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That’s the most important question I can think of at the moment, yet I don’t have a clue as to the answer. The harder I try to answer that question, the more it eludes me, but for some strange reason, the lyrics to that song “The Windmills Of Your Mind” keep going through my head.
Like a tunnel that you follow
To a tunnel of it’s own
Down a hollow to a cavern
Where the sun has never shone,
Like a door that keeps revolving
In a half forgotten dream,
Or the ripples from a pebble
Someone tosses in a stream
After spending much time in laborious and suffocating thought, I decided to put that question to you, “Who is Barack Obama”?
37 Comments
Obama is a closet neo-con.
AS Thomas Frank stated, ‘a man of academia’.
I agree 100%.
A shill, a sham, a phony, a liar?
A shill, a sham, a phony, a liar…
Did I cover it all?
Just to illustrate how f###ed up everything is nowawdays. Who said this?
http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/uvz73/republican_from_the_past_predicts_the_future/
Good point John! I just read Barry Goldwater’s autobiography. It is a measure of how far we have gone that though he was known as a far right fanatic, he would not be accepted today in the Republican Party.
Um, the same idiot who said extremism in the defense of liberty was no vice?
Bozos had no clue what they were dealing with.
I’m not sure if he’d be acceptable in the Democratic party either, considering where we’re at today
The question
implies that he exists in the first place. In reality he’s a hologram. Not only is there no there there, there’s no guy there.
On specific policies, Goldwater was not as radical as portrayed. He was demonized as a war hawk by Johnson who outspent Goldwater by an order of magnitude and then dragged us into and kept us in America’s longest war until Afghanistan. Clever television advertisements about little girls and atomic bombs do not change the facts.
“Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” I wish our democratic-republican Uniparty believed more in Goldwater’s famous quote. Consider Bradley Manning and the Patriot Act as two examples.
I am not defending Goldwater and I certainly do not mean to make him a hero. My point, and I think John’s point, is that times have changed and not necessarily for the better. Where we are now is a damning comment on both republicans and democrats.
He is a representative face of today’s Democratic party.
Didn’t the doofus know Falwell got titanium cups from the Israeli’s?
John’s point was clear. My point would be these guys were coasting to doom and they didn’t understand what hit them.
I’d hail the prescient and not the surprised.
George Dubya Bush called himself a Media Creation who could never be President.
Obama is likewise a Media Creation and also a creation of the CIA. Anyone of note that could vouch for him is either dead or Henry Kissinger.
Wayne Madsen’s answer is in his brand new book, The Manufacturing of a President
I agree.
Barack Obama believes in “bipartisanship”. I find it strange and humorous, that the Republican “Bipartisan Ship” is going on an around the world cruise; while our “Bipartisan Ship” crashed on the rocks a long time ago.
Agreed.
And Mitt Romney is the face of tomorrow’s democratic party, which the HP and DKOS types will promote no matter what.
Barack Obama is a man who, had he come up in Tennessee politics or Georgia politics could just as easily called himself a Republican. He is shrewd and self serving, simultaneously capable of the rankest duplicity and humbling altruism, able to lie comfortably or speak the truth passionately as the situation dictates. Barack Obama is the consummate politician who caught all the breaks and managed to take advantage of them to get to where he is.
LMAO! That’s just a variation of the birther bullshit. Even if he holds dual citizenship, there is nothing in the Constitution saying that a dual citizen can’t be President. Not only that but it’s a simple matter to renounce one’s citizenship so why wouldn’t he do that, rather than go through all of the cloak and dagger manipulations that you suggest? McCain holds dual citizenship, that the CIA apparently overlooked while scrubbing Obama’s file. Would that have ever been an issue if he had won? Of course not. Pasty, angry white men would never be accused of being ineligible.
Who is Barack Obama? A guy who promised “change”, “hope and change”, “change you can believe in”, and “change the way Washington works”, and failed to deliver on every promise made: he simply moved the political fulcrum to the right and sold out the 99% who were dumb enough to be hoodwinked by his idealistic rhetoric.
In 1976 Gore Vidal wrote the essay, “The State of the Union,” stating there were not two political parties but merely one: the property party, which gives us the illusion of choice; one party is a little bit more liberal on social values but economically they both represent America’s aristocracy, the elite.
But let’s go back to 1789, “with liberty and justice for all”, while only property owners could vote, and everyone else–including poor whites, blacks, women, et al–could not vote.
America and freedom and equal opportunity and justice for all is just another myth, like Horatio Alger, Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, and the Easter Bunny. Just as through Medieval Times the myth of working and slaving as a serf you would get your just reward in the after life was a very effective “myth”.
We are all just so incredibly stupid to swallow this stuff.
Ho, ho, ho….
The Barefoot Accountant
Who is Barack Obama? A guy who promised “change”, “hope and change”, “change you can believe in”, and “change the way Washington works”, and failed to deliver on every promise made: he simply moved the political fulcrum to the right and sold out the 99% who were dumb enough to be hoodwinked by his idealistic rhetoric.
In 1976 Gore Vidal wrote the essay, “The State of the Union,” stating there were not two political parties but merely one: the property party, which gives us the illusion of choice; one party is a little bit more liberal on social values but economically they both represent America’s aristocracy, the elite.
But let’s go back to 1789, “with liberty and justice for all”, while only property owners could vote, and everyone else–including poor whites, blacks, women, et al–could not vote.
America is the land of freedom and equal opportunity and justice for all is just another myth, like Horatio Alger, Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, and the Easter Bunny. Just as through Medieval times, the myth of working and slaving as a serf would get you your just reward in the after life was a very effective “myth”: merely a mechanism of the few conveniently controlling the masses, as Mark Twain noted in his “Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court.” It works. The power of propaganda was not patented by Lenin, Hitler, and Goebbels.
We are all just so incredibly stupid to swallow this stuff since the beginning of time.
Ho, ho, ho….
The Barefoot Accountant
From all of your comments, the true “Barack Obama” is emerging.
Barack Obama is just a
girlstanding beforea boyan electorate, and asking you tolove himvote for him.He knows. He knows he broke your heart.
That time when you showed up at his hotel room and found him in bed with
Alec BaldwinWall Street. And then humiliated you by lettingBaldwinDimon treat you like the help. But look. Things were complicated. It was a tricky situation. Now. Now he knows! He loves *you*! It was always *you*, electorate!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FFbolor4Sc
Obama 2012!!!
IIRC, according to Madsen, Indonesian law when Obama was a youngster did not allow for dual citizenship, in order to go to the school that Obama intended. Thus, even if had been OK, from the US point of view, for Obama to become a dual citizen, it was not OK from the Indonesian POV.
Hopefully, you are not now going to suggest that, in general, going “through all of the cloak and dagger manipulations that you suggest?” is a problem for a CIA family? (That is also claimed by Madsen.) That’s what cloak and dagger types are paid to do.
Valerie Plame’s public persona was a long time in the making. Comparatively speaking, what’s the big deal about some US kid in Indonesia giving up his US citizenship? Don’t you think the CIA could arrange for US citizenship to be re-obtained, when the kid moves back stateside? It’s not like anybody knew he would become President. (Well, except for the Basiago guy.
)
That’s actually untrue. For example, I am British, as are my children by birthright. I cannot “renounce that”. There is no mechanism I’m, familiar with to renounce British Citizenship granted by birthright.
For US citizens living abroad, renouncing their US citizenship looks pretty easy to do. http://travel.state.gov/law/citizenship/citizenship_776.html
Getting it back, though, is a different matter, in general. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1483
It’s hard for me to believe, however, that CIA families with members who renounce their US citizenship, as a consequence of their employment by the CIA, aren’t guaranteed an easy time of getting it back.
More and more our first black one termer.
Zero is the first fully evolved plastic pol doll. Although Romney’s plasticity may be even more evolved, his core value of elite supremacy is so rigidly built in, as to be too easily detected from the surface of his positional facade. He’s a good ‘sport’ man.
Whereas Obummer, is the personification of bourgeois core values (Harvard does this to the humblest of beginnings), always sufficiently plastic to intrigue sufficient elite funding for election by the ‘no-other-alternative’ labor and left.
His reelection appears obviously questionable, since he’s shown no proletarian sympathy in 3.5 yrs; (sorry, forgot the tweet to support Wisconsin) His core beliefs have been exposed to all; he’s gotta have elite backing, the binLaden bump is way over.
The elite have moved their dollars to their favorite tax cutter. “Deregulation is just so profitable, daaawlin,.. please pass the Dijon derivatives.” =)
Barack Obama is the greatest American politician ever. No one else has ever combined such great charisma and oratorical talent with such a complete and utter lack of principles. He’s the perfect sociopath, able to understand situations on an intellectual level and mimic all the necessary surface emotions, but completely amoral and ruthless.
Or he could just simply be an asshole.
That’s and/or, more likely and.
Obummer is the neolib/neocon stepping stone to globalized politicians. Today a second generation Kenyan-American, tomorrow a Polish-Brahmin-American. You’ll have marketized politics and not politicized markets.
That is your destiny under the current intellectual hegemony.
In that case, your argument that he is “ineligible” is still specious as he would be a US citizen now, born in Hawai’i.
You’re a British citizen. I am a United States citizen. Barack Obama is a United States citizen. It is possible to renounce US citizenship, regardless of any British laws or lack thereof. One famous case is Terry Gilliam.
You’ve shifted the goalposts, not very convingly. What’s relevant is whether or not he can still be considered a “natural-born” citizen, after having renounced such a status, not merely a US citizen. That’s the relevant consideration, in terms of his eligibility to be a legitimate US President. Surely you know that, don’t you?
In terms of electoral outcomes, even if the Supreme Court was somehow just fine with Obama’s eligibility (under the Madsen scenario), it’d still be critical how Americans view the question. Would they have ‘forgiven’ Obama for giving up his US citizenship? Maybe, if he had been open about the reasons for doing do?
However, if he simply lied and obscured about such reasons, I see no reason why Americans should feel Obama entitled to a claim of legitimacy, under the Madsen scenario. And I doubt most Americans would consider him legitimate, either. Thus, how he’d win such an election, even if subsequently cleared by, say, the Supreme Court, doesn’t seem likely.
Thus, lying and perpetrating a fraud would be his best option, though not the moral one. However, I haven’t seen where morality plays much of a role in Obama’s life, have you?
At what point in our history have we held a child of ages 6 to 10 responsible enough to renounce his citizenship?
Obama was age 6 when his family moved to Indonesia. He was 10 when he returned to Honolulu. IOW, he was a child and not a responsible adult.
According to current law, you don’t need to be an adult to renounce your citizenship.
I don’t know what the law was in the 1960′s.
It’s worth noting that, from the same web page, according to current law, if you renounced your US citizenship before the age of 18, you can re-obtain US citizenship, provided you request that within 6 months of your 18th birthday.
However, calling such a re-obtained citizenship a natural born citizenship sounds to me like the concept of secondary virginity. It’d be interesting to hear what Supreme Court justices would think about such a re-obtained citizenship, though that still wouldn’t address the political fallout.