busybody..
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2002
- Posts
- 149,503
Here
see if
you
understand
me thinks
NOT!
I recently listened to, and read from, various disgusting excerpts of Rev. (“God damn America!”) Wright, the Obama pastor and his Ward Churchill-like “chickens coming home to roost” rhetoric.
The problem is that he is not simply a well-meaning black pastor, sounding themes of African-American self-improvement. His loopy references about the past, and the many sins of a white racist America, coupled with his promiscuous use of slurs about other races and religions, (and his own country), put him clearly in the camp of extremists. In other words, he is a nut, and the more Obama’s tries to pooh-pooh that, the worse it gets. Most who could sit through those diatribes and venom each week might find it difficult to have a balanced view of so-called “white” people or the country at large.
I’m surprised that Obama has not dealt with the issue more forcefully, since the Rev. will become a media fixation. And, given his temperament and zest for attention, he will delight reporters and journalists with weekly doses of his gratuitous slanders. And it won’t do to suggest that such worry is “guilt by association” or that Rev. Wright is analogous to other controversial religious figures endorsing other candidates. Wright baptized the Obama children; Obama belongs to and attends his church and has listened in the past without objection to these extremist sermons; and he took his “Audacity of Hope” book title from a Wright lecture. In that incestuous context, Obama’s weak disclaimer, "I don't think my church is actually particularly controversial, " is as disingenuous and ‘old politics’ as they come.
As far as the latest racial controversy among Democrats in a campaign intended to transcend race, it is hard to know quite what is going on. It is true, as alleged, that were Obama not African-American with an exotic name, a rookie senator without much experience, or reputation from his state legislator days, would not be receiving the current mainstream media adulation or public attention.
But that said, should an Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson have had African or Middle-Eastern names, it would have done neither any good, since both utterly lack Sen. Obama’s eloquence (not seen since JFK) and sense of decency that so reassures voters—at a time of great national insecurity about the economy and the war.
In truth, one key to Obama’s success is that, on the one hand, his education, diction, charisma, and mixed racial ancestry reassure white, Asian, and Latino voters that the senator is firmly within the American mainstream while offering a promise of novelty-lite and “change” and “hope” to boot. And for the more elite among them, he raises the additional ante of psychological redemption at little cost—that his election proves that we are not only not currently racist, but also can be given atonement for the sins of our grandparents and beyond. Overseas that magic wand reinvents Americans as a revolutionary society led by the “other”, and not to be targeted any longer and caricatured as the old white oppressor.
On the other hand, a tripartite name like Barack Hussein Obama, silhouetted at times by the fiery racialist rhetoric of Rev. Wright, and the serial lamentations of Michelle Obama, also provides a clear subtext to the African-American base, and the hard Left— Obama has real fides; he is one of the people; and he expects and enjoys such lopsided racial solidarity.
Is this tightrope walking sustainable? I doubt it. At some point, given the high bar he has set for candor and the new ‘change’ politics, Obama will have to be honest and explain the difficulty of reconciling these constituencies—perhaps emphasizing that he is concerned only with the issues, and, given his mixed racial and varied cultural background, assorted groups sometimes see in him superficially only what they wish.
He should address it head on, since the tiny droplets of Michelle’s sloppy rhetoric, the Wright outbursts, the old radicals in the closet, the snippets in the memoirs that assume a sort of hard left view of the United States abroad, and more to come will coalesce in the mind of the voter into a deluge of far left criticism of America. So far he has been lucky to have critics like Ferraro whose inferred logic is full of holes (e.g., I was once nominated as VP only because I was a woman, but as an obscure congresswoman without accomplishments I would have nevertheless been a great VP; but Hillary is not there because she is a woman or Bill’s husband, but [unlike Obama?] has real gifts that earned her such stature); others will be more circumspect and effective in their dissection of the Obama contradictions.
Since Billary has almost mined out the racialist ore, expect them to tap this vein of easy anti-Americanism that characterizes Obama’s associates—unless
see if
you
understand
me thinks
NOT!
I recently listened to, and read from, various disgusting excerpts of Rev. (“God damn America!”) Wright, the Obama pastor and his Ward Churchill-like “chickens coming home to roost” rhetoric.
The problem is that he is not simply a well-meaning black pastor, sounding themes of African-American self-improvement. His loopy references about the past, and the many sins of a white racist America, coupled with his promiscuous use of slurs about other races and religions, (and his own country), put him clearly in the camp of extremists. In other words, he is a nut, and the more Obama’s tries to pooh-pooh that, the worse it gets. Most who could sit through those diatribes and venom each week might find it difficult to have a balanced view of so-called “white” people or the country at large.
I’m surprised that Obama has not dealt with the issue more forcefully, since the Rev. will become a media fixation. And, given his temperament and zest for attention, he will delight reporters and journalists with weekly doses of his gratuitous slanders. And it won’t do to suggest that such worry is “guilt by association” or that Rev. Wright is analogous to other controversial religious figures endorsing other candidates. Wright baptized the Obama children; Obama belongs to and attends his church and has listened in the past without objection to these extremist sermons; and he took his “Audacity of Hope” book title from a Wright lecture. In that incestuous context, Obama’s weak disclaimer, "I don't think my church is actually particularly controversial, " is as disingenuous and ‘old politics’ as they come.
As far as the latest racial controversy among Democrats in a campaign intended to transcend race, it is hard to know quite what is going on. It is true, as alleged, that were Obama not African-American with an exotic name, a rookie senator without much experience, or reputation from his state legislator days, would not be receiving the current mainstream media adulation or public attention.
But that said, should an Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson have had African or Middle-Eastern names, it would have done neither any good, since both utterly lack Sen. Obama’s eloquence (not seen since JFK) and sense of decency that so reassures voters—at a time of great national insecurity about the economy and the war.
In truth, one key to Obama’s success is that, on the one hand, his education, diction, charisma, and mixed racial ancestry reassure white, Asian, and Latino voters that the senator is firmly within the American mainstream while offering a promise of novelty-lite and “change” and “hope” to boot. And for the more elite among them, he raises the additional ante of psychological redemption at little cost—that his election proves that we are not only not currently racist, but also can be given atonement for the sins of our grandparents and beyond. Overseas that magic wand reinvents Americans as a revolutionary society led by the “other”, and not to be targeted any longer and caricatured as the old white oppressor.
On the other hand, a tripartite name like Barack Hussein Obama, silhouetted at times by the fiery racialist rhetoric of Rev. Wright, and the serial lamentations of Michelle Obama, also provides a clear subtext to the African-American base, and the hard Left— Obama has real fides; he is one of the people; and he expects and enjoys such lopsided racial solidarity.
Is this tightrope walking sustainable? I doubt it. At some point, given the high bar he has set for candor and the new ‘change’ politics, Obama will have to be honest and explain the difficulty of reconciling these constituencies—perhaps emphasizing that he is concerned only with the issues, and, given his mixed racial and varied cultural background, assorted groups sometimes see in him superficially only what they wish.
He should address it head on, since the tiny droplets of Michelle’s sloppy rhetoric, the Wright outbursts, the old radicals in the closet, the snippets in the memoirs that assume a sort of hard left view of the United States abroad, and more to come will coalesce in the mind of the voter into a deluge of far left criticism of America. So far he has been lucky to have critics like Ferraro whose inferred logic is full of holes (e.g., I was once nominated as VP only because I was a woman, but as an obscure congresswoman without accomplishments I would have nevertheless been a great VP; but Hillary is not there because she is a woman or Bill’s husband, but [unlike Obama?] has real gifts that earned her such stature); others will be more circumspect and effective in their dissection of the Obama contradictions.
Since Billary has almost mined out the racialist ore, expect them to tap this vein of easy anti-Americanism that characterizes Obama’s associates—unless
