The Terror Is Almost Past…Hold On Shrieking, Frightened, Huddled Masses
Wednesday, October 15th, 2008James Lileks makes me laugh and during this overwrought, handwringing, gut-wrenching, IBS-inducing political season, I’ve come to value laughter most of all. He says:
Unrelated fun around the world: “great terror plot building up,” UK spokesperson says. I long for the day when this becomes a legitimate statement by a concerned, engaged official who is working closely with the respected, trusted President of the United States, who rarely mentions terrorism except when it’s absolutely necessary – as opposed the nutwad we have now, who forced everyone to install telescreens and required us to wear 3D glasses so we could jump up and shriek in fear when a turban-wearing jack-in-the-box sprang into our living room every fortnight. I just can’t wait to stop living in constant fear, and start living in the era of Prudent Concern. It’s coming!
The last eight years of terror-stricken terrorizing have been terrifying to endure. Thankfully, if Gaia permits, Al Gore intones, and the axis of evil is righted, I mean lefted, once again, the tides will rise, the hurricane winds cease and become a mild zephyr and the terror will be gone.
21 days until the voting by dead people and criminals gets counted. Only a few months before this despotic regime passes.
Can I get a hallelujah?
Maggie’s Farm: Understanding ACORN
Tuesday, October 14th, 2008Maggie’s Farm: Understanding ACORN
Understanding ACORN.
Barack Obama Is A Socialist If……..–UPDATED
Tuesday, October 14th, 2008Forget Jeff Foxworthy, that’s too low-brow, Rethuglican humor for ya’ll. Enter the erudite Dr. Obama.
You might be a socialist…..
……if you believe in the redistribution of wealth. Obama said to a small business owner yesterday and Rachel Lucas reports:
“It’s not that I wanna punish your success, I just wanna make sure that everybody behind you, that they have a chance at success, too. I think we need to spread the wealth around.“
You might be a socialist…
……if you believe in “refundables”. Says Ace:
How does he intend to spread the wealth? By increasing the size of federal programs?
Well, that’s a start. But I’m afraid he’s going to spread it around more directly — by taking money away from people who pay taxes to directly give it to those who don’t pay taxes in the form of a “tax cut.”
A tax cut? For people who already don’t pay taxes? That’s not a tax cut, is it? That’s more like a… well, a government handout. It’s a welfare check.
Not so.
Obama prefers to call it “refundables.” Even though you’re not being “refunded” anything, you’re just being sent a thousand or two dollars from someone else’s tax payments.
Here’s a little Wiki for ya’ll who were deprived of a Harvard education and must use online references to educate yourself:
Socialists mainly share the belief that capitalism unfairly concentrates power and wealth into a small section of society who control capital, and creates an unequal society. All socialists advocate the creation of an egalitarian society, in which wealth and power are distributed more evenly, although there is considerable disagreement among socialists over how, and to what extent this could be achieved.[1]
What part of this definition does Barack Obama disagree with, actually? You see, when the government taxes a company disproportionately and redistributes the money made, it is taking profits of the company and essentially controlling how the money is spent. No doubt, the business owners have limited choices because they cannot choose how to spend the money they earn.
As I have written before, this government behavior punishes success. If it gets bad enough, people stop producing, hiring, and do business elsewhere. The POOR and WORKING CLASS people lose what jobs they have, suck more off the government teat, the government needs more tax revenue and creates an even more punitive business environment. See Michigan as socialism is stupid “Exhibit A”.
Leftists who protest at the socialist label are being obtuse. They know that all socialists are not the same, that it’s a broad category, and that Barack Obama certainly is not a Capitalism champion. So what is he, if not a socialist?
Says Investor’s Business Daily:
“I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”
He certainly does, and his unguarded statement to a voter in a key swing state is socialist economics distilled to its simplest terms.Eliminating small business capital gains taxes — whatever the details would be (and you can bet it would be a fraction of total private investment) — will not rescue the middle class from the job losses of a high-tax Obama administration planning to spend an extra $293 billion annually. It does, however, cunningly deaden charges that Obama is camouflaging a socialist agenda.
The other components of his so-called rescue, lovingly described by the New York Times as “proposals to spur new jobs, to give Americans penalty-free access to retirement savings to help them through the downturn, to urge a 90-day moratorium on home foreclosures and to lend money to strapped local and state governments” are worded to sound equally innocuous. But a close look tells another story.
His $3,000 income-tax credit for each new full-time employee hired by businesses is an obvious anti-outsourcing incentive likely to increase business costs, of which we can expect plenty more — of a directly punitive nature — in an Obama administration. He would replace the judgment of banks with that of the federal government regarding when or if to foreclose. And he wants the Federal Reserve and the Treasury to bail out spendthrift state and local governments.
And one thing that has been patently absurd is the whole 95% of people will get tax cuts. It makes no sense. Is Obama really saying that taking the money of the top 5% of American wage earners will make up for what is lost everywhere else? It makes for a good soundbite but it sounds crazy…and yet, people must believe it. The Wall Street Journal notes:
There’s another catch: Because Mr. Obama’s tax credits are phased out as incomes rise, they impose a huge “marginal” tax rate increase on low-income workers. The marginal tax rate refers to the rate on the next dollar of income earned. As the nearby chart illustrates, the marginal rate for millions of low- and middle-income workers would spike as they earn more income.
Some families with an income of $40,000 could lose up to 40 cents in vanishing credits for every additional dollar earned from working overtime or taking a new job. As public policy, this is contradictory. The tax credits are sold in the name of “making work pay,” but in practice they can be a disincentive to working harder, especially if you’re a lower-income couple getting raises of $1,000 or $2,000 a year. One mystery — among many — of the McCain campaign is why it has allowed Mr. Obama’s 95% illusion to go unanswered.
The government controls the money. And when the government controls money, it controls the citizen. Their choices are limited. Their lives constrict to the size the government deems adequate. They are boiled like frogs. Socialists count on the fact that the average person will be swayed by the class warfare rhetoric and ignore the fine print.
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” – Winston Churchill
Obama’s hubris is that he believes socialism just hasn’t been done “right”. Never mind that it never works no matter the iteration. He’s going to try anyway. We can’t say we didn’t know ahead of time.
UPDATED:
Maxed Out Mama lays it out as usual:
Keep in mind that incomes will be trending lower for the next couple of years, due to that little thingamabobble I call a “recession”. Median income is still around $50,000. American households earning less than $30,000 are about 29% of the total. Your subsidies and credits should be mostly aimed at this group. If you want to give 95% of Americans a tax break, that means you are going to be taxing the remaining 5% monumentally more, beginning with household incomes at around $175,000.
For all intents and purposes, raising taxes that much on this group is impossible. Let’s round that group to about 4.5 million, and say that’s equivalent to 9 million individuals. That 9 million individuals would collectively have to pay over 500 billion more in taxes to pay for the refundable portion to the lower brackets. A billion has 3 more zeros than a million, so (500 billion/9 million = 500,000,000,000/9,000,000 = $55,556 per such taxpayer. Needless to say, you are not going to be taxing a person making $175,000 an ADDITIONAL $55,000 if you expect this person to keep working, much less tax a household making $200,000 an ADDITIONAL $110,000, so you are going to have to shift most of that onto much higher income persons.
Cross-posted at Right Wing News
Boomers & Barack
Tuesday, October 14th, 2008How much of the Barack Obama lovefest is rooted in Baby Boomer narcissism? That’s the question that occurred to me while contemplating why so many in the generation ahead of mine seemed so excited and irrationally so, about Barack Obama or even Hillary Clinton becoming president. The worship takes turns both comical and disturbing. The mindless devotion has undermined any notion of media fairness–maybe irreparably so. Yet they don’t care.
The quick answer: Boomers view Barack Obama as the symbolic fulfillment of an ideology put forth when they were conducting love-ins and peace protests (that weren’t very peaceful). Fighting for civil rights and equal rights and pacifism and free love, the radicals and idealists dreamed of a future where a person like Barack Obama exists. Their efforts resulted in a man like Barack Obama.
Barack Obama is the child of Kenyan socialist and sociologist who was a 17 year old teen-mother (soft treatment here)–an idealogue and an intellectual. He is biracial. His parents divorced. And he was raised, for a time, by a single mother. He received an elite education. He was schooled in the best institutions of higher learning.
In short, his success illustrates the rightness of the Left’s ideology. Barack Obama is a confirmation of the hippies’ hopes of change. Before the Boomers pass from this life into the next, they want to see the evidence of their rightness. Nothing would be better than a man like Barack Obama as president. The point is, it doesn’t have to be Barack Obama–the who doesn’t matter so much. It’s what he represents that matters. Barack Obama represents a physical manifestation of what the Boomers were talkin’ about when they were talkin’ ’bout my generation.
The only thing standing between the hope and changiness came from a Boomer herself, Hillary Clinton. Both candidates represent a struggle to overcome prejudice and discrimination. Both carry with them the symbolism of a generation’s dreams coming to fruition. This explains the outrage by the women following Hillary who were offended by the Obama campaign’s shameless sexism and misogyny. That the Left employs homophobic and misogynstic tactics doesn’t surprise conservatives. In fact, it was amusing to watch the identity politics crowd tie themselves into knots trying not to state the obvious.
Still, it is clear that for the Boomers, this fight feels as real as when they were 18, wide-eyed and hoping to change the world. For the next generation, the Generation X’ers, the angst and eagerness doesn’t feel as acute. In fact, in a world where, as Kenny Rogers sings, the best rapper is white and the best golfer is black, American culture feels pretty darn post-racial and post-gender. At least that seems true to anyone 45 and younger.
One reason Barack Obama receives little press scrutiny and in fact, loads of press-love, is because so many of these pundits cut their teeth on identity politics and dreamed an impossible dream. Well, this election it’s possible. Barack Obama’s rhetoric about this time and this place and he’s the dream, blah, blah, blah, means so much to them because it’s about them. Their marches mattered. Their free love is justified. Single parents can raise great kids. Education changes lives.
Of course the truth is far more nuanced. And while no one is claiming that sexism or racism is non-existent, it surely doesn’t define American culture these days. It’s interesting to note the generational differences. When charges of racism have been lobbed at Governor Palin she ignores them and goes after Obama as a peer. Joe Biden in contrast, looked perpetually pained interacting with Sarah Palin. It’s a generational thing that revealed that he saw a woman first and then a politician. Most younger people see both Palin and Obama as politicians who happen to be a white woman and a bi-racial man.
For Boomers, electing Barack Obama is about them, not him. They feel so invested not in the candidate, but in themselves. These politics are personal and pathologically so. Should Obama lose, his supporters lose a chance to manifest their dreams for a generation. They act as though the opportunity would never come again, but that’s patently absurd. The fact is, the hippies want to drive the multi-culti, equal rights, liberal car while they’re still young enough to enjoy it. Barak Obama is just one more hippie-to-yuppie acquisition. It’s all about them.
I Have Not Written About ACORN Much, But This Has Gotten Ridiculous–UPDATED
Friday, October 10th, 2008When there is just so much electoral monkey-business badness, it gets overwhelming. Rachel Lucas runs down the whole sordid mess and you need to read about it because informed voters actually read. It’s nice if they shower, work and brush their teeth, too. But ACORN wants just such voters–electing Obama hinges on crack heads and prisoners and dead people and big name celebrities getting out to vote over and over and over again.
Let me simplify it for you:
ACORN (Obama teaches them tactics back in the day)
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ACORN Nailed for Fraud throughout the years
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Barack Obama Pays $800,000 to ACORN (technically a front company with the Exact Same Board of Directors as ACORN)
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Most dead, unqualified, duplicated voters ever registered
Result? Stolen election. Remember, what they accuse you of is what they’re up to. So the screeching over “George Bush stole the election” for the last eight years pretty much indicates where their heads ar at.
Updated: Instapundit has more and loads of links. This is ugly.
My brother brought up a good question: Will law enforcement and the courts even be able to wade through these misdeeds by the time the election rolls around? And if a suit is brought, what will happen?
And is 1.5 million votes a landslide? Or, should we assume that the election was actually “close”, as in McCain won, if there is anything less than a 1.5 million win for Obama?
Long Quote from Joan of Arghhhh!:
ACORN’s ends will not be diminished by the fraud. They’ve known all along that they’d be called out on this fraud. Likely they are surprised it took this long. In the meantime, hey! they get lots of extra votes for their guy.
In the end-game, it’s about frustrating bureaucracy with paperwork. It’s an old and proven Marxist ploy, and is outlined in Obama’s reading materials. If you can’t beat the system fair and square, then use its own rules to defeat it.
ACORN is required by law to turn in all applications, even ones they suspect to be fraudulent. They are absolved from the actions of individuals filling out paperwork, so if charges are forthcoming against ACORN it will be more on the order of intent to incite others to commit fraud. But I’m not an expert on this.
The anarchy is almost complete when you start hearing people saying, “who knows what’s true anymore?” “It’s too complicated.”
Meanwhile, watch the continuing complexity of these “community organizations” and action groups and their chaotic demands, redirects, and obfuscations.
The goal is simple: chaos and distrust. Get people to distrust every election. Incite fear in old institutions. Destabilize everything economic and politic. In confusion there is opportunity for someone to take the power and calm things down. Enter Obama.
Enjoying Being Played
Tuesday, October 7th, 2008One of the most amusing things about the Clinton-Obama primary season was watching Bill-n-Hill’s outrage at the upstart Obama besting them at their own say-anything game. And, like the Clinton’s of yore, it worked for Obama. Obama played dirty and any hit back was protested with pained charges of racism.
Obama is doing the same thing with McCain and Palin. Palin, especially, is handling Obama’s sly game well. But it does serve a purpose to look at the greater character of the man, for as his tactical predecessor Bill Clinton demonstrated, this propensity to “play” the opposition, and really the American people, reveals a narcissism and contempt for Americans that can lead to troublesome behavior. This behavior reminds me of the high school hot jock: he treats his girlfriend like dirt because she’s dumb enough to dig him when it’s obvious he’s a player and everyone paying attention knows it. Obama shows a disturbing level of contempt for the American people.
Jennifer Rubin says in her article “Hypocrisy Doesn’t Even Begin To Describe It”:
But more than hypocrisy is at work here. It is not just far Left, American-hating radicals he now disowns. You get the sense that he believes everyone can be played. Rashid Khalidi can believe that Obama finds no one suffers more than the Palestinians. Jews can buy that he was moved by the Holocaust from a summer camp experience. Voters in his Congressional race in 1990 can be told that there is no difference ideologically between him and 100% ADA-rated Bobby Rush, but the rest of the state in 2004 (and eventually the country) can buy that he’s a post-partisan reformer. Terrorists come to believe he shares their scorn for America, but Iowa voters hear him talk about his appreciation that only in America could his story have happened. Primary voters in Ohio are coddled with protectionist promises – and then privately scorned while he is talking to San Fransciso liberal donors.
There is no end to it — everyone gets the version of Obama that perfectly fits his own world view. It is not hypocrisy. It’s fraud. Whatever he told or shared with Ayers, Dohrn, Wright, or Pfleger counts for no more that what he told or shared with other now inconvenient groups and individuals. He’s sold the same piece of political real estate to multiple buyers for multiple, conflicting uses.
So Obama’s ACORN affiliations can be ignored and the implications for what this affiliation means as president is off limits. And so far, the press has colluded with Obama.
It will be interesting to see if the press starts honestly reporting to inoculate themselves against the blame should Obama win the presidency and turn out to have played them, too. In order to be played, there has to be a desire to play. So far, the press has enjoyed the game. As long as they get to be the girlfriend they’ve been happy. Obama is just that good.
Cross-posted at RightWingNews.com
Obama’s Distracting Refraction
Monday, September 22nd, 2008Yes, indeed. This election is filled with distractions. For those who support Obama, please share one thing that he’s accomplished that should impress me enough to vote for him, because right now, I’m feeling like Thomas Sowell:
Barack Obama is truly a phenomenon of our time – a presidential candidate who cannot cite a single serious accomplishment in his entire career, besides advancing his own career with rhetoric.
He has a rhetorical answer for everything. Those of us who talk about the threat of Iran are just engaging in “the politics of fear” according to Mr. Obama, something to distract us from “the real issues,” such as raising taxes and handing out largesse with the proceeds.
The Obama phenomenon reminds me of God’s promise to Lot–he’d spare Sodom if Lot could find one righteous man. If an Obama follower could please find just one solid accomplishment of Obama’s, perhaps I could feel better about things should he get elected.
But I don’t feel better about things. The world is a nasty place and even Obama’s radiance cannot illuminate the dark corners of the world. For example, here is what is happening in Iran:
According to Baidatz, the Iranian centrifuges have so far produced between one-third to one-half of the enriched material needed to build a bomb.
“The time when they will have crossed the nuclear point-of-no-return is fast approaching,” he said, though he stopped short of giving a firm deadline. Last week in the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, however, he put the date at 2011.
In addition to their nuclear efforts, the Iranians were also deepening their influence in the region through cooperation with Syria and the Palestinian terrorist organizations, as well as being the main arms supplier to Hizbullah and a source of constant attacks on American troops in Iraq. All of this, he said, was part of Iran’s efforts to stand at the head of the region’s extremist front.
As if that isn’t enough:
Hamas and the other terrorist organizations have taken advantage of the cease-fire to rearm and prepare for the next round of fighting, increasing training and continuing to smuggle in raw materials that allow it to increase its rocket arsenal. As a result of of the cease-fire, he said, the threat to the home front and the IDF had increased.
Baidatz said the smuggling from Egypt was continuing, although the Egyptians – with the help of US technology – were also showing better results in detecting the smuggling tunnels. At the same time, the Egyptians were still not dealing with the root of the problem, which was the need to go after Beduin smugglers in Sinai, he said.
So serious world issues exist and Barack Obama’s reaction is rhetoric. Talk. Talk. Talk. He’s talking about nothing, but it doesn’t matter. Big, gilded promises of vague happy outcomes that have no substance pour out of him like bubbly champagne. Intoxicated by his charm and words, no one seeks answers about him and his lack of accomplishment seems to not matter.
Obama followers seem dazzled and dazed. And worse, duped. Where is Obama’s history? What happened after he graduated from college? Why must he disown every acquaintance? Does the man even have a true friend? And why does it seem unimportant to his followers that he manages to share next to nothing while ostensibly revealing himself? Where is his self?
Back to the original request: one solid accomplishment. Name. One.
Barack Obama’s Rise…And Fall?–UPDATED
Saturday, September 6th, 2008When live blogging the Democratic national convention, the energy seemed, well, the word I kept using was weird. Here’s what I said:
I don’t know. Overall, I like Barack Obama. He has a nice family. He’s a great speaker. And yet, it feels hollow. Lots more fireworks. Huge display. I can feel the eyes of the world watching this spectacle in wonder and amazement. It is a great show. Impressive, really. Dramatic music. Ticker tape. Shining stars shooting across the sky. Everyone looking up in awe.
I get the sense that if everyone believes it enough, it can happen. I get the sense of an undercurrent of sadness. Isn’t that strange? I’ve said that there’s been a vibe that’s tough to pinpoint. Melancholy?
Maybe that this is the pinnacle? Maybe, that this is going to be the top moment? The last top moment? Yes, I think that’s it.
This show doesn’t feel like the beginning of anything, but the end.
So via Conservative Grapevine, I’m reading this piece by Spengler (what too big or too anonymous for a last name?) of the Asia Times:
Senator Barack Obama’s acceptance speech last week seemed vastly different from the stands of this city’s Invesco Stadium than it did to the 40 million who saw it on television. Melancholy hung like thick smog over the reserved seats where I sat with Democratic Party staffers. The crowd, of course, cheered mechanically at the tag lines, flourished placards, and even rose for the obligatory wave around the stadium. But its mood was sour. The air carried the acrid smell of defeat, and the crowd took shallow breaths. Even the appearance of R&B great Stevie Wonder failed to get the blood pumping.
And then, the author dissects both the psychology of Barack Obama and that of his supporters. I mused, in a blogpost too, I think, but I’m too lazy to go look for it, where are Obama’s friends? Most people have at least a few people who can vouch for them as children, teens and adults, who knew them through every phase of their lives and could give a measure of the person. Their supportive presence would indicate a lifetime of connections. And that would indicate character.
Barack Obama seems untethered to the world, drifting and ethereal and not in the Obamessiah good way, either. He’s there but he’s not here. Does that make sense? The only time he seems fully present and within himself is when he interacts with his family. On the night of his DNC speech I noted:
… it’s nice to see Barack’s love for Michelle. It looks real. He looks real when he interacts with her and the kids. It’s the only time he feels real, actually, but it is his greatest real accomplishment.
Spengler also picks up on this quality:
Combine a child’s response to serial abandonment with the perspective of an outsider, and Obama became an alien species against which American politics had no natural defenses. He is a Third World anthropologist profiling Americans, in but not of the American system. No country’s politics depends more openly on friendships than America’s, yet Obama has not a single real friend, for he rose so fast that all his acquaintances become rungs on the ladder of his ascent. One human relationship crowds the others out of his life, his marriage to Michelle, a strong, assertive and very angry woman.
His devotion to Michelle is absolute. She is the only realness in his life–including her emotions. He lives vicariously through them. He seems beyond feeling himself. He cannot allow himself to feel, to trust, to rely. In cutting himself off from the world, he is at once the boy in the bubble and looking at the world as though it were a snow globe–holding the glass ball, watching an unreal world. He’s an observer, detached.
When Barack Obama did not choose Hillary Clinton as his running mate, I was incredulous. It was the obvious choice because he’d obviously win. Yes, having a Clinton breathing down his neck would be dangerous:
Obama ignores her at his own peril. He makes her his running mate at his own peril. I wouldn’t want that family anywhere near power, but Obama might not have a choice at this point. Evidently I’m not alone in my political instinctitude. Ace says:
Obama, however, has had a bruising couple of weeks, and if his cultists’ caterwauling is any indication, he’s almost panicking. He’s not doing especially well with swing voters, and he doesn’t have a lock on Democrats’ votes, either.
It’s Hail Mary time.
So…
Vice President Hilary Rodham Clinton.
The decision to ignore her displayed a level of arrogance not seen since the Clinton’s themselves. It demonstrated a disregard not only for half of his party but for women too, but most shockingly, for Obama himself. If it is true that Michelle Obama deep-sixed the idea of Hillary as #2, which would make sense, Obama chose his one personal connection, his only identity, over the potential to change the world, so important is she to his psychological survival.
The fact is, Michelle would have gotten over Obama’s decision to go with a winner like Hillary Clinton. Redecorating the Lincoln Bedroom can salve a lot of wounds. Obama couldn’t risk the discomfort of Michelle’s discomfort, though. He would lose, even temporarily, his emotional lifeline.
Spengler writes of the adoration and projection of the crowds themselves onto Obama’s personality. Attributing to him their own crazy notions of policy and plans as if Obama can literally be all things to all people. Which, logically, he cannot. But logic hasn’t been any part of the cult of Obama:
I sat in on a session with three leaders of Veterans for Obama, a group of retired young officers who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, courtesy of the New Republic’s writer on the scene, David Samuels. With passion and enthusiasm, these young people spoke of their hopes for nation-building in Iraq. The George W Bush administration should have put twice the resources into the beleaguered country, they harangued me – not just soldiers, but agronomists, traffic cops, lawyers, judges, and physicians. The Department of Agriculture should have mobilized, along with the Department of Justice.
Nation-building? Doubling down on the US commitment to Iraq? Isn’t that trying to out-Bush the Bush administration, while Obama campaigned on getting out of Iraq and spending the money on programs at home? Unblinking, one of the soldiers said, “That’s what we think Barack will do.” They believed in a more expensive version of the administration’s program, and faulted Bush for half measures – and somehow they believed that Obama really agreed with them, all the public evidence to the contrary. And they believed in Barack with perfect faith.
[Update: Delusion about energy independence, too. Via The Anchoress]
And for all the hope and faith the average voter put into Obama, there seemed to be a real cynicism about him from the black community. Jesse Jackson voiced his outrage and got caught on mic. But more than that, for all the enthusiastic support, there has seemed to be a resignation that an Obama presidency can’t and won’t really happen. It’s a dream, but only a dream. So when the Philadelphia newspaper reports threats of violence, essentially, my reaction was why? Not why the violence? But why, when the election isn’t finished, when the race is just now really on, would the black community imply defeat already? It is as if, the notion of hailing the black chief is beyond them.
It reminds me of how the Republicans have flopped around Congress the last six years of power. Utterly inept at being in charge, used to being the underdogs and fighting against rather than fighting for something, they have never quite seemed to get it together. They seem strangely eager to be in the minority. It’s easier than carrying the mantle of responsibility.
The black community has been the minority for a long time in America. A Chicago native friend of mine wrote me and said that his parents couldn’t go to certain restaurants. It’s only been fifty years, he said. He feels the pain so acutely.
Becoming the majority, and not by number, but by influence, changes everything. There is a difference between being an underdog and the favorite. The team with the winning record carries a different burden, a bigger one, than the underdog. But Barack Obama isn’t the underdog. Well, a huge chunk of America don’t view him this way. The election still is his to lose. Why does it seem like he’s lost?
In March, I noted that the slogan of change was a double-edged sword. “Change” is a charged word and implies something is fundamentally wrong–otherwise why would change be needed? And what kind of changes need to happen?
I actually think the reconciliation talk is just a pernicious extension of the negative beliefs the Obamas hold about America. America is racist. It’s divided. It’s evil. And all that can be ameliorated with someone like Barack Obama. He’s painted as the savior, because he is the savior. He’s a savior from sin, transgression and evil. He’s a savior FROM America because America itself is evil. Obama is the Leftist Jerry Falwell.
Underneath, this message is negative. It has been all along. It is a message that makes many Americans wince. Yes, there are racist Americans, but America is not racist. Yes, there jobless Americans, but most people are happily employed. Yes, the economy is horribly suffering some places (Michigan), but big government has not helped them.
*****
Barack Obama’s language, life and ideology come together to form an unsettling whole. He is a compelling man with a fascinating history, what can be pieced together. I’m watching him speak right now. I like him. He’s likable. He won over Bill O’Reilly. This was the impression while watching the interview, “O’Reilly likes Obama. He’s honored by his presence and charmed.” There is no question that Barack Obama would be a fantastic conversationalist. In fact, based on personality alone, he’s my favorite Presidential candidate, if only because he’s so complex and interesting.
And yet. And yet. Readers know that John McCain has been the subject of my scrutiny both personally and policy-wise. He is still not my favorite candidate. And I’ll talk more about why later. Still, like him or lump him, there’s a there there. It’s a center and sense of self. Joe Biden has it. Sarah Palin has it. They know who they are. I think McCain tapped into something about discovering himself in solitary in Hanoi and implying that Barack Obama is still in the process of doing so.
Last night, while writing this, Obama warned that the right would try to paint him as a Muslim, again introducing a notion that has not come from McCain specifically or Republicans generally. The polling must be weak if he’s playing the race and religion card again. So he’s slicing himself with that double-edged sword. His race is a bonus to him, but by implying that those who disagree with him do so because they’re racist or anti-Muslim undermines his own post-racial message.
If Barack Obama loses, there will be huge postmortem to dissect this candidacy. The signs of demise have been there from the beginning and really point to the emptiness of the left’s ideology generally. It is not enough to be against the ills of America. The left desires change. The just want someone, anyone who isn’t a Republican. There needs to be something more than that. Change isn’t enough. Hope for a better tomorrow isn’t enough. The left needs to engage America instead of being above it and looking at it like it’s some mutant freakshow on the world stage.
Assuming the left continues on their path, Democrats will continue to lose elections reinforcing the alienation they feel. Ironically, they cause their own alienation. Barack Obama is a perfect reflection of this lack of self-awareness. There has to be a self, in order to be aware.
UPDATE:
At PajamasMedia, Obama’s “Existential Crisis”:
Another gauge of the crisis inside the Obama camp is how his cheerleaders have come absolutely unhinged as the psychological strain of the Left having to appear mainstream is beginning to show. The smears that came out last weekend got their campaign way off message. Whether it has been Andrew Sullivan telling us that Sarah Palin recently gave birth to Elvis’ love child, or the lunatics at the Daily Kos asylum trolling the internet for pictures of her having tea with Adolf Hitler, the tight rein that Obama had kept on his smear merchants has suddenly been loosed, exposing to the world the company he keeps — including his Weather Underground terrorist friend, William Ayers. The meltdown has extended to the establishment media as well, with MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann sent on a timeout to cover Hurricane Gustav.
There is much in the McCain-Palin ticket for Obama to worry about. The existential crisis for Democrats is that this campaign is no longer about Barack Obama. It really is about the vision that Americans have for the future, and Americans are now able to envision a future without “The One.” Reality has set in on the Democratic Party and they realize they no longer have control of the public narrative or the political momentum. In a pair of authentic mavericks and challenge-the-system reformers, America is starting to see herself and her highest hopes again.
UPDATED:
More on Obama’s disillusionment with community organizing and its principles; and how that experience changed him in to a movement leader.
Is Barack Obama Racist?
Monday, August 18th, 2008When Jesse Jackson groused, supposedly off-mic, that “See, Barack’s been, um, talking down to black people on this faith-based… I want to cut his fucking balls off. Barack, he’s talking down to black people.” Well, yes, Barack Obama talks down to black people. Hells bells, he talks down to everyone.
And now, Barack Obama talks down about the only black Supreme Court justice. It’s not Clarence Thomas’ judicial philosophy he disagrees with:
Mr. Obama took a lower road, replying first that “that’s a good one,” and then adding that “I would not have nominated Clarence Thomas. I don’t think that he, I don’t think that he was a strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time for that elevation. Setting aside the fact that I profoundly disagree with his interpretation of a lot of the Constitution.” The Democrat added that he also wouldn’t have appointed Antonin Scalia, and perhaps not John Roberts, though he assured the audience that at least they were smart enough for the job.
Reaaaaaaly? Barack Obama has a problem with Justice Thomas’ qualifications and intelligence? That’s rich. Obama might be smart, though he has yet to demonstrate that incisive mind we keep hearing about and he for damn sure lacks qualifications as the WSJ editorial easily demonstrates. What the hell is his deal? Women reporters are “sweetie“. And the black Supreme Court justice isn’t much of a legal thinker. Oh and then, there are the gun-clinging mountain nuts that really can’t be blamed for their ignorance. And let’s not forget Obama’s “typical white person” grandma.
LaShawn Barber has a must-read piece over at Pajama’s Media about how Obama injects race into the presidential race:
At a fundraiser in June, Obama said this about Republicans:
“We know what kind of campaign they’re going to run. They’re going to try to make you afraid. They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. They’re going to say, ‘You know what? He’s young, inexperienced, and he’s got a funny name. Did I mention he’s black?’”
In both cases, Obama implied that his white opponents would inject race into the campaign. After a backlash, he tried to backtrack, accusing the McCain camp of cynicism instead of racism. But the intended damage was done.
People of any color have a natural tendency to use whatever advantages they’ve got. There’s nothing special about Obama. He understands very well that his ethnicity distinguishes him in this election, and he’s counting on that distinction to help inspire voters. It’s why he’s injected race into the race. Yes, Obama is more than the color of his skin, but even he knows it’s an integral part of why some people support him.
The rule seems to be that Barack Obama doesn’t have to abide by the P.C. rules because he’s post-racial, post-sexual, post-modern, post-provincial, post-American. Heck, like Bill Clinton, Obama will be the first woman president, breaking barriers for the ladies. So he can call a woman “sweetie”. Obama is a racial melange, so he can use race. He can be condescending and diminishing to women, blacks, whites, Americans, because he’s just that much better. His universality gives him the ability to disparage with impunity.
And if you don’t like his policy positions, his attitude, his lack of experience, the problem isn’t him. It’s you, of course! And, by the way, if you don’t like him, you’re a racist.
Is Barack Obama racist? Sure, he is. He has barely hidden contempt for whites generally and blacks who disagree with him receive scorn too. Is he sexist? Well, he freely lets fly with demeaning language, but I suspect his wife doesn’t put up with that crap at home.
Obama has been indoctrinated with identity-politics. He sees every issue through the spectrum of skin color or gender or some other fractionated value. The end result is predictable: a racist, sexist outlook. How can it not? People desiring a color-blind society don’t obsess over skin color, they obsess over ideas, policy and character. Barack Obama is not one of those people. He knows damn well that race serves him in his desire to become President. And so he uses race. In doing so, he becomes what he claims to be beyond: a racial, racist candidate.
Cross-posted at RightWingNews
