Obama Is a Stranger in a Strange Land

American Thinker ^ | March 17, 2010 | Robin of Berkeley

[neverdem]

People are strange
When you're a stranger

Faces look ugly when you're alone

Women seem wicked when you're unwanted.

Streets are uneven,

When you're down.

 -The Doors

For much of my life, I felt like a Stranger in a Strange Land. This is not unusual. Look at the history of most leftists, and you'll find the very same thing.

I grew up with a surname that wasn't my own. My father anglicized it years before I was born, trying to ward off the anti-Semitism that shadowed him.

I grew up without God. My parents had no use for a God who, they believed, had no use for the Chosen People.  

My family had escaped the teeming masses in the Jewish ghetto for a suburban Promised Land. Nestled in our cookie-cutter house, we watched television each night in separate rooms.

I left home for college easily and never returned. It's not hard to leave a place when you've never quite arrived.

In my early 20s, I flew across the country to make a home among the homeless in Berkeley. There I found people just like me: people from somewhere else, running away from something or toward something, never quite sure which.

In Berkeley, we use the phrase "family of choice." It denotes that we have traded our difficult blood relatives for those more to our liking.

After a while of living in Berkeley, though, you discover the downside of living among expatriates. For one, many folks don't have the social skills to actually get along with others. Friendships can have short half-lives. 

As it turns out, people who don't feel obligated to their real family may not be particularly loyal to their "family of choice." Consequently, when you need a ride to the doctor, friends may decline if there's something else they'd prefer to do.

Though it has taken decades, I no longer feel like a Stranger. I've learned that I belong, that I am "loved by an Unending Love." But now, looking out at the political landscape, I have the unsettling experience of beholding the many dispossessed. 

The ultimate Stranger in a Strange Land is, of course, Obama. It's no wonder; given his bizarro family, there was no one with whom to bond. Pitifully, the focal point in Obama's life story -- the brave, oppressed Obama Sr. -- is a chimera, all smoke-and-mirrors. 

Obama has surrounded himself with other Strangers. His friends are society's misfits: Van Jones, the self-proclaimed Communist; John Holdren, enthralled with devolution and eugenics. Chicago pals Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn tried to destroy their own nation with terrorism. 

Obama has been called a Citizen of the World.  While liberals find this appealing, what it actually means is that Obama has come from nowhere and belongs nowhere.  

Someone with no country or roots has nothing. Bob Dylan described the predicament and the danger: "When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose."  

This is why Obama can casually throw his grandma and pastor under the bus. And Obama can seamlessly enter into a shady land deal with slumlord Tony Rezko, knowing full well that he deprived black people of heat in frigid Chicago winters.

Obama can profess love for his father but allow paternal relatives to live in abject poverty in the projects in Boston or shacks in Kenya. He can cavalierly end the D.C. school voucher program, cheating poor black kids of a decent education.

Obama's Strangeness allows him to destroy the Democratic Party by forcing health care legislation that the populace vehemently opposes. If the party crashes and burns, it doesn't matter much to Obama. He was never one of them anyway.

In therapy lingo, Obama may have an attachment disorder. This diagnosis is often applied to children languishing in orphanages or shuttled among foster homes.  

These kids may look normal, but what's missing is the ability to connect to something or someone wholesome. All grown up, unattached adults may lack empathy and, in extreme cases, a conscience.

A disconnected president puts us all at risk. We've survived narcissistic presidents before, even neophytes. But we've never seen the likes of Obama.

We've never had a president who is angry about everything but passionate about very little. We've never encountered a president who hasn't bonded to his own country.

So who is this Stranger anyway, Barack Hussein Obama? What makes him tick? Whom does he love? What fills his heart with joy?

Grasping the essence of Obama seems as futile as trying to catch snow. Perhaps part of the reason we know so little about Obama is that there may be very little to know.

The lyrics of a Beatles song keep ringing in my ears:

All the lonely people

Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people

Where do they all belong?

We may never know where Obama comes from, not even the basic facts of his life.

But those of us paying attention know one thing loud and clear: A Stranger in a Strange Land does not belong in the White House.

A frequent AT contributor, Robin is a recovering liberal and a psychotherapist in Berkeley.

[wastedyears]

Somebody said stranger in a strange land...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypaHj51rDNM

[PizzaDriver]

Heinlein readers can’t agree to THAT!!!

[jessduntno]

He’s a real nowhere man,
Sitting in his Nowhere Land,
Making all his nowhere plans
for nobody.

Doesn’t have a point of view,
Knows not where he’s going to,
Isn’t he a bit like you and me?

Nowhere Man please listen,
You don’t know what you’re missing,
Nowhere Man,the world is at your command!

(lead guitar)

He’s as blind as he can be,
Just sees what he wants to see,
Nowhere Man can you see me at all?

Nowhere Man, don’t worry,
Take your time, don’t hurry,
Leave it all till somebody else
lends you a hand!

Doesn’t have a point of view,
Knows not where he’s going to,
Isn’t he a bit like you and me?

Nowhere Man please listen,
you don’t know what you’re missing
Nowhere Man, the world is at your command!

[PizzaDriver]

Heinlein readers can’t agree to THAT!!!

[Dark Knight]

Poor essay, Stranger in a Strange Land is a classic science fiction novel by Heinlein. The main character had a stronger perspective on reality than most of those who would have dismissed him.

The author should have used a phrase that was not the title of this book. It would have worked better.

DK

[lmr]

This is incredible. One is almost inside of Obama’s head after reading this...

[Yardstick]

Wow, she’s got Obama pegged.

[Allegra]

I cannot grok this.

[OHelix]

“Well, it doesn’t say that exactly, but somewhere there is something about a chicken. Good Sabbath!”

[HiTech RedNeck]

Poor Bummer.

He was, to the appearances I can see, brought up such that he would be a tool of the communist left. There’s a haunting story suggesting that he was known about in Russia by communists who were colluding with others here in grooming him for an eventual run at the US presidency. The scarcity of his life records suggests a concerted effort to have them cleaned up. Of course those who groomed him or sheared his past away cared nothing about what that was doing to his soul, or would do to countless others. It was a mad obsession, communism uber alles.

[neverdem]

Poor essay, Stranger in a Strange Land is a classic science fiction novel by Heinlein. The main character had a stronger perspective on reality than most of those who would have dismissed him.

The author should have used a phrase that was not the title of this book. It would have worked better.

The author may not have picked the title. Someone at American Thinker might do the honors. That's what happens with syndicated columns.

Personaly, I avoid science fiction like the plague. I'll take real science, thank you. It has more than enough mystery, IMHO.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Even though you're definitely not a science fiction aficionado, have you ever read The Space Child's Mother Goose? It is a collection of futuristic children's level poetry from the 50's. The lines about Taffy's little grandson committing telepillage, and teleplundering beef, actually foresaw the issue of internet fraud decades before there was an internet.

[shibumi]

I don't grok the use of Heinlein's title, or the use of Morrison's poetry which (in this case) had nothing to do with politics.

The essay is a malaprop.

[TheThinker]

The author states Obama has no empathy or conscience, suffering from a kind of detachment syndrome. I think the one thing he did attach to is his faith in Islam and the utility of communism to control others to fulfill his ends.

[Dark Knight]

But those of us paying attention know one thing loud and clear: A Stranger in a Strange Land does not belong in the White House.

A frequent AT contributor, Robin is a recovering liberal and a psychotherapist in Berkeley.<<

I almost agreed, until I reread the essay. The phrase was chosen after the author used it to close the essay. The title was appropriate to the essay, the essay was not appropriate to either the title or the historical context of the book it took title from.

Besides, the main character was very different but highly functional, not dysfunctional and bizarre.

I am but an egg, though.

DK

[Semper Mark]

"But those of us paying attention know one thing loud and clear: A Stranger in a Strange Land does not belong in the White House."

Absolutely correct.

Obama is a red diaper vagabond, raised by a brood of perverted and dysfunctional Marxist grifters. It is quite evident that he totally bought into the Communist philosophy that he was exposed to by these vipers during his formative years.

Obama has no business residing within the boarders of this nation, much less at 1600, Pennsylvania Ave..

[neverdem]

Even though you're definitely not a science fiction aficionado, have you ever read The Space Child's Mother Goose? It is a collection of futuristic children's level poetry from the 50's. The lines about Taffy's little grandson committing telepillage, and teleplundering beef, actually foresaw the issue of internet fraud decades before there was an internet.

Any new technology is a double edged sword. Sci-fi has its worth when properly hypothesized as in national security. We have enemies. Possible surprise attacks should be considered.

[homegroan]

I am the Walrus...coo-coo-ca-chu

[Logophile]

Poor essay, Stranger in a Strange Land is a classic science fiction novel by Heinlein. The main character had a stronger perspective on reality than most of those who would have dismissed him. The author should have used a phrase that was not the title of this book. It would have worked better.

Yes, it is the title of the famous Heinlein novel. However, Heinlein got it from Exodus 2:22 in the Old Testament.