Dinesh D'Souza, at Forbes Magazine puts forth an excellent theory to explain just why every action of our current president seems designed to do harm, rather than good, to the USA.
It is actually quite scary;
"It may seem incredible to suggest that the anticolonial ideology of Barack Obama Sr. is espoused by his son, the President of the United States. That is what I am saying. From a very young age and through his formative years, Obama learned to see America as a force for global domination and destruction. He came to view America's military as an instrument of neocolonial occupation. He adopted his father's position that capitalism and free markets are code words for economic plunder. Obama grew to perceive the rich as an oppressive class, a kind of neocolonial power within America. In his worldview, profits are a measure of how effectively you have ripped off the rest of society, and America's power in the world is a measure of how selfishly it consumes the globe's resources and how ruthlessly it bullies and dominates the rest of the planet.
For Obama, the solutions are simple. He must work to wring the neocolonialism out of America and the West. And here is where our anticolonial understanding of Obama really takes off, because it provides a vital key to explaining not only his major policy actions but also the little details that no other theory can adequately account for."
"Clearly the anticolonial ideology of Barack Obama Sr. goes a long way to explain the actions and policies of his son in the Oval Office. And we can be doubly sure about his father's influence because those who know Obama well testify to it. His "granny" Sarah Obama (not his real grandmother but one of his grandfather's other wives) told Newsweek, "I look at him and I see all the same things--he has taken everything from his father. The son is realizing everything the father wanted. The dreams of the father are still alive in the son."
I read this book when it was written by Steve Sailer, though, no doubt, D'Souza is presenting it in a slightly more acceptable format.
ReplyDeleteStill, this is pretty breathtakingly straight-forward for a mainstream conservative to say, given that the issue can only intellectually be separated from that of race, which everyone emotionally and in their hearts knows is what the real issue is.
It's therefore interesting to me that this article has not caused nearly the furor I would expect, though that may be because it appeared in Forbes which the Official Commentariat (rightly, in this case) doens't take seriously.
(Another such source totally and rightly ignored regardless of merit: Washington Times)
Jourdan - I don't see it as a race-based theory, but as a logical possibility, given the quotes from Barry's book and the read from his 'granny'.
ReplyDeleteIf racial, it is so in Barry's own words, but anti-colonialism is a philosophy shared by many races throughout the world, including the socialist aspects that have led to so many former coloniies failing after the removal of the colonial authorities.
Of course, psycho-analyzing a president is a fun pastime, that never really leads anywhere. In this case however, I am deeply worried about irreversible changes being done in the name of Barrys beliefs from his father.
This is a lot of crap. Barry believes in Barry. Period. Some one probably called him bad names once upon a time and we all get to pay for it. Hell, that some one might have even been black and called him "Banana Man."
ReplyDeleteAttributing serious anti-colonialist intent from his father, who abandoned him at the age of two, is specious and spurious at best.
His problem is simply his own opinion that he might not be black enough. Witness his recent harangue of the Congressional Black Caucus about them not doing enough, etc. I can think of at least two of that group who no doubt were thinking "Uncle Tom" as Barry ran off at the mouth.
The man is a cipher...really, a zot, zero, nada....a place holder. He enables the real enemies, one of which is Pelosi...the Queen Regent of Barry's nice little position, who will slap snot out of him if he wavers a whit, as she did on Health Care.
All anyone needs to know about Barry....
ReplyDeleteimgw:"http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y128/aridog/clarity.gif"
OH F**K THIS!!!
ReplyDeletei just spent more than 1/2 hour writing responses to Ari & Jourdans comments and asshole blogger.com ate it.
DWT....sorry about that, but glad it isn't just me it happens to... x(
ReplyDeleteDWT,
ReplyDeleteI've encountered a weird behavior in blogger comments:
1) you write a long comment.
2) you hit Post Comment and are confronted with an error screen, something about the request being too long.
3) don't panic - just hit the "back" button on your browser.
4) you should see a little message at the bottom of your screen saying "your comment has been posted" - but you won't see the comment.
5) remain calm and hit "refresh" in the browser screen.
6) you should now see your comment.
I've done this like a dozen times - some weird glitch. Almost all systems have these.
Tip: if your writing a long comment, a "poor man's backup" is to type Ctrl-A Ctrl-C - this will select all the text in the comment, and copy it to the clipboard. Then, if your post craps out, you can start a new one and hit Ctrl-V (paste) and it will restore as much as you saved in the clipboard.
And if you _know_ your going to type something long, consider composing in Google Docs - it's free and has the feature that it auto saves, and you can restore from a previous (auto) saved version.
Hope that helps; the key is to practice and test some of these things _before_ you need them, so you have the confidence to know they work.
Lewy.....your 1-6 process is what I used to do, but it no longer seems to work here...the screen I get now says "tilt" (ESAD) period...nothing about the "URL path being too long." Actually, under the "old" process you cite you could just hit refresh and the comment would be posted. No now. Not nothing now...just disappears.
ReplyDeleteMy new process will be to compose or copy in MetaPad or NotePad then cut and paste as many times as it takes to get the comment up.
I've learned to always copy lengthy comments to my clipboard. And yes, like DWT, I learned the hard way. ~x(
ReplyDeleteBlogger can be aggravating, but for a free platform, I'm not complaining (not too much, anyway!). :p
OK, I am going to write a much shorter, two-part version of the post I lost last night (and back it up as well) in the hopes that Blogger will not lose it.
ReplyDeleteAri, I think you are dismissing this much too quickly as the product of Obama's venality & narcissism. If he was in fact, only looking out for himself (i.e. trying to garner respect & appreciation {as well as a second term}) I believe he would be going about things quite differently.
His domestic policies are simply American-style 'progressivism' on steroids, with great gifts (GM & Chrysler, Card Check, probable pension takeovers, forcing police & firefighters nationwide into unions, etc.) to the unions, the non-taxpayers, and the egos of the left-wing 'intelligentsia'.
It is his foreign affairs agenda that ties in so well with D'Souza's premise, as backed up by the book portions he quotes, AND the 'Grannys' comments. Those acts (weakening our nation in every way he can, while also doing his best to seperate us from the rest of the European 'colonial' powers, as well as their perceived ally, Israel, show more than mere love-of-self-and-legacy, and move into the realm of foolish, anti-colonialist obsession, in other words vengeance and the weakening (at least) of said colonial powers.
Lewy, your comment above confuses me greatly.
ReplyDeleteWHY is is it "rightly, in this case" that the commentariat should not take Forbes Magazine generally (and Dinseh D'souza's article specifically) seriously?
Any racial component was not introduced into the mix by D'souza, but by Obama himself, again, in the book he quotes from.
Is continuing with a subject introduced by another no longer allowed? Is it racist when you quote the racially-based comments of another for the purpose of understanding his actions?
While I realize that the left would want that to be the case, I cannot understand why you would.
Anti-colonialism is not, in any case, a racially based philosophy, although it is certainly at its most virulent in Africa, which is also the continent with the highest number of failed states, attributable to exactly that - severe hatred for the colonial powers and an utter rejection of anything believed by them.
In any case, I really believe the Dinesh D'souza made an excellent case and came out with a theory that fits the facts better, or at least as well as, any other, about just why Obama has turned out to be such a failure as an American leader.
OK, both of those posted, whew!
ReplyDeleteLast night, after losing my comment, Blogger proceeded to display for me no comment window at all, on another thread, and refused to publish a new post I tried, as well.
At that point, I went to bed and read 'The Sonderberg Case' by Elie Weisel until it was time to sleep.
DWT, it were Jourdan (not I) who made the comment about Forbes. I'll let him answer; for myself, I'd make this observation about Forbes: they have IIRC often hid their agenda of lowering wages via the "libertarianism" of open borders.
ReplyDeleteThere is a strain of conservative thought which sees mega-corps in a way not unlike the left does: shipping jobs overseas, pwning regulators, co-opting the government. Forbes has been reliably pro-corporate and hid their agenda in the rhetoric of "free markets" and "free trade".
My own two cents on the issue: I don't see it is too necessary to bring Obama's father into it. He was raised in Indonesia by a couple of leftists; he went to a liberal prep school, etc. He's not a very original or non-conformist thinker: he's a clever speaker who desperately wants to march to the front of whatever parade makes him feel good about himself. This is his one big skill.
The views that he holds, he'd hold regardless of who his father was - just based on his schooling and background. Seen many folks like him and I share a good bit of the same liberal America hating education.
I avoided this fate only because I'm such a stubbornly independent contrarian; most of my friends from school are mindlessly and reflexively liberal. They did not have African anti-colonial fathers.
Finally, IMHO anti-colonialism is not necessarily racial - The United States started out as an anti-colonial movement and a good deal of opposition to the Spanish-American war was based on political anti-colonial sentiment.
Lewy, I am sorry. When I initially typed this comment I did address it to Jourdan.
ReplyDeleteThe whole point being his frequent insistence that Euro-americans need to organize in their own interests, as do the various other racial groups, while decrying D'souza's calling out of Obama racial motives.
I would remove the comment and fix the name, then repost, but at this point it would really screw everything up.
Sigh.
I agree with lewy on his comments about the President. But, because I'm sitting here waiting for a ten year old girl to finish her math (it's like pulling toenails, let me tell you), I'm going to add something.
ReplyDeleteI think that President Obama is absolutely incapable of recognizing a mistake in himself. He is not able to accurately assess his advancement, because to do so would force him to admit that some things he has done were wrong, that he believed something that sounded good on paper while being impossible in real life.
I don't think this is an unusual trait for public figures (or any of the rest of us, for that matter. It just does far less damage to the world at large when I screw up than it does when the Politeratti eff up).
Lewy, Obama HIMSELF brought his father into it, and his fathers beliefs (i.e. Dreams), so that is why he is something beyond a standard radical/liberal/progressive.
ReplyDeleteAnd it is why he is more dangerous than any of that combination has been when inside the halls of the US government.
Again, I apologize to both you and Jourdan for reversing your names. Guess I need to keep repeating to myself 'apres vous, le deluge'.
Sigh, again.
But don't think I support Forbes in their attempt to reduce the working people to little more than indentured servitude. The self-serving attitudes of too many in big corporations are far outside anything I fand moral.
ReplyDeleteThat said, it does not render this particular piece, by this particular author, as beneath notice.
Dances, no worries on the mixup.
ReplyDeleteI tend to operate from the principle of parsimony - use the simplest explanation for the facts. Obama may indeed cite his father for ideological inspiration - dunno, never read any of his books. Could be.
But when I look at the lefty rants against Obama - and they are pretty detailed, some of them - I get the impression that he's not nearly so much a rabid leftist as both a (liberal progressive, to be sure) elitist and a poseur. I know folks who are more insanely lefty who are lily white.
So while his father may well have informed his outlook, so have a lot of other things.
A real lefty would have closed down Gitmo and let everyone go. Nationalized Citi and BoA in March of 09 - and kept them nationalized as government slush funds a la Fannie / Freddie. Shut down the NSA and repealed the Patriot act. Stumped for single payer health care and beat heads together in Congress to get it. Bugged out of Afghanistan instead of launching Predator strikes in Pakistan and cruise missile strikes (with cluster bombs yet) in Yemen. Etc.
Policy wise the line on Obama (from the left) is that he's a mashup of the worst aspects of Clinton and Bush. The "progressivism" is mostly spin, from their point of view.
I don't subscribe to their point of view, but I do see where they're coming from.
afw - I agree, and I think this is a function of his lack of actual accomplishment in life.
ReplyDeleteI used to have that attitude, that I was never wrong. Then I set about building things that worked. Then I lost the attitude. Because my stuff worked - eventually - after I'd been made to understand I could, and did, get stuff wrong, early and often.
I thank all the testing and validation groups who ever had to suffer through finding and documenting the bugs in my sometimes clever, always flawed creations. It sank in after about a decade or so that I would likely continue to make mistakes, so I'd best just accept that.
Nobody's ever run "validation" on Obama's accomplishments because he really has none.
DWT....you misunderstand my remark about Obie's self admiration. Perhaps I wasn't clear. My experience is that people, especially in public life, who dwell on themselves and forever try to prove themselves "worthy" ... are precisely those who self loath internally.
ReplyDeleteObie has a couple oratorical skills and a vast expanse of real world ignorance. Race enters his thinking precisely because he's not sure he's black enough so he compensates. The shear audacity of his harangue of the Congressional Black Caucus astounds me, and no doubt most of them.
As for his father's influence....total BS, really. He didn't know his father past the age of two, nor the extended multiple family of wives. IMO he does IMAGINE a relationship and puts it in a co-written book of fictions ... all contrived post facto...in order to support his imagination.
As for Obie's honest liberal bona fides, I'd say I agree with Lewy. IMO Obie is a cipher incapable of holding to dogma strictly, but very capable of espousing whatever he thinks makes him more "the man." I'd call him innately intelligent, but wholly inexperienced as an ordinary citizen and lacking even common sense. Finally, he is incapable of not defining himself as a black guy, because he's not sure of it himself. It is his hook.
lewy @19
ReplyDeleteThat is gaspingly accurate, I think. And you summed up exactly what I've been thinking.
Lewy said:"afw - I agree, and I think this is a function of his lack of actual accomplishment in life."
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely, augered by his own full awareness of it. Fact is he hasn't yet been tested or validated...and nothing in his education or experience leads him anywhere near requiring it. He's convinced he can lead by wits alone, because he has nothing else.
He's not "leading" a damn thing, as the recent Harry (Wegie Man) Reid's attmpt to repeal DA/DT before the election demonstrates. Obama's "official" administration stance (Sec Def and Chairman JOS)has been to wait until the DoD study is completed on 01 Dec 2010. What then was the hurry, beside crass electioneering, for a block of votes, by Congressional leadership, not Executive Office.
Have I mentioned the Federal Budget yet this year? As usual, it is not passed a week before it is due, and won't be. So Congress is busy busy with DA/DT but can't execute its primary responsibility. And Obie says squat. Does squat.
It is pathetic, really. POTUS the impotent. Even the WSJ has a piece this week favoring repeal, and my guess is that it will be repealed with some regulations, added to enhance, by the next Congress.
DWT #10....I'll admit Obie's got an agenda, but it isn't driven by any informing by his father or various other Bantu relatives. It's just his nature of resentment spilling out and both he in his book and now this article find an excuse.
ReplyDeleteHe is constantly measuring everything by his own relatively weak experience in anything except BS'ing.
imgw:"http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y128/aridog/carterhistory.jpg"
He's right.
I'll agree with that, Ari. And I think he resents that he doesn't have actual accomplishments behind his plaudits. Because, you know, he SHOULD. And it's not fair he wasn't given the chance to prove he's just as good/better than the person who earned the accolades.
ReplyDelete