The picture accompanying this blog is one I took on our last visit to Florida.
I took it during a boating trip, at a remote spot on the river where people like to beach their craft and hang out and party. White people, apparently. I’ve been waiting for a “good” time to share it without being condescending to a whole statefull of people. I think this blog works…
I’ve tried to stay away from politics on the blog lately… but there is so much going on in America nowadays it’s sometimes hard to. I could talk about the Tea Party primary wins, I could talk about the stimulus and the Bush tax cuts, I could talk about Rove’s status as the GOP’s fallen angel. Yeah, each of these things would be fun to write about, but none of them motivate me as much as the cover story from the latest issue of Forbes magazine. For a story like this, the desire to write about politics is too strong to stifle.
Entitled How Obama Thinks, the article makes the case that Obama’s style of governing, and more specifically his anti-business stances, are owed to his “roots” in Africa. In fact, the author thinks Obama may be ruling the United States “… according to the dreams of a [Kenyan] tribesman of the 1950s.” No, really. There are pages upon pages where this guy is basically saying, in nice 50¢ words, that Obama’s bloodline-connection to his bushman past means the “African in him” is driving his current policy. The article is so ridiculous and so borderline insane I’m almost surprised the author didn’t wonder aloud how our president manages to not throw his own poo.
Newt Gingrich says that D’Souza has made the “most profound insight I have read in the last six years about Barack Obama.” He goes on to ask, “What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?,” and closes with, “That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.” The most accurate and predictable model for his behavior? Wow.
And now we’re asked to wonder, could Obama be somehow less “American” than the rest of us? Might he be subconsciously limited by the shortcomings of the “dusky race” from which he originates? I mean why not just come out and say what you think here: He’s a spearchucker; a jigaboo; an unpredictable wild animal who’s ancestral connections to And the Gods Must Be Crazy caricatures are to be mistrusted at best. At worst, we may have to mobilize the mob and lynch the poor guy so his monkey-urges don’t continue to take us to hell in a handbasket.
Robert Parry might be right, parts of America certainly seem to be decoupling from reality. Here is blatant racism masquerading as “thoughtful” political analysis, and many of the most influential folks on the right seem to be embracing it as fact. But it’s not fact, it’s not “colonialism,” it’s straight-up “I don’t like black people, and besides I’m scared of them” racism. It’s racism.
Back to hibernation… (or maybe DC…)
Also written on this day...
- John Muir Trail, a Half-Through Hike - 2007
- my stallion's stable - 2004
- ribbon for most hyperlinks - 2003
thank you.