Category Archives: America

Updated: Obama Slimes Small Town America

America, Barack Obama, Elections 2008, Individual Rights, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim

As Huffington Post reporter Mayhill Fowler tells it, at first, she didn’t want to report what she’d heard from the mouth of the messiah.

“I was not initially going to write about Senator Obama’s remarks about Pennsylvanians. Because, frankly, I didn’t want to bring down the campaign,” Fowler told CNN’s Kitty Pilgrim (one of the few sane women on that channel).

Then she thought better of it: “I gave it more thought and I decided that the remarks bothered me enough that I wanted to write them up.”

Fowler follows Obama around in her capacity as a roving reporter. Here’s what she overheard and recorded, as Obama attempted to “explain” rural Pennsylvania to “a group of his wealthier Golden State backers at a San Francisco fund-raiser last Sunday”:

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Against the clucking and cooing of the Obama groupies at CNN (also known as “the best political team”), William Schneider, CNN Senior Political Analyst, and a rarity on that channel for rendering an objective, unbiased, close analysis, said this:

“Well, it’s certainly true that a lot of voters are angry and bitter over the war, over trade, over the economy. But he got into trouble for one precise reason, and that is because he said that people turn to religion and guns, by which I assume he means things like hunting, and that they criticize trade and illegal immigration because they are bitter and frustrated with their lives. Now that’s a causal assertion: religion, guns, and criticism of trade and illegal immigration because they are bitter and frustrated with their lives. (My emphasis)

Schneider continued:

“A lot of voters are going to find that statement untrue and insulting to their values and condescending. So I think to be fair we have to hear a fuller explanation from Senator Obama of what he meant. Maybe an explanation and maybe an apology would be in order. But we need to hear more about what was his intention in making that causal statement.”

In response, the Obama campaign spokesman, Tommy Vietor, changed the subject:

“Senator Obama has said many times in this campaign that Americans are understandably upset with their leaders in Washington for saying anything to win elections while failing to stand up for [sic] the special interests and fight for an economic agenda that will bring jobs and opportunity back to struggling communities. If John McCain wants a debate about who is out of touch with the American people, we can start by talking about the tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans that he once said offended his conscience but now he wants to make permanent.”

As Schneider then pointed out (in the face of the furrowed faces of his CNN female colleagues) that the Obama response fails to explain “the assertion that people’s bitterness and frustration are causing them to turn to religion and anti-trade sentiment and criticism of illegal immigrants… a lot of people are going to find that condescending and insulting.”

Let me depart from Schneider, who asked merely that Obama furnish “a fuller explanation.”

What you just heard was Obama unplugged. This is the real Obama. Why would anyone who cares about truth want an apology or a retraction? Obama finessing his visceral alienation from authentic America is Obama lying. Why would anyone wish to be lied to? Obama saying he’s sorry is Obama simply vowing to keep a lid on his disdain for traditional patriotic Americans, so that the high farce of electioneering can continue.

This value judgment, like the saga of Rev. Wright, is extremely significant for what it tells us about who Obama is and what he disdains: guns and God—not the God of Rev. Wright, but the God white, rural, gun-toting America carriers close to its heart.

Update (April 13): I notice a tone of contempt for rural, economically unsuccessful Americans has crept into a comment below. The pejorative “Archie Bunkers” for this segment of the population is of a piece with Obama’s slamming of the same people. There is no difference between such comments from my valued reader and the stance of contempt toward “Those People” taken by Obama—the observations are coming from the same “place,” except that our commentator is an economic conservative.

Here’s the issue that utterly evades most who’ve been making light of Obama’s bad-mouthing of God-fearing, white, rural, gun-toting America: These Reagan Democrats or protectionist Republicans are first and foremost wedded to God, guns, and small-town existence. Their lack of success and adaptation—looked down upon by my valued commentator—is secondary to who they are. Obama’s attack was leveled not at their failure to adapt economically—that’s government’s shortfall, in his worldview. Obama assailed these people for their “outrageous” fealty to a God that is not his (I remind you, I am irreligious, but sympathetic to faith), and affinity for their own (they dislike the invasion of their country).

Conservative or left-liberal, if you’re with Obama—justifying his viscerally hateful comments—you’ve been indoctrinated in a hatred of the people of this country (and I don’t mean the new-arrivals).

Update 2: ‘Genius’ In Contemporary America

America, Human Accomplishment, Intelligence, Logic, Music, Reason, The Zeitgeist

With the death of objective standards, the assessment of everything from cultural products to moral nature has become near impossible.

Consider: According to author Richard Reeves, classical liberal John Stuart Mill was “learning Greek at three, taking in Plato and Sophocles at ten, and turning, at eleven, to the mastery of Aristotle’s logic.” Indisputably a genius. Genial too, I believe—which goes against the romanticized notion whereby true genius involves eccentricities and crazy behavior. It seldom does.

The slow Morley Safer of “60 Minutes” has repeatedly provided examples of the difficulties fin de siècle America has in assessing genius.

Some time ago, Morely headed over to Julliard, if I recall, to feature a young man touted as a musical prodigy. The boy was full of affectation and acted eccentrically, as he obviously believed a young man of his “abilities” ought to.

Over the course of this most mundane hour, it became obvious that what you had here were pushy parents and their cocky, narcissistic son, who’d managed to eliminate along the way any opinion contrary to theirs with respect to their son’s designation as a musical genius.

One old school Russian master, who was of the opinion that the lad was not particularly good, was subject to complaints, and promptly dismissed. The rest at Julliard simply fell into compliance with the genius designation out of ignorance and pseudo-intellectualism.

Suffice it to say that to listen to the lad’s compositions was to know right away that he had very little to offer. Passion was remiss, other than for himself. Technique was non-existent. He had, however, watched a lot of Leonard Bernstein footage, as he emulated Lenny’s antics. Thing is, the prodigious Lenny, as repugnant a persona as he was, delivered. I myself am inspired to leap up in the air and land as did Lenny when listening to his recording of Stravinsky’s Firebird and Petrushka. Great fire and precision in that interpretation. (Actually I do leap in the air to Petrushka.)

Particularly amusing to this music lover—Bach, any Bach, and chamber music, in particular—was this goddamn-awful self-styled genius’ insistence that, like Bach, he never needed to erase the music he wrote down. I’m not sure this is fact or folklore, but it is said that Bach Senior wrote without having to erase.

Stupid Safer found this very convincing. I found this an example of the post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy:

The moron had read that J. S. Bach never corrected the music he wrote. He concluded therefore that if he never erased the crap he transcribed he’d be in his right to lay claim to Bach-like genius.

Listening to this lad’s self-reverential, introspective, crappy, choppy compositions was all one needed to conclude that decades of tutoring with an exacting master would be required to produce a solid piece.

The revolting reality was that the pandering parents and pedagogues surrounding this lad partook in the charade.

Update 1 (April 6): Since it seems some readers have not understood what is meant by post hoc logic, let me try again. If A then B is correct in logic. In Bach’s case: his abilities (A) led to his not needing to rewrite what he wrote (B). The proof was in the pudding too, i.e., the music is heavenly; assessed by objective standards, Bach’s music epitomizes genius.

If B then A is wrong in logic. It is exactly the case of the stupid kid. He refuses to rewrite (B) and improve despite the opinion of people greater than he that this is indeed what is required of him if he is to improve. From the act of not rewriting (B), he and his accomplices have reasoned backwards and concluded that his abilities are Bach-like (A).

Reasoning backwards is an error, illogic, bogus. What this means it that there are many other reasons for his not rewriting. Hubris being one.

What had happened is that the lad had imbibed the story of Bach not rewriting, and concluded that if he did not rewrite (B), he indeed did not need to rewrite (A). That the music doesn’t approach reasonable standards in complexity and beauty certainly suggests that scrapping it and trying again is the first order of the day. That other fine—and thus so fired—teachers have suggested that a great deal of learning and rewriting is what’s required if an improvement is to be attained suggests that there are, if anything, good reasons to rewrite and rewrite a lot.

I’ve explained the post hoc error laboriously. If you fail to get this distinction, I can’t help much more that I already have.

Update 2: I’m delighted that Barely A Blog’s resident musician (settle down ye humorless; that was meant to sound pompous), Professor Ira Newborn, has dilated on the topic of the modern-day genius with his usual flare.

Ira is a well-known, highly-accomplished composer. He may be known more for his popular “motion picture soundtracks,” but I’ve heard some of his more serious compositions. Yeah, baby: those made me leap up in the air too, as does Lenny’s Fire Bird and Petrushka. I only wish the tracts where available to the public. How about it, Ira? How sad that the bad (Wonder Boy) pushes out the good (Ira).

Also, sample Sean Mercer for some of the hottest guitar playing you’ll hear with tight arrangements to match technical skill. The recording, which Sean engineered, is a little dated, but it holds up.

Updated: Militant Mama Obama

America, Barack Obama, Democrats, Education, Elections 2008, Media, Race

Exhibit #2 in my case against Barack’s bride: “As a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station.” So spoke M. Obama.

Indeed, “Michelle Obama’s gaseous swipe reminds me of the last two black men picked off while pumping gas. Wait a sec, I got my facts topsy-turvy. Two of the D.C Snipers’ 13 victims were murdered in gas stations. Neither was black. The Snipers, on the other hand, were both black. The pattern of racial victimization in the country Mrs. Obama will likely officiate as first lady is unidirectional.”

In “Militant Mama Obama,” I make the case that, “if anything, her charmed life has made Michelle Obama more racially militant.”

Updated: “Michelle Obama thesis was on racial divide,” reports Jeffrey Ressner of the Politico.
So the moribund media is catching up with us and reporting on the thesis I mentioned in Militant Mama Obama.

Questionnaires, the kind M. Obama relied on to arrive at her conclusions, are notoriously unreliable and riddled with bias. Methodology aside, this woman is an identity activist through-and-through.

She concluded:

“I hoped that these findings would help me conclude that despite the high degree of identification with whites as a result of the educational and occupational path that black Princeton alumni follow, the alumni would still maintain a certain level of identification with the black community. However, these findings do not support this possibility.”

In Mama Obama’s view, blacks at Princeton assimilated excessively. Also, in her first sentence above, she ought to have written, “I HAD hoped…”

Foreign Interventionism Chickens Come Home to Roost in Balkans

America, Foreign Aid, Islam, Neoconservatism, The West

Europeans take a little longer than Middle Easterners to get lathered up over American meddling. Clinton and his coterie of left-liberal neoconservative advisers led the 1999 NATO intervention into Yugoslavia, intervening in this centuries-old, ongoing dispute on the side of the ethnic Albanians (and their terrorist arm, the al Qaida-backed Islamic Kosovo Liberation Army).

There was no genocide. The killings were of the large scale craven kind the locals had engaged in for centuries. Soon after the “salve” we Americans applied to solve the problem, Serbs were ethnically cleansed from Kosovo, leaving only approximately 120,000 under NATO protection. Ancient churches were burned to the ground by the triumphant Albanian Muslims who turned on the Serbs.

America’s national interests were not served in choosing Albanian Muslims over Christian Orthodox Serbs, although Kosovars promise they practice what they term euphemistically “Islam lite.”

Bush followed in Clinton’s trails to hail Kosovo’s recent declaration of independence. Kosovo is home to the most sacred of Serbian relics and lands. It was Christian before it was Islamized.

Up-to-the-minute reports speak of close to a million Serbians gathering in Belgrade to protest the Kosovo declaration of independence and to express anger at the US. It’s all very well when a handful of people on the Side We Don’t Like break into the U.S. embassy and wreck it. But when close to a million march in solidarity against American policies—a decade hence, no less—they become harder for neocon think tanks to dismiss and diss.

For once, the blame lies squarely at the feat of Hillary’s husband. Former Clintonite, James Rubin, Christiane Amanpour’s toy boy, blames the Russians for the fever that is gripping Serbians—the Russian and Serb leadership. We all know that the people upon whom we visit our policies are but puppets manipulated by evil marionettes–unless those pulling the strings are American. Then the puppets—or puppies—are praised.