Obama is Obama as Obama was Made to Be

Modern Sophists, Ancient Trade
By William J. Meisler

article sent by Lisa Rich:

As the scandals surrounding the Obama administration continue to brew and spread, certain apologists for the president are once again accusing Obama’s critics of indulging in conspiracy mongering in order to torpedo Obama’s presidency. The president’s accusers, for their part, claim that the facts back up their suspicions of foul play with regard to Obama’s goals, activities, and his disdain for the Constitution. Such a charge against a president is a serious matter. Are these critics of Obama justified in their suspicions, or are they suffering from some type of delusion?

The dilemma of distinguishing opinion, including opinion leading to delusion or false suspicion, from reality has its roots in the ancient Greek metaphysical debate concerning the existence of a fixed independent reality versus a changing or relative reality based upon individual sensory perception. Are there fixed truths by which human virtue and events can be defined, judged and fully understood in a way relevant to all human beings, or do no fixed standards exist, and is “man the measure of all things,” as declared by the sophist Protagoras (as reported by Plato), because truth and virtue in human society have only relative value and are judged to be valid based solely upon a particular person’s choosing or perceiving them to be so?

Since we live in an age that credits extreme relativism, rather than in an age that strives to understand eternal truths, it should come as no surprise that confusion or even outright denial will occur when someone declares or tries to ascertain the facts of the truth, since for too many people these days the truth — any truth — is regarded to be strictly subject to one’s point of view and preferences, just as they were taught in the public schools; a very advantageous state of affairs for our modern sophists who, like their ancient counterparts, use every means at their disposal to buttress their efforts to cloud the truth in order to win the public debate. In doing so, the relativist resorts to two major subterfuges: abuse of information and abuse of language.

Abuse of information includes the distortion, the misrepresentation, the false correlation, and the willful and willing ignorance of facts, of logic, of common sense, and of preceding events and known patterns of human behavior. Presentations of statistics are a prime example of how data can be cleverly distorted to create a false reality. A selective presentation of only certain historical events can similarly distort the actual historical reality, via what might be termed intentional acts of omission. Ignorance or dismissal of known historical precedents of behavior is another way to distort the narrative or deny reality. If, for example, a politician has a long paper trail and well-established pattern of behavior concerning his sympathies, opinions, or goals, to ignore such a paper trail and behavior is to deny evidence before your eyes and represents an act of folly. Marcus Aurelius stated the maxim best:
It is a shameful and reproachful thing to be surprised when a fig tree produces figs. (Meditations 8.15)
For example, in Mein Kampf and in numerous public statements Hitler made very clear what he intended to do if elected chancellor of Germany, for which reason any opponent of Hitler who brought Hitler’s plans to the German public’s attention in 1933 could not have been rightly accused of engaging in fabricating a conspiracy concerning Hitler’s intentions. Yet to many Germans in 1933 talk of concentration camps, mass exterminations, and the other subsequent vile excesses of the Nazi regime could have appeared (or could have been made to appear) to represent the near lunatic ravings of Germans determined to oppose Hitler’s assumption of power; ravings which then easily could have been ascribed to a conspiracy to undermine Hitler’s promises to transform Germany for the better.

By analogy, when a presidential candidate runs on a platform of hope and change, it is reasonable to look at his paper trail (books he wrote and read, his public voting record, his previous activities and statements) and background (who raised and educated him, his personal and professional friends and associates, his pastor and church) in order to determine what hope and change will mean once he ascends to the presidency, and then not be surprised when that candidate proceeds to implement his program as soon as he is empowered to do so. Not to credit all this evidence represents a foolish abuse of information.

Since language is our medium of communication, abuse of language represents an exceedingly powerful tool with which to cloud reality, direct the parameters of the public debate and sway public sentiment. As the saying goes, he who defines the terms has already won half the battle. Because the left controls so much of the public square these days, opponents of the left must exert constant vigilance with regard to the terms and underlying assumptions of public debate, in order that their conservative message not be undermined by being defined and characterized in terms favorable to the left.

Complaints about the abuse of language on the part of rhetoricians and politicians were nearly ubiquitous in antiquity, starting with the revolution in language usage by the sophists in fifth century BC Greece. The traveling Greek sophist Gorgias of Leontini created a sensation in Athens upon his first visit there in 427 BC by his novel use (and abuse) of language, and while some sophists like Prodicus of Ceos pioneered the accurate use of language and the study of linguistics, many others shamelessly exploited the Greek language, an activity which, in conjunction with their ability to “make the lesser argument the greater,” gave many sophists a bad name, and often rightly so, as can be seen in the dialogues of Plato or the Clouds of Aristophanes. The innovations of the sophists were hand-made for usage in the assemblies and law courts of Athens and other Greek cities, whence those innovations for better or worse passed into the hands of the rhetoricians and became part of the curriculum of rhetoric which persisted as an integral part of higher education until late antiquity. It should come as no surprise that these linguistic and rhetorical devices have had their greatest applications in politics, diplomacy, and the law courts over the centuries.

It is Thucydides who, while describing the civil war on the island of Corcyra during the early part of the Peloponnesian War, gives the most gripping description of how political expediency can change the meaning of words:
The affairs of the cities were rent by civil discord, and in those cities, where civil discord arrived later and where news became known of how such civil discord had been handled previously in other cities, matters were carried to an even greater degree of excess by the devising of new concepts and ideas, as seen in the great cunning of the participants’ undertakings and the inappropriateness of their forms of revenge. And men changed the accustomed meaning of words to conform to the nature of their present deeds as they judged them. Thoughtless daring was judged to be courage in support of one’s allies, prudent delay was termed veiled cowardice, moderation was considered the cloak of the unmanly, the ability to comprehend the whole issue was seen as the ability to do nothing, rash and sharp action was considered the proper portion of a man, to take counsel in safety was called a well-reasoned excuse for desertion. The man who advocated violence was considered in all ways trustworthy, the man speaking against violence was suspected. He who succeeded in plotting was considered intelligent, he who anticipated a plot was considered even more clever, but whoever contrived ahead of time to do neither was called a destroyer of his party and frightened of his enemies; simply put, whoever preceded another in doing evil was praised, as was the man who encouraged another to commit evil who previously had not considered it… (Book 3, Chapter 82).
Similarly, nowadays government spending is termed investment, illegal racial preferences are called affirmative action, abortion is about reproductive justice and the right to privacy, stealing from one person and giving to another is justified as public welfare or redistribution of income, brainwashing is called sensitivity training, leadership is from behind, wanting to improve your own lot and that of your family is selfish greed, amongst an endless parade of Orwellian nonsense that assaults us on a daily basis.

Thus I do not think that it is a matter of delusion or conspiracy for citizens to harbor serious concerns about Obama’s intentions toward our country. By the sophistic manipulation of facts, information and language a great deal of sleight of hand has taken place in order to endow Obama with the patina of an exceptional intelligence conjoined to a squeaky clean and “cool” public persona, while at the same time suppressing the very real evidence of his paper trail and his close friends and associates. The very perception of all that sleight of hand is alone enough to justify a fear of foul play.

Note: Does anyone remember Barack Hussein Obama’s most important ‘teachers’ in his life, father figure, antiwhite racist, 22 year “church” confidant, Jeremiah Wright, the president’s Harvard fellow Marxists, and Obama’s attachment to Saul Alinsky’s community organizing of communist cells for urban action? Obama is what Obama was made to be…..a fast talking irresponsible Marxist of the third world type.

Lefty Eleanor Clift’s Mean Old Republicans Plotting Hunger for America

Eleanor Clift is standard American newsprint Marxist, 2013.

Eleanor Clift remembers the good-old-days especially those when Bob Dole liked the idea of feeding ‘the poor’.

But, in those days, food stamps were directed to aiding the destitute…..not buying votes Obama style.

What is the real number of food stamp collectors at present? Do you know, dear readers?

Somewhere around 48,000,000 Americans and others use GIFT food stamps paid for by the 49% of Americans who still pay federal income taxes from which foreigner president, Barack Hussein Obama can drill for more revenue…..Most are conservatives.

The majority of these fed-by-the-government have been hustled by our American 44th president……The major function of the present U.S. Department of Agriculture seems to be to build the Marxist base for present and future elections. It isn’t the only federal department to be devoted to this cause.

Eleanor Clift avoids the financial and political matters in her following article, preferring to remind lefties at and from the Daily Beast how mean, viscious, inhuman conservatives really are.

It is a female way of looking at things. Problem solving seldom arrives in the female mind. Feelings, such as doing good by robbing Peter to pay Paul with food stamps and re-electing security Marxists, help these unthinking make their way through the day.

Ms. Clift writes at the Daily Beast:

FOOD STAMPS UNDER THREAT: House GOP Wants to Cut $20.5B From SNAP

With the House about to take up the farm bill, the Republican Party’s ascendant libertarian wing is taking aim at the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Eleanor Clift on whether food stamps will survive.

It’s a big number and it gets people’s attention when they hear it: 47 million Americans receive food stamps in what is now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The program has expanded significantly under President Obama, who boosted benefits and allowed states to waive some work rules under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Still, the spiraling need for food assistance even as the unemployment rate has come down is tied to the weak economy and jobs that are so marginal that millions of working people earn so little they still qualify for SNAP.

This week, thirty members of Congress embarked on the “SNAP challenge,” eating on a SNAP budget for a few days or a week. “That’s $4.50 a day.” Above, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter took on a week long food stamp challenge, April 2012. (Matt Rourke/AP)

For decades, since the 1970s, food stamps enjoyed bipartisan backing, with farm-state senators and legislative icons George McGovern and Bob Dole championing the program. More recently, even the authors of the famed Simpson-Bowles report on deficit reduction left SNAP untouched. But House Republicans have a different mind-set about food stamps and want to cut $20.5 billion over 10 years from SNAP, five times more than the $4 billion authorized by a big bipartisan vote, 66 to 27, in the Senate this week, setting the stage for the kind of class-based and racially tinged debate about the poor that poisons our politics and on occasion breaks out into the open.

“All of a sudden it’s become a popular thing to go after SNAP. Some members want to eliminate it entirely,” says Rep. James McGovern (D-MA). “Balancing the budget by making it harder for poor people to get food is a rotten thing to do.”

Asked if he thought the fight over SNAP had a racial component, said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO), “No question about it.” Opponents of food stamps are “intentionally creating myths to demonize the poor,” he says. Democrats quietly tucked an amendment sponsored by Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) into the bill rather than vote on the punitive measure. It prohibits murderers, rapists, and pedophiles from getting food stamps once they’ve served their time. Cleaver says one of the myths is that prisoners receive food stamps, “and most people never take the time to ask what day do they put the prisoners on a bus and drive them to the Safeway.”

“Here’s my prediction,” Cleaver told The Daily Beast. There will be a fierce battle on the House floor to reduce the $20 billion in cuts and a Democratic proposal to cut subsidies to big oil instead. Democrats will lose, “and so the bill coming out of the house will cause many people to puke because of the damage done to the poorest people.” Democrats may regain some ground when the bill goes to conference and must be reconciled with the Senate version, but splitting the difference between $4 billion and $20 billion in cuts would still be significant.

The farm bill is close to $1 trillion over 10 years, and nearly 80 percent of that is food stamps, making it an attractive target for the new ascendant libertarian wing of the GOP. “They see a program that helps people who aren’t helping themselves, and they want to kick the crap out of it,” says a House Democratic aide. House Speaker John Boehner inflamed the divisions within his own party when he said this week that he will vote for the farm bill. The Heritage Foundation’s political arm is running radio ads against three Republicans and one Democrat in agriculture districts, accusing them, complete with pig squeals in the background, of “putting a tuxedo on a pig” by backing a farm bill that is really a food stamp bill.

They see a program that helps people who aren’t helping themselves, and they want to kick the crap out of it.”
Heritage is demanding Republicans honor their commitment to cut spending, and that includes subsidies to farmers as well as food stamps. Republicans have expanded a crop insurance program that is a federal subsidy by another name and potentially more costly. Heritage Action spokesman Dan Holler says the merits of food stamps and farm programs should be debated separately and that it’s time to end the “legislative log rolling” that couples the interests of farm state and urban members in the same bill. He concedes that it’s an open question whether either program would pass on its own.

More white people receive food stamps than black people, and able-bodied people without dependents are limited in the amount of time they can access the program. Sixty percent of working-age people in the program are women, most with children, and if the cuts go through, 210,000 children would lose their free school lunch benefit. On Thursday, almost 30 members of Congress embarked on the “SNAP challenge,” eating on a SNAP budget for a few days or a week. “That’s $4.50 a day,” says Michael Mershow, McGovern’s press secretary, “And no cheating, no office coffee in the morning, no bacon-wrapped scallops at receptions in the evening.”

Republicans say these Democrats are grandstanding and point out that SNAP is a supplemental feeding program that was never intended to be someone’s sole diet. But for the unemployed, the disabled, the elderly, or people just down on their luck, it’s what they depend on. Politics will determine whether food stamps, once an untouchable program, will suffer a body blow or survive largely intact. “What’s been sold over the years is that SNAP is an urban program, and the word urban can sometimes be a substitute for black or brown,” says Cleaver, who has worked hard to convince the farmers in the rural county of his district they have as much to gain from a robust food program as the folks in Kansas City.

Further comment: Lefties active in politics, Eleanor Clift for example, like to insert comfort reading to those racially and racistfully inclined, with phrases like…”the majority of recipients who receive federal benefits are WHITE….politically ignoring the fact that 88% of the American population is NOT BLACK.

Criminals, the violent, the brutal, in America are black males relative to their position of the American population as a whole…..yet, the majority of Americans in the rape, pillage, and burn business are certainly white…wouldn’t we all agree?

Statistics are things Marxists, especially Obamalings, love to play with, whether they are true or not.

George Wallace and Bull Connor of Violence Fame Were Democrats

GEORGE WALLACE WAS A DEMOCRAT; SO WAS BULL CONNOR

by Michael Barone at The Examiner:

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, who seems like a nice person, got caught making a huge historical mistake; he said George Wallace, the Alabama Governor who defied a desegregation order 50 years ago, was a Republican. Nope. He was a Democrat and ran in the Democratic presidential primaries in 1964, 1972 and 1976; he also ran for president as a third party candidate in 1968. Hayes either didn’t know that–surprisingly for a political commentator–or temporarily and perhaps conveniently forgot it. Or maybe he just figures that all political villains are Republicans. In any case he apologized for what he, appropriately, called a “stupid, inexcusable, historically illiterate mistake.”

Here’s another fact he and others may want to keep in mind as we remember the climactic events of the civil rights movement 50 years ago: Bull Connor, the Birmingham police commissioner who turned fire hoses and police dogs on peaceful civil rights demonstrators, was a Democrat too. In fact, he was Democratic National Committeeman from Alabama, at a time when each state and territory had just one male and one female member on the Democratic National Committee.

President John Kennedy’s endorsement 50 years ago this month of what became the Civil Rights Act of 1964 came in the third year of his presidency, in response to events in Birmingham and elsewhere; previously he had been reluctant to raise the issue for fear he would antagonize Southern Democratic officeholders and voters. Some on the left evidently want to depict the civil rights battle as a struggle between benificent Democrats and evil Republicans. It was no such thing.

In Iran Hassan Rowhani replaces Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Iran’s next president called ‘diplomat sheik’ by supporters

Hassan Rowhani is a soft-spoken centrist with conservative tendencies who has taken on increasingly moderate viewpoints in recent weeks.

by Ramin Mostaghim and Alexandra Sandels

at the Los Angeles Times:

TEHRAN — A week ago, many observers viewed Iran’s presidential election as a horse-race among conservative hard-liners hostile to reform. Then came an unexpected surge in support for Hassan Rowhani, a soft-spoken, bespectacled and bearded cleric who is now improbably positioned to become the next president of the Islamic Republic.

Many of those who attended his animated campaign rallies were enthusiastic young people.

At one of his last rallies, a DJ fired up the crowd by playing “Yare Dabestani,” or “My Fellow Student,” which coincidentally — or not — was a revolutionary song popular among the opposition “green movement” that was crushed after Iran’s 2009 vote. Rowhani, 64, who voiced support for the 2009 protesters, took the stage and addressed the young crowd about citizens’ rights.

Rowhani is considered neither a hard-liner nor a radical reformist, but instead a centrist with conservative tendencies who has taken on increasingly moderate viewpoints in recent weeks.

His supporters call him the “diplomat sheik,” a term for the white-turbaned cleric’s role as a seasoned political player and conflict-resolution specialist in both the domestic and international arenas. There is hope that he will patch up Iran’s bitter internal political divisions as well as engage more with the international community to help ease sanctions and bring Iran in from the cold.

“I think Rowhani, as the ‘diplomat sheik,’ is a centrist and can make a national reconciliation cabinet and, after domestic reconciliation, he can go toward fixing Iran’s relations with the West,” said Saeed Laylaz, an economist close to former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Rowhani’s longtime mentor.

Rowhani is in a sense the antithesis to outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, known for his fiery anti-Western diatribes and his divisive politics on the home front. The president-elect has assailed Ahmadinejad for not being able to stem galloping inflation and for “creating tensions” with the West.

“The difference of leadership between the two is from heaven to Earth,” said Amir Hossain Mottaghi, a political analyst and admirer.

The only cleric among the six candidates in the race, Rowhani once served as Iran’s nuclear negotiator, among other government positions over the last 30 years.

A jurist by education, Rowhani held a number of high-level defense posts during Iran’s brutal 1980-88 war with Iraq and served five terms in parliament, including a stint as deputy speaker, according to his official biography. From 1989 to 2005, he served as secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Iran’s top security position, and he remains a council member. He is married and has four children.

Rowhani was born in November 1948 into a religious family in the town of Sorkheh, according to an official biography. He began his religious studies at the local seminary in the early 1960s before moving to Qom, Iran’s religious center.

At an early age, his biography states, Rowhani became an ardent opponent of the Western-backed secularizing shah and a committed supporter of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then a leading dissident. By 1965, Rowhani was traveling across Iran denouncing the monarch, which resulted in him being arrested several times and banned from making public addresses.

Rowhani obtained his bachelor’s in law in 1972 from Tehran University and continued his studies in Britain, his campaign biography states. Later, he joined the then-exiled Khomeini and his revolutionary circle in France, becoming close to the eventual founder of the Islamic Republic.

He is considered a prolific writer on nuclear issues, including a 999-page tome on national security and diplomacy, released last year at the Tehran book fair.

In his book, Rowhani depicts himself as a mediator and unifier during his 678 days as the Islamic Republic’s nuclear negotiator.

During Rowhani’s 2003-05 tenure as Tehran’s representative in nuclear talks with European nations, Iran agreed to halt its enrichment of uranium for a period and was credited with a conciliatory approach. The fact that Western sanctions were not removed in reciprocal fashion was a lesson not forgotten by Rowhani, noted one observer.

Rowhani has made it clear that there was — and will be — “no surrender” to the West on Iran’s right to nuclear power, which the nation says is for peaceful purposes, like energy generation and cancer treatment.

“From the beginning, we focused our talks on defending Iran’s nuclear enrichment as its inalienable right,” he wrote in his book, endorsed by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader and a longtime colleague. “It … has been clear from the beginning that the hostile approach of the West with Iran will not end unless the country’s capability in the economic, political, scientific and technological fields reach a level that leaves the West with no option but to have fair and just relations with Iran.”

Once Ahmadinejad assumed office in 2005, Rowhani left the nuclear negotiator post and Iran restarted its uranium enrichment, ultimately expanding the process. The issue remains one of the critical challenges facing the new president.

Special correspondents Mostaghim reported from Tehran and Sandels from Beirut. Times staff

Dennis Prager’s Basics for Civilizing American School Children

The following article was sent by Arlene Taber regarding modern Leftist American culture:

America has lost its decency, manners, politeness!…..

Listen to the young people, F-this, F-that, and nary anyone will step up and correct them- even with wife and kids in tow!

We watched high school principal Dennis Prager of Colorado , along with Sara Palin and Tom Brokaw on TV a couple of weeks ago….what a dynamic, down to earth speaker. Even though Palin and Brokaw were also guest speakers they did little but nod and agree with him. This is the guy that should be running for President in 2016!

A Speech Every American High School Principal Should Give. by Dennis Prager .

To the students and faculty of our high school: I am your new principal, and honored to be so. There is no greater calling than to teach young people.

I would like to apprise you of some important changes coming to our school. I am making these changes because I am convinced that most of the ideas that have dominated public education in America have worked against you, against your teachers and against our country.

First , this school will no longer honor race or ethnicity. I could not care less if your racial makeup is black, brown, red, yellow or white. I could not care less if your origins are African, Latin American, Asian or European, or if your ancestors arrived here on the Mayflower or on slave ships. The only identity I care about, the only one this school will recognize, is your individual identity — your character, your scholarship, your humanity. And the only national identity this school will care about is American.

This is an American public school, and American public schools were created to make better Americans. If you wish to affirm an ethnic, racial or religious identity through school, you will have to go elsewhere. We will end all ethnicity, race and non-American nationality-based celebrations. They undermine the motto of America , one of its three central values — epluribus Unum, “from many, one.” And this school will be guided by America ‘s values. This includes all after-school clubs. I will not authorize clubs that divide students based on any identities. This includes race, language, religion, sexual orientation or whatever else may become in vogue in a society divided by political correctness.

Your clubs will be based on interests and passions, not blood, ethnic, racial or other physically defined ties Those clubs just cultivate narcissism — an unhealthy preoccupation with the self — while the purpose of education is to get you to think beyond yourself. So we will have clubs that transport you to the wonders and glories of art, music, astronomy, languages you do not already speak, carpentry and more. If the only extracurricular activities you can imagine being interested in are those based on ethnic, racial or sexual identity, that means that little outside of yourself really interests you.

Second , I am uninterested in whether English is your native language. My only interest in terms of language is that you leave this school speaking and writing English as fluently as possible. The English language has united America ‘s citizens for over 200 years, and it will unite us at this school. It is one of the indispensable reasons this country of immigrants has always come to be one country. And if you leave this school without excellent English language skills, I would be remiss in my duty to ensure that you will be prepared to successfully compete in the American job market We will learn other languages here — it is deplorable that most Americans only speak English — but if you want classes taught in your native language rather than in English, this is not your school.

Third, because I regard learning as a sacred endeavor, everything in this school will reflect learning’s elevated status. This means, among other things, that you and your teachers will dress accordingly. Many people in our society dress more formally for Hollywood events than for church or school. These people have their priorities backward. Therefore, there will be a formal dress code at this school.

Fourth, no obscene language will be tolerated anywhere on this school’s property — whether in class, in the hallways or at athletic events. If you can’t speak without using the f -word, you can’t speak. By obscene language I mean the words banned by the Federal Communications Commission, plus epithets such as “Nigger,” even when used by one black student to address another black, or “bitch,” even when addressed by a girl to a girlfriend. It is my intent that by the time you leave this school, you will be among the few your age to instinctively distinguish between the elevated and the degraded, the holy and the obscene.

Fifth, we will end all self-esteem programs. In this school, self-esteem will be attained in only one way — the way people attained it until decided otherwise a generation ago — by earning it. One immediate consequence is that there will be one valedictorian, not eight.

Sixth, and last, I am reorienting the school toward academics and away from politics and propaganda. No more time will be devoted to scaring you about smoking and caffeine, or terrifying you about sexual harassment or global warming. No more semesters will be devoted to condom wearing and teaching you to regard sexual relations as only or primarily a health issue… There will be no more attempts to convince you that you are a victim because you are not white, or not male, or not heterosexual or not Christian. We will have failed if any one of you graduates this school and does not consider him or herself inordinately fortunate — to be alive and to be an American.

Now, please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of our country. As many of you do not know the words, your teachers will hand them out to you.