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REQUIEM

Below are the two final essays to be posted on Allegiance and Duty Betrayed. The first one is written by a friend -- screen name 'Euro-American Scum' -- who, over the past four years, has been the most faithful essayist here. He has written about everything from his pilgrimage to Normandy in 2004 to take part in the 60th–year commemoration of the invasion, to his memories of his tour in Vietnam. His dedication to America’s founding principles ... and those who have sacrificed to preserve them over the past 200+ years ... is unequaled. Thank you, E-A-S. It has been a privilege to include your writing here, and it is a privilege to call you my friend.

The second essay is my own farewell. And with it I thank all of the many regular visitors, and those who may have only dropped in occasionally, for coming here. I hope you learned something. I hope a seed or two was planted. But, even if not, I thank you for stopping by ... 25 March, 2010

7/30/2008

Will the Real Barack Obama
Please Stand Up?

Obama12.jpg

I just saw a new television campaign advertisement authored by the Obama campaign. I have spent a few minutes composing myself before sitting down here at my keyboard. In order to think clearly enough to write in a lucid manner, I had to clear my head of the anger that occurred as a natural response to sixty seconds worth of sickening lies, uttered with a wicked air of ‘sincerity’ by the man who is seeking to be my president.

The ad, verbatim:

    I’m Barack Obama. America is a country of strong families and strong values. My life’s been blessed by both.

    I was raised by a single mom and my grandparents. We didn’t have much money, but they taught me values straight from the Kansas heartland where they grew up.

    Accountability and self-reliance. Love of country. Working hard without making excuses. Treating your neighbor as you’d like to be treated. It’s what guided me as I worked my way up — taking jobs and loans to make it through college.

    It’s what led me to pass up Wall Street jobs and go to Chicago instead, helping neighborhoods devastated when steel plants closed. That’s why I passed laws moving people from welfare to work, cut taxes for working families and extended health care for wounded troops who’d been neglected.

    I approved this message because I’ll never forget those values, and if I have the honor of taking the oath of office as President, it will be with a deep and abiding faith in the country I love.
This travesty, masquerading as honesty, makes four major assertions.

(1) It paints a biographical portrait of Senator Obama as a child of midwestern values.

(2) It claims that Obama enjoyed no privilege, but assumed jobs and loans in order to work his way through both college and law school.

(3) It paints a picture of an altruist who turned down lucrative offers from Wall Street in order to help the oppressed (of Chicago).

(4) It alleges that he passed bills that cut welfare spending and extended healthcare benefits for wounded troops.

That’s it. That’s pretty much the message of this political advertisement.

__________________________________

Let's at least attempt to take a realistic look at the emperor's new clothes.

(1) Starting with the 'midwestern/Kansas values' allegation ...

The ad’s major reference to his upbringing refers to ‘values straight from the Kansas heartland’ and the inherent ‘love of country’.

In truth, Obama’s father was a Kenyan whose family was, and still is, deeply involved in socialist and Islamist politics in Kenya. Obama’s cousin, Raila Odinga, has been, and still is, instrumental (to put it mildly) in fueling a brutal Islamist insurgency in the country.

After Obama’s socialist Kenyan father deserted his mother, his mother remarried a Muslim from Indonesia, and Barack spent the next four years of his life in Indonesia, following the Muslim faith. His half-brothers in Kenya, and his half-sister in Indonesia, all assert that Obama spent his childhood practicing Islam.

At the age of ten, Obama was enrolled in the prestigious Punahou School in Hawaii, where he was mentored by Frank Marshall Davis, an avowed black separatist and a member of the U. S. Communist party.

... an association which, following his move to Chicago, naturally led to his strong associations with the likes of Jeremiah Wright, Michael Pfleger, William Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, and other stars of the ‘radical progressive’ stage.

A ‘child of midwestern values’? Hardly.

(2) As for Obama enjoying no privilege and working his way through school ... his parents met in college and his biological father went on to get a PhD from Harvard. Most Americans dream of experiencing such 'poverty'.

As mentioned previously, after spending four years in Indonesia, his mother sent him to Hawaii to attend the exclusive Punahou school, during which he lived with his grandmother, a bank vice president, in Honolulu. Later, while in college and law school, Obama never worked, other than one summer job during his four years of college, and one summer job during law school.

Familiar with poverty, and worked his way through college and law school? Hardly.

(3) Did Obama pass up a personally lucrative Wall Street career in order to help devastated Chicago neighborhoods? Considering Obama’s friends and associates (Ayers, Rezko, Farrakhan, et al) in the Chicago area (home of the American branch of the nation of Islam), ‘altruistic’ is not the first adjective that might come to mind.

Regarding Obama's oft-mentioned role as a 'community organizer' in Chicago, Byron York wrote in a recent National Review article:

    Perhaps the simplest way to describe community organizing is to say it is the practice of identifying a specific aggrieved population, say unemployed steelworkers, or itinerant fruit-pickers, or residents of a particularly bad neighborhood, and agitating them until they become so upset about their condition that they take collective action to put pressure on local, state, or federal officials to fix the problem, often by giving the affected group money.
I suggest that the reason Barack Obama did not seek work on Wall Street is that he despises the capitalist system. And what better way to work against that ‘oppressive’ philosophy than to embrace the likes of Black Liberation Theology and Marxism, while promoting those ideologies through organizing and emboldening the entitlement class?

(4) Let’s look at the allegations that he passed bills that cut welfare spending and extended healthcare for returning wounded troops:

I have been observing political campaigns for forty-plus years and I have never heard a candidate claim that he 'passed a bill' into law. Generally a candidate will assert that he has sponsored, supported, authored or voted for a bill. Only the senate itself can 'pass' a bill. The assertion that Obama 'passed' bills serves as just another example of his ongoing, deeply-ingrained elitist arrogance.

With that technicality aside ... Did Barack Obama even sponsor, support, author or vote for these two bills that this ad alleges are a proud part of his sterling resumé?

In truth, Obama opposed the 1996 Clinton welfare reform bill ... and the resulting Illinois law for which he takes credit was merely the passage of the required state law that put the federal welfare reform bill into effect. It passed nearly unanimously, because Illinois legislators simply had no other choice but to affirm it.

As for Obama and veterans’ healthcare ... Upon assuming office in the senate, Obama claimed, ‘One of my first priorities was obtaining a seat on the Veterans Affairs Committee ... and the thing that I pledged when I was sworn in as the Senator was that if nothing else in the first couple of years in the Senate, I could make absolutely certain that there would have been a strong advocate in the United States Senate.’

Let’s see how he has faired in keeping that promise:

Obama skipped nineteen out of thirty-seven VA committee meetings in the 109th congress (that amounts to more than 50% absenteeism). His paltry attendance record placed him second-to-last among committee democrats in terms of faithfulness in taking his assignment seriously. In the 110th congress he has been neither a sponsor nor a co-sponsor of any Veterans Affairs Committee bill that has become law.

I come away from those figures with the impression that Barack Obama's definition of 'being a strong advocate' for veterans, and mine, are vastly different.

In addition, contrary to the assertions in his latest campaign ad, he had no hand in the most recent bill that extended healthcare benefits for wounded troops. As a matter of fact, he was not even present in the senate when the vote on that particular bill was taken.

Obama passed bills promoting welfare reform and healthcare for returning veterans? Hardly.

There is something terribly sinister about a major presidential candidate resorting to painting a flattering 'mom and apple pie' personal portrait of himself that bears no resemblance to reality, while simultaneously attempting to hide his allegiance to Marxist/Muslim/black separatist ideologies. And there is something terrifying about the fact that such an arrogant, deceptive and delusional man appears to be succeeding in passing off such a conveniently fictitious portrait as accurate and admirable.

The majority of the American electorate is either blind or suicidal ... and neither affliction bodes well for our republic.

~ joanie

32 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bravo, Joanie! Well done!

Anonymous said...

The majority of the American electorate is either blind or suicidal ... and neither affliction bodes well for our republic.

Sad.

True.

Anonymous said...

There is something terribly sinister about a major presidential candidate resorting to painting a flattering 'mom and apple pie' personal portrait of himself that bears no resemblance to reality, while simultaneously attempting to hide his allegiance to Marxist/Muslim/black separatist ideologies. And there is something terrifying about the fact that such an arrogant, deceptive and delusional man appears to be succeeding in passing off such a portrait as accurate.

You go that right, Joanie. But the fact that his recent campaign trip to Europe and the Middle East didn't give him a bounce might mean that we're not giving the public enough credit? I think not though. Half of them are still ready to vote for him anyway.

Anonymous said...

Why all the fuss? BHO is destiny's child; the messiah; the chosen one.

Anonymous said...

It's too bad more Americans aren't able to see the emperor without his clothes. You have x-ray vision Joanie. ;)

Anonymous said...

Sweet analaysis of a pathological liar. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful Joanie. Just beautiful!

Anonymous said...

I come away from those figures with the impression that Barack Obama's definition of 'being a strong advocate' for veterans, and mine, are vastly different.

Obama isn't a "strong advocate" for anyone but himself and his leftist beliefs. Any other advocacy he says he has is phony.

Well done, Joanie.

Anonymous said...

You may enjoy this (I did):

Obama's Phony Patriotism Mask by David Limbaugh

Anonymous said...

Love the picture of "Honest Barry". The man doesn't know a lie when he speaks one. Thanks for the great analysis, Joanie.

Anonymous said...

I had heard Obama take credit for "passing" the extended healthcare for veterans but I had no idea he wasn't even there for the vote.

I can't type the words I feel about this man. You'd have to delete my comment.

Thank you Joanie, for another brilliant commentary.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for being a faithful voice of reason.

Anonymous said...

This is as good a parsing of his lies as I have seen. There's hardly any truth at all in this ad, which goes to show that he knows the country doesn't want what he has to offer, and if he is elected it will be as a counterfeit candidate. Such is the m.o. of socialists.

Anonymous said...

Obama's Laudnry List of Lies

You caught him in some more Joanie. The list grows longer by the day. Whatever happened to honesty in our leaders?

He's a socialist and a black separatist. But his abject dishonesty trumps all his other faults.

Anonymous said...

Obama Thanks You

A PAID POLITICAL ANNOUNCEMENT

BY SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL)

My fellow Hyphenated-Americans:

As your future President I want to thank my supporters, for their... well, support.

Your mindless support of me, despite my complete lack of any legislative achievement, my pastor's relations with Louis Farrakhan and Libyan dictator Moamar Quadafi, or my blatantly leftist voting record while I present myself as some sort of bi-partisan agent of change.

I also like how my supporters claim my youthful drug use and criminal behavior somehow qualifies me for the Presidency after 8 years of claiming Bush's youthful drinking disqualifies him. Your hypocrisy is a beacon of hope shining over a sea of political posing.

I would also like to thank the Kennedys for coming out in support of me. There's a lot of glamour behind the Kennedy name, even though JFK started the Vietnam War, his brother Robert illegally wiretapped Martin Luther King, Jr. and Teddy killed a female employee he was having an extra marital affair with who was pregnant with his child. And I'm not going anywhere near the cousins, both literally and figuratively.

And I'd like to thank Oprah Winfrey for her support. Her love of meaningless empty platitudes will be the force that propels me to the White House.

Americans should vote for me, not because of my lack of experience or achievement, but because I make people feel good. Voting for me causes some white folk to feel relieved of their imagined, racist guilt.

I say things that sound meaningful, but don't really mean anything because Americans are tired of things having meaning. If things have meaning, then that means you have to think about them.

Americans are tired of thinking.

It's time to shut down the brain, and open up the heart.

So when you go to vote in the primaries, remember don't think, just do.

And do it for me.

Thank You.

Anonymous said...

More about Obama’s cousin, Raila Odinga. Watch the video, and read what happened when he lost the election in Kenya. It’ll curl your hair.

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/01/barak-obamas-cousin-leads-opposition-in.html

Where’s the media?

Anonymous said...

Sex Education for Kindergartners is the “Right Thing to Do” Says Obama

Anonymous said...

From NR:

Obama said that Americans should worry more about whether their own kids learn Spanish than about whether immigrants' kids learn English.

Absent a failed immigration policy, however, there is no great reason for Americans to learn Spanish as opposed to some other foreign language.

And even with our failed policy, it is far more important for immigrants to learn English than it is for natives to learn other languages.

It is also more important for the health of our society that immigrants be assimilated than that Americans be able to impress Europeans on trips abroad, as Obama suggested.

On some of the most important issues facing the country, Obama does not have the right answers; he is not even entertaining the right questions.

Anonymous said...

You're right. When a candidate's major campaign ad portrays him as the polar opposite of what he really is, there's something evil going on.

Anonymous said...

Another great piece Joanie. I envy your command of the facts and your ability to lay them out in such a cogent and compelling manner.

Thank You!!

Anonymous said...

Nice work.

Anonymous said...

Take heart. Obama's poll numbers are dropping and his overseas trip did him no good at all. Maybe the voters are wising up. We can only hope.

joanie said...

Thanks for the link, stonemason.

The Limbaugh article is right on the money.

joanie said...

Lou Barakos,

Your find describes Americans' ignorance and apathy in a nutshell.

~ joanie

joanie said...

Cal Brindisi,

Thanks so much for the link -- an incredible piece of detailed research! (Got it saved for future reference.)

~ joanie

joanie said...

On some of the most important issues facing the country, Obama does not have the right answers; he is not even entertaining the right questions.

Amen!

joanie said...

Thanks for the kind words, Barry. :)

~ joanie

Anonymous said...

You have a new follower. Great blog!

Anonymous said...

God bless you for taking the time to do this! I will be forwarding your writing to other people and I will be back often.

Anonymous said...

This'll kill ya:

Obama Supports Global Tax from United Nations

Anonymous said...

You do nice work.

Anonymous said...

THANK YOU FOR A BEAUTIFUL ARGUMENT!!!!!!!!!!