Throwing grandma under the bus
My strongest reaction to Obama’s speech yesterday was revulsion at his self-serving usage of his grandmother.
Seems I’m hardly alone. Just take a look at LGF’s “Obama: My Grandmother Is a Racist Too” thread for some examples.
My favorite, however, is the following ditty, a riff on the old chestnut “My Mother Was a Lady:”
My Grandma Was A Racist
–with apologies to the old ballad, “My Mother Was A Lady”
Two reporters attended a campaign event one day
They discussed all the hateful things the Reverend Wright did say
His loud “God damn Americas,” his hatred of the whites,
And wondered how these things appeared in the candidate’s sight
At first Obama shrugged them off and did not make reply
When suddenly an angry gleam was flashing in his eye
He surrounded himself with flags of white and blue and red
And mounting to the microphone, he cleared his throat and said
“My grandma was a racist, like yours, you will allow
I’ll trash her to the world to make the Rev. look better now
I soaked up his rants for two decades, and best believe you me,
I would no more reject him than the black community.”
The two sat there in silence, and one’s head hung low in shame
To see the cynicism with which Barack trashed his grandma’s name
The other heard the words and felt a thrill run up his leg
Declared Obama Lincolnesque, ran up to him, and begged,
‘Continue as a candidate, and hold up high your head
Bring hope and bring change to us, for I loved the way you said,
“My grandma was a racist, like yours, you will allow
I’ll trash her to the world to make the Rev. look better now
I soaked up his rants for two decades, and best believe you me,
I would no more reject him than the black community.”‘
[NOTE: And please read what actually happened to Obama’s grandmother as he previously related the story in his book. Turns out she was nearly mugged, and her allegedly racist comment was made not in front of Obama but reported secondhand by his grandfather. Obama’s grandmother appears to have mentioned to the grandfather that the aggressive panhandler who bothered her was black, and the grandfather told Obama that was the real reason she was afraid.]
It’s sad, after that speech, that the only thing you can see to do is
A) ignore the context of his reference to his grandmother within the speech
B) ignore the extra background provided in his book, wherein the same question of his grandmother’s character is discussed at length
and
C) stick your fingers in your ears and say “nyah-nyah” with regard to the structure of his argument, the complexities of the issue, and the hard facts to be faced here.
This was in no way “throwing her under the bus.” That’s literally a ludicrous statement, borne of willful stupidity on your part, and the part of the right-wing partisans you have linked to.
I say this as an uncommitted independent, with no clear sense as to whether I will vote for McCain or Obama in the fall. This isn’t about Obama in particular. It’s about the nature of discussion and argument, and the pathetic eagerness of so many human beings to retreat into intellectual bomb shelters when presented with nuanced arguments. Reading that speech and coming away “insulted” reflects very, very poorly on you.
I read your 9/11 series with great interest, and had much sympathy for your travails, as well as admiration for your courage and growth while reforming your worldview. But it’s been a while since I’ve been by your blog. I don’t expect I’ll be by again.
“I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely — just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed. ”
For 20 years Obama has heard “controversial remarks” while sitting and saying nothing. For 20 years Obama has heard “critical” remarks about American domestic and foreign policy. He admits he heard it while even sitting in the church. He sat for 20 years and said nothing. Why denounce his “former pastor” now? Why not then, the first time you heard it? Is it because of political maneuvering? Sounds like it.
Of all this talk about how Obama has character, I really don’t see it here. Obama is not a movement, if you believe it, you’ve been tricked. Obama is a politician, nothing more nothing else.
Chris, what is the “structure of his argument,” other than “Whitey is responsible for all of our ills, more money will solve them, and even though I don’t say the same stuff as Rev. Wright, I still believe it, otherwise I would have left long ago”?
There is nothing in that speech that is “nuanced,” other than racism couched in flowery prose. Obama is just a smarter Sharpton with better speechwriters.
Obama, hits bottom… keeps digging.
Chris Says:
“stick your fingers in your ears and say “nyah-nyah” with regard to the structure of his argument, the complexities of the issue, and the hard facts to be faced here.”
Not ignoring it, just not buying it.
Chris—-
Structure of the argument: moral equivalence, denial of his own responsibility for having a man such as Wright as his spiritual mentor, and more of the same-old same-old liberal policies.
Did you read what I wrote yesterday? Only a small part of it was about the grandmother. And yet I think it’s a very telling detail in psychological terms. It’s a matter for Obama’s therapist, not for a national speech.
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Obama’s therapist. now there is an interesting thought. how would he select such? is there a book to determine the level of confirmational bias before you attend? looking for a ‘progressive’ ‘liberal’ doctor that favors freud and adorno. must recognize patients greatness. PC understanding, moral imbicility, a plus.
Yes, when Grandma raised you for so many years, Obama’s recent remarks could be construed as throwing her under the bus. Another way of construing his remarks is to say that they pointed out the existential insecurity of Obama, truly the Man without a Country, without roots. His father abandoned him. As an interracial child from the US living in Indonesia, he had to have felt to some degree that he didn’t belong. He lived 7-8 years not with his mother, but with his grandparents. Whether or not he chose to live with his grandparents instead of with his mother, or whether or not his mother shipped him out, his living away from his mother for so many years indicates a certain amount of alienation of affection between Obama and his mother. My interpretation of Obama’s recent remarks about his grandmother is that he was saying, “Not even with my grandmother did I feel secure.” IOW, Obama’s recent remarks about his grandmother say much more about Obama than they do about his grandmother.
His existential insecurity is one reason, in addition to political expediency, why Obama latched on to Jeremiah Wright. Wright wasn’t just the guy who provided Obama with snooze time on Sunday mornings. Wright was an important person for Obama. Like Grandma, Jeremiah can also be thrown under the bus.
OTOH, here Obama was in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation. After all, people such as myself, who in any event probably wouldn’t vote for Obama, were demanding that Obama throw Wright under the bus.
If you actually read and think about what he is saying – it is clear that he was bothered by his grandmother’s words. What is wrong with that? If your grandmother made a certain comment involving race [no matter how small] would it not bother you??
You note is was secondhand from his grandfather. This implies that you think his grandfather was lying.
You almost save yourself by rightly noting that this one bit was a small section of the speech.
And the whole therapist remark is just insulting. It implies that Obama is not normal.
More importantly your partisan view is such that there is NOTHING Obama could say that would be sufficient at this point. Too bad. But this was probably the case from day one of his candidacy.
meanwhile…
On March 17, 2008 the European Union displaced the United States of America as the world’s largest economy. The Soviet Union, having missed its opportunity during the Great Depression, has waited ninety years to push the USA into the abyss of history.
NATO fighter jets intercept Russian bombers near Norway today
independent Moscow Times features this picture, with caption: “Soldiers riding in armored personnel carriers, foreground, and infantry fighting vehicles, background, as they rehearse Tuesday for the Victory Day parade on Red Square. The exercises for the May 9 holiday celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany took place at a training field in the town of Alabino outside Moscow.”
The May 9 military parade in Red Square will be the first since 1990 and will include BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles, BTR-80 armored personnel carriers, T-90 tanks, Topol-M ICBM mobile launchers, and Tu-160 and Tu-95MS strategic bombers.
and i guess the asians know more than the average american
Obama’s women reveal his secret
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/JB26Aa01.html
Cherchez la femme,” advised Alexander Dumas in: “When you want to uncover an unspecified secret, look for the woman.” In the case of Barack Obama, we have two: his late mother, the went-native anthropologist Ann Dunham, and his rancorous wife Michelle. Obama’s women reveal his secret: he hates America.
==================
America is not the embodiment of hope, but the abandonment of one kind of hope in return for another. America is the spirit of creative destruction, selecting immigrants willing to turn their back on the tragedy of their own failing culture in return for a new start. Its creative success is so enormous that its global influence hastens the decline of other cultures. For those on the destruction side of the trade, America is a monster. Between half and nine-tenths of the world’s 6,700 spoken languages will become extinct in the next century, and the anguish of dying peoples rises up in a global cry of despair. Some of those who listen to this cry become anthropologists, the curators of soon-to-be extinct cultures; anthropologists who really identify with their subjects marry them. Obama’s mother, the University of Hawaii anthropologist Ann Dunham, did so twice.
Obama profiles Americans the way anthropologists interact with primitive peoples. He holds his own view in reserve and emphatically draws out the feelings of others; that is how friends and colleagues describe his modus operandi since his days at the Harvard Law Review, through his years as a community activist in Chicago, and in national politics. Anthropologists, though, proceed from resentment against the devouring culture of America and sympathy with the endangered cultures of the primitive world. Obama inverts the anthropological model: he applies the tools of cultural manipulation out of resentment against America. The probable next president of the United States is a mother’s revenge against the America she despised.
does Haversham come to mind from great expectations?
Naivete” is a euphemism for Ann Dunham’s motivation. Friends describe her as a “fellow traveler”, that is, a communist sympathizer, from her youth, according to a March 27, 2007, Chicago Tribune report. Many Americans harbor leftist views, but not many marry into them, twice. Ann Dunham met and married the Kenyan economics student Barack Obama, Sr, at the University of Hawaii in 1960, and in 1967 married the Indonesian student Lolo Soetero.
Soetero had been sponsored as a graduate student by one of the most radical of all Third World governments. Sukarno had founded the so-called Non-Aligned Movement as an anti-colonialist turn at the 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia. Before deposing him in 1967, Indonesia’s military slaughtered 500,000 communists (or unfortunates who were mistaken for communists). When Ann Dunham chose to follow Lolo Soetero to Indonesia in 1967, she brought the six-year-old Barack into the kitchen of anti-colonialist outrage, immediate following one of the worst episodes of civil violence in post-war history.
Dunham’s experience in Indonesia provided the material for a doctoral dissertation celebrating the hardiness of local cultures against the encroaching metropolis. It was entitled, “Peasant blacksmithing in Indonesia: surviving against all odds”. In this respect Dunham remained within the mainstream of her discipline. Anthropology broke into popular awareness with Margaret Mead’s long-discredited Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), which offered a falsified ideal of sexual liberation in the South Pacific as an alternative to the supposedly repressive West. Mead’s work was one of the founding documents of the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and anthropology faculties stood at the left-wing fringe of American universities.
and meades work is now known to be a sham. meanwhiel boas turned out to be a spy… and freidan wrote for the CPUSA before she was married to a very wealthy socialist. she destroyed the poor man later on.
In the Global South, anthropologists went into the field and took matters a step further. Peru’s brutal Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerilla movement was the brainchild of the anthropologist Efrain Morote Best, who headed the University of San Cristobal of Huamanga in Ayacucho, Peru, between 1962 and 1968. Dunham’s radicalism was more vicarious; she ended her career as an employee of international organizations.
===========
Radical anti-Americanism, rather than Islam, was the reigning faith in the Dunham household. In the Muslim world of the 1960s, nationalism rather than radical Islam was the ideology of choice among the enraged. Radical Islam did not emerge as a major political force until the nationalism of a Gamal Abdel Nasser or a Sukarno failed.
==============
He has the empathetic skill set of an anthropologist who lives with his subjects, learns their language, and elicits their hopes and fears while remaining at emotional distance. That is, he is the political equivalent of a sociopath. The difference is that he is practicing not on a primitive tribe but on the population of the United States.
There is nothing mysterious about Obama’s methods. “A demagogue tries to sound as stupid as his audience so that they will think they are as clever as he is,” wrote Karl Krauss. Americans are the world’s biggest suckers, and laugh at this weakness in their popular culture. Listening to Obama speak, Sinclair Lewis’ cynical tent-revivalist Elmer Gantry comes to mind, or, even better, Tyrone Power’s portrayal of a carnival mentalist in the 1947 film noire Nightmare Alley. The latter is available for instant viewing at Netflix, and highly recommended as an antidote to having felt uplifted by an Obama speech.
America has the great misfortune to have encountered Obama at the peak of his powers at its worst moment of vulnerability in a generation. With malice aforethought, he has sought out their sore point.
Since the Ronald Reagan boom began in 1984, the year the American stock market doubled, Americans have enjoyed a quarter-century of rising wealth. Even the collapse of the Internet bubble in 2000 did not interrupt the upward trajectory of household assets, as the housing price boom eclipsed the effect of equity market weakness. America’s success made it a magnet for the world’s savings, and Americans came to believe that they were riding a boom that would last forever, as I wrote recently [1].
the whole article is interesting, and it certainly has a different tone than the left american press.
Unfortunately, American blacks have been wallowing in that kind of slop (Jeremiah Wright’s hate-isms) ever since the late 60s and early 70s. About the same time the civil rights movement switched from an “equal rights” movement to a “preferential rights” movement.
If you don’t understand the viewpoint of so many black Americans, you can’t ever understand why Obama has to stick to Wright’s basic message, while claiming to distance himself from the more blatantly anti-American aspects of it.
Obama has nothing to contribute to American society except to force all Americans wallow in the same pig slop that he chose to wallow in over 20 years ago.\
Vote for Obama, vote for slavery reparations before hispanics reach a critical mass in the US and put an end to that nonsense forever.
Al Fin
And you don’t have racist views because…?
Chris said,
“It’s about the nature of discussion and argument, and the pathetic eagerness of so many human beings to retreat into intellectual bomb shelters when presented with nuanced arguments.”
Where I work (academia), when someone uses the word “nuanced” it’s really code for “I’m so much smater than you, and you are really too stupid to understand complex ideas like I do.” My radar for being insulted goes in high alert when I hear that overused word. It’s just a subtle form of ad hominiem attack.
The ‘grandma” thing doesn’t really bother me too much. The key issue which Obama hasn’t addressed is the one Thomas Sowell has pointed out at National Review: “What did he know and when did he know it?”
physics
In other words: “Are you now or have you ever been…[fill in the blank]?”
Sounds like guilt by association to me.
Matt resorts immediately to calling people racist.
Matt: That might work at whatever University you attend.. but you’re with adults here.. and your little words don’t mean shit.
Calling someone a racist doesn’t releive you of the need to make an actual argument.
We are all making this too difficult. His reverend has committed sedition and treason in time of war. Candidate Obama either does not know this, does not care, or approves.
Your choice which; they all disqualify him for office.
Matt — For 20 years He sat in that church, donated big bucks to that church, and had “Old crazy uncle” as an adviser. That’s a pretty big association.
Somehow I get the feeling that if it just suddenly came out now that Bush went to a “White Power” church with it’s very on version of “Old crazy uncle”, and Bush decided to dump him * ONLY NOW*, (since he’s been caught) you would not be standing up for him crying “guilt by association!”.
Guess what? That line’s not gonna fly with a lot of people.
And another thing? If Obama doesn’t have the guts to stand up Wright, wtf makes you think he has guts enough to stand up to Iran, N. Korea, or hell –even Mexico or Canada to renegotiate NAFTA? OH wait, that’s right — he really isn’t going to do that, silly me!
Matt Says:
March 19th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
“More importantly your partisan view is such that there is NOTHING Obama could say that would be sufficient at this point.”
There really is no good excuse for going to that church… no. Even if partisans on the other side wish it would just go away…
In the middle, it will only be a bump in the road if it the only bad thing in his history (setting aside his response, which is adding to the negatives)… lets see if it becomes a pattern… with what else comes up now that the media is actually looking…
Uh-huh Says:
“Somehow I get the feeling that if it just suddenly came out now that Bush went to a “White Power” church with it’s very on version of “Old crazy uncle”, and Bush decided to dump him * ONLY NOW*”
So true… and it just shows that turning arguments around… to look at them from other ways is the best test for bias…
Matt Says:
“In other words: “Are you now or have you ever been…[fill in the blank]?”
Sounds like guilt by association to me.”
Attended a white power church? No… not even once by accident without inhaling, no. Let alone for 20 years… I got suckered into a unitarian (leftist power!) one once, but never went back.
My grandfather said some things I was not comfortable with either, but that does not mean I would sit and listen to this bigot for 20 years and not say anything.
Obama is saying that his grandmother feeling afraid of black men on the street is the same thing as Wright accusing the US of creating the AIDS virus. That is disgusting.
You see this is not about his grandmother. There is a big difference between some remarks she may have made to Barack when he was a kid or something and Reverend Wright screaming this crap from the pulpit for decades.
That is a ridiculous comparison and an insult to his grandmother.
A while ago Michelle Obama gave a speech in which she stated that her husband faced the strong possibility of being attacked in as common a situation as being in a gas station – simply for being a black man. She was not clear about who the attacker might be and left it to the imagination of the listener to draw his own conclusions, but the clear impression was that there must be a racial motivation.
The point as I took it was that this ugly possibility was the result of rampant white hate and violence. If my impression is correct, then is Michelle not guilty of the same prejudices as granny, but with another race?
A while ago MIchelle Obama gave a speech in which whe stated that her husband faced the strong possibility of being attacked in as common a situation as going to a gas station – simply for being a black man. Michelle was not clear about who the attacker might be and left it to the imagination of the listener to draw his own conclusions, but the clear impression was that there must be a racial motivation.
The point, as I took it, was that this ugly possibility was the result of rampant white hate and vioence. If I am correct, then is not Michelle not guilty of the same prejudices as granny, but against another race?
“In some ways, this controversy has actually shaken me up a little bit and gotten me back into remembering that the odds of me getting elected have always been lower than some of the other conventional candidates,” the Illinois senator told CNN’s Anderson Cooper in an exclusive one-on-one interview.
–Oh, it’s all about my race … no need to break a sweat Obama, just kick back on the race card — this is really revolting for a grown man to do, not to mention someone who is running for president — the odds of Obama becoming president will be determined by the content of your character which includes your sense of respect, judgment and perspective, all of which seem grossly skewed.
The next speech we’ll hear from Obama will be titled, “My resignation and why America is not ready for a black President”
Boo hoo hoo hoo
Want to see Obama even more exposed as the empty shell that he is.. watch this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y7OFLl3asg
re: the Update. Yes, I didn’t accept that inherently flimsy “racist Grandma” story to begin with. At the most it sounded like Grandma might have been reasonably afraid in some situation in which anybody might have felt endangered, especially a lone female, regardless of the race of the perceived threat. Plus Grandma is apparently dead, so there’s not much risk from her as a primary source.
But thanks for lying and proving it to us once more, B.O..
Obama is empty.
There are certain perils in being progeny of a mixed marriage (culturally, ethnically or religiously): difficulty of finding proper self-identification. This is a receipt for arising of neurotical personality, hating a part of his undeniable heritage, and so hating a part of himself. Not a good prospect for personal integrity.
I do not see supposition that Obama is not normal any bit insulting. Discussing sanity of presidental candidates is perfectly appropriate, it is even necessary. If you fear your life being scrutinized, do not throw your hat in the ring. Nation has every right to be ensured that it will not be ruled by a psychopath or neurotic.
Your “revulsion” Neo? I’d suggest that your bias prevents you from even understanding the speech, or at least to pretend misunderstanding, tho admittedly the speach was a political one. But I’d suggest that Sen Obama was trying to make a point about the commonality of white and black America, including our shared fears. (And your parsing of his book–“what acutally happened”–beggars belief).
They’re capitulation to gangsterism and the sonic blast of ahistorical revisionism is in PERFECT TUNING with their capitulation and alliance to the same international network … and the fringe followers sympathize (Carolyn Kennedy sorts) because they don’t wanna be seen as elitist, they want to be … what are monarchs without an ever-praising segment of the public? The stupid, gullible, uneducated will do.
There is a small chance, but only a very small chance, the Wright-Obama fuss is the first crack in the wall of “African-American culture” that may, over time, lead to its collapse. It is an exclusionary culture reveling in paranoia and self-pity. Wright is just the tip of the iceberg.
Obama is the lipstick on this pig. A sublime manipulator. If he becomes President, bringing a filibuster-proof Congress with him, the country will in 4 years be placed on an utterly irreversible downhill course.
If writing this makes me “racist”, so be it.
Obama belongs to the whole wide world now. He is quite the champion of students, blacks, muslims, cult-mongers, and leftist revolutionaries across the globe.
Americans who will actually vote in November tend to feel uncomfortable with cult figures and years-long sustained emotion-based appeals. They would rather have a reason not to vote for the self-proclaimed world saviour.
Jeremiah Wright is only one of many excellent reasons to send this cult tumbling directly to ground. Do not pass the White House. Do not collect the Presidency.
Obama — my qualifications for president are not affected at all by my embrace of an anti-American virulent racist as my closest spiritual advisor.
Because my grandmother who raised me is also a racist.
?
nyomythus Says:
“—Oh, it’s all about my race … no need to break a sweat Obama, just kick back on the race card”
Well, he is probably finishing his campaign off… he was running as a post racial candidate… and this playing the race card is going to sink…
“We are all racists now and if you elect me, I will get rid of racism.”
Tom
utterly irreversible downhill course.
What evidence do you have to support this? Is it because you are a Republican?
I seem to recall many Demicrats saying the same thing when Bush came into office surrounded by a Republican congress.
Are we better off or worse off today? Ask the voters. Many think worse off. The war? The economy? The national debt? Environmental concerns? Maybe none of these matter?
Maybe because America is better than either Obama or Bush?
I personally don’t see the sky falling. It’s funny how far right and far left see the sky falling whenever there guy doesn’t win.
Honestly, I had long made up my mind about Obama and this speech I file away under “it is what it is.” In fact, it is rare that I allow a politician’s particular speech on the stump to sway me. I do go the cold, rational route and look for his or her track record, voting record, ideas, and associations (political and otherwise).
Obama is a lawyer. It is unfortunate that a very high proportion of the Democratic Party’s congressmen and senators are LAWYERS. Lawyers craft language to find a way out of anything. They triangulate.
I cannot fathom why anyone who has done his or her homework and is not ever going to vote for Obama would be terribly interested in his speech in Philadelphia. And the only value in that speech was that he began to really put his cards on the table: he is a statist – a socialist, in the tradition of an FDR and an LBJ. “Sergey” stated it best on a prior thread: what he is proposing to do are policies that have already failed.
Matt, social dynamics is actually much more complex than most people believe. It can not be stabilized at arbitrary points, only some discrete set of points are inherently stable. So slippery slopes really exist. And they lead to traps, from which it is very hard to escape. One of them is welfare state, like present day Europe. To expand entitlements is always easier than curb them, and from some point it became impossible. This is a trap, and it dooms economy to stagnation and undermines public moral irreparably, when people can not anymore be self-reliable, depending on state in all their ways. This is a road to serfdom.
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Nicely said sergey.
Communism has never been reached, socialism was supposed to turn into that when the world was socialist. So to practice socialism is to be practicing communism. even now its turning back to its old form in a savvy smarter way.
the appearance of 4G entities is part of that. the cure against that is separate states. in the monostate world, non state entities wage war inside the beast. they more we move towards that temporary singularity, the more we get internal bugs that we cant get rid of. police state is not going to get rid of them, it will just create the kind of condition where one destroys ones home swatting at mosquitoes.
and if they dont stagnate soon, then space will opern up, and the whole country thing will start over again…
progress can only be slowed… not halted…
even in the worst stagnation periods little innovations still happened.