been relatively quiet lately. Why aren’t they lending their usual vociferous support to Obama now? I wonder if that isn’t part of a larger strategy. Joe Wilson seems to be a decent guy, I think we’ve all learned something from his outburst. I’m optimistic, I’m hopefully we will slog through it all and be the better for it. Carter’s words seemed harsh. Pelosi was way off base comparing the actions of a disturbed individual in San Francisco to the body politic as a whole.
Looking forward to the books. It’s been a while since we’ve been able to settling in by the fireplace with the latest from Prof Hanson!
“Racist!” supersedes the real problem of class. In today’s multiracial society, class is no longer predicated on race. The elite Stanford students of color I encounter during the week are far more privileged than many poor whites I see in the southern San Joaquin Valley on weekends.
As support for your statement: I know a black Stanford graduate who is also the graduate of an elite boarding school. His mother has two graduate degrees and earns a six figure salary in a government management position, though she was not so highly situated when her son went to Stanford.
35 Moho
I don’t know who is claiming that there are no racists in the Republican Party. It is a straw man you have set up. Racists are found in both the Democratic and Republican Party. IMHO, the numerous white liberal Democrats who charge “racist” at anyone who opposes Obama are projecting their own racism on others.
The Civil Rights bill was passed fourty five years ago. Most of the people who were adults then are now dead. Democratic Senator Robert Byrd, who filibustered fourteen hours against the Civil Rights Bill, is now 92. He now sees that he did the wrong thing in opposing the Civil Rights Bill. Senator Byrd is not the only one who changed his mind.
If the South is so racist compared to the North, then why has there been net migration of blacks to the South for the last twenty years. Are blacks masochists?
http://www.brookings.edu/urban/pubs/20040524_Frey.pdf
Another great piece from VDH! Succinct and fully supported by the evidence. I appreciate the damning evidence VDH provides against Carter the Racist who claims this failing in others. Carter is an embarrassment and THAT his is most important historical contribution: How NOT to behave as president and former president.
VDH here considers the “race card”, but I would like to mention something about Obamacare that has struck me of late.
I refer to those arrogant non-representatives of the people who elected them and their ability to stand up before those very constituents and defend a bill they have not read. Or SO they would prefer us to think.
One or two even admitted to not reading bill!
The illiberal media then continues the narrative in a false fashion by chiming in and boldly/baldly saying: Of course they have not read the bill! NO ONE reads all of the stuff in the bills!
Poppycock and lies! The core of Obamacare is right there in the bill nicely padded and interwoven with red herrings and diversions and dead ends and complex language. And it is this CORE that is quite WELL understood by Obama and his minions. They KNOW what is in the bill and some would even claim to not have read it rather than admit they have and know the TRUTH and thereby be forced to divulge it.
Perverse, I admit. Ripley`s Believe it or Not?
Well, I believe it and the perversity is all on the side of the illiberal do as I say not as I do elites.
Besides these elites, the bulk of the people who voted for Obama are products of our poor educational system dominated by . . . . the illiberal NEA.
Therefore, after so much poor education and manipulation by this feeble educational “system”, is it any wonder that an Obama was finally elected?
In this sense, Obama as president is a completely logical outcome of the educational mess run by the NEA.
Just as we are what we eat, we are what we learn.
And we learned little enough to vote in a president with a policy of horrors both domestic and foreign.
Very logical.
But perhaps, no, definitely, Americans ARE waking up. Witness the crowds who showed up on 9/12. Witness the other crowds across the nation on that day.
Not that one could witness such gatherings on the illiberal media . . . . In another example of irony, I now must thank Gore for “inventing” the internet. Without it, we would NOT have the TRUTH furnished us on blogs such as this one.
Even a portion of the ones who voted for the ONE seem to be emerging from their lethargy. Let us hope they awaken enough to put a nice damping field on Obama in 2010.
Once you see your bills skyrocket and your taxes zoom along with them, it may be too late . . . .
I conclude rant at this point.
Thank you!
81. malclave:
“Surely, even such blatant racists as vivo, Moho, and the rest of the liberal trolls here realize that, even if their paymasters refuse to allow them to express it.”
You haven’t paid attention to what I say here. I have no paymaster, I’m an independent (not the political party). There are things that you cannot understand, so you just lazily drop names and meaningless words.
CARLA:
you apparently mispelled MOHO.
Too many liberals spent too much of their time at university parsing poetry and prose and finding meaning where none exists. Encouraged to extrapolate their own meaning from the works – like finding familiar shapes in cloud formations – they are told that there are no right and wrong interptretations, but rather, what it is is what YOU feel it is.
I believe that this process weakens one’s ability to employ rational judgement when considering facts and weighing arguement. Information is treated as if it were a puzzle or word game that needs solving. Nothing is what it is and everything is something else.
This is why they see racism where none exits.
We might be able to agree at least in part, that no ethnic background is an obstacle for becoming prosperous, even rich in today’s America. Or is it?
We are forced to re-assert a working definition of the term “racism” because, as you’ve pointed out, (by the comparative example of “Nazi”) it has been euphemminized to mean as much racial or ethnic prejudice if not more so than it does the real meaning of (the word) ‘racism’ which is this- a program designed to benefit one race or ethnicity, at the expense of another.
Most often the epithet ‘racist’ is used when the more appropriate term ‘racial prejudice’ would be more apt, or when the use of either term is opportunistically wrong as no element of race or ethnicity is present in the first place, and therefore is used to put one’s adversary on the defensive and transfer the topic of debate, and thereby end debate entirely.
Whether anyone but a select group of cronies are to be allowed to advance is becoming the question, as opposed to the previously made point of examining whether or not there are barriers to advancement based on ethnicity or race. I believe former has been engulfing the latter in phagocytic form for quite some time and not only answers the question of why racism is charged when an objection is raised, but why racism is charged to provide the much needed cover to a rank system of cronyism that compromises and corrupts those brought into this un-american parasitic system that is set to devour its host.
“Racism” is not only cover but designed to pre-empt the appropriate labeling of the means, which is designed to favor one group (admittedly “equal-opportunity” and/but therefore pure of “racists” and “racism”, so we are led to believe) at the expense of the other (also admittedly of diverse variously fair skinned, tax paying, middle class, regionally accented, backwoods-characterised, hick background, limited educated, tinged and tainted with racist past….) group. you know, white people.
This system that uses the charge of “racism” as its shield is designed to, depends on, a group to first remain permanently in a conspicuously impoverished state, and secondly to be conspicuously of a certain ethnic stereotype (which admittedly, is also varied but intended to be “people of color”) versus the privileged people of, “not of” color.
So we have the equivalent of a national fuedal system of fealty, built on top of the local shanties of an urban plantation system where anything goes, and the rule is by a social darwinist system of survival and enforcement by the fittest of gangs.
Conspicuous yet selective displays of shanty environments are brought into frame to perpetuate the idea that the reason for the disparity of values is the result of a persistent and stubborn “clinging” by other groups not only to prejudice, but antiquated historical racism as policy isolated in unconnected households throughout the land, as well.
The gig will be up when the cover of this system of racism, financed by crony capitalism and organised crime as the means, and perpetuated by fronts such Acorn, SEIU and Panther organisations delievering block voting totals as the end, is blown to reveal this most racist of systems at work today. It’s a Two-fer
Just as the anagram “Nazi” is used to label one group villians, and infer on the opposite group that of saints, (no one ever said ” Ich bin ein Nazi Soldat”); so the use of the epithet “racist” is used to label one as villian in order to make that group not only responsible for any ills produced by the system that screams “race” all the time, but also to be punished for not only crimes of the past, but of crimes committed in this very day and time by the group and party that cries “victim” and then points the finger and yells “racist”.
Stinking. Fripping. Thinking. and yes depressing, debased and devolving in to a
nationalist, no, lets make that internationalist policy, that needs an american demographic, to spurt the stalled system of a world wide crony capitalist system back into motion again.President Obama thinks that’s what these unjustifiably powerful groups want, and he wants to get even more power and lucre to them. As for himself, he does not want to soil himself with the details, bored as he becomes when he gets what he/they want, and then moves on to whatever executive privilege or perhaps even unread, unwritten, written elsewhere congressional majority might surrender to his kingdom. If not siphon off previous national sovereignty to the U.N; maybe monuments to his highnie can be built there.
Amoral. the work of a malignant narcissist: Benefitting no one (including himself, the definition of what it means to be a narcissist), serving only de-evolution.
Go back and re-read your piece.
You should be struck by the astonishing lack of ordinary common sense and a “decent respect for the opinions of Mankind” on display by the top players in our professional political class.
We started with Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, and Monroe. How did a braying jackass like Joe Biden ever become vice-president of the United States?
Are these Lilliputians up to the everyday standard of history for a country of our size, power, and historical significance, Dr. Hanson?
Surely we are due for at least an Eisenhower or a Truman, if not a Lincoln.
William F. Buckley was right: We’d do better being led by the first 500 names out of the phone book.
I propose we replace our electoral candidates with a blind drawing of phone books.
Perhaps the greatest power the “racism” charge has exerted over the public debate is getting intellectual leaders like VDH to waste so much time parsing it.
Following a train of thought with VDH is always good fun, of course.
I am really looking forward to the novel about Epaminondas, whom I always considered intriguing — one of those characters whom the historical record must be shortchanging. So concentrate away, sir. We’ll sweat it out for now.
Seriously… never ever elect a Demobrat president during a war. They act like scatterbrained children unable to make a decision, so consumed are they about making a mistake and ruining their wet dream fantasy of remaking America in their image. People are dying but they just can’t focus. And when the sh*t really hits the fan in some faraway battleground like Afghanistan, they turn all wishy-washy, babbling inanities as they wet their pants.
Amazing how history repeats itself. Like we never frickin’ learn. In part, Afghanistan did in Jimmy Carter’s presidency, and it’s going to do the same to Obambi.
To those who think Obama is headed for a break down, I disagree. His life is a regular Disneyland of private jets, motorcades, servants, the White House, and anything else he wants.
If he doesn’t get his way, I think he’ll just live on the perks. He gives money to his buddies. His future is assured.
Most of the readers and commenters on this site get it and are preaching to the choir. However, what really needs to be analyzed are the demographics of the countries population and whether as it is and continues to progress they still can actually get conservative principals in to office. I dont think they can.
Our population of stupid lazy people continues to increase and as a result the middle class is being phased out. The rich on both sides of the aisle will continue to do well and are all for capitalism. The difference is Republicans believe people through hard work can determine their own success while Democrats try to instill governmental policy that makes it near impossible for a person to be average therefore instilling the belief that socialism is not a bad thing. If you are no longer middle class and continue to be pulled into an ever increasing groups of blacks and hispanics when it comes to income and address location, some of which arent even legal, you are going to be angry. You dont feel safe, cannot make enough with an honest job to live in a neighborhood like your middle class parents did, so you say screw it and either dont vote or vote thinking the government will turn it around for you.
Add this person to the increasing black and hispanic population that day by day comes closer to canceling out our votes and this country is headed in the direction it is. Obama and his liberal cronies continue to get rich all while assaulting capitalism and taking money from people who do well but arent mega rich like them and returning it to the people who have destroyed this country through their criminal activities, laziness, and belief that the american family is made up of two women or two men being mom and dad, or that kids are brothers and sisters although four of them in a house with different last names is perfectly normal.
I just wonder if the population shift can be fixed and if it cant what do the people like the readers of this site do to maintain their lifestyle and safety..isolation and no participation.
It truly is a messed up country and we will see it socialist with whites becoming the minority. First we will be France and then we will be Zimbabwe. Its quite sad to see what is happening because its such a slow death but so was the fall of the Roman Empire.
I thought that most of the newspapers that are currently failing are already operating as a non profit enterprise this is why they are failing, and it is because they no longer practice journalism they practice propaganda.
If they would go back to real reporting and not editorializing every story the print and leave that for the op-ed page then they might actually get advertisers and readers.
Speaking of the flu, not all health problems are caused by the flu. Speaking of racism, not all of our problems are caused by racism. The first step to finding a solution is to correctly diagnose the problem.
Wrongly diagnosing racism does more than damage relationships between citizens, it focuses energy and resources on the wrong problem. “Crying wolf” distracts us from taking a fresh and candid look at serious issues like illiteracy, poverty, failing families, failing schools, rising debt, rising unemployment, etc.
FLASH to President Obama: You are as white as I am, unless Stanley Ann Dunham from Kansas wasn’t really your mother and you weren’t really reared by your white, loving grandparents. But then who knows? You seem to have so much to hide. Most Americans do not care about what race you acknowledge; Americans just care about your ideals and the programs you are hawking every day like you are still a candidate on the campaign trail or like you are auditioning to take the place of the late Billy Martin of TV fame. We don’t like what you are selling. We don’t like your radical associates and appointees. We don’t like your vision for America and your idea of being President of the World. We don’t like your continual apologies; America can stand on its merits, will strive to improve when at fault, has a rich history of generosity and sacrifice for those less fortunate or in need. We don’t want you to remake America; just put your efforts into following those most historically wonderful documents called the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
The same old right wing conservative rant which can be summed up in one sentence: I hate democrats & liberals to pieces…
(and I will go to my deathbed that way…!)
RSG
I am 37 and this article describes me perfectly. I can’t engage in any form of media without having my conservative values insulted. I will not support the careers of people who would kick me in the teeth.