Barry Soetoro
Nov 6th, 2008, in Opinion, by Guest WriterBarry Soetoro aka Barack Obama’s Indonesian connection.
Former Menteng student now US President
Obama Barack has been democratically elected President of the US.
Quite an about face for the best democracy money can buy, in view of the Bush presidential se-lection.
But of course, corruption, collusion and nepotism is the sole monopoly of the Third World – or so the deluded denizens of the West repeat to themselves as they hug their knees, rocking back and forth – reminding themselves of how they uphold human rights equally across the board, entirely devoid of double-standards and totally oblivious to race, creed or religion.
Barrak Hussein Obama II was born to a white American Ann Dunham and Kenyan Barrak Hussein Obama Snr, in Nyang’oma Kogelo now in Kenya.
Here the Indonesian link starts.
Ann Dunham married in 1967 Lolo Soetoro, a Javanese, whose own father, in 1946 was killed along with his eldest brother were killed, after which the Dutch army burned down the family’s home. Soetoro fled with his mother into the countryside to survive. Incidentally yet more proof of Dutch war crimes – delibrate destruction of civilian property outside the scope of battle.
Pak Lolo Soetoro was an army geologist then later a government relations consultant for Mobil Oil. Obama describes Soetoro as well-mannered, even-tempered, and easy with people.
Barry Soetoro in Indonesia with mother Ann Dunham, step-father Lolo Soetoro, baby-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng.
From age 6 to 10, Obama lived in Jakarta. Age six, Obama attended the Catholic Primary St Francis di Assisi. Much was made of the lie he was educated in a Madrassa – or more accurately a pesantren – this of course was totally untrue. Obama Jnr later attended Model Primary School, Menteng and was registered as a Muslim – as his father was Muslim.
In the Muslim school, the teacher wrote to tell my mother that I made faces during Koranic studies. My mother wasn’t overly concerned. ‘Be respectful,’ she’d say. In the Catholic school, when it came time to pray, I would close my eyes, then peek around the room. Nothing happened. No angels descended. Just a parched old nun and 30 brown children, muttering words.
One of “Berry’s” childhood friends was Adi who often visited “Berry’s” 16 Jalan Haji Ramli house. Speaking volumes of Dutch “development” at the time the road was of this established middle-class neighbourhood was a dirt lane where Obama used to wile away the hours kicking a soccer ball.
Adi recalled Obama and his friends wore plastic bags over their shoes to walk through the muddy street during the rainy seasons.
Neighborhood Muslims worshiped in a nearby house, which has since been replaced by a larger mosque. Sometimes, when the muezzin sounded the call to prayer, Lolo and Barry would walk to the makeshift mosque together, Adi said.
His mother often went to the church, but Barry was Muslim. He went to the mosque,” Adi said. “I remember him wearing a sarong.”
Obama spent most his spare time hanging out with Adi and other friends at the home of Yunaldi Askiar, a classmate. They used to play a kind of fencing game using sticks, kick a ball up and down the narrow dirt lanes or go swimming in the river behind the school, said Askiar, 42, a car mechanic.
Obama was taller and better dressed than most kids in classes where shoes and socks were still luxuries, so he stood out from the start. As an African American, and the only foreigner, he suffered racial taunts and teasing but never turned to violence.
“At first, everybody felt it was weird to have him here,” Israella Dharmawan, his first grade teacher said. “But also they were curious about him, so wherever he went, the kids were following him.”
His friends enjoyed playing tricks on Berry: Harmon ASki recalled,
“Sometimes we’d say, ‘Barry, do you want a chocolate?’ And we’d give him a chocolate. The next day we’d give him a chocolate again. The third time we’d give him terasi (fermented shrimp paste) wrapped up like chocolate. Obama didn’t get mad. He would laugh it off.”
Ann Soetoro moved to Yogyakarta, while Obama Jnr studied in Jakarta. She was inspired by Jogja village industries, which became the basis of her 1992 doctoral dissertation.
“She loved living in Java,” said Dr. Dewey, who recalled accompanying Ms. Soetoro to a metalworking village. “People said: ‘Hi! How are you?’ She said: ‘How’s your wife? Did your daughter have the baby?’ They were friends. Then she’d whip out her notebook and she’d say: ‘How many of you have electricity? Are you having trouble getting iron?’ ”
Dunham-Soetoro became a consultant for the United States Agency for International Development on setting up a village credit program, then a Ford Foundation program officer in Jakarta specializing in women’s work. Later, she was a consultant in Pakistan, then joined Indonesia’s oldest bank to work on what is described as the world’s largest sustainable microfinance program, creating services like credit and savings for the poor.
Obama in Hawaii with Maya and Ann and maternal grand-father, shortly after leaving Indonesia.
In his tellingly-titled Memoir, Dreams from My Father, Obama describes his Indonesian interlude as “one long adventure, the bounty of a young boy’s life”. But he also recalls being troubled by the poverty around him: “the empty look on the faces of farmers the year the rains never came,” and the desperation of the disabled beggars who came to the family’s door.
“The world was violent, I was learning, unpredictable and often cruel,” he writes. Obama and his mother thus we were very well acquainted with the harsh realities of indigenous Indonesians.
Fermina Katarina Sinaga, recalled yojhng Obama in her class: in the common task of class to write an essay titled “My dream: What I want to be in the future.” Obama “wrote ‘I want to be a president,’ ” she said. During a later writing assignment on family, he wrote, “My father is my idol.
The Indonesian connection for Obama and all that shaped him proving once again all things Javanese and indigenous Indonesian the bedrock for the towering monuments built on the foundations of a great civilisation.
1,047 Comments on “Barry Soetoro”
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berlian biru says:
I have never witnessed such swivel eyed, foam flecked, vein popping hatred and sheer hysterical vitriol launched against any US president as was thrown against George W. Bush, by comparison Obama gets it very easy indeed.
Oh, and when it comes to downright viciousness have a look at how Sarah Palin is treated.
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ET says:
Portraying a US president as a chimpanzee? Shocking, absolutely shocking.
Shocking indeed. Political cartoons should be closer to the truth.
Or is this racist too? -
timdog says:
Yeah, but the thing is, BB, even the most vitriolic hatred of Bush didn’t rest only the fantasy that he was a “foreigner”, that he was Kenyan/Indonesian/British, probably a Muslim, and definitely not born in Hawaii. Now what’s that all about, I ask you?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2009/jan/15/steve-bell-george-bush
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I see so if we called Obama a drunk, a retard, a fascist, a coward, a Godbotherer, a liar, a crook etc that would be ok then would it?
You will decide what sort of lies and smears are acceptable against politicians, will you?
And what about the vile nastiness that is daily thrown at Palin? Is the atrocious and sexist filth flung at her acceptable?
Remember the anti-Palin stuff comes not from the lunatic fringe on the internet but from mainstream media organisations.
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Odinius says:
Berlian Baru:
There’s a point in what you’re saying that I agree with–and already stated earlier. Namely, that making hysterical, boneheaded and completely insensitive caricatures of a sitting president is not the sole province of the political right. Yes, very true. It’s not.
I also made the point that we can’t simply dismiss the outlandish anti-Obama conspiracy theories as “racism” because they were just as prevalent under Clinton, who is white.
But there are several other points that need to be made, that you are sidestepping.
1. America’s poisoned well of race relations means context matters.
If someone draws Bush as a monkey, he or she is being deliberately offensive. But as every American knows, drawing a black man as a monkey fits squarely within a long, despicable history of whites portraying blacks as sub-human and animal-like. Yes, it is possible for someone to do this without thinking through how people will perceive it, but then that person is collossally stupid, and probably lying anyways. Everyone knows what this means, black and white alike.
2. Obama’s black and foreign heritage may not explain the conspiracist opposition to him, but it does explain the form a lot of their conspiracies take.
With Clinton, the conspiracies were that he was secretly signing over US sovereignty to the UN, Jews, Arabs, illuminati, etc. With Obama, it’s that he’s a foreign-born, anti-White secret Muslim.
3. That, itself, is consequential for race relations in a generally corrosive way.
When a bunch of white, rural Americans go to rallies carrying guns, nooses and signs saying “Take Back America,” what does that signal? What does that tell non-white Americans?
4. The fringe right in the USA actually exerts its influence on mainstream right politics, whereas the fringe left does not.
I’ll stand corrected the minute the hard left dictates policy on anything. As it stands, they hated the health care compromise, hate Obama’s foreign policy, hate the budgets and–more importantly–failed to get more than a small number of congresspeople elected at any point during the Bush years or afterwards.
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BB, please note that I didn’t have anything much to say about the “Obama chimp” photo, and given that, as you pointed out, Bush was repeatedly protrayed as a chimp, people might have been better off just letting it pass (though I do have to say, that there is a difference – the representations of Bush as a chimp did rest in part on a perception of aspects of his character attitudes and behaviour – a bit like if a cartoonist was to draw SBY as a buffalo, for example. Now what exactly would the context for representing Obama as a chimp be, I wonder? Like I said, I’m by no means stirred up by it enough to start ringing my hands – so I won’t. But then if I wasn’t a white Cornishman, perhaps I’d feel differently…)
And in my above post all I was drawing attention to was the “foreigner” aspect of the anti-Obama rhetoric – as abundantly manifested on this very thread.
Whatever other vitriol might be heaped upon his intellect, his politics, his attitudes is simply part of the regular lot of a political leader – and yes, Bush certainly got it by the bucketload.
But the “foreigner” stuff, the “birther” stuff: there’s a very obvious context to all that which has got nothing to do with the normal grounds on which politicians are abused, and attempting to claim otherwise with “I see your outrage and raise you another outrage” arguments (not a very grown-up way of debating anyway) doesn’t cut it… -
Lairedion says:
Remember the anti-Palin stuff comes not from the lunatic fringe on the internet but from mainstream media organisations.
Exactly, while the anti-Obama stuff comes from both conservative media (with FOX at the forefront) AND Tea Baggy politicians with buddy Jesus Christ to whom they divert attention to whenever they run into trouble with their bizarre statements and actions.
By the way, Palin is indeed a nuisance for the GOP.
More and more conservatives are becoming aware of this. Arizona governor, Jan Brewer, has shown sensibility by vetoing this hysterical “birther” bill and another appalling bill allowing guns at campuses.
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… was posting at the same time as odinius, who sort of said it with less coy pussy-footing…
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timdog said:
But the “foreigner” stuff, the “birther” stuff: there’s a very obvious context to all that which has got nothing to do with the normal grounds on which politicians are abused, and attempting to claim otherwise with “I see your outrage and raise you another outrage” arguments (not a very grown-up way of debating anyway) doesn’t cut it…
The “chimp photo” is straight up racist, something her Republican bosses recognize, and she’ll get fired for it. There isn’t much else to it, and it’ll go away soon.
The birther stuff is a bit funny on its own, but all the related xenophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-black crap that goes along with it is like a festering, gangrenous sore. It’s illiberal, in the classic sense of the term, and at great odds with the spirit of the classical liberalism of the US constitution.
Thankfully, history shows these are “bad economy” politics that embarrass most people, on left and right, when financial anxiety recedes.
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And can someone please tell me any policy or direction or even leaning that the Black Prez has taken that is so alien to the supposed ideals of the American way of life (well anymore than any other Dem anyway).
As for Palin and Birthers, the Dems must be rubbing their hands together with delight with these political poisonalities. Same as Hanson was in Australia was for the Liberal Party. Although they acted quickly to cut her down as they soon realised the gaining a the nutter vote was not worth the loss of middle Australia.
As for the monkey issue, oh please lets drop the santimonious bullsh*t. Its out and out racism of the worst kind and has no equal to calling a white person a monkey. Is anyone going to pretend that when those idiots in Australia called the judges in the Corby case monkeys they were referring to their cute antics or were they inferring the judges were buffoons and subhuman (and cost Corby a few extra years).
Working in Indonesia, would you ever ever refer to anyone in this country as a monkey..Why is that?? Because you damn well know what the inference is. So lets not pretend its anything than what it is.
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And can someone please tell me any policy or direction or even leaning that the Black Prez has taken that is so alien to the supposed ideals of the American way of life (well anymore than any other Dem anyway).
This always never ceases to amaze me. Is it this healthcare act (which is quite normal in other developed nations)?
Ross at RRA calls Obama a cultural marxist whatever the hell that means.
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Stevo says:
Oigal you make it sound like racism is wrong or something!!!
That in itself is a view that alienates rather allot of people. Probably the opposite of what you think you’re doing.
We are all entitled to our liberal western European views, but don’t for a minute think they are views widely held by anyone. The truth is those views are not sincerely held by many, even within those countries that claim differently (on paper).
Most of the world resides within China, India and the African continent. I don’t see much evidence of the western human rights ideals being seriously upheld in those regions.
I am not suggesting I don’t hold those ideals myself, but there again I often hold unpopular views.
Once again we must be careful with ideology.
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calls Obama a cultural marxist
Well, most would not call that site the first port of call for rational discourse. Again an example, can anyone provide an example? Healthcare…hardly breaking news for most of the developed world.
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Nuthin to do with nuthin, but I was just looking at that Steve Bell clip again. If you didn’t look at it before look at it now. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2009/jan/15/steve-bell-george-bush
He is definitely the best cartoonist ever. His stuff kind of eases the pain in the darkest moments ;-), and his current stuff with David Cameron as a condom, George Osbourne with an arse for a nose, and Ed Mili-who? as death-ray-panda is awesome…
Note the difference between all of that, and scanning Obama’s face onto a picture of a monkey… -
As for Obama; the popular view of him is purely a media creation, as is the current view of Bush. To suggest the mainstream media is anything less than groveling to Obama is absurd. Much of what I see on this forum is just parroting what has been preached in the media. Not a lot of thought in it.
He got in because:
1) He is not Bush
2) He is Black
3) He is charming
4) The left wing media think he is the second coming and put him there.The first thing he did in office was to escalate America’s war in Afghanistan. A war waged on the bizarre premise that that the biggest treat to the USA, lives in caves and herds goats in a place most Americans could not find on a map. The Taliban are an indigenous group who should be left alone. They have not attacked anyone outside of their own borders. So they gave him a peace prize.
Now he is at it again bombing Muslims in Libya. Maybe he will get a second peace prize for that.
But hay, no problem, he is black so we better not cry foul, or we will be labeled racist. Oh the terror that strikes in a bunch posers trying to impress how inclusive and worldly they are.
He is no better than Bush. If some of the posters here judged Obama on the content of his character, rather than the colour of his skin, then they would have a bit more credibility.
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So it seems we now have several kinds of racisms. We have black racism, white racism and all shades in between, each with a different set of rules and sensitivities. When a black or brown man is compared to a monkey it’s because of his genetics, a white man because of his antics. A cartoon depicting an Arab with a bomb in his headdress is an insult and causes outrage because he might be taken for some holy prophet. But on the other hand when some nutjob in this forum accuses all bules to be predators and pedophiles everyone holds his breath and is on holidays.
Racism, it cuts both ways. -
The first thing he did in office was to escalate America’s war in Afghanistan. A war waged on the bizarre premise that that the biggest treat to the USA, lives in caves and herds goats in a place most Americans could not find on a map. The Taliban are an indigenous group who should be left alone. They have not attacked anyone outside of their own borders. So they gave him a peace prize.
Americans – Obama as well as Bush – still believe that military force is the way to victory and democracy. This strategy ended with the fall of the Soviet Union. America and the rest of the West now face an entirely new kind of enemy. The Taliban represent a contagious disease and one cannot cure a disease by shooting at it with guns. To stop it from spreading any further one needs other medecine.
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rustyprince says:
I’m a bit cynical by nature, and can probably be defined as a realist with a leftist tendency. Thus despite wonderin was Obama too good to be true I, like Jesse Jackson, shred my reservations and welled with tears of emotion when CNN made official the annointation of Barry. Now maybe I was hoping that this was the maturation of America into a Post Racial Society, a liberal vision augmented by the fact that I have a black sister in law, which in my last visit to Manhattan in 97 was still a sight to enlists undisguised frowns from so called elightened denizens of that redoubt of Progressive values.
Buts let’s gets this straight and true, ONLY A CANDIDATE WITH A MINORITY COMPLEXION COULD HAVE DERAILED THE CLINTON JUGGERNAUT. Anyone who says different doesn’t know America. And if you want to be quasi-scantimonius about it, well I’m telling all you amateur politicos that you have Zero chance of ever emulating a pro like Axelrod.
Obama is a continuation of Bush. He will be elected again, the same MSM who gave him equal billing to the prieviously adored Hiliary will make sure of that. The before promience of The Tea Party will diminish. They’ve achieved their agenda for the Low Tax/insurance lobbies and in turn allowed Obama to feign continued aspousal of progressive values, although postponed to a second term before they vanish for another decade.
Because that is the noxious inkling sinking in my heart. The ‘People who really Matter’ knew after eight years of Bush2 that America was veering towards real departure from the centre-right consensus. And Don’t be in denial when these Goliaths’ meet for a round of golf the chit-chat is just as adrenalinized and focused as any CIF or HUff Pos commentary. They’re deadly serious and super prescient and planning for all eventualities, such as conning America that its voted for change.
Primarily it is Oigal here discrediting this as obnoxious righist fantasies. But Ross has linked to Lefties to are beginning to question the authencity of the cert. That serious people take issue with the denials make me wonder and could it be such a blackmail that was instigated to guarantee the continuation of another eight years of centre right imperialism. -
Mmm…Rusty, I had to read that a few times but I think I have the general draft now..(I stress I think). Although always very suspect when people start referring to the black coated “they”
Personally I think BO is a worse that average president and like SBY here represents a huge disappointment to the people that elected him and perhaps like SBY people expected way too much (A point ET makes he is a creature of spin). Never the less the notion that he is some sort of foreign, Muslim, black, socialist, terrorist, (pick your nonsense of choice) spy bent on the destruction of the American way of life, whatever that that be, is simply laughable in best light and incredibility sad when viewed from a position of rational discussion.
Obama is a continuation of Bush. He will be elected again, the same MSM who gave him equal billing to the prieviously adored Hiliary will make sure of that. The before promience of The Tea Party will diminisish
Well I would agree there is a large degree of continuation and already asked can anyone point out any policy that is so radically different to the Bush regime? However, giving credit to MSM (I gather we don’t count Fox as MSM then?) for BO getting elected again would appear to ignore the bigger issues. At this time more to do with an improving economy and that absolute gifts being provided BO in the form of the birthers, trump, palin and the loony part of the “tea party” (which is 95% of them).
A long way out yet and the Republicans have some smart people so it will interesting to see how they go about descaling themselves of the loons. At the moment they look like a tired old veterans with a bad case of shingles.
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People, other than committed Democrats, voted for Obama because:
1. they were really, really weary of Bush and the Republicans–an advantage to any Democrat
2. they were really, really angry about the economy–an advantage to any Democrat
3. they wanted someone who seemed young, dynamic and different–an advantage to Obama, not to Clinton
4. they wanted someone who made them feel good about the direction of the country–an advantage to Obama and his speechwriters/message crafters, and to none of the others.
People projected onto him various visions of the future. For anyone who paid attention, and I mean really paid attention, it should have been obvious this was a moderate Democrat whose idea of change wasn’t in terms of policy, but a break from party-oriented decision-making patterns. In other words, Obama saw himself as the guy who could rise above the partisan divisions and “bring America together” for some national healing.
This was naive on his part, because American politics doesn’t work like that anymore. It was also naive on the part of his progressive supporters–because there was little or no evidence that he was actually a progressive, anymore than Clinton is.
Yet all this pales in the face of the mass hallucinations of Obama taking place on the fringes of the political right. A Marxist?! I lost my tea the first dozen times I heard that, then just found it kind of sad. A “secret Muslim?!” Not even worth wasting time on that one. A secret, er…American citizen who can’t be president because he supposedly doesn’t fit requirements even though a cursory search on wikipedia brings up 200 years of constitutional law that demonstrate he does?! Or my favorite…the “Kenyan anticolonialist?!” That’s my personal favorite, because I imagine it must have transmitted genetically, since Obama never lived in Kenya and had no relationship with his Kenyan father.
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What’s tiring about all this is that there’s little or no discussion about anything of substance. I’d say the most important issue facing Americans–and the world, given the importance of America’s economy to everyone–is how it will deal with its appalling finances. Neither party is offering up realistic solutions, just more ideological bull****.
The US needs more revenue, which you get from taxes
The US needs to cut its spending, including both entitlement and defense spending
The US needs to raise its debt ceilingAll of these things should be crystal clear, but I challenge you to find one senator who agrees with all three propositions.
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Ross at RRA calls Obama a cultural marxist whatever the hell that means.
Seriously? You don’t understand what is a rather simple political concept? I suggest you google the term as well as “Frankfurt School” and “Gramsci”, you will find that both Barack and his wife and most of his mentors and political and academic associates would have subscribed to this line of teaching.
In office he has not implemented a left wing agenda of course because it would be impossible to do so in the current US political set up but I don’t think it’s an terrible slur to imply he would like to.
As regards the “foreigness” of Obama, is this really due entirely to racism? His father was a Kenyan, he is one of few US presidents to be born to a foreign father. In his writings he made huge play about his Kenyan heritage of which he is immensely proud and of his childhood in Indonesia.
Is it so surprising then that after centuries of US presidents who were unequivocally American and committed to the idea of American exceptionalism that a man who heralds his mixed origins might appear a little bit “foreign” to some Americans? I would suggest a head of state with similarly mixed origins in most nations might attract the same comments.
As to being a secret Muslim, well we know he is now a Christian, he has professed his Christian beliefs publicly and proudly so people must take him at his word, though frankly his religious beliefs shouldn’t really concern anyone but him and his God.
However there is no doubt that Obama does have an Islamic heritage and to deny it is to deny simple facts. His father and stepfather were Muslims, we can assume that nominally therefore his mother was probably a Muslim, he has a proud Muslim name and spent a major part of his childhood in the world’s largest Muslim country were he was registered at school as a Muslim. It doesn’t mean that one is a tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist to therefore suggest he was a Muslim in the early part of his life.
As to the “birther” controversy, I firmly believe that Obama was born in Hawaii but due to the spectacularly inept handling of his birth certificate issue when a simple publication of the genuine document would quash the issue in an instant his advisers have allowed the issue to fester until people suspect that there might indeed be something odd about the circumstances of his birth (unmarried mother perhaps?). There is after all a curiously vague quality and many blanks about much of Obama’s biography in contrast to Bush where every week of his life was parsed and analysed by media commentators to the point of them even forging documents relating to his military career.
It isn’t outrageous by the way for a state legislature to pass a law making it incumbent upon candidates for high office to provide proof they are in fact eligible for that office, seems rather common sensical to me.
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Is it so surprising then that after centuries of US presidents who were unequivocally American and committed to the idea of American exceptionalism that a man who heralds his mixed origins might appear a little bit “foreign” to some Americans? I would suggest a head of state with similarly mixed origins in most nations might attract the same comments.
I assume then Andrew Jackson born of two immigrants, both Irish, Thomas Jefferson, whose mother was born in England, James Buchanan, Chester Arthur (1881-1885), Irish fathers, Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Hoover whose mothers were born respectively in England and Canada under the standards applied here could not be considered unequivocally American. Of course, if we are talking just being born outside of continental USA, then opens a whole new bag of worms.
As a matter of interest McCain would have a harder time proving his right to hold office than Obama which demonstrates the absurdity of the whole argument. Would anyone really try and say McCain does not have the moral right to run for President???
As for other nations having an issue, apparently Australia is not one. Prime Minister Julia Gillard was born in Wales and frankly her birthplace is an absolute non-issue as it should be. Although I suggest if she was black and we were talking Kenya then the same issues would arise (I wonder what that suggests?)
Curiously, her family moved to Australia as Julia had a number of health issues as a child and based on the comments of one of the danker blogs. Her health would qualify her as one of those “stinking welfare, health cheats” who should never be allowed in the country (although again I would qualify, colour and origin seems to have more to do with how some qualify refugees despite the protestations of innocence).
Why would the Dems want to squash the Birther issue.? It has been proven nonsense time and again (unless someone has a time machine, to duck back and place notifications in local papers …OMG…That’s it) However, it the mean time the more it comes up, the more the Republican vote is split from conservative to loon.
BO has an Islamic heritage, and a American one, and a Christian one and a.. The point? As we all know literally thousands of kids in Indonesia are as you say nominally Muslim due to..well we all know why..so what? Of course, its a neat piece of misdirection to suggest the conspiracy nuts are merely suggesting BO was a Muslim as a child as their paranoia runs much deeper than that with far funnier theories..Do we really have dig up some of the more classic quotes?
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I first heard -well read – Timdog use the Wayang analogy to who are the real puppeteers directing political drama in Jakarta. But the same smoke & mirror construct has been played and refined to an art form for decades now in the West. Blair and Brown’s new era could only be ushered in after the imprimatur of Murdoch had been bestowed. The effect a decade of continuity with Tory economics, with the justification of promoting an enterprise society which actually just helps bankers and old money consolidate their primacy.
And it amazes me the lack of sophistication among Arab elites that they have not been able to propagate a similar ‘sham’ system that only enables piecemeal change over decades preying on the innate conservatism of many marginalized that their superiors know better. The superiors being media bought by Money and independent academics representing institutions grateful for the beneficence of Industrialists etc. So basically I’m saying that democracy in the West has become the freedom to vote for continuity.Of course every now and then a crisis will erupt that threatens this continuity eg Bush2’s invasion of Iraq and the angst that erupted in leftist/liberal circles in the UK. A for Blair navigating these dangerous waters encountering a media that briefly rediscovered its back-bone, he Saint Tony will be forever deified in the Pantheon of noble Establishment idols. And the latter Establishment will thank their lucky stars that risky Brown had been maneuvered aside. So for me the key word with this nebulous, but very real, establishment is risk and they just didn’t trust Hiliary who would have hoovered up 60% in the Presidential against any Republican opponent and not the 52% Obama ended up with. Hiliary with such a mandate would have brought in proper universal health-care. Erased the Rich Tax Cut? I’d say ye and would she have surrounded herself with the Goldman Sacs Think-Think? Foreign Policy, maybe they feared a radical feminist thunprint there to. So my synopis is that only candidate with the appearance of difference could have derailed Hiliary and that what happened when ‘Black’ Obama immediately arrested 95% of the African American vote hither to loyal to the Clintons. So Barack Obama a continuity with Bush2? Most definitely. And perhaps a Manchurian Candidate, nothing is so far-fetched anymore when trillions are at stake.
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Odinius
This was naive on his part, because American politics doesn’t work like that anymore. It was also naive on the part of his progressive supporters–because there was little or no evidence that he was actually a progressive, anymore than Clinton is.
Can you give some examples of what ‘real’ progressives want that isn’t on BO’s agenda already?
The US needs more revenue, which you get from taxes
First you need bigger GDP which you can’t realize by pruning off the profits before they are even made. Higher taxes are the main reason for economic lethargy and outsourcing, adding fuel to the downward spiral.
The US needs to cut its spending, including both entitlement and defense spending
Not if you are a Keynesianist and believe in deficit spending in times of crisis. This is how the Great Depression was overcome. It is banking on the future and rooted in an optimistic belief that by creating opportunities and improving infrastructure things may change for the better.
This includes military spending because the spin-offs of military research corroborate new scientific ventures and generate general economic growth. The building of its war machine enabled the Third Reich to become Europe’s economic powerhouse and the Cold War was probably the most important factor for the boom in R&D and the explosion of new technologies after WWII.The US needs to raise its debt ceiling
I don’t understand this. Do you mean allow for even more debt?
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However there is no doubt that Obama does have an Islamic heritage and to deny it is to deny simple facts. His father and stepfather were Muslims, we can assume that nominally therefore his mother was probably a Muslim, he has a proud Muslim name and spent a major part of his childhood in the world’s largest Muslim country were he was registered at school as a Muslim.
Is it somewhere on record that he has ever pronounced the shahada, which would technically make him a murtadeen now and punishable by death according to some islamic schools?
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Is it somewhere on record that he has ever pronounced the shahada,
Dang who hasn’t…
First you need bigger GDP which you can’t realize by pruning off the profits before they are even made. Higher taxes are the main reason for economic lethargy and outsourcing, adding fuel to the downward spiral.
Actually I would run with the nonsensical tax cuts for the relatively wealthy brought in by the Bush regime and extended by BO for a start. Economic lethargy we probably should consider the GFC across the world and the price of labour might have a bit to do with outsourcing.
As for the Military, the one thing Trump did say that made sense to me was that it was perhaps time for the US to start telling some of the ungrateful its time to start chipping in for the protection they demand from the USA the moment things get tough.
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Question: Would anyone really try and say McCain does not have the moral right to run for President???
Answer: Yes, Obama for example.
Does that make Obama a “birther” ? The term “birther” is a nonsense term invented by the media to discredit those who ask legitimate questions about Obama’s birth. I would expect more thoughtful comment, outside of the mainstream media sources.
Its easy to spot a racist. They will invariably hold other races to a different standard and give them special treatment. Sometimes that treatment is derogatory (segregation) and other times its preferential (special entitlements). The motivation is the same for both groups. They both believe that the darkie needs some special treatment, because he is not as capable.
This describes a great many Obama supporters.
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and the price of labour might have a bit to do with outsourcing.
Also. But cheap labour also means lower tax revenue. It’s a precarious balance between competitive labour costs and state finances and maybe one of the reasons ‘non-documented workers‘ aren’t always unwelcome and continue to find a niche.
Comment on “Barry Soetoro”.
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You’d have a point if the past 234 years of American race relations didn’t exist.
Too bad they do…