Obama as Faust

Rod says: "...I'm more concerned about the implications for US national security of McCain's foreign policy tendencies than I am about Obama's radical friends."
Hallelujah! There are conservatives with brains.
Unfortunately McCain doesn't have one. He actually had to be reminded by former Democrat Joe Liberman that al Qaeda isn't in Iran (& this happened right in front of the cameras).
He also said unabashedly, "How 'bout a hundred more years in Iraq!?!" This is upsetting to FOX and other Neocon front organizations because the DNC is now running it in an ad. Too bad, because it's coming right out of McCain's mouth.
Nobody in their right mind wants a third George W. Bush term via McCain. Wright's becoming old news.

disguise or suppress the very real conflicts among us and would fulfill its promise only through action, I also felt for the first time how that spirit carried within it, nascent, incomplete, the possibility of moving beyond our narrow dreams

This has a lot of undertones of fascism. It even has the racial angle, one unified race standing together against others.

Classical liberalism has always rejected the idea that unity is more valuable than individuality. Fascism, however, demands first "unity" and only then "action" and "moving beyond" the status quo. Strong parallels with Obama. However, if he can remain anti-war, he will avoid the worst part of the creed. I would, however, note that isolationism was the platform Bush ran on for his first term...and look at us now.

In brief, who do you want draining your swamp?

__Obama__ who loves his Grandma and so might conceivably pass legislation to make the swamp a conservation zone for her and her church?

__McCain__ who's Mama would probably be the one supervising the bulldozer crew (if her jibe at Romney is anything to go by: "As far as the Salt Lake City thing, he's a Mormon and the Mormons of Salt Lake City had caused that scandal," she said. "And to clean that up, again, it's not a subject.")?

RJohnson hits the nail on the head.
McCain was against the constitutional ban on gay marriage. Lynn Cheney's daughter is an out-&-proud lesbian.
I highly doubt that McCain cares at all about the fetus. Plus, Republicans know that if abortion is outlawed, their party will only contain religious fundamentalists (i.e., it will collapse).
Economic conservatives aren't social conservatives!

"If nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, of the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence."

Um, Rod, isn't the connection between insularity and a strong community at the heart of your own "Benedict Option"?

Bless,
Doug

Careful, Rod. Your anti-Obama postings are beginning to sound like Sully's anti-Hillary postings.

quote: "Plus, Republicans know that if abortion is outlawed, their party will only contain religious fundamentalists (i.e., it will collapse).
Economic conservatives aren't social conservatives!"

Well, a significant percentage of the population (including many Democrats) is pro-life. Depending on how you ask the question, even a majority of the population is pro-life. So I doubt outlawing abortion, or at least kicking the issue back to the states by overturning Roe vs. Wade, would mean the collapse of the GOP.
I'd argue instead that if the Republicans abandoned their pro-life position that they would be toast. There are a lot more social/religious conservatives out there than there are economic conservatives, though certainly many Republican elites, McCain possibly included, only pay lip service to the pro-life cause. But if the Republicans ever nominate a pro-abortion presidential candidate, social conservatives such as myself will abandon it by the droves as the abortion issue is the main reason they vote Republican. I sure would. Indeed, abortion and the courts are the by far the main reason I'm likely to vote for McCain in the fall. After the incompetence and free spending ways of Bush and the Republican Congress 2001-2007, the Republicans deserve to lose in a major way this fall. But I can't in good conscience vote for a pro-abortion candidate like Obama or HRC.

rr

As noted above, how does Obama finish his thoughts? In the quote above it sounds as though he is thinking about options but has not made a decision.

On abortion Kmiec, again, has posted his thoughts about Obama. http://www.catholic.org/politics/story.php?id=27820 I have never thought Republicans were especially serious about abortion, except as a way to garner votes. While waiting for the chance to get conservative judges, why haven't they engaged in policies to try and reduce abortion's incidence? I suspect that many evangelicals would be willing to pay for programs that could increase adoption and help to reduce abortion's frequency. Dems are always willing to spend more money on social programs. Republican nominees and presidents do not seem to have much spiritual substance, hence little real interest.

BTW, Obama supposedly actually wrote this book. Which Republican candidate do you think could have written anything like this? The Republican party desperately needs thinkers again (yes, I know there are some) at its forefront. A party that counts on Rovian tactics, Ayers and Wright, shows signs of intellectual bankruptcy.

Steve

Quote: "It's not just that. The last 20 years have shown that the GOP plays the pro-life card every election cycle to excite the base, and then puts the issue away when they get in a position to actually do something about it. The evangelicals are starting to realize they have been played for the fool, and they are not liking it.

McCain will be Bush III, and the country does not want that. As Rod has said, unless Obama is caught in bed with a live boy or a dead girl he is the next President. Even then, it might be close"

Rjohnson, I sort of hit on the pro-life theme before/ I am not sure at all that Pro-lifers in the evangelcial community think they were played for fools.

However many were a tad shocked, especially those in the Huckabee campaign, that so many "Conservatives" were telling telling them to shut up and get to the back of the bus because they had thoughts about abortion. By the way these same voices were often the same ones that call have been all over John McCain. I would have to say yes many woke up but not how many imagined. These attacks did not come from in large part from the Republican party crowd but the very vocal "I am not so much a Republican but a Conservative" corwd that spends much of their time calling everyone out as RINO's

Can Obama win? Sure he can. But in the end it is electoral math and Obama does not look as invincible as he did just 2 months ago.

quote: "I find people that say this know very little exactly what we Republicans have been doing on the National and very importantly on the state level.I am sad that is in insufficent. It truly is in many ways but we are doing the best we can."

I certainly grant Republicans have done some things at both the national (partial birth abortion) and state levels. Yet had Republican presidents always appointed pro-life judges since 1980, Roe vs. Wade would probably be overturned by now. Also, Republican presidents don't tend to use the bully pulpit against abortion all that much. Our current president certainly put more energy into passing tax cuts and trying to privatize Social Security than he did abortion. It just doesn't seem like a high priority, though half-hearted Republican efforts is arguably better than Democratic hostility.

rr

Black Nationalism might well be a positive thing, but not the way Wright expresses it. Wright is a loon.
There can be no doubt that integration and welfare ruined the black community, and the left can be blamed for that. There is also little doubt that prior to the stupid leftist programs there were actually thriving black communities all across America.
I don't necessarily have a problem with black separatism, as long as it isn't HATEFUL.
Most groups stick together, push come to shove. You really see this both in schools and in prisons.
There is no way that Obama is going to bring people together. It isn't going to happen. Obama is not only partisan, he is super-partisan. Like Rod says, Obama fakes right then goes left every single time. It's nonsense.
McCain, on the other hand, is ALWAYS going against the wishes of his party. He's done it repeatedly, at great personal risk.
I thought the bomb Iran song was funny. Thing is, Iran probably deserves it.
Not that McCain is so perfect either. He admits that he doesn't understand economics, and that's a little scary.
I liked Ron Paul but he never had a shot.
Whoever gets in there is gonna wish to hell they never ran in the first place...

"McCain, on the other hand, is ALWAYS going against the wishes of his party. He's done it repeatedly, at great personal risk."

Except he hasn't. The McCain rebel myth doesn't play out in his voting record, which is to the far right and quite loyal to the GOP. McCain is a loyal, far right Republican. All those moderate voters who think McCain is a rebel will soon be reminded that he's just an older version of Bush with a wealthier wife.

Doug: Um, Rod, isn't the connection between insularity and a strong community at the heart of your own "Benedict Option"?

Jesse: What, exactly, is 'immoral' about a politics of racial solidarity and uplift. As Obama suggested in his Philadelphia speech, I happen to think that such a politics is untenable and counterproductive. But 'immoral'? Here's a question for you: If 'black nationalism' is immoral, why isn't Zionism?

Excellent questions, both. I think anybody who calls for a politics of any sort of in-group solidarity runs the risk of crossing a dangerous line. The problem with the black nationalism Obama was confronted with was that so much of it was premised on anti-white sentiment. What's the difference between "pro-black" and "anti-white" (or "anti-Hispanic")? More importantly, the underlying problem with basing a politics on a call to racial solidarity can be instantly seen when confronted by calls to embrace "white nationalism". We are instantly scared of such a thing, and for a good reason: whites are the majority in this country, at least now, and when the majority identifies the good of the whole society with its own racial prerogatives, history has shown where that leads to. It's human nature. I would find a politics based on white solidarity or Christian solidarity to be dangerous, insofar as it was premised on tribal membership.

That said, there is much to like in Rev. Wright's program of self-sufficiency and self-help. Hell, there are some things to like about the Nation of Islam, in the same regard. But how do you separate out the racism from the good stuff? Is it so easy? Would it be so easy for anybody? How can a group say, "Affirming our own traditions does not mean we denigrate yours"? I think it can, in theory, but I'm not sure how that works in a pluralistic society, or frankly, in any society.

The Israeli/Zionist example is a good one. I believe in Israel's right to exist, and to exist as a Jewish state. But if they are going to be a Jewish state, then they are going to be less of a democracy, and maybe not a democracy at all, given the demographic trends. This may not be a sufficient answer for you, Jesse, but I don't find the black nationalism (or Jewish nationalism) immoral insofar as they affirm what is good about black or Jewish identity. I find them immoral insofar as they actively denigrate the moral worth and political equality of people outside the tribal in-group. This was the basis for segregation, after all.

Rod,

I appreciate your thoughtful response. I completely agree with you about the problematic implications of Zionism. I myself am Jewish and have many family members who emigrated to Israel, but I have never felt comfortable with Zionism for precisely the reasons you've stated.

That said, I understand the impulse towards Zionism and am sympathetic towards those who've embraced it. I think most Americans feel the same way. Outside of the U.N. and maybe some Columbia University dorm rooms, you usually don't hear Zionism described as immoral or racist or otherwise 'Faustian'. Yet when it comes to black nationalism or Rev. Wright's church, many people (yourself included) seem much less sympathetic. Indeed, if Obama was Jewish instead of black, and had written an autobiography about his youthful flirtation with Zionism, I doubt it would raise the same doubts in your mind about "who he really is". Nor would I imagine that tapes of his Rabbi decrying the evils of anti-Semitism would get round-the-clock coverage on cable news.

The reason, it seems to me, is that Zionism (and Jewishness) tends to be understood in ethnic terms, while black nationalism/theology (like "blackness" itself) is understood racially. Of course, if you listen to Wright's NAACP speech, the appeal he's making is an unambiguously ethnic one (the embrace of "African and African American" music, language and traditions). The fact that "African-American" is primarily treated as a racial category, not an ethnic one, has far more to do with America's own unfortunate legacy than the self-identification of African-Americans themselves.

None of this is to say that Wright's arguments are immune from criticism, or that Obama shouldn't be expected to articulate where they differ - just that we should treat Wright and Wright's ideology more like Herzl and less like David Duke.

"there is much to like in Rev. Wright's program of self-sufficiency and self-help."

There IS??? Then why haven't we seen a single blogpost about it instead of all the Wright paranoia we've been smothered with in the last 8 weeks???

Also, I read and then re-read your "article" and saw little (i.e. NO) reference to a man who sold his soul to the devil. Calling Obama "Faust" is nothing more than scare/fear-mongering. Oh wait, I forgot - that just gets you more hits. Nevermind. Proceed as usual. Just don't count on getting more people to believe what you type.

"Obama as Faust" - Dreh-Rod

Don't know much about Obamatry, but for a little nightly Fausting, it's hard to top the 1926 German version directed by F.W. Murnau, released the year before his immortal Sunrise:

youtube.com/results?search_query=faust+murnau