[FairfieldLife] Re: The Alien in the White House

[raunchydog]

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "emptybill"  wrote:
>
> Just a few points.
> 
> 1.  A political ideology literally means a belief system or a set of
> doctrines about why and how to govern through political power.
> 

Agreed.

> 2.  Is a doctrine of power that defines and formulates all national and
> personal values what you are looking to implement in peoples lives?
> Will this save us from ourselves because somehow we can't possibly find
> it on our own without these doctrines or beliefs?
> 

A political party defines itself by its ideology. In the USA, when voting or 
campaigning for a candidate a person aligns with a party or candidate that 
reflects his or her political ideology. The party that wins an election gets to 
implement its ideology through the agency of government which is responsible 
for making and enforcing laws governing society. 

As far as I know only Libertarians believe government should have little or no 
role at all in keeping order in society. No matter the governing ideology, not 
everyone will agree with the ideology of who ever happens to be in power. 
Fortunately, in the USA, every two years we can vote to throw the bums out. 

No matter how imperfect our system of government is, and I'll be the first to 
complain about it, it's what we have. So, I do what I can to be an informed 
citizen and participate in the process as best I can. I'm just thankful I live 
in the USA where I still have free speech and the right to vote.
  
> 3.  I don't contend that we are pawns of the "gods" but rather that
> "immense beings" of real potency and actuality seek to influence human
> minds and human destiny. They don't usually intervene directly
> because intervening in human affairs directly or even by proxy would
> entangle them in the endless vagaries of karmic causality.
> 

Oh my, get ready for a royal slam from Barry! It's his avowed duty to revile 
"Veda Thumpers." I suspect what you say about immense beings may be true, but I 
have no experience of such events. Do you?

>The best example of this is the mountain spirit "yhvh",
> protector of the Jews. If you'll remember, he directed his people to
> mass murder all of the inhabitants of 60 walled cities and towns in
> Canaan, not even allowing them to keep any cattle. This means they
> murdered all the babies, children and women – all slaughtered by the
> sword, sliced to pieces.
> 
> For directing this brutality,yhvh was engulfed in a matrix of karmic
> reactions and ended up having to take birth as one of his own servants -
> as a Jew in a life where inwardly he felt he possessed a deiform status
> but was powerless to stop the dreadful karmic repercussions which felled
> him.
> 
> If this sounds strange to you then please remember that the fact that he
> was apotheosized by the X-gens means that we were given interpretive
> veils to shield us from even considering suchideas.
> 
> (I have heard x-gens rationalize that since their little god
> "created" these condemned souls he could exterminate them –
> where and when he wished.)
> 

Love epic stories. Did it really happen? Don't know. Karma is a bitch.

> 4.  The foundation for taking bodhisattva vows is known as bodhichitta
> – an awakened heart. "Bodhi" means wakeful, "chitta"
> means personal consciousness or heart awareness. (Yoga Sutra 3.34)
> 
> Without an awakened heart no one can realistically commit to taking
> bodhisattva vows. Bodhisattva vows, however, are immeasurably important
> because they establish a karmic connection across many lifetimes and
> create a yogic directionality that supersedes our own personal karma
> (i.e. karma based upon mere causality.)
> 

Thanks for the primer on Bodhisattva basics. I really enjoy your writing. I 
feel you, brother. You're all heart.
 
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "raunchydog" 
> wrote:
> 
> > EB, if I understand you correctly, you're saying the gods are as crazy
> for political power as we are, so in the larger scheme of things, and
> since it's all about the shark's bite, (raping) there's no point in
> taking sides. O.K. it's a bit obtuse and I get that, but I'm still
> curious about *why* you posted Rabinowitz's article.
> >
> > I agree, no matter the endless misery gods or humans bring upon
> themselves, everyone, not just those who have taken bodhisattva vows,
> have a responsibility to help everyone find happiness and freedom from
> suffering. The question is, since everyone has a different idea about
> the "causes" of happiness and "causes" leading to suffering, how do we
> go about helping others without getting wrapped up in taking sides? At
> the heart of every political ideology there is a desire to alleviate
> suffering but eventually it falls short, ends up as a struggle for
> power, implodes, and makes way for a new ideology. The pendulum swings
> from left to right, attempting homeostasis somewhere in the center.
> >
> > Ideologies operate in the relative life, in the field of change, in
> d

[FairfieldLife] Re: The Alien in the White House

[emptybill]

Just a few points.

1.  A political ideology literally means a belief system or a set of
doctrines about why and how to govern through political power.

2.  Is a doctrine of power that defines and formulates all national and
personal values what you are looking to implement in peoples lives?
Will this save us from ourselves because somehow we can't possibly find
it on our own without these doctrines or beliefs?

3.  I don't contend that we are pawns of the "gods" but rather that
"immense beings" of real potency and actuality seek to influence human
minds and human destiny. They don't usually intervene directly
because intervening in human affairs directly or even by proxy would
entangle them in the endless vagaries of karmic causality.

   The best example of this is the mountain spirit "yhvh",
protector of the Jews. If you'll remember, he directed his people to
mass murder all of the inhabitants of 60 walled cities and towns in
Canaan, not even allowing them to keep any cattle. This means they
murdered all the babies, children and women – all slaughtered by the
sword, sliced to pieces.

For directing this brutality,yhvh was engulfed in a matrix of karmic
reactions and ended up having to take birth as one of his own servants -
as a Jew in a life where inwardly he felt he possessed a deiform status
but was powerless to stop the dreadful karmic repercussions which felled
him.

If this sounds strange to you then please remember that the fact that he
was apotheosized by the X-gens means that we were given interpretive
veils to shield us from even considering suchideas.

(I have heard x-gens rationalize that since their little god
"created" these condemned souls he could exterminate them –
where and when he wished.)

4.  The foundation for taking bodhisattva vows is known as bodhichitta
– an awakened heart. "Bodhi" means wakeful, "chitta"
means personal consciousness or heart awareness. (Yoga Sutra 3.34)

Without an awakened heart no one can realistically commit to taking
bodhisattva vows. Bodhisattva vows, however, are immeasurably important
because they establish a karmic connection across many lifetimes and
create a yogic directionality that supersedes our own personal karma
(i.e. karma based upon mere causality.)


--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "raunchydog" 
wrote:

> EB, if I understand you correctly, you're saying the gods are as crazy
for political power as we are, so in the larger scheme of things, and
since it's all about the shark's bite, (raping) there's no point in
taking sides. O.K. it's a bit obtuse and I get that, but I'm still
curious about *why* you posted Rabinowitz's article.
>
> I agree, no matter the endless misery gods or humans bring upon
themselves, everyone, not just those who have taken bodhisattva vows,
have a responsibility to help everyone find happiness and freedom from
suffering. The question is, since everyone has a different idea about
the "causes" of happiness and "causes" leading to suffering, how do we
go about helping others without getting wrapped up in taking sides? At
the heart of every political ideology there is a desire to alleviate
suffering but eventually it falls short, ends up as a struggle for
power, implodes, and makes way for a new ideology. The pendulum swings
from left to right, attempting homeostasis somewhere in the center.
>
> Ideologies operate in the relative life, in the field of change, in
disagreements, of taking sides and war. Maharishi's great gift to the
world and gift from other enlightened beings who have graced our planet,
leads us to Being, uniting us on the level of consciousness, and making
us responsible for own happiness. I'll buy that over a political
ideology, any day.
>
> That said, I'm still willing to take a stand for a political ideology
that I believe can best serve our country at this point in time. The
bottom line for me is that we have to learn how to work the nuts and
bolts of political machinery as best we can so we can avoid driving our
economy, educational system, health care, etc, etc, over a cliff.
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: The Alien in the White House

[emptybill]

Actually the old man on a throne is one of the images of Zeus
Pantokrator and also its derivative Christ Pantocrator. This is the
idea/eidos of "God" we get from the x-gen bible.

YHVH was initially just a mountain "protector-deity" later universalized
by the Hebrews once they encountered Platonism.

The ancient Greek and Hindu deities were more like actors playing out a
drama with humans and each other.

We could call it "local cosmos opera" or get fancy and call it Lila.






--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB  wrote:

> At least the Christian God is an old fart who mainly
> sits on a throne and strokes His long, hoary beard
> and lets His son do the dirty work for Him. In
> their mythology He doesn't go running around trying
> to pork other people's wives. If one had to believe
> that some "immense being" was In Charge, better
> this one than the petty gods and goddesses of
> Brahmaloka in my opinion.
>
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: The Alien in the White House

[raunchydog]

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "emptybill"  wrote:
>
> Oh, the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear
> And it shows them pearly white
> Just a jackknife has old MacHeath, babe
> And he keeps it, ah, out of sight
> Ya know when that shark bites with his teeth, babe
> Scarlet billows start to spread
> Fancy gloves, oh, wears old MacHeath, babe
> So there's never, never a trace of red
> 
> Bertold Brecht
> 
> According to Ralph von Wau Wau it's all part of the application of
> political power - whether hits, misses, strident ideology or just
> opportunism.
> 
> According to Mahatma Propagandhi, Joseph Goebbels, it is loyalty to the
> people, loyalty to the idea, loyalty to the movement, and loyalty to the
> master guide!
> 
> "Which side are you on" is usually the final question before either
> joining someone's political theater or, instead, getting executed.
> 
> As for either politicos or devas/asuras, I'm not on anyone's side but
> most assuredly I'm not on the side of immense beings whose leisure and
> amusement is to play out  their designs in the human realm.
> 
> This of course sounds like fantasy to most people.
> 
> 
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "raunchydog" 
> wrote:
> >
> > I don't get what the inhabitants of subtle worlds has to do with
> Rabinowitz's not so subtle hit piece on Obama.
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "emptybill" emptybill@ wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > Whether I agree or disagree ... isn't it still the shark's bite?
> > >
>

EB, if I understand you correctly, you're saying the gods are as crazy for 
political power as we are, so in the larger scheme of things, and since it's 
all about the shark's bite, (raping) there's no point in taking sides. O.K. 
it's a bit obtuse and I get that, but I'm still curious about *why* you posted 
Rabinowitz's article. 

I agree, no matter the endless misery gods or humans bring upon themselves, 
everyone, not just those who have taken bodhisattva vows, have a responsibility 
to help everyone find happiness and freedom from suffering. The question is, 
since everyone has a different idea about the "causes" of happiness and 
"causes" leading to suffering, how do we go about helping others without 
getting wrapped up in taking sides? At the heart of every political ideology 
there is a desire to alleviate suffering but eventually it falls short, ends up 
as a struggle for power, implodes, and makes way for a new ideology. The 
pendulum swings from left to right, attempting homeostasis somewhere in the 
center. 

Ideologies operate in the relative life, in the field of change, in 
disagreements, of taking sides and war. Maharishi's great gift to the world and 
gift from other enlightened beings who have graced our planet, leads us to 
Being, uniting us on the level of consciousness, and making us responsible for 
own happiness. I'll buy that over a political ideology, any day. 

That said, I'm still willing to take a stand for a political ideology that I 
believe can best serve our country at this point in time. The bottom line for 
me is that we have to learn how to work the nuts and bolts of political 
machinery as best we can so we can avoid driving our economy, educational 
system, health care, etc, etc, over a cliff.   

[FairfieldLife] Re: The Alien in the White House

[authfriend]

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "emptybill"  wrote:
>
> Oh, the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear
> And it shows them pearly white
> Just a jackknife has old MacHeath, babe
> And he keeps it, ah, out of sight
> Ya know when that shark bites with his teeth, babe
> Scarlet billows start to spread
> Fancy gloves, oh, wears old MacHeath, babe
> So there's never, never a trace of red
> 
> Bertold Brecht

Ugh. That really gunks up the Blitzstein
translation:

Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear
And he shows them pearly white
Just a jackknife has Macheath, dear
And he keeps it out of sight

When the shark bites with his teeth, dear
Scarlet billows start to spread
Fancy gloves, though, wears Macheath, dear
So there's not a trace of red

But the original German is so much better:

Und der Haifisch, der hat Zähne
Und die trägt er im Gesicht
Und Macheath, der hat ein Messer
Doch das Messer sieht man nicht

Ach, es sind des Haifischs Flossen
Rot, wenn dieser Blut vergießt
Mackie Messer trägt 'nen Handschuh
Drauf man keine Untat liest

Last verse (usually omitted in the
popular versions):

Und die minderjährige Witwe
Deren Namen jeder weiß
Wachte auf und war geschändet
Mackie, welches war dein Preis?

Literal translation:

And the underage widow
Whose name everyone knows
Woke up and was [found she had been] raped
Mack, what was your price [did you charge]?

Bertolt Brecht himself singing, 1928:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QXJ3OXWaOY

[FairfieldLife] Re: The Alien in the White House

[TurquoiseB]

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "emptybill"  wrote:
>
> Oh, the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear
> And it shows them pearly white
> Just a jackknife has old MacHeath, babe
> And he keeps it, ah, out of sight
> Ya know when that shark bites with his teeth, babe
> Scarlet billows start to spread
> Fancy gloves, oh, wears old MacHeath, babe
> So there's never, never a trace of red
> 
> Bertold Brecht
> 
> According to Ralph von Wau Wau it's all part of the application of
> political power - whether hits, misses, strident ideology or just
> opportunism.
> 
> According to Mahatma Propagandhi, Joseph Goebbels, it is loyalty 
> to the people, loyalty to the idea, loyalty to the movement, and 
> loyalty to the master guide!
> 
> "Which side are you on" is usually the final question before either
> joining someone's political theater or, instead, getting executed.
> 
> As for either politicos or devas/asuras, I'm not on anyone's side 
> but most assuredly I'm not on the side of immense beings whose 
> leisure and amusement is to play out their designs in the human 
> realm.

Nice post, and excellent last paragraph above, EB.

That's my position with regard to Veda-thumpers.
They'd like to have it both ways...that the wars,
petty ego squabbles and genocides that fill the
pages of the "Vedic literature" they equate with
Truth are all metaphors, and not to be taken at
face value, but at the same time if they project
something like one of the verses suggesting that
man can achieve faster-than-lightspeed and travel
to other planets, that is Truth Incarnate.  :-)

The fascinating thing to me when dealing with 
Veda-thumpers is that they really don't see that
the actions of the gods and goddesses described
in its pages are *completely human*. Wars are
fought and whole tribes are exterminated because
some guy boinked someone else's old lady, or ran
off with some other god's sacred cow. It's Soap
Opera In The Sky.

And we're supposed to believe that these petty, 
completely-ruled-by-emotion, jealous-of-each-other 
assholes run the fuckin' universe, and that we 
should not only believe that they are In Charge 
of our lives but *revere* them for being In Charge 
by praying to them and offering them shit they want, 
like rice and ghee and off-key chanting?

At least the Christian God is an old fart who mainly
sits on a throne and strokes His long, hoary beard
and lets His son do the dirty work for Him. In 
their mythology He doesn't go running around trying
to pork other people's wives. If one had to believe
that some "immense being" was In Charge, better 
this one than the petty gods and goddesses of
Brahmaloka in my opinion.

> This of course sounds like fantasy to most people.

It sounds like fantasy to me, too. What is fascin-
ating is that there are some -- even on this forum
-- who accept it as not only reality but the 
Ultimate Reality. Go figure. 

[FairfieldLife] Re: The Alien in the White House

[emptybill]

Oh, the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear
And it shows them pearly white
Just a jackknife has old MacHeath, babe
And he keeps it, ah, out of sight
Ya know when that shark bites with his teeth, babe
Scarlet billows start to spread
Fancy gloves, oh, wears old MacHeath, babe
So there's never, never a trace of red

Bertold Brecht

According to Ralph von Wau Wau it's all part of the application of
political power - whether hits, misses, strident ideology or just
opportunism.

According to Mahatma Propagandhi, Joseph Goebbels, it is loyalty to the
people, loyalty to the idea, loyalty to the movement, and loyalty to the
master guide!

"Which side are you on" is usually the final question before either
joining someone's political theater or, instead, getting executed.

As for either politicos or devas/asuras, I'm not on anyone's side but
most assuredly I'm not on the side of immense beings whose leisure and
amusement is to play out  their designs in the human realm.

This of course sounds like fantasy to most people.


--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "raunchydog" 
wrote:
>
> I don't get what the inhabitants of subtle worlds has to do with
Rabinowitz's not so subtle hit piece on Obama.
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "emptybill" emptybill@ wrote:
> >
> >
> > Whether I agree or disagree ... isn't it still the shark's bite?
> >

[FairfieldLife] Re: The Alien in the White House

[raunchydog]

I don't get what the inhabitants of subtle worlds has to do with Rabinowitz's 
not so subtle hit piece on Obama.

--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "emptybill"  wrote:
>
> 
> Whether I agree or disagree ... isn't it still the shark's bite?
> 
> Politics is simply the application of power. There is neither wisdom nor
> truth within this domain - much less morality.
> 
> This is true also of the subtle worlds and of the inhabitants of those
> realms whether they are residents or transients. There are many more
> jiva-s in these subtle realms than are presently incarnated here. An
> unbiased direct perception of local cosmography finds that p0litics (the
> application of power) is fully operational there just as it is here.
> 
> Here in our local sandbox, just in this last century, an estimated
> 250-350 million humans were slaughtered because of ideology. Immense of
> that seems, it is just a firefly's flicker in the noonday sunlight of
> bhu-mandala.
> 
> As a result, it is this little earth, along with the myriad beings
> appearing here, which seems to me to be ridiculous.
> 
> Is spite of this, for those who have taken bodhisattva vows, all of
> these numberless beings become our responsibility. "Our responsibility"
> means to help everyone find happiness and the causes of happiness - to
> find freedom from suffering and the causes which lead to it.
> 
> EB
> 
> 
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend"  wrote:
> >
> > emptybill, did you post this because you agreed with it, or
> > because you found it ridiculous?
> >
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "emptybill" emptybill@ wrote:
> > >
> > > The Alien in the White House The distance between the president and
> > > the people is beginning to be revealed. By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ
> > >
> 
> > > The deepening notes of disenchantment with Barack Obama now issuing
> from
> > > commentators across the political spectrum were predictable. So,
> too,
> > > were the charges from some of the president's earliest enthusiasts
> about
> > > his failure to reflect a powerful sense of urgency about the oil
> spill.
> > >
> > >
> > >
>

[FairfieldLife] Re: The Alien in the White House

[authfriend]

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "emptybill"  wrote:
> 
> Whether I agree or disagree ... isn't it still the shark's bite?

Well, I dunno what that means, other than that you're not
going to answer my question.

[FairfieldLife] Re: The Alien in the White House

[emptybill]

Whether I agree or disagree ... isn't it still the shark's bite?

Politics is simply the application of power. There is neither wisdom nor
truth within this domain - much less morality.

This is true also of the subtle worlds and of the inhabitants of those
realms whether they are residents or transients. There are many more
jiva-s in these subtle realms than are presently incarnated here. An
unbiased direct perception of local cosmography finds that p0litics (the
application of power) is fully operational there just as it is here.

Here in our local sandbox, just in this last century, an estimated
250-350 million humans were slaughtered because of ideology. Immense of
that seems, it is just a firefly's flicker in the noonday sunlight of
bhu-mandala.

As a result, it is this little earth, along with the myriad beings
appearing here, which seems to me to be ridiculous.

Is spite of this, for those who have taken bodhisattva vows, all of
these numberless beings become our responsibility. "Our responsibility"
means to help everyone find happiness and the causes of happiness - to
find freedom from suffering and the causes which lead to it.

EB


--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend"  wrote:
>
> emptybill, did you post this because you agreed with it, or
> because you found it ridiculous?
>
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "emptybill" emptybill@ wrote:
> >
> > The Alien in the White House The distance between the president and
> > the people is beginning to be revealed. By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ
> >

> > The deepening notes of disenchantment with Barack Obama now issuing
from
> > commentators across the political spectrum were predictable. So,
too,
> > were the charges from some of the president's earliest enthusiasts
about
> > his failure to reflect a powerful sense of urgency about the oil
spill.
> >
> >
> >

[FairfieldLife] Re: The Alien in the White House

[authfriend]

emptybill, did you post this because you agreed with it, or
because you found it ridiculous?


--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "emptybill"  wrote:
>
> The Alien in the White House   The distance between the president and
> the people is beginning to be revealed.  By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ
>  nesearch=true>
> The deepening notes of disenchantment with Barack Obama now issuing from
> commentators across the political spectrum were predictable. So, too,
> were the charges from some of the president's earliest enthusiasts about
> his failure to reflect a powerful sense of urgency about the oil spill.
> 
> 
> 
> There should have been nothing puzzling about his response to anyone who
> has paid even modest critical attention to Mr. Obama's pronouncements.
> For it was clear from the first that this president—single-minded,
> ever-visible, confident in his program for a reformed America saved from
> darkness by his arrival—was wanting in certain qualities citizens
> have until now taken for granted in their presidents. Namely, a tone and
> presence that said: This is the Americans' leader, a man of them, for
> them, the nation's voice and champion. Mr. Obama wasn't lacking in
> concern about the oil spill. What he lacked was that voice—and for
> good reason.
> 
> 
> 
> Those qualities to be expected in a president were never about rhetoric;
> Mr. Obama had proved himself a dab hand at that on the campaign trail.
> They were a matter of identification with the nation and to all that
> binds its people together in pride and allegiance. These are feelings
> held deep in American hearts, unvoiced mostly, but unmistakably there
> and not only on the Fourth of July.
> 
> 
> 
> A great part of America now understands that this president's sense of
> identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He
> is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because
> he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological
> class. He is the alien in the White House, a matter having nothing to do
> with delusions about his birthplace cherished by the demented fringe.
> 
> 
> 
> One of his first reforms was to rid the White House of the bust of
> Winston Churchill—a gift from Tony Blair—by packing it back off
> to 10 Downing Street. A cloudlet of mystery has surrounded the subject
> ever since, but the central fact stands clear. The new administration
> had apparently found no place in our national house of many rooms for
> the British leader who lives on so vividly in the American mind.
> Churchill, face of our shared wartime struggle, dauntless rallier of his
> nation who continues, so remarkably, to speak to ours. For a president
> to whom such associations are alien, ridding the White House of
> Churchill would, of course, have raised no second thoughts.
> 
> 
> 
> Far greater strangeness has since flowed steadily from Washington. The
> president's appointees, transmitters of policy, go forth with singular
> passion week after week, delivering the latest inversion of reality.
> Their work is not easy, focused as it is on a current prime
> preoccupation of this White House—that is, finding ways to avoid any
> public mention of the indisputable Islamist identity of the enemy at war
> with us. No small trick that, but their efforts go forward in public
> spectacles matchless in their absurdity—unnerving in what they
> confirm about our current guardians of law and national security.
> 
> 
> 
> Consider the hapless Eric Holder, America's attorney general,
> confronting the question put to him by Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas) of
> the House Judicary Committee on May 13.
> 
> 
> 
> Did Mr. Holder think that in the last three terrorist attempts on this
> soil, one of them successful (Maj. Nidal Hasan's murder of 13 soldiers
> at Fort Hood, preceded by his shout of "Allahu Akbar!"), that radical
> Islam might have played any role at all? Mr. Holder seemed puzzled by
> the question. "People have different reasons" he finally answered—a
> response he repeated three times. He didn't want "to say anything
> negative about any religion."
> 
> 
> 
> And who can forget the exhortations on jihad by John Brennan, Mr.
> Obama's chief adviser on counterterrorism? Mr. Brennan has in the past
> charged that Americans lack sensitivity to the Muslim world, and that we
> have particularly failed to credit its peace-loving disposition. In a
> May 26 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Mr.
> Brennan held forth fervently, if not quite comprehensibly, on who our
> enemy was not: "Our enemy is not terrorism because terrorism is just a
> tactic. Our enemy is not terror because terror is a state of mind, and
> as Americans we refuse to live in fear."
> 
> 
> 
> He went on to announce, sternly, that we do not refer to our enemies as
> Islamists or jihadists because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate
> 

[FairfieldLife] Re: The Alien in the White House

[do.rflex]

Another Attack, Another Miss

Posted by Michael Chase  On June - 9 - 2010
  [600] 


.


Dorothy Rabinowitz is up with a powerful, resonant, deeply moving
pile of shit
  in the Wall Street  Journal. Her
opening gives a writer's perfect prelude to the contrived  theme of
her hatchet-job:

The deepening notes of disenchantment with Barack Obama  now issuing
from  commentators across the political spectrum were  predictable. So,
too,  were the charges from some of the president's  earliest
enthusiasts about  his failure to reflect a powerful sense of  urgency
about the oil spill.

It is one of our democracy's great curiosities that the opinions of 
the "punditocracy" are always assumed to be that of their
readers. In  the ultimate self-fulfilling prophesy, commentators like
Ms. Rabinowitz,  tell their readers what the reader's opinions ought
to be. A few days  later, Fox News will commision a poll and, et voila!
the opinions match.


Her piece goes on to rehash the same old tired arguments; that 
President Obama hasn't been passionate about the spill, that he
doesn't  reflect American outrage, that he isn't really one of
us. It's title is The  Alien in the White House.

Oh Ms. Rabinowitz hedges her bets, she is after all a coward. A 
breathless aside to "delusions about his birthplace cherished by the
demented fringe", conveniently insulates her from the birthers; but
that  demented fringe is her target audience.


She follows Rubert  Murdoch's formula; create an image of the
President out of thin air,  tell the reader or viewer that everyone
believes it, throw in some  thinly constructed and barely relevant
anecdotes that seem to augment  the horseshit, then print.

Her first example of President Obama's distance from Americans is 
priceless:

One of his first reforms was to rid the White House of  the bust of 
Winston Churchill—a gift from Tony Blair…The new  administration
had apparently found no place in our national  house of  many rooms for
the British leader who lives on so vividly in  the  American mind.
Churchill, face of our shared wartime struggle,   dauntless rallier of
his nation who continues, so remarkably, to speak   to ours. For a
president to whom such associations are alien, ridding   the White House
of Churchill would, of course, have raised no second   thoughts.

Wow. I like Winston Churchill. "We shall fight them on the
beaches…we  shall never surrender!" Great stuff! But the man who
was the face of  our wartime struggle was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. You
know, the  President that the right wing has been trying to bury under a
pile of  Glenn Beck's feces.


Of course Ms. Rabinowitz might point out she was  talking of our shared
wartime struggle. And I would remind her  that she was slandering the
President of the United States. We fought  the British twice to get rid
of their busts; it isn't immediately  apparent why it would be
unpatriotic to send one back now.

If that still doesn't convince her, I would remind her that it was 
Roosevelt who had to first battle the United States Republican Party to 
get the Lend Lease Act passed. That would be the pre-war support we gave
the Brits that kept them around long enough for Winston to make his 
great speeches. Churchill does have some relevance to our current 
predicament though. He took over Great Britain with that country in a 
bad way; and he wasn't privy to how bad it really was until he was
in  the seat.

Ms. Rabinowitz represents an intellectual class that is bereft of 
intellectual ability. Her collaborators spent years pushing the 
democracy out of banks, mines, and oil rigs. Now, when all three have 
blown up in their faces, Ms. Rabinowitz and her bankrupt intellectual 
class want swift action from the democracy. The democracy, that is, and 
its leader, President Barack Obama.


That she and others like her must  kneel and beg his assistance is a
blow to their ego; a blow reminiscent  of a teenager admitting his
parent's point. And so in anger at their  misfortune, and
humiliation at needing the public's help, Ms.  Rabinowitz and her
barely cogent mob are reduced to 'round the corner  sniping and
barely concealed cheap shots.

This disaster will see its conclusion, not because of the  capabilities
of industry, but because of the power, will, and intellect  of a nation
pulling together.


The harness of that power is something we  citizens like to call the
government. That government's leader,  elected (whether Ms.
Rabinowitz likes it or not) with a mandate by the  people of the United
States, is President Obama.


When industry can't  handle the problem, the government of we the
people can. Mr.  Obama is a very capable leader and this will get fixed;
but like  Churchill before him, when the Nazis have already taken the
Low  Countries, it will take