Posted on 01/17/2010 8:50:28 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Admittedly, President Barack Obama is a man of sterling qualities. He has a temperament and charm befitting one probed by the glare of history’s contemplation; an intellect suited to the complexities of a seamless 21st century world; and a big-speech eloquence worthy of the historian’s pen.
Yet beyond those familiar distinctions, there is an unfamiliar and remarkable charisma born of race, circumstance, youth and personality that has become the stuff of mass mesmerization.
Make no mistake about it, such qualities — as considerable as they are — ought not seduce one into believing the myth which this nation has always known as ill-fated: the idea of the indispensable man.
Whereas America once held true, in the words of Harry Truman, “there is no indispensable man in a democracy,” today millions have been proselytized by the likes of MSNBC’s Chris Matthew’s quasi-religious faith that enshrined the Obama candidacy by saying “This is the New Testament.”
American Prospect writer Ezra Klein stated: “Obama’s finest speeches do not excite. They elevate. They enmesh you in a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by, and just for an instant, contracted around you. ... He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color — over despair.”
Most alarming of all is the consensus around Oprah Winfrey’s road-to-Damascus moment that beguiled her into saying America is not in need of politicians who simply know the truth, but “politicians who know how to be the truth.”
Hailing Obama’s arrival in a John the Baptist-like fashion, she baptized him “the One” and the multitudes believed.
In his wonderful book “Liberal Fascism,” Jonah Goldberg writes: “This is precisely the sort of thing that American progressives, German National Socialists and Italian Fascists preached: The leader will deliver us from history, the state is the mechanism of our redemption.”
Bottom line, it is blatantly un-democratic, frighteningly un-American and eerily reminiscent of the “faith” that was Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany.
Before you trash this column as right-wing fear mongering or extremism, wrestle with the actual arguments.
From atop American pop and literary classes as noted above, to the Santa Clarita Valley herself, there is an undeniable “faith” similar to Europe of the 1920s-1940s that holds one man as indispensable to national progress and longevity.
As one local Democrat told me: “He is the savior!”
As another put it: “I am so taken with Obama.”
Or as a former reporter for The Signal said of Obama’s inauguration: “This is the greatest day of my life. The hopes of all those who didn’t get the follow-up interview or were told they weren’t a good fit for the company were vindicated — if only for a moment.”
If this were Italy in 1934, these “believers” would be standing hands clasped and singing that old fascist favorite: “You’re the top!
You’re the Great Houdini! You’re the top! You are Mussolini!”
“Camp Obama,” as the New York Times dubbed it, was the training ground where Obama volunteers were catechized to never discuss policy or issues, but rather “testify” regarding how they “came to Obama.”
On YouTube, videos of glassy-eyed youths crooning about “the One” were pervasive. As “Liberal Fascism” described them, “starkly cultish and spiritual terms” told of their adoration of “the One.” Reminded of a certain youth movement in early to mid-20th century Germany? I am.
What it all boils down to is this: The seeds of a type of quasi-religious, lock-step “faith” directed toward one man perceived as indispensable to a nation have come to American soil.
I am not saying these seeds will mature into the drones’ “faith” of German National Socialists or Italian Fascists, but the seeds are not foreign to American soil.
Furthermore, I am not saying if you voted for Barack Obama in 2008 you have succumbed to this glassy-eyed, un-American “faith.”
I am saying if you hold Barack Obama as indispensable, as “an evolved leader who can bring evolved leadership to our country” (Oprah Winfrey), as “not operating on the same plane as ordinary politicians” (Gary Hart) or the like — whether you put it into those words or not — then the seeds are already in your heart.
The remainder of Truman’s quote is: “When a republic comes to a point where a man is indispensable, then we have a Caesar.”
How then shall we fock uff, Oh lord?
http://www.brownforussenate.com/call-from-home-registration
call for Brown tomorrow ... the dems havent given up they made 90000 calls today......
>>He has a temperament and charm befitting one probed by the glare of history’s contemplation; an intellect suited to the complexities of a seamless 21st century world; and a big-speech eloquence worthy of the historian’s pen.<<
Reagen is alive again?
They can’t possibly mean the TOTUS-reading serial stutterer who can’t speak a single word or think a single thought unless it is fed to him by his handlers.
If this were Germany in the mid-thirties, the slobbering Obamunist worshippers would have been standing in a biergarten singing "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" at the top of their lungs. He's just that kind of guy.
Boy, are they in for a big surprise.
lol
I've been looking. Where did you hear about it?
Huh. Where did you hear this? Weeped and whined about what?
His tepid stumping for Coakley?
Has Ezra ejaculated yet?
Is he serious?! Take away both teleprompters and the 27 year old speech writer and B Hussein is a stuttering, stammering boob.
I remember all the Newsweak and Time pics of him with a halo around his head.
It is interesting how Zer0 has adopted the spiritual tone of a cult leader. He is appealing to a voter without religion who is hungry for spirituality even if that spirituality is a fraudulent manipulation. These are the same type of people that Jim Jones persuaded to take that trip to Jonestown, Guyana. These are the same New Age cultists, Marshall Appelwhite and Justin Spaid, who convinced their followers of Heaven’s Gate to take a walk down the Santa Monica Pier to catch a ride on the mother ship.
Zer0 also reminds us of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh who set up his commune in Wasco County, Oregon in the 1980s. This commune caused lots of trouble including, conspiracy to murder public officials; wiretapping within the commune; the attempted murder of Bhagwan’s personal physician; and a bioterrorist attack on the citizens of The Dalles, Oregon, using salmonella. It is interesting that such religious systems usually resort to the murder of their fellow human beings in an effort to maintain control when the economic system tanks.
To subjugate the individual as subservient to the state is one of the earmarks of fascism. It promotes the collective instead of freedom, and the state instead of the individual. In such a system the individual has no worth except for their use by the state. It is this prerogative of the state that has great peril for the individual who is vulnerable to the whims of an unbridled state. In 1941 Hitler's Ufa, the Nazi film agency used Liebeniener’s film Ich klage an! (I Accuse) to convince the German people that it was essential to eliminate “all worthless lives.” This euthanasia program was directed at handicapped and mentally ill children and adults. It is estimated that 70,000 German citizens were euthanized in mental institutions and killing centers.
One wonders what type of material perks Obama enjoys at the expense of his fellow human beings? I know that the Bhagwan enjoyed his 90 Rolls Royce's, extravagant clothes and hand made watches. It is claimed that Bhagwan consumed sixty milligrams of Valium daily and was addicted to Nitrous Oxide. This may explain his early death at 58.
Mr. Bummer, if you think that hurts wait till the next Republican president starts talking about you like you do about George W. Bush. Oh wait, that will probably be Sarah Palin and she will have more class in office.
Cowboy up, Bummer. President Bush did.
“To subjugate the individual as subservient to the state is one of the earmarks of fascism. It promotes the collective instead of freedom, and the state instead of the individual. In such a system the individual has no worth except for their use by the state. “
Hitler and his cronies pounded these points incessantly in speech after speech. You know the fascist ideology well, jonrick. Good post. The evil of fascism and Marxism needs to exposed in every classroom in America but it isn’t for obvious reasons.
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