Of ‘Post-Racial’ and the New Racism

by Rick Marschall

 Our Constitutionally mandated twilight zone between election and inauguration is virtually unique among the world’s democracies. In totalitarian systems, needless to say, the transfer of power and authority is instantaneous, and even bloody aspects do not deter the world’s creeping rollback from democracy. But in most of the so-called democracies of the so-called enlightened world, elections trigger a scenario of dutifully emptied desk drawers, orderly replacement of nameplates, and a new cast of frozen-smile portraits in government buildings.

In parliamentary systems, the Opposition is a government-in-waiting. The American interregnum between November and January 20 (March 4 prior to 1933) was instituted to accommodate long travel over muddy roads in the early days of the Republic. Few people, least of all the new president, wanted to miss the inauguration. Or the inaugural ball.

Living in this never-never land has its benefits, however. A government in suspended animation between lame ducks and incoming statesmen virtually assures a minimum of meddling, just as the first cool evenings of late summer eliminate mosquitoes and other pests. The Permanent Campaign of modern politics gives way to Permanent Speculation, a guessing-game about Ins and Outs (this year, Change You Can Believe In is either a brave new world or a stroll down memory lane). This “transition” period is a bonanza at least to the news media – a decompression-chamber from the windfalls generated by election controversies and campaign advertising.

In recent years a “honeymoon” – between recent partisan foes; between press and politicians – is traditional, or at least a traditional pretense. After the 2008 election, however, the mainstream media (MSM) and the incoming president enjoy something more like a wedding night than a honeymoon; in fact they have been flirting and dating and doing the nasty since first sight. “MSM + BHO” is carved on every tree and scrawled on every fence between Springfield and DC. “Yes we can.”

Another change we can believe in, heralded as part of the Political Millennium, is the corner that has been turned, the chapter that has been closed, the era that has ended: the arrival of a Post-Racial society. Have you noticed?

That the horrors of slavery are past is of course an uncontested truism, but also a blessing with countless effects, just as the evil stains of slavery spread in many and long directions. That black people still inhabit the lower regions of the statistical charts and tables documenting advancement, achievement, and accomplishment, suggests several things… but resolutely resists answers. It has become an a priori fact of sociology and public policy that blacks attract more bigotry from the established order than do other newcomers to the American shores (or, in fact, newcomers to shores of other countries). Also that the black peoples’ slave status begat more “strikes against” them, even to generations far removed, than any negative attitudes or horrible treatment accorded almost any other group.

All of which has led to the successful Reparations movement. Writing checks to black people as compensation for crimes of earlier wrongs might never happen; but that is just a detail. A mindset of virtual-reparationism, a sort of entitlement, has attached itself to many blacks, many whites, and many voters.

The human animal sets internal clocks by Emerson’s Law of Compensation – everyone silently subscribes and occasionally refers to the inevitable swing of the pendulum, Karma, pay-back time, “what goes around comes around.” A time-heals-all-wounds type of justice frames the election of a man of color to the presidency in a land where slaves (slaves of all colors, not a frequently cited distinction) were denied the right to vote. In the beginning they were equal in this regard – equal, that is, to women and, in some areas, freemen who didn’t own property or were not literate.

The differences between racial attitudes, racism, and bigotry are real… but were meaningless distinctions to black celebrities, athletes, and musicians – I mean to say, EVEN these blacks – as recently as my childhood. On vacations I saw “Whites Only” signs on restroom doors, and I was stung by the odium, as much as one who was neither perpetrator nor victim could be.

Yet the race-related tenor of this post-election / pre-inauguration celebration disturbs me. It has nothing to do with the election of a person of color to the presidency. I dearly would love to have seen Alan Keyes elected senator (over anyone, not just Obama). I would love to see Michael Steele run for president, to be president. Some of my best candidates are black, to beat critics to a paraphrase. What disturbs me is that – typically – the media’s orgiastic, sound-bite filtration of current events is fatally flawed.

This might be Post-Racial America in some eyes, but it is NOT Post-Racist America, and the perpetrators largely are the media, liberals, and many black leaders themselves. A New Racism – we can view it as Political Correctness on steroids – is based upon a libel upon honest citizens of good will, and skews the proper vision of social justice and the popular rule.

If there was racism in the recent presidential campaign, it overwhelmingly (and ironically) was exercised by the black candidate, his media collaborators, and his campaign strategists. “They’re gonna tell you,” Obama frequently intoned, “that I’m different, I have a different name, that my face doesn’t look like presidents on dollar bills.” But we never did hear such things from McCain or other Obama opponents. Or anyone, except leftist scare-merchants. Obama claimed that Sarah Palin rallies featured calls from the crowd to “kill him,” that is, to kill Obama. Evidently the only time those words were heard was when Obama claimed so on national television – neither Secret Service nor FBI could corroborate this libel.

In other words, there was more race-baiting from Obama, telling us what we were GOING to hear, or what he wanted us to THINK we heard, than was actually said or ever actually heard. Therefore Obama benefitted mightily from race-baiting, sort of a designed threat, to quote one of the Vice President Elect’s rare original phrases. That’s not the new Post-Racial; that’s the old Racist. Or, to be clear, the New Racism.

In the media, Chris Matthews eerily confessed to sensations of “tingling” up and down his leg when he saw Obama. He says it now is his “duty” as a cable-news host to make Obama look good. Don Imus almost punctured another lung contorting himself to kiss up to every exposed portion of Obama’s anatomy and toss countless softball questions to Obama cheerleaders. Harry Smith, host of a television news program on CBS called “The Early Show,” said after the election, “I wept tears of joy last night." And, this just in, his co-host Julie Chen reported: "You have tears in your eyes right now, Harry." Since the election, writers at The New York Times and at TIME Magazine took their journals to task for – no, let just say, they admitted to the fact of – extremely biased coverage.

It should be noted that all these variations of disservice to the Republic are not simply because Obama is a Democrat or that he was astride some Trojan horse about which “journalists” fantasize. No, most of the Kool Aid packets were Race-flavored.  And this returns us to a consideration of the differences between racial attitudes, racism, and bigotry. Amidst the din of this Post-Racial celebration, we note some curious role-reversals.

Consider the case of Saturday Night Live, where much of the ink devoted to during the campaign was misdirected: not the bad Hillary impersonation, not Tina Fey’s additional 15 minutes of fame, not even the staggering ratings bump when Sarah Palin guest-starred. No, it was the impersonation of Barack Obama. SNL was condemned for… having a white actor portray Obama. What an insult. Supposedly. But why? Obama is half-white, and by some reports of his ancestry less than half-black. Do critics think it is demeaning for a black guy to be portrayed by a white guy? Is there an anti-anti-minstrel rule? – not that there was anything untoward in the impersonation other than its fecklessness. Its treatment invariably was fawning – no surprise – yet people rushed to bash the racial insult that wasn’t (except under the new rules of the New Racism).

New Racism is characterized by more than its inherent noxious absurdity. It is culturally acceptable. It is that rare category of Hate Speech – Hate Speech that is approved.  Approximately 97 per cent of blacks across America voted for Obama, but I doubt that any lily-white precincts of the old South, or stereotypical country clubs in Northern suburbs cast 97 per cent of THEIR votes for McCain, the white guy. Indeed, if such statistically lopsided votes were cast in such areas, the voters routinely would be branded as old-fashioned Racists. Or, as Obama said of his white grandmother, “a typical white person” with all the ingrained and horrible attitudes he attaches to that stereotype.

Yet blacks who voted as automatons for Obama saw themselves, and universally were praised by patronizing observers, as acting out a form of liberation. It was a GIVEN that blacks would vote for Obama; that it was acceptable to check at the door all traditional requirements – let us call them obligations – of exercising the right to vote.

No other probability is plausible; no other reasoning is reasonable: Obama received his votes – overwhelmingly of black voters, and according to exit polls in large percentages among some white partisans – because of his skin color.

Some patronizing paternalists of the left concede this fact, claiming that a color-based vote has the effect of righting a thousand old wrongs… that a minority needs symbolic idols… that Obama, and his telegenic family, provide role models for unaccomplished blacks. The definition of justice as a moveable feast of the pendulum-swing, and the formulation of public policy on readings from a bathroom-scale accumulation of grievances and complaints, are, like race-baiting and “voting based on the color of his skin,” values that are alive and well.

The Liberal-Industrial Complex and the black voting bloc that has allowed itself to be in acquiescent servitude for generations (which, among things, has effectively eliminated their leverage on the political playing field) has been less concerned with Race as a means than an end; that is to say, racial harmony, or a color-blind society, as an end. A seamless elevation of a black man to the presidency a half-century after Brown v Board of Education is of course evidence of a seismic transformation of cultural attitudes – absolutely an admirable event on its surface, perhaps without parallel in history, in any culture. It is more remarkable as a function of human nature than the American political system, and therefore more profound.

But it was short of being seamless, thanks to its own promoters. Obama’s racial scare-tactics were reminiscent of how politicians a generation after the Civil war would “wave the bloody shirt” – that is, revive incendiary wartime controversies to inflame voters. The prize-winner was the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, representing a class of professional agitators whose game would be up if – hallelujah! – a black man were elected President of the United States of America, and seamlessly, without the past’s ugliness and stench of racism.

Better for Wright to continue his stock-in-trade, which is perpetuating Grievance. He might be a Jeremiah, but he is no Joshua or Caleb: he will forever see giants in the land and therefore scream about being denied the Promised Land while diverting his compliant flock’s path anywhere but forward. The closest he will get to racial harmony is, in effect, preaching to his faithful: “Let’s you and them fight!”

Some partisans prefer their meal ticket over social harmony, and some place ideological goals over racial goals. The ultimate irony of this issue is that, while the MSM casts this election in terms of Post-Racial politics, in the quiet moments of the night in one of the bedrooms of his Chicago mansion, it is possible that Obama himself doesn’t see his elevation as a triumph of race over prejudice, but of radicalism over the Establishment.

It is not his degree of blackness, but redness (not Red State, but red ideology) that is the significant aspect of the recent election.

The New Racism provides a smokescreen that obscures a clear vision of the truth: Obama’s beloved surrogate father, Frank Marshall Davis, should be of concern not because he was black; not at all; but because he was a committed and effective worker for the Communist Party USA. Another inspiration to Obama’s words and deeds for many years of his life was Saul Aulinsky, the Marxist architect of “community organizing.” Community Organization is not an innocent description but the designated term for the passel of ideas to indoctrinate schoolchildren, to teach street people how to intimidate bureaucrats-with-budgets, to affect voter-registration rolls.

It is a self-swindling delusion to think that one form of racism is better than another. America will never become place better for anyone unless it is a place better for everyone. The forgotten man in the recent election was not Davis nor Aulinsky nor Wright nor Louis Farrakhan nor any other figures swept under Obama’s rug, but Dr Martin Luther King, whose ringing dream of an America where people will be judged “by the content of their character, not the color of their skin” was cynically marginalized. 

The New Racism, however, will prevail because the MSM and the Permanent Campaign continuously will roil the public discourse, and forever blow on the embers of white guilt. If blacks can be relied upon on to vote 97 per cent for blacks, ad infinitum, democracy in America can be spared the expense of printing ballots, the angst of hanging chads, and the infestation of pollsters psychoanalyzing our civic whims. But there would be negative results too.

The curious “logical extension” of blacks voting 97 per cent for Obama – that is, if it became a model for retooling our entire electoral system – would see all groups voting lockstep for their “own,” until, say, the number of Jews in the Senate would drop from double figures to one or two per cent, which is their proportion of the general population.

But of course Americans vote the candidate, not the skin color or racial background. To the extent that the Establishment now exempts black voters from this dictum, it practices Paternalism (implying blacks cannot process complex issues), Exceptionalism (blacks have suffered so much that they can be excused to operate by different standards), Reparationalism (blacks should present a due-bill for slavery), Grievance Politics (maybe they won’t complain), or, well, simple Hypocrisy.

To yield to any of these practices demands, then, that the implications be dealt with: just how many elections, or years, of race-baiting is condoned before things are “even”? After one group is praised for voting blindly on the basis of skin color, as is happening now, will other groups be encouraged to do the same thing, and for how many elections or years?

Add it all up, it’s the New Racism. Shorn of adjectives, it’s still racism. No lipstick on THIS pig. It still stinks. And the pig has plopped itself down in our national living room, ready to wallow for four years, maybe eight, maybe a generation, maybe forever through America’s twilight.

How to identify the New Racism? Remember quotations like Obama’s description of… well, people who don’t look like him: “… 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.” Look upon supposedly benign examples of Post-Racism and substitute groups’ names for the indefinite pronouns; try switching an “us” to a “them”; count all the dismissive uses of “they.” Those sorts of parlor games. Behold, the New Racism.

Michelle Obama spoke the truth when she said in a campaign speech: “…sometimes it’s easier to hold on to your own stereotypes and misconceptions. It makes you feel justified in your own ignorance…. That’s America.”

-- 30 --

Some of these transformations are recognitions of a changed reality. Few people decorate servicemen’s graves these days, much less anything else. My family album has photos of my mother’s decoration of my baby carriage – red, white, and blue bunting – so she could join hundreds of other moms, dads, and veterans in a Decoration Day parade in Ridgewood NY, a scene that was duplicated thousands of times over, across America on every Decoration Day. I daresay – whether called Decoration Day or Memorial Day – these democratic-impulse celebrations of patriotism are practiced in that way any longer.

Most holidays, today, seem to be the concoctions of a secret cabal whose members include Hallmark Cards, florists, and retail stores looking for an excuse to frame a sales event. Worse, the assault on Christian traditions is one symptom of Creeping Paganism. Earth Day and the Winter Solstice are more common in public schools than at any time since Druids pushed stones across vacant lots. Thanksgiving is also on the endangered-species list (so to speak; I mean no offense to the duck-billed toad) in public schools.

Veterans Day was mercifully renamed, however. Invented by fiat of Woodrow Wilson, his proclamation betrayed his typically internationalist fetish: “because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…” The peace and justice in the council of the nations was illustrated to Wilson in the succeeding months, when Old-World politicians treated him like a country rube, metaphorically picking his pockets and those of former enemies after whose lands and resources they lusted, all under the cover of Wilson’s Messianic delusions.

In a bit of pre-Hallmark gimmickry, Wilson and friends delayed the cessation of hostilities until 11:11 on 11-11, even though the Germans had signed papers of surrender at 5 a.m. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of soldiers and civilians died in those extra hours of history’s most useless war; but a catchy commemoration was achieved.

After a few years, and especially after the generation’s second bloodbath, World War II, the United States considered it more seemly to honor all veterans, not just those of what had been called the War to End All Wars. In Eisenhower’s administration, Congress (about the same time it added “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance) voted the official change – to honor all American veterans of all wars.

It is truly meet and right so to do.

America has not been exempt from other nations’ folly, for it is indeed an aspect of human nature, not a peculiarity of a country or a system of politics or economics: some wars are justified, and some are criminal. Some uplift a society; some merely decimate a society. Some bring out the best in people’s character; some expose, and even encourage, the worst aspects.

In the Revolutionary War, it was necessary for a citizen militia, and squads even less formal, to take up arms, and it still is inspiring to consider how many men committed their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor for a vague dream.

On the other hand, the Mexican War was a contrived land-grab – contrived partly to extend slave-holding territory at that – and many of whose participants (a young Abraham Lincoln among them) ridiculed the leaders and goals.

In the Civil War, the least distinguished soldier – sometimes recent arrivals to these shores – often performed the bravest and most sacrificial of acts, again for causes that were at least as abstract as material. In Viet Nam (as in Korea previously and Iraq afterwards) troops were obliged to fight for limited, inchoate, or shifting, objectives.

Through it all, whether causes were sterling or tarnished, American military personnel invariably reflected the glory of Old Glory. Whether militias, volunteers, or draftees, the best have always stepped forward… or were crafted by the system to become the best. There has not been a war where the American serviceman has not been an efficient warrior… and a sincere friend to the locals.

We all know that too often the US soldier, sailor, marine, and airman have faced honest enemies and received inconsistent support from citizens and politicians back home. Shame on America that this has happened and is happening.

This world is turning crazy.

Our troops are stretched thin in our government’s mad desire to transform the United States from a Republic into an empire.

Our troops are killed and maimed in a war deficient of military goals and started under shady pretext. They are stretched thin in strange corners of the globe while an undeclared, piecemeal invasion of illegals across our borders continues week by week.

Our troops, superbly trained in the arts and craft of war, find themselves doing Florence-Nightingale works of charity, building schools, delivering computers to children, clearing safe zones for hospitals; building nations, patrolling polling places. Nice gestures, but not the work of warriors.

In the meantime, our goal of cramming Social-Studies textbook-style democracy down the world’s throat is backed by a fatally flawed democracy in the homeland – voter frauds, false ballots, intimidation at polling places, forged registrations, and bias on the part of officials, “community” organizations, and the media. What’s wrong with this picture?

We ask our servicemen and women to deliver billions of dollars’ worth of assistance and materiel – bribes, really – to countries around the world when America itself is hurting for better schools, classroom technology, hospitals and infrastructure. Worse, the military is being charged with the task that God has assigned to His children: to act charitably toward those in need. The military should fight or defend; individuals and citizen-groups should aid the needy and tend to the sick.

After deciding to establish a for-hire military in the US, the government routinely asks troops to perform non-military duties, puts them in harm’s way in murky-policy swamps, allows them to be slandered in press and politicians’ speeches… and leaves service families stateside sometimes to subsist on food stamps and reside in public housing. And when troops are shipped home, often after a three-card monte trick of extra tours, and sometimes horribly maimed, there are inadequate facilities and care for the best of our best -- remember the scandal at Walter Reed Army Hospital.

America has come to the point where the performance of normal duties is regarded as something exceptional. It is more of a compliment to say the police and firemen at 9-11 did their duty, than to say they performed as out-of-the-ordinary heroes. But so have American values changed. And many people whine about special treatment they “deserve.”

However, on Veterans Day 2008, and every Veterans Day to come – indeed, every day of every year to come – I propose that we all treat every veteran as a hero. And that they should be honored, yes, specially, for doing their duty: being heroes for us. I propose a program of “reparations” not for “past wrongs” done to them but for countless good things they have done for us in the past.

When you see a vet, thank him or her.

If you can hire a vet, offer them a place at the front of the line.

Maybe there are families of active-duty service people in your area. “Adopt” them, remember them at holidays, watch the kids, run errands, organize a work-weekend, invite them to church.

Talk to them with undimmed eyes, but it’s OK to get a little misty when you think about them.

Work to keep that flag something worth defending.

Thank them for their service… and then, remember to thank God for their service. 

 -- 30 --

By Rick Marschall

            The dust barely has settled from Campaign 2008, a dust-up of news cycles and national attention – and distractions – of two solid years’ intensity. A politics-weary country was visited with forecasts of another dust-storm of presidential politics, not one or two years over the horizon but imminently.

            The President-Elect himself, in what surely have been unprecedented acts, several times has told his supporters that his agenda “would not take one year, or even one term” to fulfill. It was the first time a winning candidate’s victory speech in effect announced his candidacy for a second term.

            So the dust hardly settles. But through the dust, and in a spirit of reflection, certain historical images assert themselves. Let us stop for a moment and consider the following:

            Here was a candidate whose role, and perhaps destiny, is Transformational.

          Unknown outside an urban neighborhood, in a few short years he sprang to national prominence… and international renown.

            Contrary to most national and personal success stories, his immediate ancestry was from outside the borders of the country that elevated him to its highest position.

            Rumors of dark associations in his past, and secret backers of his current ambitions, were rife, yet proved insignificant to his rise.

            “Self-made man” had a different meaning in his case: not just material success, but the vital details of activities and beliefs, he kept rather obscure. His supporters cared not at all.

            He wrote an autobiography while yet an obscure figure – perhaps an act of hubris – yet full of roadmaps and plans, also scarcely referenced even at the height of the campaign.

            Clearly it was not so much those associates and backers, beliefs or plans, that fueled his sudden rise. The force of his personality explained much. A nation battered by the effects of a war, hurting from a reeling economy, troubled by political disarray and corruption, was at first in inchoate in its appetite for Change. Once he identified with Change – and manifested those yearnings in an astonishing and impressive manner – a nation seemed willing to trust its future to him almost blindly.

            Detractors and admirers alike acknowledge a speaking style that captivates listeners. Measured words, an emotional cadence, old clichés were somehow transformed into seeming revolutionary volleys. The Speech typically ranged from grievances to hope, beginning quietly, obliging the audience to be deathly silent and hang on every word, and recounted past injustice and recent ills, then offered a list of battles to fight, then closed with inspirational words about a glowing future… both in the country and around the world.

            A pliant and adoring media (often enough a manipulated media) would not just portray a savior-like aura around the man or the Speech: how often did we see camera shots of worshipful listeners, their robot-like responses to applause-lines, their frozen smiles, and their tear-filled eyes?

            A kiddie korps was a feature of the campaign. Too young to vote, and obviously too young to understand the issues, many children nevertheless were dressed up with logos, symbols, and legends on their clothes, on their signs, and in their mouths. They sang special songs and chanted methodically, in nationwide commercials and in neighborhood rallies.

            Speaking of symbols, we remember that the candidate’s distinctive logo was seen everywhere, not just on placards but in faux-presidential seals on lecterns and eventually replacing the nation’s flag on the exterior of the campaign plane!

            His rallies were something to behold… and were impossible not to behold. Their sheer size commanded attention – size of venues, size of audiences, the very size of the Audacity. A convention hall was rejected for a sports stadium. Other politicians had been content with meeting-rooms or hotel ballrooms for victory celebrations, but an urban park, overflowing for hundreds of thousands of cheering supporters, was substituted.

            The rallies we remember as oftentimes at night, where the focus is perforce on the stage, the microphone, the man. Celebrities warmed up, but also attracted, the crowds. Music played a large role, lights were arranged meticulously, everything was arranged like a theatrical production; and we even remember the trappings of an ancient imperial forum.

            Thousands and hundreds of thousands of people were necessary at all times to imply a nation-wide groundswell, but also to validate the Speech and the speechmaker. Safety in numbers? He was choreographing Inevitability in Numbers. Yet as necessary as the multitude was, every speech was given in an eerie spotlight of solitude. Even on the night of victory, he stood alone, not just in that spotlight, but on a stage with no visible partners, friends, or family. The aura of Savior -- about much was, in fact, whispered, joked, and confessed during the campaign – could not be staged otherwise.

            All in all, these factors were impressive, for a hungry public as well as a Leader evidently in constant need of validation. Change becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy…

            But enough of squinting through the dust of history. That was all 75 years ago, another man, in another nation.

            We must see clearly today, and into the future.

– 30 – 

Ending the Campaign On a POSITIVE Note

By Rick Marschall

The election is imminent. Voting has been endless, thanks to new and fuzzy rules encouraging people to make up their minds before all the arguments are advanced. The decision might not be official for some time to come, an endemic trend whether because of evenly divided electorates or frauds disputed by Byzantine logothetes. The choice will not be official until the Electoral College convenes more than 10 weeks distant, or (as has happened thrice in our history) the House of Representatives will decide. There will not be a new president until Jan 20, 2009.

To back up slightly, we should take note that the 2012 presidential campaign will commence precisely after the victory speech following the concession speech on Election Night. The Endless War has given way to the Endless Campaign.

The biggest hog at the trough, by the way, is not the politician nor the citizen nor the lobbyists not the consultant class… but the Mainstream Media. Television, particularly, has raked in more than a combined billion dollars, local and network sales; and – purely a coincidence, of course – the more confusion and controversy they sow, the more the elephants and donkeys bid for expensive ad slots. Among the winners and losers in bloody campaigns, the MSM never loses.

Yet, let us recall the quatrain of Omar Khayyam, the Persian tentmaker, from his beautiful and wise Rubaiyat: “All the saints and sages who discussed / Of the two worlds so learnedly are thrust / like foolish prophets forth; their words to scorn are scattered; / Their mouths are stopped with dust.”

            What controversies will remain of this campaign? What will be swept away like placards after a rally? What ideas will take seed and grow? E S Martin, the prescient editorialist for the old Life Magazine and Harper’s Weekly a century ago, used to cast the two parties of his day as the Celestials and the Carnals; this year one party fueled the Big Momentum by retaining its carnal essence and dressing up in the celestial. Will the victors and vanquished put aside their causes, lick their wounds, and forget the animosities of the previous 20 months?

            Not bloody likely.

            In the interest of a different perspective, I would like to end this chapter of American history to which we have all been players or spectators, on a POSITIVE note.

            I am POSITIVE, for instance, that if Obama is elected he will move in his first weeks if not days to end all restrictions on abortion. To codify a national invitation to government-paid abortion-on-demand. To put Roe vs Wade outside the reach of a Supreme Court reconsideration. To end parental notification.

            I am POSITIVE that an Obama administration will do everything in its power – which it can, by Executive Orders, even before the Barney Frank juggernaut in Congress has its own opportunity – to make acceptance of homosexuality the rule and code of the land. That doesn’t mean just cooing nicely when a man visits his “partner” in the hospital (the way it is sold to us), but, say, the Obama Justice Department outlawing churches, private companies, groups like the Boy Scouts, from stating the belief that homosexuality is a sin. Such will become a hate crime punishable by lost contracts, bureaucratic harassment, and jail time.

            I am POSITIVE that home schools and even charter schools will suffer persecution and intimidation under an Obama Education Department.

            I am POSITIVE that the United Nations will gain status like a co-equal part of the federal government; that the US will be committed to international treaties and organizations, our sovereignty surrendered, often without the formality of a leftist Congress having to go on record committing treason.

            I am POSITIVE that taxes will rise precipitously; that suddenly government, not individuals, will discover loopholes in order to go about its confiscation (or, as it will be called, “fairly spreading the wealth”). There will be pogroms, willingly abetted by the MSM and wealthy celebrities, to make wage earners feel guilty for not digging ever deeper.

            I am POSITIVE that Obama will not shy away from the words “socialist,” Communist,” and “Marxist.” He ended the campaign mocking McCain by wondering whether little Barry Obama was a Communist because he gave away half of his sandwich one day in the first grade (great laughter from robotized crowd). No, Obama: that would be called “sharing” or “charity” or “compassion,” all voluntary and therefore elevating. You can’t be this stupid, but we can explain: socialism, Communism, and Marxism is when YOU say the kid HAS to give up half of his sandwich, or else. No matter what it took to put it in his lunch box, or whether the fat, hungry kid actually deserves it or not. That’s not a laugh-line – that’s coercion. And it’s coming.

            I am POSITIVE – and am sorry to contradict Joe Biden, who sold his Senate Committee Chairman credentials for a mess of potage; imagine scaring people like that – but there will not be a “generated international crisis” in Obama’s first six months. Except that he sees an opportunity to generate one himself (say it’s so, Joe; I getcha now) in order to divert attention or falsely rouse the restive masses behind him. I am positive that no enemy is stupid enough to oblige Obama to actually have to summon a military response. Or feel the need to rattle the sabre louder to satisfy hawks at home. Putative enemies, even flea-infested terrorists, and even Obama himself (if not Biden) are smart enough to know that with a little patience the New Order in Washington will voluntarily surrender more than anything in reach of terrorist attacks or diplomatic crisis.

            I am POSITIVE that American Jews, most of whom saw a virtual Messiah in Obama, will be the first to have “buyer’s remorse” when Middle Eastern policy tilts away from Israel. I am positive that blacks will fare no better under Obama than they have under Democrat massas for two generations, because that party depends on a permanent state of the underclass’s grievance and dependency. The MSM will also find itself treated as the liberal nobility was after the French Revolution. You thought the press lost its head in 2008?

            I am POSITIVE that we are entering the Actuarial Age under Obama. That is, as “changing” governmental policies will make abortion easier; will move American closer to legal euthanasia as practiced in pockets of the US and elsewhere around the enlightened world; will encourage parents to murder babies, including those with Downs Syndrome or the newly born after botched abortions; will move to new ways of dealing with incurable diseases and disabilities. Chilling ways. New definitions of “compassion” (mercy killing) will supplant the old (love and acceptance). I call this the Actuarial Age because the merchants of death will sell all this Change to us because the food supply shrinks, resources are dwindling, and the planet is warming. See?       

I am POSITIVE that not one horror under the coming political dispensation will be undeserved. We are getting what we bargained for.

            Of these things I am POSITIVE. Can’t we all just get along?

– 30 – 

The United Hates of America

By Rick Marschall

A distinguishing characteristic of the 2008 election, but also of the American culture in general, is the relative importance of the peripheral. I am reminded, for instance, of Katie Couric putting matters in perspective – at least her perspective – when she announced the death of Mother Teresa: “We just got word that Mother Teresa, who once met Princess Diana, has passed away…” Yes, it was during the week of Diana’s fatal accident; yes, many news readers never develop improvisational skills. But she could have focused the curious connection in the other direction, or simply not stretched for a connection.

Yet it was an emblem of America’s obsession with celebrity, and, I said, our elevation of the peripheral over the substantive. “Trivia” now seems like the stuff of doctoral theses compared to the stories that flit across front pages, TV-crawls, and computer screens for flickering moments.

In this campaign one of the topics that has shoved aside discussions of, say, foreign policy or judicial activism, is Sarah Palin‘s medical transcript.

She has not provided it to hungry journalists, particularly the watchdog of public affairs, Kate Snow of ABC News (about whom more anon). Neither has Obama, although his campaign released a one-page summary of his health, scarcely the same thing. For that matter, he has stonewalled on the release of his birth certificate in the face of questions about his parentage and the location of his birth, a Constitutional matter (his campaign has released an after-the-fact “record of live birth,” a different document); neither has he yielded to intense curiosity about college transcripts or theses he wrote at Columbia and Harvard, in the face of suspicions of early fealty to Marxist doctrine.

In the interest of full – or partial – disclosure, Biden has released his medical records… with redactions of details about recent brain scans! As someone who has been treated for dangerous brain aneurysms in the past, he should want to reassure the public.

So Sarah Palin has not released her medical records either. It’s not irrelevant matter with any of the candidates, and she has indicated that she would do so; therefore soon rather than late would be appropriate.

But let us pause for a moment on the real story, which is not blood pressure but political pressure. Kate Snow has been an embedded with the Hillary Clinton campaign and a weekend anchor for ABC News. Her puffball questions of Hillary are textbook examples of favorable bias. An “exclusive” interview with Bill Clinton included a question about his arguments in the primary campaign that began “You might not want to answer this, and I’ll respect that…”. Her Democrat bias lends credence to the new nickname of ABC – Another Barack Channel – and her shameful imbalance explains why the mainstream media is losing audience at warp-speed.

In the ABC News “Political Radar” blog for November 1, she writes of the fact that Palin has not yielded to Snow’s request: “Of course there are plenty of perfectly innocent explanations. The governor is perfectly healthy and the campaign feels no public pressure to release information? The doctor is on vacation and unreachable?  The dog ate their records? There are also more sinister explanations. But we won't go there.”

Say it ain’t Snow, Kate. By “not going there,” you HAVE gone there. One place you HAVEN’T gone is Journalism 101. A columnist or commentator properly might write “sinister explanations.” A reporter or anchor should write, “troubling possibilities,” or even “suspicions raised.”  But to write “…more sinister explanations. But we won't go there” confirms that she is taking money under false pretenses from ABC “News,” and ought to wear an Obama button on the set.

But I promised we’d discuss the “United Hates of America.” This Snow job is not it – but her words clearly invite the opening of floodgates of bile it is hard to comprehend. The blog response from Internet readers cascaded. Snow poster her brief countdown of disappointment at 2:22 p.m. I read hundreds and hundreds of posting from readers… so you don’t have to. If you insist on opening the link, I warn you – if you are civil and have good sense or good taste – this will be somewhere between offensive and depressing. Here is the link: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/11/day-six-and-sti.html

Before my summary, remember, we are talking about a sitting governor, the vice-presidential candidate of a major party, a wife and mother, a church member and committed Christian… well, before I get the REAL reasons for the venomous attacks, here is a summary:

Just on the day of Snow’s blog posting, there were reader’s “comments” that can be categorized:

Palin obviously is hiding something “sinister” (Kiss me, Kate): 25 references

Palin clearly is lying: 21

Medical records would show that her husband Todd abused her: 5

Palin is a drug addict: 11

Palin pretended to have the newborn Trig, covering for her daughter Bristol: 97

Palin has had one or more abortions: 55

Palin is mentally unstable and takes treatment drugs: 31

Palin has a STD; herpes or syphilis: 26

I hesitate to list other discussion-points from the democratic chit-chat, but in case your outrage has not been stoked, writers allege that Sarah Palin is a rape victim; is an alcoholic; needs the companionship of a female aide from Alaska; was born male; had sex with McCain; and that her medical records would show that she doesn’t breast-feed, as if that’s a crime.

Once upon a time public servants had to fear only assassin’s bullets.

Michael Barone, longtime staffer on US News and World Report and the editor of the respected Almanac of American Politics, recently wrote an essay, “The Coming Obama Thugocracy.” He properly warns that we are entering an era of intimidation, perversion of laws for partisan ends, and the suppression of free speech.

The posts on this ABC blog of Snow’s are but hors d’oeuvre to the main meal. “Oh, these are just hot-heads letting off steam; that’s what the wide-open Internet is all about.”

This is not about idiots; we have always had them. It is about the subversion of “independent” “news” “services,” for without their objectivity we are doomed as a culture.

This is not about a minimal screening of lewd and obscene posts on a corporate web site, because we long ago abandoned such expectations of the mainstream media.

It is not only about the injustice being done to a decent woman and her family. Be prepared the vilest things said about her husband and daughters – including “dangling the retard in front of screaming audiences” and “Trig probably wished he had been aborted” when he was dressed in a Halloween costume, on other blogs.

What should concern us – deeply, deeply, deeply – is the death of civility in American culture. Good Will left the house a while ago, but arrogance, coarseness, and intimidation are the thugs who have moved in. This is new Ruling Elite.

Get ready for, possibly, four years or eight years of this. Or maybe our entire future, until we are formally overtaken. The barbarians are at the gates. They are also scaling the gates, worming into the foundations, pouring through the cracks.

– 30 – 

Four days to go. Do you find yourself watching your candidate on TV and saying. “I wish he had said that in the debates!” or “Why couldn’t he have displayed that intensity three months ago”? Candidates and their supporters are finally saying some things “better late than never.”

And some are saying things about saying things that maybe they shouldn’t be saying. Or maybe it’s good they ARE saying certain things; that is, maybe we’re hearing things just in time.

On Halloween – appropriately – Barack Obama figuratively jumped out from behind a bush (no pun intended) and yelled Boo to voters. In Columbia, Missouri, he warned that the last four days of the campaign would be filled with hate, fear, and threats… from the Republicans. Just like they’ve been doing all along, he said. There would be attempts to keep voters from the polls… by the Republicans. (Big jokes from little ACORNS grow.) So forth and so on… but, understand, Obama will be there to protect us.

But saying these things do not make them true; or, to the real extent that all politics has become dirty, to tip O’Neill on his head, Obama’s portrayal of his campaign, the dirtiest in history, as the most innocent and cleanest will not make it so.

But with herd-instinct voters in the Media Age, you CAN put a Halloween mask on a pig and scare people.

One of the despicable tactics of the Obama campaign has been to play the race card. Actually, the campaign has dealt the race DECK. Did you notice that the outrageous racism of “Reverend” Wright, aired so early in the campaign, effectively erased a depiction of Obama himself as a Black Radical?

Then Obama said in many speeches that “they” (Republicans and conservatives) will tell “you” (susceptible voters) that “he” (Obama), “he’s different, he has a funny name, he… looks different.” Which is the same thing as accusing his opponents of stopping just short of the N-word and organizing lynching bees.

Notice that in this long campaign, Hillary and McCain were accused of being bigots, but the only SAYING of racist words were by people like Obama and Wright; the only bigoted words SAID were by Obama and his surrogates.

In the third presidential debate, a similar Big Lie was attempted. Obama claimed that at Sarah Palin appearances angry crowds were yelling, “Kill him!” at the mention of Obama’s name. But the Secret Service, a constant presence with the campaigns, denied they ever witnessed such a thing. The FBI investigated; the same thing – no evidence. No crowd members or reporters, even that reliably hostile press entourage, could attest to a single such imprecation.

But – having raised his libel from McCain as an individual to voters in general – Obama’s “saying” such trashy fabrications had the usual, slick success.

The latest bit of scabrous-saying from Obama surrogates and supporters comes from a doyen of American letters, the feminist icon Erica Jong. In Rome at the moment, she was interviewed by the newspaper Coriere della Serra on October 29.

Stick with my translation (the entire interview is here: << http://archiviostorico.corriere.it/2008/ottobre/29/Follett_Jane_Fonda_liberal_americani_co_9_081029030.shtml >> ) but here is what a Pulitzer Prize winning author, an oft-displayed supporter of Obama, said:

“… liberal Americans have anxiety about Obama.” The article quotes her feeling that there will civil war in the US if Obama were to lose. “There are voting booths that cast your vote for McCain when you pull the Obama lever.… the Republicans have already perpetrated swindles.”

She continued: “…my generation has seen, first-person, the murders of JFK, his brother Robert, Martin Luther King. Squads, armed with Kalashnikovs [machine guns] will also kill the Obama Dream.”

She asserts she is not alone in such assurances: writer “Naomi Wolf calls me every day in order to see if my mood is any blacker. Yesterday Jane Fonda sent me an e-mail” about her stress and back pains caused by anxiety of what will happen in the wake of an Obama loss. “My back also spasms a lot,” Jong said, “making me take Valium. This is what they [the Republicans] have caused….”

She claims “if Obama loses, the second American civil war will erupt. There will be the blood in the streets, believe me. … Bush has recalled from Iraq a contingent of soldiers who under the command of Dick Cheney will be employed in the streets against American citizens.”

The Italian reporter calls Jong’s analysis “apocalyptic.” But the American authoress continued: “Jewish intellectuals like me are not astonished, after eight years of Bush, as Naomi Wolf wrote in ‘The End of America,’ because the United States has been transformed into a police state -- from the torture of… journalists to the Patriot Act.”

So say Obama surrogates among the intelligentsia and overseas (is it any wonder that polls say Obama would carry European electorates?) Does Obama ever distance himself from such lunacy? Of course not. In his semantic paradigm, rather an existential exercise, you see, saying such things makes them perforce true. His absurd claims to ignorance of Jeremiah Wright’s racism and treasonous charges neutralized their significance. What Americans should be asking is” “Even if you never knew this guy whom you quoted for your autobiography’s title, why weren’t you outraged when you DID learn about it?”

Finally, let’s consider the threats made by Obama supporters like the celebrated writer Erica Jong. If her candidate loses, there will be civil war, blood in the streets. Indeed we have heard about big-city police departments, and inner-city officials, already scheduling extra security on the streets for election night.

What Erica Jong said, oh my. I have to disagree. I don’t think there will be rioting in the streets if Obama loses. You see, she says it as a threat (besides, if she incites to riot she will be safe in Rome or Israel or Beverly Hills).

What I foresee – and I pray and I keep hope alive that I am wrong – is that if Obama loses, the inner cities will riot. If Obama wins, the inner cities will riot. This happens when basketball teams lose and win; why not this presidential candidate?

This is what democracy in America has come to: lies, threats, and dangerous nonsense. Say it ain’t so.

– 30 – 

Rick Marschall has been called by Bostonia Magazine "perhaps America's foremost authority on popular culture.” He is the Managing Editor of Rare Jewel Magazine, the Christian journal of politics and culture; and founding and Contributing Editor of Hogan's Alley, Journal of the Cartoon Arts. The author/editor of 62 books, he has been a political cartoonist, columnist, syndicate editor, publisher, and lecturer. His wide experience includes Editor at Marvel Comics, writer for Disney Comics, consultant to the US Postal Service, and lecturer for the US Information Service of the State Department. He has been on the faculties of the School of Visual Arts, Rutgers University, Philadelphia College of Art (now University of the Arts), and the Summer Institute for the Gifted at Bryn Mawr University. 

Every election, there’s an inevitable refrain that monumental implications are at stake. This time, however, it actually might be the case. Occasionally the sky DOES fall; sometimes, when the boy cries “wolf!” there really is an exceptional threat.

Generally, Democrats argue that Americans should take the pulse of the current situation and reject the past four years. On some matters, like government-run health care, their critique is older and their solutions more philosophical. Such is the general outlook of the average Democrat.

Generally, Republicans after Reagan trusted the individual and distrusted government. In the Bush era they have found their party transformed into a party of big spending, empire-building, and social engineering – foot-dragging liberalism. Many Republicans are sensing, and many conservatives and Christian patriots have known, that there is more at stake in the 2008 election than current events.

Suddenly the important issue is not, say, whether to raise inheritance taxes or eliminate capital gains taxes. It is not even a menu of choices about when to leave Iraq or how to deal with pollution or energy sources.

With a week left in the election, Christian patriots are realizing that the task at hand is not to elect John McCain. It is not even to defeat Barack Obama. It can be put clearer: it might be a matter of America’s survival to PREVENT Barack Obama. That is, to prevent forces and movements that have festered like ulcerated sores on the body politic of America at least since the 1930s, but now are poised to take control.

This election is exceptional. I invite readers, especially Democrats and liberals – and even more especially, Christians who are tempted to vote Democrat – to bear with me for a few paragraphs.

Only fools think that everything from the past was better. But it is even more foolish to think that everything that is new is better. Christian patriots do not merely engage in nostalgia when they reject the left’s “new reality” and “change.”

A lot of this “change” proposes to turn the world on its head, and there would be profound implications for generations to come. Many voters have not realized this.

“Change” is being proposed, not only about a wartime strategy, or taxes, but what for thousands of years in countless civilizations around the globe have been commonly accepted matters of conscience, manners, and morals. How arrogant, and ultimately how self-destructive, to think that, in defiance of God and history, we have all of a sudden discovered the real truths about things like homosexuality and infanticide.

Let us put aside arguments about bailouts, illegal immigration, the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, a possible war with Iran; or whether it’s government’s job to restrict some salaries or play Santa Claus with others. No matter how “hot” these buttons are, I propose that we see the importance of this election in a different light.

If Barack Obama or John McCain were to move into the house next to yours, would you object to either as a neighbor? By what we see on TV, few of us would. Genial, polite, well mannered, both. What sort of neighbors would they be?

I suggest that Barack Obama would start inviting his friends over, as would be his right. Although he virtually is unknown to the American public, we know enough about his friends.

There would be his pastor. The man who performed the Obama nuptials and preached to the Obamas for 20 years would sneer at you – certainly if you are white – for being part of a system that “invented AIDs to destroy the population of Africa.” If you flew an American flag, he’d be heard yelling, “God damn America” at you. And if you objected to this afterwards, Mr Obama would likely say he was in the kitchen at the time and wasn’t aware of things his close friend was saying.

There would be his longtime mentor/partner/associate William Ayres, or in Obama’s terminology, “a stranger.” Asked about Ayres’ oft-stated (and recently affirmed) pride in bombing the Capitol, the Pentagon, and police stations, Obama famously replied that they were despicable acts, but he (Obama) was only eight years old when Ayres and his girlfriend earned spots on the FBI’s Most-Wanted list; therefore, to Obama, subsequent associations are blameless.

You might, at that point in the conversation, see what Good Neighbor Obama’s reaction would be if, theoretically, you planned to invite a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan to your own barbeque. What if you said: “Of course, he committed those despicable acts when I was young, and even if he hasn’t renounced his past, I see no problem with being his pal.” Or try this one: “I think I’ll launch a political career in the living room of another neighbor, that unrepentant Nazi down the street. Wasn’t all that Nazi stuff ‘way back in the past’?”

When people quantify the inviolability of Communists, blacks, and Jews, but excuse attacks – sometimes deadly violent – on the United States of America, we start to see the nature of the “change” that is afoot.

Wright and Ayres would be just a couple of the guests in Obama’s house, your neighborhood. Others would include Tony Rezko, the wealthy Syrian, now in federal penitentiary, who assisted Obama through underhanded means to buy his Chicago mansion. There would be Frank Marshall Davis, the Communist poet identified as a “father figure” in Obama’s autobiography (and suspected by some as being his biological father). There would be rowdy hordes of ACORN “street organizers,” supported by Obama and now supporting him financially and “other” ways. There would be another screaming racist cleric, Father Pfleger, who was removed from his pulpit by his Chicago cardinal for scabrous activities. There would be Louis Farrakhan, who has endorsed Obama. So has the Communist Party USA, by formal announcement. So have Hamas and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, in rare gestures of foreign meddling.

Listen to the small talk wafting over the fence at neighbor Obama’s rowdy party next door. Nancy Pelosi plans to impose restrictions on AM talk radio because conservatives dominate. Then it sounds like Barney Frank, laughing about the man he called his “spouse,” Herb Moses, having served as an executive with Fannie Mae – which, in turn, made contributions to Frank’s campaign; and which agency Barney Frank later defended against calls for congressional investigations. The lawn-party guests laugh at such things. But now Frank’s voice rises above the din – he announces that he will use his influence in Congress to cut the military by 25 per cent. More laughs. On and on it goes, into the night.

Obama can be heard mocking us within earshot: we’re the idiots who cling to our guns and our religion. More laughter from his friends.

What a group. What a party they’d have next door. What a potential neighbor, this guy Obama.

However, we are electing a president, not a neighbor. While it is worthwhile to gauge a person by the company he keeps – especially someone as spectacularly unknown as Obama – this all should be a warning, not a curiosity. The bigger danger he poses is his lying, double-talk, and excuses about his associations and his past.

Christian patriots have got to stop making their OWN excuses, wiggling out of their OWN responsibility. We have, for instance, compromised on the issue of abortion too long. It should be called for what it is, infanticide: killing babies. Unplanned pregnancies have touched many families; but compounding a sin is tragic when redemption is possible and when innocent life is in the balance. Obama “regrets” abortions yet praises Planned Parenthood and accepts their money; and he answered a hypothetical question about his daughter’s unplanned pregnancy, saying he “wouldn’t punish her with a baby.”

Because major personalities or judges without conscience dismiss opposition to abortion, many people think it is an acceptable “change” in society. But “respectable” people once sanctioned slavery too. Abraham Lincoln “regretted” slavery, albeit by stages in those different times, however early in his life he declared, “If slavery isn’t wrong, nothing is wrong”… and he acted on it, eventually giving his life for its abolition. Obama should be honest on the subject – he favors killing babies. And so should Christians be honest: we are acquiescing in a system that grinds out a Holocaust-load of dead babies year after year.

There is a fair prospect that Christian patriots will look back after four years or eight years of an Obama presidency and sigh, “We could have done better in the 2008 campaign.” Theodore Roosevelt once said, “Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.”

Barack Obama is not astride a Trojan horse. His past and current friends, his past and current views, have come to light. Not all… but enough of them. For an unknown figure with a slim resume, his character references ARE rather revealing. One of the mysteries of this campaign is why opponents have been mum about Obama’s “most liberal senator” rating, tallied by friendly groups, hostile groups, and proudly acknowledged by Obama. He registers as more liberal than Independent Bernie Sanders, the self-proclaimed Socialist from Vermont. Such extremes used to unsettle most Americans.

The electorate’s longtime foundation-stone is cracking in 2008. Are people buffeted by economic chaos or confused into cultural insecurity? Is this a deeper sign of civilization’s decay? Where are the traditionalists? Where is the sense of the American heritage? Why are Christians and patriots so lackluster? Where is the outrage? What has happened to pride in the past, our sense of today, a program for the future?

Where is our self-respect? Can we sit by and let pickpockets, liars, and those who hate us, waltz in to the halls of power, controlling the military and the courts once and for all? Some people think this is the evolution of democracy, or even God’s will that exempts us from involvement. But such fatalism is not of the Bible: we are commanded to work while it is yet day, as we see the right.

The Good-Neighbor illustration is not a metaphor; this is reality. If the thought of such a neighbor disturbs you, the thought of such a president should scare you. These are extreme words, but one can avoid being an alarmist while still sounding the necessary alarm. If your home were on fire, would you want your neighbors to whisper their pleas?

I wonder how many I speak for: John McCain doesn’t exactly steal my heart away. But I’m not going to let that fact hold me back from fighting the crowd that’s trying to steal my country away, either.

– 30 – 

Rick Marschall is the author or editor of more than 60 books. A former political cartoonist and columnist, he was Managing Editor of Rare Jewel Magazine, a Christian journal of politics and culture.

Rick Marschall

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