Obama Outside the United States

It is clear that this US presidential election has brought to the surface a bunch of lingering issues inside the country: racial, class and gender stresses. Even more starkly it has rekindled emotions outside the US, affecting how the world views America, from presumably allied countries in Europe to the developing world and, especially the Muslim world.

It is amazing how quickly the mind gets cleared of American TV and internet chatter after a business trip to Europe with an added leg in the Middle East. For starters, we may be complaining about the cost of everything in the US, but that becomes preposterous once you find out that $500 in London and Pairs goes about as much as $100 in almost all US cities. In Moscow a decent hotel can set you back $750 per night.

Then, sitting in the airport departure lounge of a major Arab country and watching Al Jazeera, considered the unbiased and open Arab TV network, one cannot help but detect the transparent hope for a Barack Obama victory. His own advertisements would be less effusive than the coverage and commentary.

If polls in the US give Obama 95% among African Americans to John McCain's 5%, in the developing world it would be 99%; in the Muslim world it might be 99.999%. A superficial or partisan analysis in the US, with much of the press fawning over the candidate, this may be interpreted as a reaction to the Iraq War and the ubiquitous grievousness surrounding Israel. But then again how can Obama's West European numbers from 80% in the UK and France to even higher in Germany be interpreted? Distaste towards George W. Bush simply cannot make up such margins.

Discussing with foreign academics, after the usual reasons about Obama's youth and vigor or more elaborate, but not too convincing, arguments about his "policies", unclear and fuzzy as they maybe outside of "change", the most common thread is that, if elected, he would "humanize" America. This wished for transformation of America and praise for its diversity is hard to take from people that are far more ethnocentric than even the most bigoted Americans would ever be. Is there any reasonable Frenchman, German or British that would actually envision a French Algerian, German Turk or British Pakistani running for the highest office in those countries? And yet they are all rooting for the half-Kenyan, half-Anglo Obama, whose background has little to do with the US "black experience".

I am clearly not a right wing Republican nor am I a racist, being myself a naturalized US citizen, still with a strong accent. For more than 30 years I actually thought of myself as a Democrat and I would have absolutely no problem voting for a black or woman candidate. But far from liking the prospect of an Obama election, the international reasoning makes me scared of him the most. It may also be his ultimate undoing in the election if most other US voters see the danger he embodies.

Put it simply, Obama's popularity outside the US is very much linked with why many people hate the US -- but far from the usual, such as the opposing of UN resolutions by the US, to the more recent global climate clamor, and the ever present Israel issue, much of it comes from huge inferiority complexes and the inability of large parts of the world to absorb modernity. America as the only remaining superpower is the obvious target to blame for everybody's shortcomings. They can have as large a range as human foibles could muster.

But contradictions in foreign minds abound. Much of the dislike towards America, as with most psychological afflictions, is guttural, unexplainable to the bearer, in some cases even after prolonged stays in the country they so much resent.

Contradictions are not just the superficial signs, as in youth-dominated Iran where American pop-culture is as pervasive as it is in Houston.

Much more important is the widespread admiration for America and American business, the can-do attitude and the work ethics, as in "sorry for all the problems in doing business with us, this is not America."

And when one digs a bit further, in single-strongman-dominated countries (at last count close to 100) almost all would wish to have a leader as benign as the much reviled George W. Bush. Jealousy is hard to disguise.

Among the European professoriate, let alone everywhere else, it has been a lingering grudge that US graduate students have a more comfortably life than senior academics there. So the reasons why much of the world admires America become the very same reasons for the rampant hatred.

McCain is a flawed candidate for certain in a number of important issues. His energy policies, my area of interest, are not much better than Obama's. But he is much closer to understanding the role that America has to play in the world, one of leadership and not one of "why can't we all just be friends?" Obama, like socialism or other "isms" of old, symbolizes a forced egalitarianism by lessening America. I think this is touchy feely ideology but not a winning ticket and I hope Americans understand it when they vote next November.

Louis Farrakhan, at the annual Saviours' Day celebration in Chicago, Feb. 25, 2008: "This young man is the hope of the entire world that America will change and be made better"..."If you look at Barack Obama's audiences and look at the effect of his words, those people are being transformed."
Source: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=4337417

From the Louis Farrakhan/Nation of Islam website, Final Call...
Malik Zulu Shabazz, chairman of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (NBPP):
"We are happy today to be standing side by side with the Nation of Islam. We believe, like the Nation of Islam and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad believe, in a nation of our own. We believe in a Black first philosophy and a Black Liberation Theology. We don’t worry about the criticism. We love all of those who labored in the Panther Party from the ’60s. Many are with us today."
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_1858.shtml

___________________________________________________________

From the Maoist Internationist Movement:
[1960s] Black Panther Party [BPP] Archives
From the article: REVOLUTIONARY HEROES

excerpt...

"On May 1st, May Day [1969], the day of the gigantic Free Huey rally, two of Alioto's top executioners vamped on the brothers from the Brown Community who were attending to their own affairs. These brothers, who are endowed with the revolutionary spirit of the Black Panther Party defended themselves from the racist pig gestapo.

Pig Joseph Brodnik received his just reward with a big hole in the chest. Pig Paul McGoran got his in the mouth which was not quite enough to off him.

The revolutionary brothers escaped the huge swarm of pigs with dogs, mace, tanks and helicopters, proving once again that "the spirit of the people is greater than the man's technology."

To these brothers the revolutionary people of racist America want to say, by your revolutionary deed you are heroes, and that you are always welcome to our camp."

Source: Maoist Internationist Movement
Article: REVOLUTIONARY HEROS (May 11, 1969):
http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/bpp/index.html

Louis Farrakhan, at the Millions More Movement rally in DC, Oct 15, 2005: "...what Mao Tse Tung did was, he went to the cultural community, and they [Farrakhan spreads his arms beneficently] accepted his idea."..."Mao Tse Tung ... had a billion people whose lives he had to transform."..."the idea of Mao Tse Tung became the idea of a billion people, and China became a world power on the base of the culture and the arts community. If we had a ministry of art and culture in every city we'd create this movement [in the U.S.]."
Source: http://thedrunkablog.blogspot.com/2005/10/communist-plot-noted.html

Louis Farrakhan, Santiago de Cuba, February, 1998: "There is not a member of the black masses in the United States who is not proud of the example set by Cuba and its revolution, with Comandante Fidel at its head"
Source: http://www.fiu.edu/~fcf/farakhan21898.html#says

"Minister Farrakhan and his delegation met privately with President Fidel Castro of Cuba."
http://www.finalcall.com/media/cuba/

[that's Michelle Obama with Mrs. Farrakhan]

http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/06/03/michelle-obama-and-louis-farrakhans-wife-together-in-photo/

Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Obama's pastor and ~~spirtual advisor~~ "crazy uncle" of more than 20 years, honors "Honorable" Minister Louis Farrakhan with the "Jeremiah A. Wright Lifetime Achievement Trumpeteer Award" at the 2007 Trumpet Gala held at the Hyatt Regency Chicago.
[it appears the original video was removed, but this one is identical to it]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW2OhkZ0RSg

Obama's Church: Gospel of Hate
Kathy Shaidle, FrontPageMag.com
Monday, April 07, 2008

In March of 2007, FOX News host Sean Hannity had engaged Obama’s pastor in a heated interview about his Church’s teachings. For many viewers, the ensuing shouting match was their first exposure to "Black Liberation Theology"...

Like the pro-communist Liberation Theology that swept Central America in the 1980s and was repeatedly condemned by Pope John Paul II, Black Liberation Theology combines warmed-over 1960s vintage Marxism with carefully distorted biblical passages. However, in contrast to traditional Marxism, it emphasizes race rather than class. The Christian notion of "salvation" in the afterlife is superseded by "liberation" on earth, courtesy of the establishment of a socialist utopia.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=30CD9E14-B0C9-4F8C-A0A6-A896F0F44F02

From "45 Communist Goals":
#27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion.
http://www.uhuh.com/nwo/communism/comgoals.htm

Catholics for Marx
By Fr. Robert Sirico
FrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, June 03, 2004

In the days when the Superpowers were locked in a Cold War, Latin America seethed with revolution, and millions lived behind an iron curtain, a group of theologians concocted a novel idea within the history of Christianity. They proposed to combine the teachings of Jesus with the teachings of Marx as a way of justifying violent revolution to overthrow the economics of capitalism.

The Gospels were re-rendered not as doctrine impacting on the human soul but rather as windows into the historical dialectic of class struggle. These "liberation theologians" saw every biblical criticism of the rich as a mandate to expropriate the expropriating owners of capital, and every expression of compassion for the poor as a call for an uprising by the proletarian class of peasants and workers.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=460782B7-35CC-4C9E-A2C5-93832067C7CD

From the New York Times, April 28, 2008
Reverend Wright at the National Press Club
"In the late 1960s, when Dr. James Cone's powerful books burst onto the scene, the term 'black liberation theology' began to be used. I do not in any way disagree with Dr. Cone, nor do I in any way diminish the inimitable and incomparable contributions that he has made and that he continues to make to the field of theology. Jim, incidentally, is a personal friend of mine."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/us/politics/28text-wright.html?_r=1&ref=politics&oref=sloginL

From Jeff Head's website...
One notable quote from [James] Cone describing his Black Liberation Theology is as follows:

"Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community ... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love." - "Divine Racism: The Unacknowledged Threshold Issue for Black Theology", in African-American Religious Thought: An Anthology, by William R Jones, ed Cornel West and Eddie Glaube (Westminster John Knox Press).
http://www.jeffhead.com/blacklibtheology.htm

HANNITY: But Reverend Jeremiah Wright is not backing down and has not for years and in his strong stance on the teaching of black liberation theology is nothing new. He had the same things to say last spring when he appeared on "Hannity & Colmes:"

WRIGHT: If you're not going to talk about theology in context, if you're not going to talk about liberation theology that came out of the '60s, systematized black liberation theology that started with Jim Cone in 1968 and the writings of Cone and the writings of Dwight Hopkins and the writings of womynist theologians and Asian theologians and Hispanic theologians, then you can't talk about the black value system.

HANNITY: But I'm a — reverend

WRIGHT: Do you know liberation theology, sir?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354158,00.html

YouTube: Glenn Beck on Obama and Black Liberation Theology.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cA0GEV1ibY&eurl=http://maggiesnotebook.blogspot.com/2008/04/im-speechless.html

this guy's swallowed a lot of Kool aid

"In 1951, Jones began attending communist meetings and rallies in Indianapolis.[4] Jones became flustered at harassment he received during the McCarthy Hearings,[4] particularly, regarding meetings between Jones and his mother with Paul Robeson.[5] This, among other things, provoked a seminal moment for Jones where he asked himself "how can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was, infiltrate the church."[5][4]"

"In the summer of 1977, Jones and most of the 900 members of the People's Temple moved to Guyana from San Francisco after media pressure built.[25] Jones left the same night that an editor at New West magazine read Jones an article by Marshall Kilduff to be published detailing allegations by former Temple members.[25][16] Jones named the settlement Jonestown after himself.

Jones purported to establish Jonestown as a benevolent model communist community stating, 'I believe we’re the purest communists there are.' [26] Jones' wife, Marceline, described Jonestown as "dedicated to live for socialism, total economic and racial and social equality. We are here living communally."[26] Jones wanted to construct a model community to show others and stated that Prime Minister of Guyana Forbes Burnham 'couldn’t rave enough about us, uh, the wonderful things we do, the project, the model of socialism.'[27] In that regard, like the restrictive emigration policies of the then Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea and other communist republics, Jones did not permit members to leave Jonestown.[28]

Jones and several members argued that the group should commit "revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced grape flavored Flavor Aid (often misidentified as Kool-Aid) along with a sedative.[39]

One member, Christine Miller, dissents toward the beginning of the tape.[39] When members apparently cried, Jones counseled "Stop this hysterics. This is not the way for people who are Socialists or Communists to die. No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity."[39] Jones can be heard saying, "Don't be afraid to die" and, regarding death as "just stepping over into another plane" and that "[death is] a friend."[39] At the end of the tape, Jones concludes: "We didn't commit suicide, we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world."[39] Children were given the drink first and families were told to lie down together. The mass suicide had been discussed in simulated events called "White Nights" on a regular basis, while members drank liquid Jones first told them was poison during at least one of those White Nights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones

"...in single-strongman-dominated countries (at last count close to 100) almost all would wish to have a leader as benign as the much reviled George W. Bush. Jealousy is hard to disguise."

Neither is the Third World mindset that delivers these countries--repeatedly--time after time--and forever--into the grip of these brutal, self-serving Presidents-for-life.

These are the people--and this is the Third World mindset--that would deliver America to single-strongman-domination if they had the authority.

And make no mistake--if the Western Left had sufficient power--the U.S.A. would be ruled by a brutal, self-serving, President-for-life strongman--and the U.S. would free fall into a Third World hellhole indistinguishable from Zimbabwe and ruled by a tyrant indistinuishable from Robert Mugabe.

"So the reasons why much of the world admires America become the very same reasons for the rampant hatred."

Of course.

And jealousy does not inspire these people to want what's best for the American people.

"Obama, like socialism or other 'isms' of old, symbolizes a forced egalitarianism by lessening America."

Of course that's exactly what America's enemies abroad and in America want to do--and not just lessen the U.S.A.--they want to destroy the U.S.A. Electing Obama to the Presidency and Democrats to a Congressional majority would be a good way to do it.

"I think this is...not a winning ticket and I hope Americans understand it when they vote next November."

Obviously--America's enemies want to weaken and destroy America. Supporting Obama is part of their strategy.

Obviously--they do not want what's best for America.

Furthermore--when you see the kind of government they have chosen for themselves--you see the kind of government that they would chose for everyone else--including the American people.

thanks--what I managed not to learn for 30 years (has it all been a media blackout?)

Same here. I don't remember anything at the time in the media or in school about Jonestown being a communist community. The liberal-leftist media did the same thing with the Patty Hearst story and the SLA. In fact, even Charles Manson's "Helter Skelter" was basically what the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), Weather Underground, Black Panthers and Black Liberation Army were about: starting a race-based revolutionary overthrow of the United States. This is also what Reverend Wright's Black Liberation Theology is all about. In any case, the left-wing media did a similar thing with Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who shot JFK:

Lee Harvey Oswald
From wikipedia (with references at site) :

Around the age of fifteen, he became an ardent Marxist solely from his private reading on the topic. He wrote in his diary, "I was looking for a key to my environment, and then I discovered socialist literature. I had to dig for my books in the back dusty shelves of libraries."[13] At 16 he wrote to the Socialist Party of America, stating that he was a Marxist who had been studying socialist principles for "well over fifteen months," and asked for information about their youth league.[14]

While in the Marines, Oswald was trained in the use of the M1 Garand rifle. Following that training, he was tested in December of 1956, and obtained a score of 212, which was 2 points above the minimum for qualifications as a sharpshooter. In May 1959, on another range, Oswald scored 191, which was 1 point over the minimum for ranking as a marksman.[17]

Small and frail compared to the other Marines, he was nicknamed Ozzie Rabbit after the cartoon character. His shyness and Soviet sympathies alienated him from his fellow Marines. Ostracism only seemed to provoke him into being a stauncher, more outspoken communist. For his steadfast beliefs, his nickname ultimately became Oswaldskovich.

Life in the Soviet Union

In October 1959, Oswald immigrated to the Soviet Union. He was nineteen, and the trip was planned well in advance. Along with having taught himself rudimentary Russian, he had saved $1,500 of his Marine Corps salary,[19] got an early "hardship" discharge by (falsely) claiming he needed to care for his injured mother,[20] got a passport, and submitted several fictional applications to foreign universities in order to obtain a student visa (and possibly help avoid Marine Corps reserve duty).

After spending only three days with his mother in Fort Worth, he departed by ship from New Orleans on September 20, 1959, for the Soviet Union, first arriving in Le Havre in France, then to London,England and eventually Oswald to a Finnair flight to Helsinki, Finland as part of a package tour. Oswald landed to Helsinki airport in October 10 at 23.30 a.m. he registered at the Hotel Torni but two days later , he moved to the Kurki Hotel.Oswald applied for a visa at the embassy on October 12, his first business day in Helsinki. Oswalds visa was issued on October 14. It was valid until October 20 and permitted him to take one trip of not more than 6 days to the Soviet Union. He left from Helsinki Central Railway Station by train next day on October 15 to Moscow and when he crossed the Finnish-Russian border at Vainikkala, he arrived to Moscow on October 16." [21] When he arrived in the Soviet Union and showed up unexpectedly at the Embassy in Moscow, he said he wanted to renounce his U.S. citizenship.[22][23] When the Navy Department learned of this, it changed Oswald's Marine Corps discharge from "hardship/honorable" to "undesirable."[24]

Oswald told a reporter in Moscow, "For two years I've had it in my mind, don't form any attachments, because I knew I was going away. I was planning to divest myself of everything to do with the United States."[25] To another reporter he said, "I would not consider returning to the United States," and referred to the Soviet government as "my government."[26] His wish to remain in the Soviet Union was initially applauded by the Soviets, but although he had some technical knowledge acquired in the Marines they soon discovered he had little of real value to offer the Soviet Union and his application for Soviet residency was rejected.[27] In response, Oswald made a bloody but minor cut to his left wrist in his hotel room bathtub. After bandaging his superficial injury, the cautious Soviets kept him under psychiatric observation at the Botkin Hospital.[28][29] Although this attempt may have been no more than an attention-getting ruse, the Soviet government feared an international incident if he were to attempt something similar again.

New Orleans

Oswald returned to New Orleans, arriving on the morning of April 25, 1963 looking for work. After Oswald got a job as a machinery greaser with the Reily Coffee Company in May, Marina was driven there by family friend Ruth Paine. Oswald was fired for inefficiency and dereliction of duty on July 19.

During this period, Oswald began to consider returning to the Soviet Union or going to Cuba.[57] He had Marina write to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C. about the possibility of their returning to the Soviet Union.[58] His Marxist ideals became focused on Fidel Castro and Cuba and he soon became a vocal pro-Castro advocate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Harvey_Oswald

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