Those of you who were lucky enough to study philosophy, law, or logic will know of what I speak, for those that didn't, here's a 2 second primer.
Formal logic is what is used in law in presenting evidence.
Used in philosophy to prove a dialectic.
The best example? "If the glove don't fit, you must acquit".
Formal logic is if/then statements.
We use what is known as deductive syllogisms to arrive at a point.
If x then y.
If y then z.
Therefore, if x then z.
However, if y then x is false.
Logic uses what is known as the contrapositive. It is properly: If NOT y, then NOT x.
Additionally, "most" has a specific meaning in formal logic, and the law. Most = 50% +1. i.e. the requirement for guilt in a civil case. Most, or a "preponderance" of the evidence.
I bring this up, because for a long time, when I have discussed Islamic jihadism, I have been accused of being racist.
But when I say "most" terrorists are Islamic, it in NO Way means that most Moslems are terrorists.
Formal logic.
Which of course doesn't exist when Islamic terrorists rampage hotels in Mumbai. And of course, what got little attention in the American media, a Chabad center. (Chabad is the outreach of the Lubavitch movement, commonly mistaken for Chasidic Jews, they are in fact, just the opposite. They believe not in segregating themselves, but reaching out to the community. Actively engaging others in Judaism and it's good works.)
You see, they went looking for Jews. And they found them, and killed them.
And, as of the last count, almost 150 others.
Now, you haven't seen Sikh terrorists rampaging the world, or Hindus rioting the capitals of Europe when Ghandi is used in cartoons. And certainly you haven't heard of either of these groups crossing the border into Pakistan and attacking Muslims.
When will we face the truth of what is facing us?
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Monday, November 17, 2008
Still think it's about land?
About a year or so ago, I wrote optimistically about the appointment of former IMF official Salaam Fayed as the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority.
Fayad was the official appointed by the international authorities to put an end to Arafat's corruption. He largely uncovered many of his, and other's, secret accounts, and tightened up much of the bookeeping.
However, just this week, he demonstrated once again, that there is no Palestinian intention to live side by side.
At a UN sponsored interfaith meeting, Fayad told an eager audience just how important Jerusalem was to TWO of the world's religions, intentionally leaving out the Jews.
This is right in line with the PR campaign the so called Palestinians have been using for years declaring that there was never a temple in Jerusalem.
Of course, they never bother to explain what temple Jesus was going to, but that is a detail that they seem to be unconcerned with.
Once again, they have proven the real goal, as it continues to state in their charter, is simply to wipe the Jews from the map.
Fayad was the official appointed by the international authorities to put an end to Arafat's corruption. He largely uncovered many of his, and other's, secret accounts, and tightened up much of the bookeeping.
However, just this week, he demonstrated once again, that there is no Palestinian intention to live side by side.
At a UN sponsored interfaith meeting, Fayad told an eager audience just how important Jerusalem was to TWO of the world's religions, intentionally leaving out the Jews.
This is right in line with the PR campaign the so called Palestinians have been using for years declaring that there was never a temple in Jerusalem.
Of course, they never bother to explain what temple Jesus was going to, but that is a detail that they seem to be unconcerned with.
Once again, they have proven the real goal, as it continues to state in their charter, is simply to wipe the Jews from the map.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Who was wrong?
During the campaign, I tried to discuss rationally with the Obamites, two things that worried me deeply about the candidate, and now President elect.
The bigger picture was the fact that all of his associations represented a school of geopolitical thought that has been disastrous for the United States. It really started in the post Lyndon Johnson era, with the candidacy of Hubert Humphrey, but it's seeds were sewn with the incredible foreign policy failures of JFK.
But another, equally troublesome aspect of Obama, was that each time one of his questionable associates was brought into the light of day, the response was the same. He/She is not officially part of the campaign, he/she is not really a friend/adviser/associate, etc.
That person would be quietly jettisoned.
You all know the big names. But less well known was a gentleman named Robert Malley.
Malley has a particularly troublesome history. His father was a high ranking official of the Egyptian Communist Party, and Malley himself, has expressed violently anti Israeli views (despite his mother being a NY'er and Jewish) and anti American views (the same "America is the bad guy line of thought).
Worse, when Dennis Ross and Bill Clinton discussed the peace talks between Ehud Barack and Yasser Arafat, Malley, like another Obama adviser, Anthony Lake, claimed that Clinton and Ross were lying, and that the fault of the failure of the talks was Barack's.
This despite President Clinton affirming Barack's statement that the Israeli's had offered Arafat essentially EVERYTHING he asked for, including East Jerusalem.
So, this gentleman accused not only the President, but his boss, of lying.
During the campaign, it was revealed the Malley had been engaged in secret negotiations with Hamas.
The campaign went into spin mode immediately. Despite Malley having been presented as a "mainstream" foreign policy adviser, suddenly he was "not an official member of Obama's advisers". Had no official role, etc.
They also tried to spin it by saying that Malley had been talking to Hamas for years. Gee, great!
So, when I discussed this, I was pilloried.
Well, as Gomer Pyle used to say...."Soorprise, sooorprise, sooorprise"
Guess who received the first foreign policy assignment of the President elect?
Guess who is currently in negotiations with Syria, and their client, Hamas?
Malley was sent to Syria by Obama to discuss the beginning of the "change" in US mideast policy.
Oh, yeah, he is also being told to tell Egypt that they will be playing a more important role. Very smart considering the coming Islamic Revolution that will occur there upon Mubarak's death.
Below, is an article from Front Page Magazine describing in more detail both what Obama is doing, and what Malley's background is.
But that is not all.
Perhaps you remember the moment in the campaign when Hillary discovered that Obama's campaign had been secretly telling the Canadian government that Obama was lying on the campaign trail, that he wasn't ACTUALLY against NAFTA, but that he was just saying it to get elected?
You remember: that is what the actual Canadian officials who had been told that, reported to the US press.
Well, the gentleman that was engaged in THOSE back channel was a gentleman named Austan Goolsbee. And guess who's being considered for the chairmanship of the Council of Economic Advisers, or the Treasury Secretary Post? You got it!\
Yeah, I was wrong. I never would have guessed it would have happened this fast.
Obama's Road to Damascus
By John Perazzo
FrontPageMagazine.com
History will record that Barack Obama's first act of diplomacy as America's president-elect took place two days after his election victory, when he dispatched his senior foreign-policy adviser, Robert Malley, to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad—to outline for them the forthcoming administration's Mideast policy vis-à-vis those nations. An aide to Malley reports, "The tenor of the messages was that the Obama administration would take into greater account Egyptian and Syrian interests" than has President Bush. The Bush administration, it should be noted, has rightly recognized Syria to be not only a chief supporter of the al Qaeda insurgency in Iraq, but also the headquarters of the terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the longtime sponsor of Hamas—the terrorist army whose founding charter is irrevocably committed to the annihilation of Israel. Yet unlike President Bush, Obama and Malley have called for Israel to engage in peace negotiations with Syria.
A Harvard-trained lawyer and Rhodes Scholar, Robert Malley is no newcomer to the Obama team. In 2007, Obama selected him as a foreign policy adviser to his campaign. At the time, Malley was (and still is today) the Middle East and North Africa Program Director for the International Crisis Group (ICG), which receives funding from the Open Society Institute of George Soros (who, incidentally, serves on the ICG Executive Committee).
In his capacity with ICG, Malley directs a number of analysts who focus their attention most heavily on the Arab-Israeli conflict, the political and military developments in Iraq, and Islamist movements across the Middle East. Prior to joining ICG, Malley served as President Bill Clinton's Special Assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs (1998-2001), and as National Security Adviser Sandy Berger's Executive Assistant (1996-1998 ).
Robert Malley was raised in France. His lineage is noteworthy. His father, Simon Malley (1923-2006), was a key figure in the Egyptian Communist Party. A passionate hater of Israel, the elder Malley was a close friend and confidante of the late PLO terrorist Yasser Arafat; an inveterate critic of "Western imperialism"(my emphasis - remember my warnings that during an Obama administration you would hear constant reference to American imperialism and hegemony - two historic fictions); a supporter of various revolutionary "liberation movements," particularly the Palestinian cause; a beneficiary of Soviet funding; and a supporter of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
According to American Thinker news editor Ed Lasky, Simon Malley "participated in the wave of anti-imperialist and nationalist ideology that was sweeping the Third World [and] … wrote thousands of words in support of struggle against Western nations."
In a July 2001 op-ed which Malley penned for the New York Times, he alleged that Israeli—not Palestinian—inflexibility had caused the previous year's Camp David peace talks (brokered by Bill Clinton) to fall apart. This was one of several controversial articles Malley has written—some he co-authored with Hussein Agha, a former adviser to Arafat—blaming Israel and exonerating Arafat (the most prolific Jew-killer since Adolph Hitler) for the failure of the peace process.
Malley's identification of Israel as the cause of the Camp David impasse has been widely embraced by Palestinian and Arab activists around the world, by Holocaust deniers like Norman Finkelstein, and by anti-Israel publications such as Counterpunch. It should be noted that Malley's account of the Camp David negotiations is entirely inconsistent with the recollections of the key figures who participated in those talks—specifically, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, then-U.S. President Bill Clinton, and then-U.S. Ambassador Dennis Ross (Clinton's Middle East envoy).
Malley also has written numerous op-eds urging the U.S. to disengage from Israel to some degree, and recommending that America reach out to negotiate with its traditional Arab enemies such as Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah (a creature of Iran dedicated to the extermination of the Jews and death to America), and Muqtada al-Sadr (the Shiite terrorist leader in Iraq).
In addition, Malley has advised nations around the world to establish relationships with, and to send financial aid to, the Hamas-led Palestinian government in Gaza. In Malley's calculus, the electoral victory that swept Hamas into power in January 2006 was a manifestation of legitimate Palestinian "anger at years of humiliation and loss of self-respect because of Israeli settlement expansion, Arafat's imprisonment, Israel's incursions, [and] Western lecturing …"
Moreover, Malley contends that it is both unreasonable and unrealistic for Israel or Western nations to demand that Syria sever its ties with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or Iran. Rather, he suggests that if Israel were to return the Golan Heights (which it captured in the 1967 Six Day War, and again in the 1973 Yom Kippur War—two conflicts sparked by Arab aggression which sought so permanently wipe the Jewish state off the face of the earth) to Syrian control, Damascus would be inclined to pursue peace with Israel.
Malley has criticized the U.S. for allegedly remaining "on the sidelines" and being a "no-show" in the overall effort to bring peace to the nations of the Middle East. Exhorting the Bush administration to change its policy of refusing to engage diplomatically with terrorists and their sponsoring states, Malley wrote in July 2006: "Today the U.S. does not talk to Iran,
Syria, Hamas, the elected Palestinian government or Hezbollah…. The result has been a policy with all the appeal of a moral principle and all the effectiveness of a tired harangue."
This inclination to negotiate with any and all enemies of the U.S. and Israel—an impulse which Malley has outlined clearly and consistently—has had a powerful influence on Barack Obama.
It is notable that six months ago the Obama campaign and Malley hastily severed ties with one another after the Times of London reported that Malley had been meeting privately with Hamas leaders on a regular basis—something Obama had publicly pledged never to do. At the time, Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt minimized the significance of this monumentally embarrassing revelation, saying: "Rob Malley has, like hundreds of other
experts, provided informal advice to the campaign in the past. He has no formal role in the campaign and he will not play any role in the future."
But indeed, within hours after Obama's election victory, Malley was back as a key player in the president-elect's team of advisors—on his way to Syria.
Mr. Obama, meanwhile, received a most friendly communication from Hamas, congratulating him on his "historic victory."
===========================================================================
Who is Robert Malley?
• Middle East and North Africa Program Director for the International Crisis Group
• Formerly served as President Bill Clinton's Special Assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs
• Son of Simon Malley, a key figure in the Egyptian Communist Party
• Blamed Israel for the failed Camp David peace negotiations with Yasser Arafat in 2000
• Has co-written a number of op-ed pieces with Hussein Agha, a former adviser to Arafat
• Consistently condemns Israel, exonerates Palestinians, urges
U.S. disengagement from Israel, and recommends that America reach out to negotiate with its traditional Arab enemies
• Became foreign policy advisor to presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2007
A Harvard-trained lawyer and Rhodes Scholar, Robert Malley is the Middle East and North Africa Program Director for the International Crisis Group (ICG), which receives funding from the Open Society Institute (whose founder, George Soros, serves on the ICG Board and Executive Committee).
In his capacity with ICG, Malley directs a number of analysts based in Amman, Cairo, Beirut, Tel Aviv, and Baghdad. These analysts report periodically on the political, social and economic factors which they believe have the potential to spark conflict in those regions, and they make policy recommendations in an effort to defuse such threats. Covering events from from Iran to Morocco, Malley's team focuses most heavily on the
Arab-Israeli conflict, the political and military developments in Iraq, and Islamist movements across the Middle East.
Prior to joining ICG, Malley served as President Bill Clinton's Special Assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs (1998-2001); National Security Advisor Sandy Berger's Executive Assistant (1996-1998 ); and the National Security Council's Director for Democracy, Human Rights, and Humanitarian Affairs (1994-1996).
In 2007, Malley -- one of the most frequently quoted commentators on U.S. Middle East policy and Arab-Israeli strife -- became a foreign policy advisor to Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Malley was raised in France by his mother -- a native New Yorker named Barbara Silverstein -- and his father, Simon Malley, a key figure in the Egyptian Communist Party. Rabidly anti-Israel, Simon Malley was a confidante of the late PLO leader Yasser Arafat; an inveterate critic of "Western imperialism"; a supporter of various leftist revolutionary "liberation movements," particularly the Palestinian cause; a beneficiary of Soviet funding; and a supporter of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
In a July 2001 op-ed (titled "Fictions About the Failure at Camp David") which was published in the New York Times, Robert Malley (whose family, as noted above, had close ties to Yasser Arafat) alleged that Israeli -- not Palestinian -- inflexibility had caused the previous year's Camp David peace talks (brokered by Bill Clinton) to fail. This was one of several controversial articles Malley has written -- some he co-wrote with Hussein Agha, a former adviser to Arafat -- blaming Israel and exonerating Arafat for that failure.
In their August 9, 2001 piece, "Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors," Malley and Agha again dismissed claims that the Camp David talks had failed when "Ehud Barak's unprecedented offer" was met with "Yasser Arafat's uncompromising no." They wrote that Barak had taken an unnecessarily hard-line approach in negotiating with Arafat. According to Malley and Agha, Arafat believed that Barak was intent on "either forcing him to swallow an unconscionable deal or mobilizing the world to isolate and weaken the Palestinians if they refused to yield."
Malley's identification of Israel as the cause of the Camp David failure has been widely embraced by Palestinian and Arab activists around the world, by Holocaust deniers like Norman Finkelstein, and by anti-Israel publications such as Counterpunch. According to American Thinker news editor
Ed Lasky, Malley "was also believed to be the chief source for an article [dated July 26, 2001] by Deborah Sontag that whitewashed Arafat's role in the collapse of the peace process, an article that has been widely criticized as riddled with errors and bias."
Malley's account of the Camp David negotiations is entirely inconsistent with the recollections of the key figures who participated in those talks, most notably then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, U.S. President Bill Clinton, and U.S. Ambassador Dennis Ross (Clinton's Middle East envoy).
According to Ross, the peace efforts failed for one reason only: because Arafat wanted them to fail. "[F]undamentally," said Ross, "I do not believe he [Arafat] can end the conflict. We had one critical clause in this agreement, and that clause was, this is the end of the conflict. Arafat's whole life has been governed by struggle and a cause ... [F]or him to end the conflict is to end himself…. Barak was able to reposition Israel internationally. Israel was seen as having demonstrated unmistakably it wanted peace, and the reason it [peace] wasn't … achievable was because
Arafat wouldn't accept."
Over the years, Malley has penned numerous op-eds condemning Israel, exonerating Palestinians, urging the U.S. to disengage from Israel to some degree, and recommending that America reach out to negotiate with its traditional Arab enemies such as Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Muqtada al-Sadr. Ed Lasky enumerates and summarizes some of these Malley writings as follows:
• "Playing Into Sharon's Hands": In this January 2002 piece, says Lasky, Malley "absolves Arafat of the responsibility to restrain terrorists and blames Israel for terrorism. He defends Arafat and hails him as '… the first Palestinian leader to recognize Israel, relinquish the objective of regaining all of historic Palestine and negotiate for a two-state solution based on the pre-1967 boundaries.'"
• "Rebuilding a Damaged Palestine": This May 2002 article accuses Israel's security operations of deliberately weakening Palestinian security forces (which themselves are replete with terrorists and thus make little or no effort to prevent terrorism), and calls for international forces to keep Israel in check.
• "Making the Best of Hamas's Victory": In this March 2006 piece, Malley recommends that nations worldwide establish relationships with, and send financial aid to, the Palestinians' newly elected, Hamas-led government.
Malley also alleges that Hamas' policies and Israeli policies are
essentially mirror images of one another. Writes Malley: "The Islamists (Hamas) ran on a campaign of effective government and promised to improve Palestinians' lives; they cannot do that if the international community turns its back." In Malley's calculus, the Hamas victory was a manifestation of Palestinian "anger at years of humiliation and loss of self-respect because of Israeli settlement expansion, Arafat's imprisonment, Israel's
incursions, Western lecturing and, most recently and tellingly, the threat of an aid cut off in the event of an Islamist success." In addition, Malley counsels the U.S. not to "discourage third-party unofficial contacts with [Hamas] in an attempt to moderate it."
• "Avoiding Failure with Hamas": This April 2006 article not only advocates international aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian government, but also suggests that a failure to extend such aid could trigger an environmental or public health crisis for Palestinians.
• "How to Curb the Tension in Gaza" (July 2006): Here, Malley and co-writer Gareth Evans condemn Israel for its military's efforts (in 2006) to recover Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who had been kidnapped and held hostage by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. The authors classify Israel's retaliatory actions as "collective punishment" that stands in "violation of international law."
• "Forget Pelosi: What About Syria?": In this April 2007 piece, Malley advocates U.S. and Israeli outreach to Syria, notwithstanding the latter's close affiliations with Hezbollah, Hamas, and al Qaeda in Iraq. He further contends that it is both unreasonable and unrealistic for Israel or Western nations to demand that Syria sever its ties with the aforementioned organizations or with Iran. He suggests, moreover, that if Israel were toreturn the Golan Heights (which it captured in the 1967 Six Day War, and again in the 1973 Yom Kippur War -- two conflicts sparked by Arab aggression) to Syrian control, Damascus would, as Lasky puts it, "somehow miraculously" pursue peace -- "after they get all they want."
• "Containing a Shiite Symbol of Hope": This October 2006 article advocates U.S. engagement with the fiercely anti-American Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite leader of the Mahdi Army in Iraq.
• "Middle East Triangle": Co-written with Hussein Agha, this January 2008 piece calls for Hamas and Fatah to end their bitter disputes and to join forces in an effort to derail what the authors view as Israel's attempt to "perpetuate Palestinian geographic and political division." Malley and Agha predict that such a strategy would prompt Hamas to: (a) abandon its longstanding quest to destroy Israel; and (b) encourage Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (a leading member of Fatah) to negotiate for a lasting peace with Israel.
• "The U.S. Must Look to its Own Mideast Interests": Co-written with Aaron David Miller, this September 2006 article urges the U.S. to engage with Syria and Hamas, rather than to "follow Israel's lead." Malley and Miller add: "A national unity government between Fatah and Hamas appears within reach, and the Europeans seem prepared to resume assistance to such a government once it takes shape. Should this happen, America shouldn't stand
in the way -- regardless of whether Hamas recognizes Israel or formally renounces violence. Instead, the United States should see this as an opportunity to achieve what is achievable: a Palestinian cease-fire involving all armed organizations, a halt to all Israeli offensive military actions, and the resumption of normal economic life for the Palestinian government and people."
• "A New Middle East": In this September 2006 article, Malley contends that Hezbollah's infamous attacks and kidnappings targeting Israelis (two months earlier) were motivated partly by that organization's desire to liberate Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails, and partly by pressure from Hezbollah's close allies, Syria and Iran.
In July 2006 Malley criticized the U.S. for allegedly remaining "on the sidelines" and being a "no-show" in the overall effort to bring peace to the nations of the Middle East. Exhorting the Bush administration to change its policy of refusing to engage diplomatically with terrorists and their sponsoring states, Malley stated: "Today the U.S. does not talk to Iran, Syria, Hamas, the elected Palestinian government or Hizballah…. The result has been a policy with all the appeal of a moral principle and all the effectiveness of a tired harangue."
In February 2004 Malley testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and recommended that the Arab-Israeli "Road Map for Peace" be abandoned because neither side had confidence that the other was bargaining in good faith. As Ed Lasky writes, "[Malley] advocated that a comprehensive settlement plan be imposed on the parties with the backing of the international community, including Arab and Moslem states. He anticipated that Israel would object with 'cries of unfair treatment' but counseled the plan be put in place regardless of such objections; he also suggested that waiting for a 'reliable Palestinian partner' was unnecessary."
According to Lasky, Malley's overarching political objectives include "a radical reshaping of decades of American foreign policy and a shredding of the role of morality in the formulation of American policy." "These policies," says Lasky, "would strengthen our enemies, empower dictatorships, and harm our allies."
One U.S. security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, states that Robert Malley "has expressed sympathy to Hamas and Hezbollah and [has] offered accounts of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that don't jibe with the facts."
In 2008, the Barack Obama presidential campaign severed its ties with Malley after the latter told the Times of London that he had been in regular contact with Hamas as part of his work for ICG.
The bigger picture was the fact that all of his associations represented a school of geopolitical thought that has been disastrous for the United States. It really started in the post Lyndon Johnson era, with the candidacy of Hubert Humphrey, but it's seeds were sewn with the incredible foreign policy failures of JFK.
But another, equally troublesome aspect of Obama, was that each time one of his questionable associates was brought into the light of day, the response was the same. He/She is not officially part of the campaign, he/she is not really a friend/adviser/associate, etc.
That person would be quietly jettisoned.
You all know the big names. But less well known was a gentleman named Robert Malley.
Malley has a particularly troublesome history. His father was a high ranking official of the Egyptian Communist Party, and Malley himself, has expressed violently anti Israeli views (despite his mother being a NY'er and Jewish) and anti American views (the same "America is the bad guy line of thought).
Worse, when Dennis Ross and Bill Clinton discussed the peace talks between Ehud Barack and Yasser Arafat, Malley, like another Obama adviser, Anthony Lake, claimed that Clinton and Ross were lying, and that the fault of the failure of the talks was Barack's.
This despite President Clinton affirming Barack's statement that the Israeli's had offered Arafat essentially EVERYTHING he asked for, including East Jerusalem.
So, this gentleman accused not only the President, but his boss, of lying.
During the campaign, it was revealed the Malley had been engaged in secret negotiations with Hamas.
The campaign went into spin mode immediately. Despite Malley having been presented as a "mainstream" foreign policy adviser, suddenly he was "not an official member of Obama's advisers". Had no official role, etc.
They also tried to spin it by saying that Malley had been talking to Hamas for years. Gee, great!
So, when I discussed this, I was pilloried.
Well, as Gomer Pyle used to say...."Soorprise, sooorprise, sooorprise"
Guess who received the first foreign policy assignment of the President elect?
Guess who is currently in negotiations with Syria, and their client, Hamas?
Malley was sent to Syria by Obama to discuss the beginning of the "change" in US mideast policy.
Oh, yeah, he is also being told to tell Egypt that they will be playing a more important role. Very smart considering the coming Islamic Revolution that will occur there upon Mubarak's death.
Below, is an article from Front Page Magazine describing in more detail both what Obama is doing, and what Malley's background is.
But that is not all.
Perhaps you remember the moment in the campaign when Hillary discovered that Obama's campaign had been secretly telling the Canadian government that Obama was lying on the campaign trail, that he wasn't ACTUALLY against NAFTA, but that he was just saying it to get elected?
You remember: that is what the actual Canadian officials who had been told that, reported to the US press.
Well, the gentleman that was engaged in THOSE back channel was a gentleman named Austan Goolsbee. And guess who's being considered for the chairmanship of the Council of Economic Advisers, or the Treasury Secretary Post? You got it!\
Yeah, I was wrong. I never would have guessed it would have happened this fast.
Obama's Road to Damascus
By John Perazzo
FrontPageMagazine.com
History will record that Barack Obama's first act of diplomacy as America's president-elect took place two days after his election victory, when he dispatched his senior foreign-policy adviser, Robert Malley, to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad—to outline for them the forthcoming administration's Mideast policy vis-à-vis those nations. An aide to Malley reports, "The tenor of the messages was that the Obama administration would take into greater account Egyptian and Syrian interests" than has President Bush. The Bush administration, it should be noted, has rightly recognized Syria to be not only a chief supporter of the al Qaeda insurgency in Iraq, but also the headquarters of the terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the longtime sponsor of Hamas—the terrorist army whose founding charter is irrevocably committed to the annihilation of Israel. Yet unlike President Bush, Obama and Malley have called for Israel to engage in peace negotiations with Syria.
A Harvard-trained lawyer and Rhodes Scholar, Robert Malley is no newcomer to the Obama team. In 2007, Obama selected him as a foreign policy adviser to his campaign. At the time, Malley was (and still is today) the Middle East and North Africa Program Director for the International Crisis Group (ICG), which receives funding from the Open Society Institute of George Soros (who, incidentally, serves on the ICG Executive Committee).
In his capacity with ICG, Malley directs a number of analysts who focus their attention most heavily on the Arab-Israeli conflict, the political and military developments in Iraq, and Islamist movements across the Middle East. Prior to joining ICG, Malley served as President Bill Clinton's Special Assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs (1998-2001), and as National Security Adviser Sandy Berger's Executive Assistant (1996-1998 ).
Robert Malley was raised in France. His lineage is noteworthy. His father, Simon Malley (1923-2006), was a key figure in the Egyptian Communist Party. A passionate hater of Israel, the elder Malley was a close friend and confidante of the late PLO terrorist Yasser Arafat; an inveterate critic of "Western imperialism"(my emphasis - remember my warnings that during an Obama administration you would hear constant reference to American imperialism and hegemony - two historic fictions); a supporter of various revolutionary "liberation movements," particularly the Palestinian cause; a beneficiary of Soviet funding; and a supporter of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
According to American Thinker news editor Ed Lasky, Simon Malley "participated in the wave of anti-imperialist and nationalist ideology that was sweeping the Third World [and] … wrote thousands of words in support of struggle against Western nations."
In a July 2001 op-ed which Malley penned for the New York Times, he alleged that Israeli—not Palestinian—inflexibility had caused the previous year's Camp David peace talks (brokered by Bill Clinton) to fall apart. This was one of several controversial articles Malley has written—some he co-authored with Hussein Agha, a former adviser to Arafat—blaming Israel and exonerating Arafat (the most prolific Jew-killer since Adolph Hitler) for the failure of the peace process.
Malley's identification of Israel as the cause of the Camp David impasse has been widely embraced by Palestinian and Arab activists around the world, by Holocaust deniers like Norman Finkelstein, and by anti-Israel publications such as Counterpunch. It should be noted that Malley's account of the Camp David negotiations is entirely inconsistent with the recollections of the key figures who participated in those talks—specifically, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, then-U.S. President Bill Clinton, and then-U.S. Ambassador Dennis Ross (Clinton's Middle East envoy).
Malley also has written numerous op-eds urging the U.S. to disengage from Israel to some degree, and recommending that America reach out to negotiate with its traditional Arab enemies such as Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah (a creature of Iran dedicated to the extermination of the Jews and death to America), and Muqtada al-Sadr (the Shiite terrorist leader in Iraq).
In addition, Malley has advised nations around the world to establish relationships with, and to send financial aid to, the Hamas-led Palestinian government in Gaza. In Malley's calculus, the electoral victory that swept Hamas into power in January 2006 was a manifestation of legitimate Palestinian "anger at years of humiliation and loss of self-respect because of Israeli settlement expansion, Arafat's imprisonment, Israel's incursions, [and] Western lecturing …"
Moreover, Malley contends that it is both unreasonable and unrealistic for Israel or Western nations to demand that Syria sever its ties with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or Iran. Rather, he suggests that if Israel were to return the Golan Heights (which it captured in the 1967 Six Day War, and again in the 1973 Yom Kippur War—two conflicts sparked by Arab aggression which sought so permanently wipe the Jewish state off the face of the earth) to Syrian control, Damascus would be inclined to pursue peace with Israel.
Malley has criticized the U.S. for allegedly remaining "on the sidelines" and being a "no-show" in the overall effort to bring peace to the nations of the Middle East. Exhorting the Bush administration to change its policy of refusing to engage diplomatically with terrorists and their sponsoring states, Malley wrote in July 2006: "Today the U.S. does not talk to Iran,
Syria, Hamas, the elected Palestinian government or Hezbollah…. The result has been a policy with all the appeal of a moral principle and all the effectiveness of a tired harangue."
This inclination to negotiate with any and all enemies of the U.S. and Israel—an impulse which Malley has outlined clearly and consistently—has had a powerful influence on Barack Obama.
It is notable that six months ago the Obama campaign and Malley hastily severed ties with one another after the Times of London reported that Malley had been meeting privately with Hamas leaders on a regular basis—something Obama had publicly pledged never to do. At the time, Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt minimized the significance of this monumentally embarrassing revelation, saying: "Rob Malley has, like hundreds of other
experts, provided informal advice to the campaign in the past. He has no formal role in the campaign and he will not play any role in the future."
But indeed, within hours after Obama's election victory, Malley was back as a key player in the president-elect's team of advisors—on his way to Syria.
Mr. Obama, meanwhile, received a most friendly communication from Hamas, congratulating him on his "historic victory."
===========================================================================
Who is Robert Malley?
• Middle East and North Africa Program Director for the International Crisis Group
• Formerly served as President Bill Clinton's Special Assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs
• Son of Simon Malley, a key figure in the Egyptian Communist Party
• Blamed Israel for the failed Camp David peace negotiations with Yasser Arafat in 2000
• Has co-written a number of op-ed pieces with Hussein Agha, a former adviser to Arafat
• Consistently condemns Israel, exonerates Palestinians, urges
U.S. disengagement from Israel, and recommends that America reach out to negotiate with its traditional Arab enemies
• Became foreign policy advisor to presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2007
A Harvard-trained lawyer and Rhodes Scholar, Robert Malley is the Middle East and North Africa Program Director for the International Crisis Group (ICG), which receives funding from the Open Society Institute (whose founder, George Soros, serves on the ICG Board and Executive Committee).
In his capacity with ICG, Malley directs a number of analysts based in Amman, Cairo, Beirut, Tel Aviv, and Baghdad. These analysts report periodically on the political, social and economic factors which they believe have the potential to spark conflict in those regions, and they make policy recommendations in an effort to defuse such threats. Covering events from from Iran to Morocco, Malley's team focuses most heavily on the
Arab-Israeli conflict, the political and military developments in Iraq, and Islamist movements across the Middle East.
Prior to joining ICG, Malley served as President Bill Clinton's Special Assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs (1998-2001); National Security Advisor Sandy Berger's Executive Assistant (1996-1998 ); and the National Security Council's Director for Democracy, Human Rights, and Humanitarian Affairs (1994-1996).
In 2007, Malley -- one of the most frequently quoted commentators on U.S. Middle East policy and Arab-Israeli strife -- became a foreign policy advisor to Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Malley was raised in France by his mother -- a native New Yorker named Barbara Silverstein -- and his father, Simon Malley, a key figure in the Egyptian Communist Party. Rabidly anti-Israel, Simon Malley was a confidante of the late PLO leader Yasser Arafat; an inveterate critic of "Western imperialism"; a supporter of various leftist revolutionary "liberation movements," particularly the Palestinian cause; a beneficiary of Soviet funding; and a supporter of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
In a July 2001 op-ed (titled "Fictions About the Failure at Camp David") which was published in the New York Times, Robert Malley (whose family, as noted above, had close ties to Yasser Arafat) alleged that Israeli -- not Palestinian -- inflexibility had caused the previous year's Camp David peace talks (brokered by Bill Clinton) to fail. This was one of several controversial articles Malley has written -- some he co-wrote with Hussein Agha, a former adviser to Arafat -- blaming Israel and exonerating Arafat for that failure.
In their August 9, 2001 piece, "Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors," Malley and Agha again dismissed claims that the Camp David talks had failed when "Ehud Barak's unprecedented offer" was met with "Yasser Arafat's uncompromising no." They wrote that Barak had taken an unnecessarily hard-line approach in negotiating with Arafat. According to Malley and Agha, Arafat believed that Barak was intent on "either forcing him to swallow an unconscionable deal or mobilizing the world to isolate and weaken the Palestinians if they refused to yield."
Malley's identification of Israel as the cause of the Camp David failure has been widely embraced by Palestinian and Arab activists around the world, by Holocaust deniers like Norman Finkelstein, and by anti-Israel publications such as Counterpunch. According to American Thinker news editor
Ed Lasky, Malley "was also believed to be the chief source for an article [dated July 26, 2001] by Deborah Sontag that whitewashed Arafat's role in the collapse of the peace process, an article that has been widely criticized as riddled with errors and bias."
Malley's account of the Camp David negotiations is entirely inconsistent with the recollections of the key figures who participated in those talks, most notably then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, U.S. President Bill Clinton, and U.S. Ambassador Dennis Ross (Clinton's Middle East envoy).
According to Ross, the peace efforts failed for one reason only: because Arafat wanted them to fail. "[F]undamentally," said Ross, "I do not believe he [Arafat] can end the conflict. We had one critical clause in this agreement, and that clause was, this is the end of the conflict. Arafat's whole life has been governed by struggle and a cause ... [F]or him to end the conflict is to end himself…. Barak was able to reposition Israel internationally. Israel was seen as having demonstrated unmistakably it wanted peace, and the reason it [peace] wasn't … achievable was because
Arafat wouldn't accept."
Over the years, Malley has penned numerous op-eds condemning Israel, exonerating Palestinians, urging the U.S. to disengage from Israel to some degree, and recommending that America reach out to negotiate with its traditional Arab enemies such as Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Muqtada al-Sadr. Ed Lasky enumerates and summarizes some of these Malley writings as follows:
• "Playing Into Sharon's Hands": In this January 2002 piece, says Lasky, Malley "absolves Arafat of the responsibility to restrain terrorists and blames Israel for terrorism. He defends Arafat and hails him as '… the first Palestinian leader to recognize Israel, relinquish the objective of regaining all of historic Palestine and negotiate for a two-state solution based on the pre-1967 boundaries.'"
• "Rebuilding a Damaged Palestine": This May 2002 article accuses Israel's security operations of deliberately weakening Palestinian security forces (which themselves are replete with terrorists and thus make little or no effort to prevent terrorism), and calls for international forces to keep Israel in check.
• "Making the Best of Hamas's Victory": In this March 2006 piece, Malley recommends that nations worldwide establish relationships with, and send financial aid to, the Palestinians' newly elected, Hamas-led government.
Malley also alleges that Hamas' policies and Israeli policies are
essentially mirror images of one another. Writes Malley: "The Islamists (Hamas) ran on a campaign of effective government and promised to improve Palestinians' lives; they cannot do that if the international community turns its back." In Malley's calculus, the Hamas victory was a manifestation of Palestinian "anger at years of humiliation and loss of self-respect because of Israeli settlement expansion, Arafat's imprisonment, Israel's
incursions, Western lecturing and, most recently and tellingly, the threat of an aid cut off in the event of an Islamist success." In addition, Malley counsels the U.S. not to "discourage third-party unofficial contacts with [Hamas] in an attempt to moderate it."
• "Avoiding Failure with Hamas": This April 2006 article not only advocates international aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian government, but also suggests that a failure to extend such aid could trigger an environmental or public health crisis for Palestinians.
• "How to Curb the Tension in Gaza" (July 2006): Here, Malley and co-writer Gareth Evans condemn Israel for its military's efforts (in 2006) to recover Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who had been kidnapped and held hostage by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. The authors classify Israel's retaliatory actions as "collective punishment" that stands in "violation of international law."
• "Forget Pelosi: What About Syria?": In this April 2007 piece, Malley advocates U.S. and Israeli outreach to Syria, notwithstanding the latter's close affiliations with Hezbollah, Hamas, and al Qaeda in Iraq. He further contends that it is both unreasonable and unrealistic for Israel or Western nations to demand that Syria sever its ties with the aforementioned organizations or with Iran. He suggests, moreover, that if Israel were toreturn the Golan Heights (which it captured in the 1967 Six Day War, and again in the 1973 Yom Kippur War -- two conflicts sparked by Arab aggression) to Syrian control, Damascus would, as Lasky puts it, "somehow miraculously" pursue peace -- "after they get all they want."
• "Containing a Shiite Symbol of Hope": This October 2006 article advocates U.S. engagement with the fiercely anti-American Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite leader of the Mahdi Army in Iraq.
• "Middle East Triangle": Co-written with Hussein Agha, this January 2008 piece calls for Hamas and Fatah to end their bitter disputes and to join forces in an effort to derail what the authors view as Israel's attempt to "perpetuate Palestinian geographic and political division." Malley and Agha predict that such a strategy would prompt Hamas to: (a) abandon its longstanding quest to destroy Israel; and (b) encourage Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (a leading member of Fatah) to negotiate for a lasting peace with Israel.
• "The U.S. Must Look to its Own Mideast Interests": Co-written with Aaron David Miller, this September 2006 article urges the U.S. to engage with Syria and Hamas, rather than to "follow Israel's lead." Malley and Miller add: "A national unity government between Fatah and Hamas appears within reach, and the Europeans seem prepared to resume assistance to such a government once it takes shape. Should this happen, America shouldn't stand
in the way -- regardless of whether Hamas recognizes Israel or formally renounces violence. Instead, the United States should see this as an opportunity to achieve what is achievable: a Palestinian cease-fire involving all armed organizations, a halt to all Israeli offensive military actions, and the resumption of normal economic life for the Palestinian government and people."
• "A New Middle East": In this September 2006 article, Malley contends that Hezbollah's infamous attacks and kidnappings targeting Israelis (two months earlier) were motivated partly by that organization's desire to liberate Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails, and partly by pressure from Hezbollah's close allies, Syria and Iran.
In July 2006 Malley criticized the U.S. for allegedly remaining "on the sidelines" and being a "no-show" in the overall effort to bring peace to the nations of the Middle East. Exhorting the Bush administration to change its policy of refusing to engage diplomatically with terrorists and their sponsoring states, Malley stated: "Today the U.S. does not talk to Iran, Syria, Hamas, the elected Palestinian government or Hizballah…. The result has been a policy with all the appeal of a moral principle and all the effectiveness of a tired harangue."
In February 2004 Malley testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and recommended that the Arab-Israeli "Road Map for Peace" be abandoned because neither side had confidence that the other was bargaining in good faith. As Ed Lasky writes, "[Malley] advocated that a comprehensive settlement plan be imposed on the parties with the backing of the international community, including Arab and Moslem states. He anticipated that Israel would object with 'cries of unfair treatment' but counseled the plan be put in place regardless of such objections; he also suggested that waiting for a 'reliable Palestinian partner' was unnecessary."
According to Lasky, Malley's overarching political objectives include "a radical reshaping of decades of American foreign policy and a shredding of the role of morality in the formulation of American policy." "These policies," says Lasky, "would strengthen our enemies, empower dictatorships, and harm our allies."
One U.S. security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, states that Robert Malley "has expressed sympathy to Hamas and Hezbollah and [has] offered accounts of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that don't jibe with the facts."
In 2008, the Barack Obama presidential campaign severed its ties with Malley after the latter told the Times of London that he had been in regular contact with Hamas as part of his work for ICG.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Iran in Trouble? Health care; and more musings...
1) One of the truly positive aspects of the plummeting oil prices is the effect on the Iranians.
Research indicates that Iran needs oil above $100/barrel in order to balance their budget. With prices now in the 60's and heading downward, the current government, already struggling with their economy for the last several years, may be in greater trouble.
On of the biggest failings of the Bush administration was the failure to continue the work of promoting the nascent democracy movement in Iran.
As is true in much of the middle east and Persian Gulf, many of the most radical governments have the most moderate populations, and vice versa.
There is still a segment of Iran, that while hating the Shah, enjoyed a Western style economy and daily life.
The only question is, will this economic pressure cause further radicalization, or force Iran back into the world community.
I hope the President elect uses these forces to pressure the Iranians to behave.
2) One of the very big positives, maybe the only one, of the spike in oil and gas prices this past year, was that we in the United States have cut our usage of gas by 10%.
Here in NY, we pay more at the pump than just about anywhere. My car takes Premium gas and I topped out in the $4.50 range.
Today, filling up, I paid $2.80. It was the first time in almost a year that I got change from a $50 after filling my tank.
What I fear, though, is that this positive conservationist impulse, brought on by prices, will diminish.
Let's hope not.
In addition, the high prices were what was causing the drive toward alternative fuels. Let us hope that the pressure on the new President and the new Congress is not lessened at all to actively and aggressively seek real, effective alternatives.
3) One of the truly important ideas floated by John McCain in his campaign, was the idea of severing health care from employment.
I fundamentally do not support single payer systems. As a Docs kid, and with many friends and contacts in the medical fields around the world, it is my distinct sense that individual care suffers under these systems.
They do even out coverage, but rather than bringing every one up, they tend to find a below median universality.
Worse, the government is incapable of running simple national programs. The waste, incompetence and cost of the government being the insurer of 50 million plus Americans is something I don't even want to consider!
The profit motive continues to drive innovation, both in equipment, research, and medications here in the States.
But, we have two insurance systems in NY that could be models for national systems to address two huge problems with the current system.
First: We have a universal child health insurance plan. They are not the best docs, but it guarantees all children coverage at very reasonable rates. I certainly think this can be recreated nationally.
With the obesity epidemic among children running rampant, I think this is crucial.
In addition, we here in NY have an auto insurance program which uses a private company (currently Allstate, I believe) to cover "high risk" drivers. i.e. those whose prior insurance companies have dropped them due to tickets or accidents. I also think this can be replicated nationally for health insurance..
Finally, getting back to McCain's idea. We currently operate with a program called "COBRA" which allows you to carry your previous employers insurance for 18 months after leaving their employment.
I think that an easy fix to a lot of the lack of coverage issues would be legislation mandating that COBRA be extended indefinitely.
There is no reason for coverage to be tied to current employers. If you are part of a group (which as you know, significantly reduces cost) at one time, you should always be able to be part of that group.
4) Many do not know this, but it has been discussed in some circles recently. The President elect, and his transition team do not have any official position. As such, they do not have security clearance.
In this election, this was somewhat mitigated by the fact that both candidates had Senatorial clearances.
However, for example, John Podesta, one of the chief architects of Obama's transition, would not have had security clearance in years past. Same with Valerie Jarrett and other important figures.
In 2004, President Bush signed an executive order establishing that the President elect and his designated transition team, be rapidly cleared and thus fully briefed on all matters of national security and other issues. Thus allowing the new President to "hit the ground running" so to speak. Kudos to him for this important innovation.
5) Finally, in 40 years of watching Presidential politics, I have never seen an election victor hold a Press conference standing at a podium with "Office of the President Elect" as an official sign.
Research indicates that Iran needs oil above $100/barrel in order to balance their budget. With prices now in the 60's and heading downward, the current government, already struggling with their economy for the last several years, may be in greater trouble.
On of the biggest failings of the Bush administration was the failure to continue the work of promoting the nascent democracy movement in Iran.
As is true in much of the middle east and Persian Gulf, many of the most radical governments have the most moderate populations, and vice versa.
There is still a segment of Iran, that while hating the Shah, enjoyed a Western style economy and daily life.
The only question is, will this economic pressure cause further radicalization, or force Iran back into the world community.
I hope the President elect uses these forces to pressure the Iranians to behave.
2) One of the very big positives, maybe the only one, of the spike in oil and gas prices this past year, was that we in the United States have cut our usage of gas by 10%.
Here in NY, we pay more at the pump than just about anywhere. My car takes Premium gas and I topped out in the $4.50 range.
Today, filling up, I paid $2.80. It was the first time in almost a year that I got change from a $50 after filling my tank.
What I fear, though, is that this positive conservationist impulse, brought on by prices, will diminish.
Let's hope not.
In addition, the high prices were what was causing the drive toward alternative fuels. Let us hope that the pressure on the new President and the new Congress is not lessened at all to actively and aggressively seek real, effective alternatives.
3) One of the truly important ideas floated by John McCain in his campaign, was the idea of severing health care from employment.
I fundamentally do not support single payer systems. As a Docs kid, and with many friends and contacts in the medical fields around the world, it is my distinct sense that individual care suffers under these systems.
They do even out coverage, but rather than bringing every one up, they tend to find a below median universality.
Worse, the government is incapable of running simple national programs. The waste, incompetence and cost of the government being the insurer of 50 million plus Americans is something I don't even want to consider!
The profit motive continues to drive innovation, both in equipment, research, and medications here in the States.
But, we have two insurance systems in NY that could be models for national systems to address two huge problems with the current system.
First: We have a universal child health insurance plan. They are not the best docs, but it guarantees all children coverage at very reasonable rates. I certainly think this can be recreated nationally.
With the obesity epidemic among children running rampant, I think this is crucial.
In addition, we here in NY have an auto insurance program which uses a private company (currently Allstate, I believe) to cover "high risk" drivers. i.e. those whose prior insurance companies have dropped them due to tickets or accidents. I also think this can be replicated nationally for health insurance..
Finally, getting back to McCain's idea. We currently operate with a program called "COBRA" which allows you to carry your previous employers insurance for 18 months after leaving their employment.
I think that an easy fix to a lot of the lack of coverage issues would be legislation mandating that COBRA be extended indefinitely.
There is no reason for coverage to be tied to current employers. If you are part of a group (which as you know, significantly reduces cost) at one time, you should always be able to be part of that group.
4) Many do not know this, but it has been discussed in some circles recently. The President elect, and his transition team do not have any official position. As such, they do not have security clearance.
In this election, this was somewhat mitigated by the fact that both candidates had Senatorial clearances.
However, for example, John Podesta, one of the chief architects of Obama's transition, would not have had security clearance in years past. Same with Valerie Jarrett and other important figures.
In 2004, President Bush signed an executive order establishing that the President elect and his designated transition team, be rapidly cleared and thus fully briefed on all matters of national security and other issues. Thus allowing the new President to "hit the ground running" so to speak. Kudos to him for this important innovation.
5) Finally, in 40 years of watching Presidential politics, I have never seen an election victor hold a Press conference standing at a podium with "Office of the President Elect" as an official sign.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Random musings...
Let me make something clear upfront. I am fully aware of, and appreciate the historic nature of this election. Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while may remember that more than a year ago I talked about the fact that the democrats were presenting, for the first time in our history, two candidates, either of whom, would make history. I also started to discuss my preference for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama.
Nothing would make me happier than an 8 year Obama Presidency, hallmarked by social justice, Promotion of democracy and freedom around the world, and economic prosperity for all.
I desperately want not just a figure with historical significance, but an historic Presidency.
As a social liberal at heart, and an intellectual, it does my heart good to see someone who does not fumble the English language representing us at the international tables (one of my favorite things about Bill Clinton. He was just smarter than everyone).
But here is where I am different. Perhaps it is growing up in the most multicultural city in the world, perhaps it is my athletic background, or my own dating and friendship history.
But just as when Geraldine Ferraro was nominated by the Democrats as the first major party VP candidate, and I immediately criticized the choice, I never looked at Barack Obama as an African American. Rather I view him as simply someone that represents, on virtually all issues, (other than choice: my other 2 big social issues, I am anti death penalty and anti gun and Obama supports both of those – not to mention my overwhelming support for gay marriage which he opposes), different views than mine.
My last post was from eminent African American professor Shelby Steele. I could not be in more agreement with his thesis that the very idea of this as a “post racial” election, was a fiction. That in fact, race was pre eminent at all times. The supreme effort at NOT talking about it, made it just as much a factor as talking about it.
I wish that Obama could have celebrated his "blackness" at all times, but still reflected respect and admiration for all that America is. THEN, and only then, would it not be an issue.
As a Jew, I am very aware of the idea of feelings collective guilt, and the tendency good people have to feel it. That is one of the things that separates moral people from immoral.
Thus, my views on the election were always based on fundamentals. In fact, for much of my life, simply because I don’t see race, ethnicity or color, it can sometimes appear that I am insensitive to it. Just the opposite. I am just past it.
The relationships that went unexamined of Obama’s were not of concern to me b/c of the silly and pointless drivel that the Republicans tried to connect. Rather, it is that all of these people, from his past, to his present, represent EXACLTY the views that Obama currently represents, both economically, and with regard to foreign policy.
Fundamentally it is that America is a colonial, hegemonic power. The natural successor to the oppressive pre World War II powers of France and Britain. It is their view that we are, essentially, a force of bad in the world. That our involvement outside our borders is harmful to others, and the creation of the fiction that we are disliked.
The other view, the one I prescribe to, is that we are a force for good. That we have not only a moral and ethical responsibility to use the incredible good fortune we have here in the United States, but a moral DUTY to do so.
Like ALL nations, and governments, we make mistakes. It is a fact of life that the bigger the effort, the bigger the mistakes and failures will be. But the motivation that drives America has always been to let the rest of the world see the light that we all enjoy every day.
The language that someone like Obama uses will not be easy for most to follow. But you will hear over the next 4 years discussions of not imposing our view, not foisting our policies, etc.
The less subtle of his supporters will directly use the words hegemony and imperialist.
And it has started already.
I was watching an interview on CSPan today with a professor of American studies discussing classroom teachings in this country. The moderator (an author of a book on textbooks in elementary schools) was expounding on the fact that the texts used in schools do exactly this. Blame America and highlite, almost to the exclusion of all else, the mistakes of our pasts.
The professor said that they did not go far enough. That he wished they would more openly discuss the “American Empire”.
As a student of history, and politics, I cringed. Not only was this an immediate vocalization of my fears, but it is an absolute and total fiction.
On a more direct level, what this belief system translates to is that our support of Israel is the cause of our difficulties in the world. More directly, that resolving the Israeli- so called Palestinian issue, will end our conflict with the Muslim world.
Jimmy Carter certainly proved this a myth. But even the most basic knowledge of AL Qaeda and Bin Laden should demonstrate that Bin Laden’s argument with the US was that we “infidels” had our feet on the ground in Mecca and Medina, Islam’s holy land, during the first Gulf War. It had nothing to do with Israel. Like most, however, and because the Saudis supported our efforts against Sadaam, he adopted the languge, later of supporting his “Palestinian” brothers.
The next issue has to do with my concern over this election and what it means for the parties.
I have heard musing from Obama supporters that this election has brought the country together.
This is never surprising to hear from the winners.
Here is my view. I come from a long line of NY political thought. Socially liberal, and fiscally and foreign policy conservative (2 terms I despise). Let me rephrase. Socially progressive, and anti Keynesian (Obama and his team are Keynesian). I believe in an active, interventionist foreign policy. I am MUCH more socially liberal than Barack, and more interventionist than the Bushites.
This has a long tradition in this area. Jacob Javits, Nelson Rockefeller, Ed Koch, Robert Kennedy, George Pataki, current NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the new Hillary Clinton, Maria Cuomo, etc.
This “school” of politics was started by Teddy Roosevelt, my original political hero. Roosevelt, while recognizing the need not to punish business, also began the process of breaking the trusts (although it was his successors who actually did it). He was the ultimate conservationist, while being a hunter. And of course, he is famed for building the Panama Canal, but as Secretary of the Navy and beyond, he believed in extending American power around the world to promote peace.
This school of political thought is now dead in our major parties. My real hope for this election was that Bloomberg might run and use his billions to build a viable third party, a centrist party.
But what happened in the election is that ALL the moderate, centrist Republicans lost. It was not the bible thumping right wingers that got defeated; it was people like my neighbor in Connecticut, Christopher Shays, a true centrist, that lost. This continued the trend from the last election, where extremely talented centrists like Jim Talent from Missouri lost. If Al Franken ends up defeating Norm Coleman in Minnesota, that will effectively mean the ONLY centrists left will be John McCain and Joe Lieberman.
Yes, McCain was, and is, a centrist. Both Lieberman and McCain were protégés of Henry “Scoop” Jackson, perhaps the model for this school of political ideology in the post war period.
Jackson was a so called conservative Democrat from Washington and my other great political hero.
But by painting McCain as another Bush, something so patently offensive and such a lie, that the democrats are now saying literally “we need John McCain’s help because he is the one true bipartisan left”!!!!, they have now made us MORE, not less, polarized.
The Republican party most likely will take this as a message that, like when Gerald Ford lost to Jimmy Carter, giving birth to Ronald Reagan (before Obama the President I most disagreed with, but whom I did not think was dangerous) they need to move, once again, far right. That is why you are now hearing the talk of Sarah Palin being the flag waver for the party.
My dream election would have been between Giuliani and Hillary: Two centrists whose views are so close, that it would have FORCED a close examination of the issues, not the lies of this campaign.
Obama is by far, the most left wing candidate this country has ever elected. And much to my fear, his first appointment, Rahm Emanuel, is a clear signal that the idea of bipartisanship, which he spent so much time discussing early, and then threw out, is now gone. Emanuel was Clinton’s most consistent and harsh, hard driving, left wing ideologue. More on him below.
As a note, you are seeing the Keynesian theories already being put into place. I dread, as I have written about in the past, the move toward socialistic control that the last rescue package contained, but now, we are hearing about “stimulus” packages.
As every example of this type of economics has proven, from the failure of the “New Deal;” to the socialist movements around the world, it NEVER works.
My next set of thoughts. Something that will be truly hard for most of you to appreciate. Focusing on Rahm Emanuel and what he means. I received numerous emails, and calls, from my non Jewish friends and commenters that I should be gratified that Emanuel was offered the chief of staff job. Why? Because he’s a Jew. Imagine saying that to a woman, a black, Puerto Rican, etc.
I would never say this directly, but none of those people even understood the blatant bigotry of this statement.
What this election proved is that racism is largely overblown (don’t get me wrong, I see it every day, in the treatment of my friends, but ultimately big picture, we have trusted the country to an African American), but to me, as I have always felt, anti Semitism continues to be a bigger issue. The idea that because Emanuel is a Jew, it means anything other than that Obama appointed the man who almost singlehandedly brought the Democrats back from oblivion and is the most powerful fundraising force they have in the House, is absurd.
Worse, for me, is that he was one of the chief, if not the Chief, architect of Clinton’s Oslo Accords, which came closer to destroying the state of Israel than any war in its’ 60 year history. By insisting that the Israelis arm Arafat and the newly created Palestinian Authority, without understanding that Arafat planned all along to use those weapons against Israel, he unleashed the horrors of the daily attacks in the 1990’s. It was not until Ariel Sharon was elected and Israeli’s gave up on Oslo that safety returned to Israel.
And we are already hearing the discussions of “pressuring” Israel to make these same concessions. As a result, it is now very likely that the Israeli’s will elect the right wing, Benjamin Netanyahu. My fear for the continuity of the Israel is at an all time high.
Obama and his people believe that Israel must be dissected down it’s middle to provide a contiguous Palestinian state. If anything tells you the views they hold, that should be it. The Israelis can be divided north and south, but not the Palestinians. They also believe the Golan Heights must be returned to Syria. The area that has been used as a staging ground for rocket attacks on Israel in every war. This is why the current indicted Prime Minister of Israel was at 2% popularity. Because he was actually entertaining this idea.
What most don’t understand is the two way nature of the Israeli/American relationship. The technology and training we receive from those on the front lines of the war on terror.
Finally, in what is a bizarre twist, this election means that we now have a government that will be, for the first time since WWII, politically left of the governments in France, Germany, Italy, Canada, and after the next elections, England.
Nothing would make me happier than an 8 year Obama Presidency, hallmarked by social justice, Promotion of democracy and freedom around the world, and economic prosperity for all.
I desperately want not just a figure with historical significance, but an historic Presidency.
As a social liberal at heart, and an intellectual, it does my heart good to see someone who does not fumble the English language representing us at the international tables (one of my favorite things about Bill Clinton. He was just smarter than everyone).
But here is where I am different. Perhaps it is growing up in the most multicultural city in the world, perhaps it is my athletic background, or my own dating and friendship history.
But just as when Geraldine Ferraro was nominated by the Democrats as the first major party VP candidate, and I immediately criticized the choice, I never looked at Barack Obama as an African American. Rather I view him as simply someone that represents, on virtually all issues, (other than choice: my other 2 big social issues, I am anti death penalty and anti gun and Obama supports both of those – not to mention my overwhelming support for gay marriage which he opposes), different views than mine.
My last post was from eminent African American professor Shelby Steele. I could not be in more agreement with his thesis that the very idea of this as a “post racial” election, was a fiction. That in fact, race was pre eminent at all times. The supreme effort at NOT talking about it, made it just as much a factor as talking about it.
I wish that Obama could have celebrated his "blackness" at all times, but still reflected respect and admiration for all that America is. THEN, and only then, would it not be an issue.
As a Jew, I am very aware of the idea of feelings collective guilt, and the tendency good people have to feel it. That is one of the things that separates moral people from immoral.
Thus, my views on the election were always based on fundamentals. In fact, for much of my life, simply because I don’t see race, ethnicity or color, it can sometimes appear that I am insensitive to it. Just the opposite. I am just past it.
The relationships that went unexamined of Obama’s were not of concern to me b/c of the silly and pointless drivel that the Republicans tried to connect. Rather, it is that all of these people, from his past, to his present, represent EXACLTY the views that Obama currently represents, both economically, and with regard to foreign policy.
Fundamentally it is that America is a colonial, hegemonic power. The natural successor to the oppressive pre World War II powers of France and Britain. It is their view that we are, essentially, a force of bad in the world. That our involvement outside our borders is harmful to others, and the creation of the fiction that we are disliked.
The other view, the one I prescribe to, is that we are a force for good. That we have not only a moral and ethical responsibility to use the incredible good fortune we have here in the United States, but a moral DUTY to do so.
Like ALL nations, and governments, we make mistakes. It is a fact of life that the bigger the effort, the bigger the mistakes and failures will be. But the motivation that drives America has always been to let the rest of the world see the light that we all enjoy every day.
The language that someone like Obama uses will not be easy for most to follow. But you will hear over the next 4 years discussions of not imposing our view, not foisting our policies, etc.
The less subtle of his supporters will directly use the words hegemony and imperialist.
And it has started already.
I was watching an interview on CSPan today with a professor of American studies discussing classroom teachings in this country. The moderator (an author of a book on textbooks in elementary schools) was expounding on the fact that the texts used in schools do exactly this. Blame America and highlite, almost to the exclusion of all else, the mistakes of our pasts.
The professor said that they did not go far enough. That he wished they would more openly discuss the “American Empire”.
As a student of history, and politics, I cringed. Not only was this an immediate vocalization of my fears, but it is an absolute and total fiction.
On a more direct level, what this belief system translates to is that our support of Israel is the cause of our difficulties in the world. More directly, that resolving the Israeli- so called Palestinian issue, will end our conflict with the Muslim world.
Jimmy Carter certainly proved this a myth. But even the most basic knowledge of AL Qaeda and Bin Laden should demonstrate that Bin Laden’s argument with the US was that we “infidels” had our feet on the ground in Mecca and Medina, Islam’s holy land, during the first Gulf War. It had nothing to do with Israel. Like most, however, and because the Saudis supported our efforts against Sadaam, he adopted the languge, later of supporting his “Palestinian” brothers.
The next issue has to do with my concern over this election and what it means for the parties.
I have heard musing from Obama supporters that this election has brought the country together.
This is never surprising to hear from the winners.
Here is my view. I come from a long line of NY political thought. Socially liberal, and fiscally and foreign policy conservative (2 terms I despise). Let me rephrase. Socially progressive, and anti Keynesian (Obama and his team are Keynesian). I believe in an active, interventionist foreign policy. I am MUCH more socially liberal than Barack, and more interventionist than the Bushites.
This has a long tradition in this area. Jacob Javits, Nelson Rockefeller, Ed Koch, Robert Kennedy, George Pataki, current NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the new Hillary Clinton, Maria Cuomo, etc.
This “school” of politics was started by Teddy Roosevelt, my original political hero. Roosevelt, while recognizing the need not to punish business, also began the process of breaking the trusts (although it was his successors who actually did it). He was the ultimate conservationist, while being a hunter. And of course, he is famed for building the Panama Canal, but as Secretary of the Navy and beyond, he believed in extending American power around the world to promote peace.
This school of political thought is now dead in our major parties. My real hope for this election was that Bloomberg might run and use his billions to build a viable third party, a centrist party.
But what happened in the election is that ALL the moderate, centrist Republicans lost. It was not the bible thumping right wingers that got defeated; it was people like my neighbor in Connecticut, Christopher Shays, a true centrist, that lost. This continued the trend from the last election, where extremely talented centrists like Jim Talent from Missouri lost. If Al Franken ends up defeating Norm Coleman in Minnesota, that will effectively mean the ONLY centrists left will be John McCain and Joe Lieberman.
Yes, McCain was, and is, a centrist. Both Lieberman and McCain were protégés of Henry “Scoop” Jackson, perhaps the model for this school of political ideology in the post war period.
Jackson was a so called conservative Democrat from Washington and my other great political hero.
But by painting McCain as another Bush, something so patently offensive and such a lie, that the democrats are now saying literally “we need John McCain’s help because he is the one true bipartisan left”!!!!, they have now made us MORE, not less, polarized.
The Republican party most likely will take this as a message that, like when Gerald Ford lost to Jimmy Carter, giving birth to Ronald Reagan (before Obama the President I most disagreed with, but whom I did not think was dangerous) they need to move, once again, far right. That is why you are now hearing the talk of Sarah Palin being the flag waver for the party.
My dream election would have been between Giuliani and Hillary: Two centrists whose views are so close, that it would have FORCED a close examination of the issues, not the lies of this campaign.
Obama is by far, the most left wing candidate this country has ever elected. And much to my fear, his first appointment, Rahm Emanuel, is a clear signal that the idea of bipartisanship, which he spent so much time discussing early, and then threw out, is now gone. Emanuel was Clinton’s most consistent and harsh, hard driving, left wing ideologue. More on him below.
As a note, you are seeing the Keynesian theories already being put into place. I dread, as I have written about in the past, the move toward socialistic control that the last rescue package contained, but now, we are hearing about “stimulus” packages.
As every example of this type of economics has proven, from the failure of the “New Deal;” to the socialist movements around the world, it NEVER works.
My next set of thoughts. Something that will be truly hard for most of you to appreciate. Focusing on Rahm Emanuel and what he means. I received numerous emails, and calls, from my non Jewish friends and commenters that I should be gratified that Emanuel was offered the chief of staff job. Why? Because he’s a Jew. Imagine saying that to a woman, a black, Puerto Rican, etc.
I would never say this directly, but none of those people even understood the blatant bigotry of this statement.
What this election proved is that racism is largely overblown (don’t get me wrong, I see it every day, in the treatment of my friends, but ultimately big picture, we have trusted the country to an African American), but to me, as I have always felt, anti Semitism continues to be a bigger issue. The idea that because Emanuel is a Jew, it means anything other than that Obama appointed the man who almost singlehandedly brought the Democrats back from oblivion and is the most powerful fundraising force they have in the House, is absurd.
Worse, for me, is that he was one of the chief, if not the Chief, architect of Clinton’s Oslo Accords, which came closer to destroying the state of Israel than any war in its’ 60 year history. By insisting that the Israelis arm Arafat and the newly created Palestinian Authority, without understanding that Arafat planned all along to use those weapons against Israel, he unleashed the horrors of the daily attacks in the 1990’s. It was not until Ariel Sharon was elected and Israeli’s gave up on Oslo that safety returned to Israel.
And we are already hearing the discussions of “pressuring” Israel to make these same concessions. As a result, it is now very likely that the Israeli’s will elect the right wing, Benjamin Netanyahu. My fear for the continuity of the Israel is at an all time high.
Obama and his people believe that Israel must be dissected down it’s middle to provide a contiguous Palestinian state. If anything tells you the views they hold, that should be it. The Israelis can be divided north and south, but not the Palestinians. They also believe the Golan Heights must be returned to Syria. The area that has been used as a staging ground for rocket attacks on Israel in every war. This is why the current indicted Prime Minister of Israel was at 2% popularity. Because he was actually entertaining this idea.
What most don’t understand is the two way nature of the Israeli/American relationship. The technology and training we receive from those on the front lines of the war on terror.
Finally, in what is a bizarre twist, this election means that we now have a government that will be, for the first time since WWII, politically left of the governments in France, Germany, Italy, Canada, and after the next elections, England.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Obama's post-racial promise By Shelby Steele
Obama's post-racial promise
Barack Obama seduced whites with a vision of their racial innocence precisely to coerce them into acting out of a racial motivation.
By Shelby Steele
November 5, 2008
For the first time in human history, a largely white nation has elected a black man to be its paramount leader. And the cultural meaning of this unprecedented convergence of dark skin and ultimate power will likely become -- at least for a time -- a national obsession. In fact, the Obama presidency will always be read as an allegory. Already we are as curious about the cultural significance of his victory as we are about its political significance.
Does his victory mean that America is now officially beyond racism? Does it finally complete the work of the civil rights movement so that racism is at last dismissible as an explanation of black difficulty? Can the good Revs. Jackson and Sharpton now safely retire to the seashore? Will the Obama victory dispel the twin stigmas that have tormented black and white Americans for so long -- that blacks are inherently inferior and whites inherently racist? Doesn't a black in the Oval Office put the lie to both black inferiority and white racism? Doesn't it imply a "post-racial" America? And shouldn't those of us -- white and black -- who did not vote for Mr. Obama take pride in what his victory says about our culture even aswe mourn our political loss?
Answering no to such questions is like saying no to any idealism; it seems callow. How could a decent person not hope for all these possibilities, or not give America credit for electing its first black president? And yet an element of Barack Obama's success was always his use of the idealism implied in these questions as political muscle. His talent was to project an idealized vision of a post-racial America -- and then to have that vision define political decency. Thus, a failure to support Obama politically implied a failure of decency.
Obama's special charisma -- since his famous 2004 convention speech -- always came much more from the racial idealism he embodied than from his political ideas. In fact, this was his only true political originality. On the level of public policy, he was quite unremarkable. His economics were the redistributive axioms of old-fashioned Keynesianism; his social thought was recycled Great Society. But all this policy boilerplate was freshened up -- given an air of "change" -- by the dreamy post-racial and post-ideological kitsch he dressed it in.
This worked politically for Obama because it tapped into a deep longing in American life -- the longing on the part of whites to escape the stigma of racism. In running for the presidency -- and presenting himself to a majority white nation -- Obama knew intuitively that he was dealing with a stigmatized people. He knew whites were stigmatized as being prejudiced, and that they hated this situation and literally longed for ways to disprove the stigma.
Obama is what I have called a "bargainer" -- a black who says to whites, "I will never presume that you are racist if you will not hold my race against me." Whites become enthralled with bargainers out of gratitude for the presumption of innocence they offer. Bargainers relieve their anxiety about being white and, for this gift of trust, bargainers are often rewarded with a kind of halo.
Obama's post-racial idealism told whites the one thing they most wanted to hear: America had essentially contained the evil of racism to the point at which it was no longer a serious barrier to black advancement. Thus, whites became enchanted enough with Obama to become his political base. It was Iowa -- 95% white -- that made him a contender. Blacks came his way only after he won enough white voters to be a plausible candidate.
Of course, it is true that white America has made great progress in curbing racism over the last 40 years. I believe, for example, that Colin Powell might well have been elected president in 1996 had he run against a then rather weak Bill Clinton. It is exactly because America has made such dramatic racial progress that whites today chafe so under the racist stigma. So I don't think whites really want change from Obama as much as they want documentation of change that has already occurred. They want him in the White House first of all as evidence, certification and recognition.
But there is an inherent contradiction in all this. When whites -- especially today's younger generation -- proudly support Obama for his post-racialism, they unwittingly embrace race as their primary motivation. They think and act racially, not post-racially. The point is that a post-racial society is a bargainer's ploy: It seduces whites with a vision of their racial innocence precisely to coerce them into acting out of a racial motivation. A real post-racialist could not be bargained with and would not care about displaying or documenting his racial innocence. Such a person would evaluate Obama politically rather than culturally.
Certainly things other than bargaining account for Obama's victory. He was a talented campaigner. He was reassuringly articulate on many issues -- a quality that Americans now long for in a president. And, in these last weeks, he was clearly pushed over the top by the economic terrors that beset the nation. But it was the peculiar cultural manipulation of racial bargaining that brought him to the political dance. It inflated him as a candidate, and it may well inflate him as a president.
There is nothing to suggest that Obama will lead America into true post-racialism. His campaign style revealed a tweaker of the status quo, not a revolutionary. Culturally and racially, he is likely to leave America pretty much where he found her.
But what about black Americans? Won't an Obama presidency at last lead us across a centuries-old gulf of alienation into the recognition that America really is our country? Might this milestone not infuse black America with a new American nationalism? And wouldn't this be revolutionary in itself? Like most Americans, I would love to see an Obama presidency nudge things in this direction. But the larger reality is the profound disparity between black and white Americans that will persist even under the glow of an Obama presidency. The black illegitimacy rate remains at 70%. Blacks did worse on the SAT in 2000 than in 1990. Fifty-five percent of all federal prisoners are black, though we are only 13% of the population. The academic achievement gap between blacks and whites persists even for the black middle class. All this disparity will continue to accuse blacks of inferiority and whites of racism -- thus refueling our racial politics -- despite the level of melanin in the president's skin.
The torture of racial conflict in America periodically spits up a new faith that idealism can help us "overcome" -- America's favorite racial word. If we can just have the right inspiration, a heroic role model, a symbolism of hope, a new sense of possibility. It is an American cultural habit to endure our racial tensions by periodically alighting on little islands of fresh hope and idealism. But true reform, like the civil rights victories of the '60s, never happens until people become exhausted with their suffering. Then they don't care who the president is.
Presidents follow the culture; they don't lead it. I hope for a competent president.
Shelby Steele is an author, columnist and senior fellow at Stanford
University's Hoover Institution.
Barack Obama seduced whites with a vision of their racial innocence precisely to coerce them into acting out of a racial motivation.
By Shelby Steele
November 5, 2008
For the first time in human history, a largely white nation has elected a black man to be its paramount leader. And the cultural meaning of this unprecedented convergence of dark skin and ultimate power will likely become -- at least for a time -- a national obsession. In fact, the Obama presidency will always be read as an allegory. Already we are as curious about the cultural significance of his victory as we are about its political significance.
Does his victory mean that America is now officially beyond racism? Does it finally complete the work of the civil rights movement so that racism is at last dismissible as an explanation of black difficulty? Can the good Revs. Jackson and Sharpton now safely retire to the seashore? Will the Obama victory dispel the twin stigmas that have tormented black and white Americans for so long -- that blacks are inherently inferior and whites inherently racist? Doesn't a black in the Oval Office put the lie to both black inferiority and white racism? Doesn't it imply a "post-racial" America? And shouldn't those of us -- white and black -- who did not vote for Mr. Obama take pride in what his victory says about our culture even aswe mourn our political loss?
Answering no to such questions is like saying no to any idealism; it seems callow. How could a decent person not hope for all these possibilities, or not give America credit for electing its first black president? And yet an element of Barack Obama's success was always his use of the idealism implied in these questions as political muscle. His talent was to project an idealized vision of a post-racial America -- and then to have that vision define political decency. Thus, a failure to support Obama politically implied a failure of decency.
Obama's special charisma -- since his famous 2004 convention speech -- always came much more from the racial idealism he embodied than from his political ideas. In fact, this was his only true political originality. On the level of public policy, he was quite unremarkable. His economics were the redistributive axioms of old-fashioned Keynesianism; his social thought was recycled Great Society. But all this policy boilerplate was freshened up -- given an air of "change" -- by the dreamy post-racial and post-ideological kitsch he dressed it in.
This worked politically for Obama because it tapped into a deep longing in American life -- the longing on the part of whites to escape the stigma of racism. In running for the presidency -- and presenting himself to a majority white nation -- Obama knew intuitively that he was dealing with a stigmatized people. He knew whites were stigmatized as being prejudiced, and that they hated this situation and literally longed for ways to disprove the stigma.
Obama is what I have called a "bargainer" -- a black who says to whites, "I will never presume that you are racist if you will not hold my race against me." Whites become enthralled with bargainers out of gratitude for the presumption of innocence they offer. Bargainers relieve their anxiety about being white and, for this gift of trust, bargainers are often rewarded with a kind of halo.
Obama's post-racial idealism told whites the one thing they most wanted to hear: America had essentially contained the evil of racism to the point at which it was no longer a serious barrier to black advancement. Thus, whites became enchanted enough with Obama to become his political base. It was Iowa -- 95% white -- that made him a contender. Blacks came his way only after he won enough white voters to be a plausible candidate.
Of course, it is true that white America has made great progress in curbing racism over the last 40 years. I believe, for example, that Colin Powell might well have been elected president in 1996 had he run against a then rather weak Bill Clinton. It is exactly because America has made such dramatic racial progress that whites today chafe so under the racist stigma. So I don't think whites really want change from Obama as much as they want documentation of change that has already occurred. They want him in the White House first of all as evidence, certification and recognition.
But there is an inherent contradiction in all this. When whites -- especially today's younger generation -- proudly support Obama for his post-racialism, they unwittingly embrace race as their primary motivation. They think and act racially, not post-racially. The point is that a post-racial society is a bargainer's ploy: It seduces whites with a vision of their racial innocence precisely to coerce them into acting out of a racial motivation. A real post-racialist could not be bargained with and would not care about displaying or documenting his racial innocence. Such a person would evaluate Obama politically rather than culturally.
Certainly things other than bargaining account for Obama's victory. He was a talented campaigner. He was reassuringly articulate on many issues -- a quality that Americans now long for in a president. And, in these last weeks, he was clearly pushed over the top by the economic terrors that beset the nation. But it was the peculiar cultural manipulation of racial bargaining that brought him to the political dance. It inflated him as a candidate, and it may well inflate him as a president.
There is nothing to suggest that Obama will lead America into true post-racialism. His campaign style revealed a tweaker of the status quo, not a revolutionary. Culturally and racially, he is likely to leave America pretty much where he found her.
But what about black Americans? Won't an Obama presidency at last lead us across a centuries-old gulf of alienation into the recognition that America really is our country? Might this milestone not infuse black America with a new American nationalism? And wouldn't this be revolutionary in itself? Like most Americans, I would love to see an Obama presidency nudge things in this direction. But the larger reality is the profound disparity between black and white Americans that will persist even under the glow of an Obama presidency. The black illegitimacy rate remains at 70%. Blacks did worse on the SAT in 2000 than in 1990. Fifty-five percent of all federal prisoners are black, though we are only 13% of the population. The academic achievement gap between blacks and whites persists even for the black middle class. All this disparity will continue to accuse blacks of inferiority and whites of racism -- thus refueling our racial politics -- despite the level of melanin in the president's skin.
The torture of racial conflict in America periodically spits up a new faith that idealism can help us "overcome" -- America's favorite racial word. If we can just have the right inspiration, a heroic role model, a symbolism of hope, a new sense of possibility. It is an American cultural habit to endure our racial tensions by periodically alighting on little islands of fresh hope and idealism. But true reform, like the civil rights victories of the '60s, never happens until people become exhausted with their suffering. Then they don't care who the president is.
Presidents follow the culture; they don't lead it. I hope for a competent president.
Shelby Steele is an author, columnist and senior fellow at Stanford
University's Hoover Institution.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
The Horror begins...
As I have written to several friends and on some blogs here, the election of Barack Obama signals a number of things.
I will discuss those in some length shortly.
However, what it means "on the ground" around the world, is two immediate things.
First, I told people, there will be a new Iran-Israel War fought, as it was last time, in Lebanon, by Iran's surrogate, Hezbollah.
The second thing that I told people will happen, is the rebirth of the Soviet Union. Vladimir Putin was testing the American candidates with his invasion of Georgia last month.
The Russians will invade Georgia, and re annex it. And they will invade the Ukraine as well. Perhaps even Turkmenistan, and Armenia, and others.
However, even I could not have imagined how fast it would happen.
Today, as a result of Obama's election, Putin's puppet, Medvedev announced that Russia is redeploying missiles on the Polish border in specific celebration of the election!
The Second cold War has begun. Thank you America.
I will discuss those in some length shortly.
However, what it means "on the ground" around the world, is two immediate things.
First, I told people, there will be a new Iran-Israel War fought, as it was last time, in Lebanon, by Iran's surrogate, Hezbollah.
The second thing that I told people will happen, is the rebirth of the Soviet Union. Vladimir Putin was testing the American candidates with his invasion of Georgia last month.
The Russians will invade Georgia, and re annex it. And they will invade the Ukraine as well. Perhaps even Turkmenistan, and Armenia, and others.
However, even I could not have imagined how fast it would happen.
Today, as a result of Obama's election, Putin's puppet, Medvedev announced that Russia is redeploying missiles on the Polish border in specific celebration of the election!
The Second cold War has begun. Thank you America.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Devastating
I was just sent a link from an interview that Michelle and Barack Obama did just before his announcement of his candidacy (of course, he's been running for 20 years...).
When asked about all the rumours that he was about to announce Michelle Obama said, with Barack seated right next to her, quote "It's way too soon. He hasn't done anything yet".
Ah, yes, the truth can hurt.
You can go to that famous site with all the videos and see the clip. Along with every one of his supporters being asked what he has accomplished, simply unable to say anything. And this is from Chris Mathew's Hardball, a show that has dedicated itself to his election.
Try this tag "Why I'm voting for Obama".
When asked about all the rumours that he was about to announce Michelle Obama said, with Barack seated right next to her, quote "It's way too soon. He hasn't done anything yet".
Ah, yes, the truth can hurt.
You can go to that famous site with all the videos and see the clip. Along with every one of his supporters being asked what he has accomplished, simply unable to say anything. And this is from Chris Mathew's Hardball, a show that has dedicated itself to his election.
Try this tag "Why I'm voting for Obama".
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
