I will admit to you now, in the event that you have not already noticed that I have a problem. No, it is not drink (though do I enjoy my wine), nor anything sexually sordid, but rather that I have a morbid fascination with right-wing radio. It is, in my defence, likely a vestige (naive as it may be) from my core philosophical belief that one must read, know and understand all points of view to pragmatically have any hope of winning the war of ideas, and hence public policy. Idealistic, and naive, but I cannot help myself, secretly wondering whether they really believe their own phantasms and vitriol.
On the eve of America's long-awaited-for leadership change (sadly prolonged since there is no mechanism for a government "to fall" as exists in Parliamentary systems), following four MORE years of the limpest administration in the history of the nation, which were it given the outlet to pass the reins, probably would have opted out, I thought it would be good to get to know the incoming President from the perspective America's right-wing night-time hate gang. Indeed Mr Obama is more multi-faceted that perhaps anyone knew, demonstrated by the long, but undoubtedly uncomprehensive list describing Mr (and Mrs) Obama. Cauustic as it may be, perhaps the most beautiful thing about America is how forgiving we are, and how willing, as a nation we are to accept people's faults and shortcomings - even those of our President. After all, we re-elected Bush for a second term!! So here is the view of our new President from behind the eyes of the ummm ... errrr ... opposition....
Obama is a Socialist.
Obama is a Liberal.
Obama is an extremist.
Obama is a closet anarchist.
Obama is a Communist.
Obama is none of the above but IS the most leftist Senator.
Obama is a Keynesian (OMG! no not that!)
Obama hangs out with terrorists.
Obama is Bill Ayer's Manchurian candidate.
Obama IS a terrorist.
Obama was a drug addict.
Obama is a drug addict.
Obama is a muslim jihaddi.
Obama wants big government.
Obama hates white people.
Obama wants to substantially raise taxes.
Obama LOVES taxes.
Obama hates free trade.
Obama LOVES free trade - especially NAFTA and illlegal aliens.
Obama is an instrument of the Annenberg foundation (which are communists).
Walter Annenberg was a secret co-conspirator of the Rosenbergs.
Obama hates America.
Michelle Obama hates America.
Michelle Obama has an eating disorder. (she isn't fat?!? -ed)
Michelle Obama was crack whore.
Michelle Obama IS a crack whore.
Obama will order federal marshals to come into your home and take your gun away.
Obama will allow criminals to keep their guns.
Obama will give your guns to criminals.
Obama had gay sex with Louis Farrakhham.
Obama will appoint Jesse Jackson Secretary of State.
Obama will appoint Jesse Jackson Chief of Staff.
Obama will appoint Malcom-X as Chief of Staff.
Obama is an illegal alien.
Obama hid his illegal alien relatives and is therefore a felon.
Obama will establish a US version of Soviet Union's NKVD.
Obama is a liar.
Obama was liar.
Obama will be a liar.
Obama hates freedom.
Obama hates democracy.
Obama hates religion.
Obama hates the Jews.
Obama hates my family.
Obama hates small businessmen.
Obama hates plumbers.
Obama hates God.
God hates Obama.
Ahmadinejad Loves Obama.
Obama loves Hezbollah (and don't forget Hamas!)
Obama DOESN'T hate gays.
Obama's father was a goat herder.
Obama refuses to recite the pledge of allegiance.
Obama will ban the Pledge of Allegiance.
Obama is an arab.
Obama drinks tea.
Obama's favorite music is "Puff Daddy".
Obama will take away your healthcare.
Obama donated money to the PLO.
Obama hates babies.
Obama is NOT African-American...(He's Kenyan-Hawaiian).
Obama hates the Constitution (and will re-write it).
Obama had sex with your grandmother.
Obama was caught on a secret videotape torturing puppy dogs.
Obama will plough under little league fields across America.
Obama will make Americans play "Cricket".
Obama will force college students to eat vegetables.
Obama will change the name of America to "West France".
(ok enough for now...)
And to think Clinton couldn't even get past Thelma and Louise on healthcare!
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14 comments:
Umm, which of the above do you have a problem with?
CB
I would welcome the tea and cricket part I must say...
and his father actually was a goat herder... & nothing wrong with that.
If you work on Wall St., he'll make you a goat-herder?
Oh wait, we did that to ourselves already!
Shame that the Boston Tea Party gave tea drinking such a bad name. I hope they'll allow some latitude for Apple-Cinnamon tea though. It sounds almost like Apple pee after all.
Cassandra - what do you define as hate radio? Would that be Limbaugh, Savage and Hannity? I often listen to Savage and Limbaugh and I did here them call him a Marxist. But most of the other items on your list appear to be fabricated from your own imagination. I thought you aborted dishonesty and admired integrity?
Now who's the ideologue? How disappointing. I thought you were different.
I admire consistency to one's philosophy- at least Ayn Rand had that.
apologies for typos, that's "I did hear them.." and "...you abhorred.."
My ESL is a work in progress.
-Vlad.
Right wing radio is pretty bad, and so was the McCain/Palin ticket - but this doesn't make Obama any good.
Under Obama's proposed tax plan, a professional couple living in California will end up with a 66% marginal tax rate. I can't see how that is fair.
You should take note of how much many Obama supporters hate anybody making a decent living, no matter how honestly that living is earned. They are as bad as the Right as far as damning the innocent with imputations goes.
Vlad - This was satire and humour, which has throughout history has had the license to exaggerate for amusement and effect. I admit the crack-whore accusation was fabricated for humourous effect, as was the gay-sex accusation. And so was the Malcolm-X appointment. And obviously the ones from "having sex with your grandmother" on down, were ummm, confabulations. But the rest were voiced or insinuated in one form or another, by hosts or callers on limbaugh, hannity, savage, beck, ingraham, levin & hewitt, prager, medved, "brian & the judge", even callers on coast-to-coast came out with occasional ditties. And one needn't have spent copious amounts of time waiting for this vision of Obama as I DO sleep, and merely twirl the dial between the paranoid fear-mongerers and the outright liars.
Anonymous - Americans get notoriously bad value for their tax dollars considering the federal, state, local, and sales levies that bring all-in rates to european levels, without anywhere near the benefit the average European ciitizen obtains - from quality universal healthcare, reliable and affordable public transport, quality public education and subsidized universities, social housing, etc. Of course Denmark, Belgium and Germany do not have aircraft carriers, and Italy doesn't have a Hubble telescope. But Americans would do well to ask themselves why they get such poor value for their money. I would be interested in any event, to see the details of the 66% calculation if you would be so kind as to provide these to me....
There is a good bit of evidence - not conclusive, but persuasive - that Obama is in fact a socialist. It requires an effort of will to ignore Obama's own words & conclude he was just kidding. Given the track record of socialism, that concerns me greatly.
I could not help noticing that both Obama & Biden made a great show out of mocking the word on the campaign trail. Not the ideas behind it, mind you - they are quite comfortable with those - but simply the word "socialism".
I have yet to hear a coherent explanation why it is silly to think the son of a Marxist father & an uber-progressive mother would internalize their beliefs.
Wasn't Keynsianism discredited in the 1970's? Do we really have to go through that again? I am not wearing polyester this time...
Obama is actually a space Alien, infiltrated into the U.S., to undermine our economy in the hopes that it will soften us up for when the rest of the aliens arrive...His most ardent followers are actually members of a secret underground cult, whose leader happens to be none other than the great Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction and Porno For Pyros Fame...whose masterstroke of philosophical wisdom is summed up in a seemingly farcical but all too true song,"We'll Make Great Pets."
Don't say anyone didn't warn you
Glad you exposed these fools. In the U.S. and especially the right, ideology and denigration is what counts instead of any thoughtful policy debate. Quite pitiful actually. It should be no surprise then that fools like GWB get proudly elected not once but twice.
I will pick nits and suggest that my problem with the label "Socialist" is that it is entirely too nebulous to the point of being practically counterproductive. This is especially true for those who are prey to viscerally emotive language which includes an inordinate large number of American voters. For there exists Trotskyite flavours, the (now discredited) French left a-la Mitterand, Old Labour Prescott and Benn, social democrats of northern Europe, to what I might term the current interventionists and pre-emptive activists of France and Germany. And importantly, because they are profoundly different, the subtleties of distinction matter.
SO what IS Obama? The label that the Hatists tried to affix to him was "Socialist" in the pejorative - which I will define as the deeply held belief that The State does it better, and The People's interests are better served by State ownership - a fervor not dissimilar from that which the Socialists in France held with Mitterand's victory with the nationalization of banks, utilities and other key enterprises, not of out of pragmatic necessity but out of ideological conviction.
With all due respect, no one believes Obama will be collectivizing agriculture any time soon, nor, if he can help it, will he be nationalizing banks or insurance companies (despite precedents of the prior Republican administration). He may end up with the auto industry - temporarily - as Chrysler before, and as the French state custodianed Renault and PSA, but this too would NOT be the result of an ideological zeal, but out of a pragmatic sense of economic responsibility and sense of national interest. Obama is patently NOT Chavez.
Viewed through this lens. Obama is (likely) a pragmatic social democrat of the northern European variety with an activist appreciation that the USA is competing against nation-states with industrial, energy and healthcare policies that leaves the USA at a competitive disadvantage in their absence, but who fundamentally desires where pragmatically possible to leave the market to do what it does best, but un-beholden to a philosophical dogma that prevents intervention or activism where considered opinion is that the cost-benefit proposition, both short and long-term, are favourable. And by way of full-disclosure (Hi Charles!) I believe this is not a bad thing.
Obama is a smart ambitious politician, making sure he has been just vague enough to allow everyone to think what they want to think about him. Spreading the message of hope and change, to a populace that desperately needs those messages and are willing to project whatever qualities they wish him to have on his personality or what will be his way of governing. We know this about Obama; relatively liberal voting record which worked well with base Democrats. He then moved more towards the center in an election that was going to reward such a move. Obviously, if this isn't pragmatism, I don't know what is. However, I don't think anyone can really make an accurate judgment about what his actual vision for the U.S. is. Possibly, maybe he himself has no vision at this point, merely knowing that existing policies of the existing administration have been failures in just about every measurable way. And maybe and intelligent pragmatist at the helm is what the country needs. Surely he was a better pick than McCain and McCain's way of showing how reckless he still is...Palin.
Utter nonsense. Obama and Limbaugh have been closeted gay lovers for years, hence the real cause of Limbaugh's drug use and divorce. Obama shares Limbaugh's political views. He's a Trojan Horse for the right.
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