Posted on 02/22/2015 9:11:28 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
When Rudy Giuliani accused President Obama of not loving America, was he expressing a form of racism? If not, what was Giuliani saying?
I have argued, controversially to some on the left, that it is important to grapple with ideas on their own terms before merely analyzing their motivations. American conservatism is historically intertwined with white racism in such a way that nearly any conservative idea could plausibly be understood as an appeal to racism, but most of those ideas can be expressed and justified in non-racial terms, and deserve to be taken at face value. The trouble with Giuliani’s comments is that they lack the coherence necessary to be analyzed as an idea. Brush away the bilious rage he has emitted, and nothing solid remains behind.
The original basis for Giuliani’s comments was Obama’s allegedly unusual upbringing. “He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up, through love of this country,” alleged the former mayor. As Wayne Barrett points out, Giuliani’s father was a mob enforcer, and he and his five brothers all avoided military service during World War II. What about this upbringing in any way suggests it conveyed some deeper patriotism than Obama’s?
Giuliani subsequently clarified his original remarks, though not in the way he intended, by asserting that Obama’s alleged anti-Americanism amounted to “socialism or possibly anti-colonialism.” Here Giuliani is reprising the theories of Dinesh D’Souza, who has described Obama as fundamentally influenced by Kenyan anti-colonialism. Unfortunately for Giuliani, D’Souza’s racism is so transparent not even many conservatives care to defend it any longer....
(Excerpt) Read more at nymag.com ...
The only solution to today’s era of hyper racism, which goes both ways, is to go back to “separate but equal”.
The first step in correct analysis is to set aside the lies (like above) and one's own myopic view.
One more thing:
You post an article supportive of the leftist/communist/Marxist worldview and then disappear. No comment from you after 60 posts.
bfl
Since when did Dinesh D’Souza’s theory about Obama become dismissable as racist? Chait seems to think all of D’Souza’s evidence and the sensible conclusions he draws can be hand waved away. How convenient.
I do think it’s interesting that Chait acknowledges that there are those on the left who do in fact hate America. He calls those people leftists, who are distinct from people like himself and Obama whom he calls liberals, the difference being that liberals are merely let down by America’s failure to live up to its ideals but still love it.
The problem with this is that Obama is clearly not your typical liberal. He is a leftist, if we’re going to use Chait’s categories. He has a background full of socialist and communist influences and connections, plus the whole anti-colonial thing that he would have gotten from his father, plus the alienation of spending part of his childhood in a foreign Islamic country.
All of this adds up to Obama being a leftist with a grudge against the country he leads. He conceals it behind a very deliberately constructed persona that people like Jonathan Chait find believable because they want to believe it. But the rest of us see right through it. We see the obvious smoke, and we also see the fire that Chait et al are always taking such pains to deny.
“No comment from you after 60 posts.”
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So what......maybe he went out for lunch.
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I’ve posted about 27,000 threads since I joined. If you don’t know where I’m coming from by now, you probably never will.
What conveyed a deeper patriotism in Guiliani’s upbringing is the lack of socialist and communist influence compared to Obama’s. Socialism is practically a religion of anti-Americanism.
“”PS. Obama loves America the way OJ loved Nicole.””
Good one.
How is the weather in Ithaca? Besides very cold!!! I well remember the hilly, icy, slippery streets. Remember a storm that prevented us from getting out of the parking lot at work on Hudson St., on St. Patrick’s Day in ‘56 or ‘57... Left there in ‘57 for sunny CA. Left sunny CA in 2006 for HOT and COLD GA!! No more moving...
All Rudy did is deny the double standard that says they can always smear us but we cant attack them...bullsquat!
Well done Travis!
How is patriotism, one way or the other, racist?
Are they saying that blacks don’t love America therefore assuming O doesn’t is somehow lumping him in?
I’m serious, confused.
This creep of a writer writes as tho’ the only people reading his dumb material are the people who put obozo in office to begin with and therefore will fall for anything/everything he writes. Too bad our comments can’t go directly to the author of such tripe. They need a good shake up. Not everything revolves around the leftist take in this country. Throw in the word “racist” and get EVERYONE to back off. Is that the trick? Doesn’t work on us!
Easily - your entire post is irrelevant . The only real question for you is, what part of Giuliani’s saying that Obama doesn't love America do you think is wrong?
Sounds like you want your news filtered and packaged so as not to challenge your thinking.
This is probably the wrong website for that.
What kind of racism? What race is Obama? He’s 1/2 white, 1/8 black, and 3/8 Arab. Is that mixture a race? Looks like 75% white to me.
The trial of John Peter Zenger established the fact that, in America, truth is a defense to a charge of libel.
Do purveyors of the charge of “racism” believe that a true statement can be “”racist”?
Racist. OMuslim is a halfrican. He is not an African American. His Father was an arab muslim from Africa. Mummy was a who knows what white girl from Hawaii via Kansas.
Even so saying someone does not love their country is not racist. Its a made up thing that needs to be challenged loudly.
How is questioning (”attacking” in leftist parlance) a man’s ideology the same as attacking his race?
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