Come 2016, the defining story of the previous 8 years will not be the massively coordinated effort to centralize corporate power through the use of brazenly undemocratic, underhanded methods, huge though that is. It will be the concerted, unflagging, coordinated efforts to denigrate the presidency of Barack Obama and give a face to the underlying core of racial hatred that lies at the heart of his opposition.
In fact, there can be no sound analysis of the nation's economic state or sociopolitical environment of those 8 years without an acknowledgment of the audacious, concerted misuse of ethics and the organized perversion of democratic legislative processes in the pursuit of that race-based aim.
The effort, of course, is led and funded by vastly wealthy corporate entities whose mission, it seems, is to profit from the despair of the people whose interests they profess to serve. By having spent the last 30+ years seeding government and business with similarly disposed ideologues, the fruit harvested has been the destruction of the middle class, the corrosion of the political process, the reduction of environment -- and health-saving regulations and the disenfranchisement of tens of millions of people.
And the sheer waste of time and opportunity which their strategy yielded will have, by 2016, far outweighed the tactical advantages theorized by the neo-corporate-cons bent on such cynical, selfish ends.
But most telling, the history of this period will clearly show that much of the animus against Obama and his policies was indeed race based, the shrill tenor of the invective possessing little in the way of sensible policy critique, especially since it had been repeatedly (and frustratingly by those on the left) shown how Obama had governed along lines which many political opponents themselves found ideological concurrence. The spate of inane aspersions cast about his patriotism, country of origin, etc., along with the verbal assaults on his wife launched by the de facto mouthpieces of the right-wing (Limbaugh, Levin, Hannity, etc.) also illustrate the underlying though glaringly apparent motivation.
Obama's grasp of issues and his management style alone would have been deemed outstanding by any measure if he were a white man rather than black and any assertion to the contrary is disingenuous to say the least. Most dismissals by his opponents as to the veracity of this assumption have always bordered on the febrile and the pathetic and only further indicate an utter absence of sincerity to engage in a sane discussion on the sociopolitical path this nation has been placed on by those corporate forces.
And the sense that those involved in the perpetuation of these sad circumstances are conscious of their activities being anything but legal, moral or constructive is clear in their embrace of the patently hypocritical positions they take, many in knee-jerk opposition to positions Obama himself has taken, like a game of checkers in which a lone piece is pursued into a corner: "If you move there, I'll move HERE!". The right-wing is that lone piece.
So, each day's events fill the news cycle (rather, events are regurgitated endlessly to fill it) and with each moment comes the analysis; with each analysis comes the implied justification for the employment of whatever pundit is dispensing whatever meme passes as commentary. But after all the shallow scrutiny evaporates into the next manufactured news cycle, time will allow history to tell the story of those 8 years truthfully. The neo-corporate-cons don't want you to know that truth now; they don't want you to ponder, to taste, to think, to act, to vote. They want you to buy what they're selling.
What a waste.
Follow Steven Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheStevenWeber
The GOP has one thing correct; this is class warfare ... it's about class i.e. income disparity. It's not about race, or religion, or sexual orientation.
And. It. Never. Was. It's about one very small group taking all the money and all the stuff and ensuring the rest can't have any of it, either.
And the reason I'm angry with Obama is because he's aiding and abetting those who are stealing all the stuff from the rest of us.
http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2008/02/20/racist-attacks-on-obama-growing-more-heated/
http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2009/09/john-brown-the-5-most-racist-attacks-on-president-obama
http://mugsysrapsheet.com/4blog/archive/obamattacks.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3_nxBvHl48
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/05/27/523627/-Rush-Limbaughs-Racist-Attacks-on-Obama
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-ostroy/the-right-wings-racist-at_b_118471.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzWMzk820qQ
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/race-and-republican-attacks-on-obama/
I realize that those that make up (what used to be) the majority believe that we suffer the same ADD that they do, as evidenced by their inability to see that the GOP destroys things when their in power, a democrat thereafter gets voted in, starts cleaning up the mess, but then the ritalin-free vote the GOP back in and they invariably make the mess even bigger. But we don't. We will remember. Just as we remember everything that we've been put through.
Of course, we know that there are those who will write a false history of this time, blaming Obama for everything, in an effort to cement in the minds of the weak that they should never, ever again vote a Black person into the Oval Office. And based on history, I'm sure the lesson will take root.
(cont'd)
Having spent my formative years in the belly of the beast, I know that all politicians lie, many lie like dogs, others like rugs. And I know the short-comings of government. So I've expected nothing from either.
I've travelled and lived only in this land, from coast-to-coast and border to border. The one thing I've found consistent no matter where I've laid my head is that the USA is and always will be a racist country. In fact, the worse racism I've experienced has been in the northeast and the upper Midwest. Only in the upper Midwest did I encounter the kind of racism being thrown at President Obama. I think of those days every time I hear a republican talk about good old-fashioned Midwestern values. I know the voyeur in most is itching for me to site examples, but I won't. I will say this though, when one is of Red, White and Black heritage, being told to go back where you came from by your fellow citizens is really illustrative of the ignorance that racial bigots in this land are accused of having.
(cont'd)
When historians evaluate the first term of this first black President, it will be inescapable to them, given Obama's determination to give the Republicans far more than they ever deserved in any deal, that racial h8tred was at the root of all the Republican and Tea Party's irrational reactions.
But this has become ridiculous...
No one would care what the right wing says/said - much less what color his skin is - if the man would have just done what he said he would do when he was swindling his way to the White House.
And no amount of screaming "racism" is going to change the fact that he did everything but...
There's nothing post-racial about my comment. I'm so unlikely to be post-racial that I can tell you you - and your comments - disgust me...
The continuous shielding of an Administration that has failed since before Inauguration Day behind calls of "racism", in the face of the actual racism faced by millions in this country on a day to day basis, is disgusting.
Stop. Please, for those who really do have to deal with the bigots among us - which includes myself - just stop. Now...
So absent the racism it would be easier to recognize Obama for the Right wing schill he is.
This isn't new. The Right RAGED at Clinton while he signed away our jobs in free trade agreementsÂ, stripped the banks of those "bothersomÂe" regulationÂs, and built up the military while the wealth gap became a chasm and our prison population kept right on growing.
Wake up Mr. Weber. Stop trying to force the Democrats into the role of "good guy". They don't want the part and couldn't play it if they did. Obama is not quite as bad as the RepublicanÂs true. That doesn't make him "good".