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Post a Comment On: Steve Sailer: iSteve

"What Obama wrote about Wright in 1995"

17 Comments -

1 – 17 of 17
Blogger Born Again Democrat said...

One problem with the black preoccupation with slavery is that they forget, or never knew, that every ethnic group in America has a history of servitude in its family background. In fact, most groups have a longer history, measured in generations, though one that ended several generations earlier. It is only the fact that the black experience, or the Jewish one too, for that matter, ended so much more recently, that make the African-American experience, or the Holocaust, so emblematic -- or rather that should make them emblematic, as opposed to distinctive. There is not a single outrage inflicted by the Nazi's on the Jews that has not been inflicted countless times on countless forgotten individuals in every society since the beginning of history. Read Herodotus, or the history of Mexico, for a few details -- or the history of medieval and early modern Europe for that matter. We have all been shaped by this history; and we have all profited by it too, for that matter, in the sense that the modern world has been erected on the crimes and sacrifices of bygone generations, of all races, and from all four corners of the world. (That's capitalism for you.)

The human struggle from servitude to freedom is a universal one, and should bind us together, not separate us. What we lack is historical understanding, for which we can blame our lousy system of public education, among other things.

5/4/08, 10:24 PM

Anonymous Proofreader said...

Just what I feared:

1) Obama is an opportunist with no real beliefs, religious or otherwise. Raw power is his goal.In that, he's a real politician, not a messiah.

2) If he's not elected, he could be the next Alex Haley, writing successful made-up tales of Black suffering.

3) Obama has never ever been even remotely in touch with his white side, probably because he hates his mother. But who wouldn't?

5/5/08, 4:37 AM

Anonymous poor richard said...

The story of black servitude in America starts with some Portuguese or Dutch captain sailing into a tropical port. A big chief walks outs surrounded by attendants, ebony skin decked out in garishly hammered gold jewelry. The man gestures to a line of human beings chained up behind him, many with gashes of pink and red battle scars slashed across their dusky skins. A booming bass voice echoes out from behind his square perfectly white teeth, and says, "Sir, step right over. Have I got some n*****s to trade with you today!"

The Afrocentric histories always leave out that part of the story, somehow. How the black man in America was sold out by his "brothas" in Africa. Did whites abuse black slaves, even using them as the scapegoats for their bad behavior and as visible representations of darkenss or evil? Absolutely. (Did the shoe fit sometimes? Maybe). But in the end, it was only the white man who decided to take off those African chains and replace them with American freedom.

Obama should know better, and for him to take part in that feel good lie is disgusting. Despite his intelligence and his charisma, this dishonesty is sickening. Truth is always a DOUBLE edged sword, and Obama has shown that he has no intentions of wielding it.

5/5/08, 5:31 AM

Anonymous rightsaidfred said...

What born again democrat said...

Also,

>>>>Maybe, by going to law school, I’d be repeating a pattern that had been set in motion centuries before, the moment white men, themselves spurred on by their own fears of inconsequence, had landed on Africa’s shores, bringing with them their guns and blind hunger, to drag away the conquered in chains.

This tells me Obama has fully internalized the narrative of "white man bad, black man good". I like the subtle hint here that only white men have "blind hunger", and "guns" (bad!), and no acknowledgement of black African complicity in the slave trade.

5/5/08, 5:42 AM

Blogger RobertHume said...

Thanks for this, Steve.

This excerpt seems much less radical than I had expected. Seems plausible, all things considered, that Obama chose a church that had a lot of yuppies like him. Here's the quote:

"Older pastors were more cautious with their praise, impressed with the rapid growth of Trinity’s congregation but somewhat scornful of its popularity among young black professionals. (“A buppie church,” one pastor would tell me.)"

5/5/08, 6:12 AM

Anonymous Lucius Vorenus said...

Wow, Steve, how do you read this crap?

It doesn't take more than a few sentences to realize that BHOJr is a certifiable lunatic.

I don't have time to comment on the nonsense & internal inconsistencies which seem to appear in almost every single sentence, but I just wanted to note this one really big lie:

Barack Hussein Obama Jr: And I had things to learn in law school, things that would help me bring about real change. I would learn about interest rates, corporate mergers, the legislative process; about the way businesses and banks were put together; how real estate ventures succeeded or failed. I would learn power’s currency in all its intricacy and detail, knowledge that would have compromised me before coming to Chicago but that I could now bring back to where it was needed, back to Roseland, back to Altgeld; bring it back like Promethean fire.

That’s the story I had been telling myself, the same story I imagined my father telling himself twenty-eight years before, as he had boarded the plane to America, the land of dreams. He, too, had probably believed he was acting out some grand design, that he wasn’t simply fleeing from possible inconsequence. And, in fact, he had returned to Kenya, hadn’t he? But only as a divided man, his plans, his dreams, soon turned to dust...

That first encounter had redrawn the map of black life, recentered its universe, created the very idea of escape-an idea that lived on in Frank...

The relationship between black and white, the meaning of escape, would never be quite the same for me as it had been for Frank, or for the Old Man, or even for Roy.

That was one of the lessons I’d learned these past two and a half years, wasn’t it?-that most black folks weren’t like the father of my dreams, the man in my mother’s stories, full of high-blown ideals and quick to pass judgment. They were more like my stepfather, Lolo, practical people who knew life was too hard to judge each other’s choices, too messy to live according to abstract ideals...


After having spent so much time with his mother and her father [both known Communists], and having travelled back to Kenya to meet his relatives there, and having spent so much time with Frank, in Hawaii, then surely, by 1995, Barack Hussein Obama Jr must have known that Barack Hussein Obama Sr was a communist [and that BHO Sr had conspired with Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, father of Raila Amolo Odinga, to impose communism on Kenya]?

Anyway, the point of this is that the legal devices which Obama Jr is talking about - "interest rates", "corporate mergers", "the legislative process", "the way businesses and banks were put together" - are legal devices which are pertinent to a free market economy as it exists under the rule of law.

But BHO Sr, as a communist, wouldn't have had the same dreams - he would have had precisely the opposite dreams - he would have dreamt of undoing the "the legislative process" and of criminalizing the very idea of "businesses" and "banks" and "real estate ventures".

Also, what's this obsession with "organizing"?

"Organizing" for what purpose?!?

How can one read phrases like, "I would learn power’s currency in all its intricacy and detail", and then read about his continuing obsession with "organizing", and not immediately come to the conclusion that BHO Jr is a Stalinist/Maoist megalomaniac?

PS: Who has to go to law school to learn about "interest rates"? To mix threads here at iSteve, isn't that supposed to be 7th- or 8th-grade mathematics?

5/5/08, 9:35 AM

Anonymous William said...

One problem with the black preoccupation with slavery is that they forget, or never knew, that every ethnic group in America has a history of servitude in its family background.

At the height of feudalism roughly half the people in Europe were serfs. Blacks, of course, mostly can't be bothered to pick up a book to learn this fact. And when Jews talk about how bad their ancestors were treated in Europe my response is, roughly, "tell me about it." People in Europe didn't get a free pass from persecution and oppression because they were Christian.

The Afrocentric histories always leave out that part of the story, somehow. How the black man in America was sold out by his "brothas" in Africa.

That's always the irony: sold out by their "brothers" in Africa (whom they glorify today). When brought to America their woman were often raped by their white masters and handlers. Those rapists are far more likely to be in their genealogy than in yours or mine, yet they blame us - except when their proud to have the "rapist" in their ancestry, as with Thomas Jefferson.

5/5/08, 10:02 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Interesting that he would complain about the cruise ships that waste food. Didnt he go on a cruise as soon as this stuff started? I assume he Fed-Exed a whole bunch of food back to the 'hood!

5/5/08, 12:33 PM

Anonymous Svigor said...

Is Michelle Obama responsible for the Jeremiah Wright fiasco?

http://www.slate.com/id/2190589/

Looks like the Slate writers are reading Steve.

My favorite free-pass headline in favor of Obama yet:

Who Did Rev. Wright Ever Harm?

http://www.huliq.com/58685/who-did-rev-wright-ever-torture

How about all the white children to interact with (be indoctrinated, browbeaten, abused, and assaulted by) the blacks in his church?

Here's a good question:

Who did David Duke ever harm?

Do the media notice their own hypocrisy and lies, or do they believe them? Do they think no one notices when they rule out one guy for his particularism, and whistle past the graveyard for another guy's?

5/5/08, 12:42 PM

Blogger RobertHume said...

And before most Europeans were serfs many of them were slaves of the Romans. Slaves typically lived in barracks underground and were not allowed to have families.

It was under Charlemagne, (747-814AD) that slaves were transformed into serfs; the transition originating and spreading out from Paris.

Serfs were tied to the land and had to work for the master, but they could have families and could not be sold separately.

5/5/08, 1:48 PM

Anonymous desmond jones said...

It makes you wonder why he didn't use this to embrace Wright in the campaign. White liberals would buy this hook line and sinker, and it probably would have saved him the recent tirades of an angry black pastor, who felt hurt.

5/5/08, 1:54 PM

Anonymous Svigor said...

Btw, I'm astonished at the sudden fatigue overwhelming liberals. At every turn they whine how tired they are of hearing about Wright. What's it been, two whole weeks now?

They were indefatigable on the James Byrd dragging (and were never worried about "context" (black on white prison rape), for that matter). They were marathon men with Lott, running laps until the Senator went to ground. They never lost their wind with Scott Peterson. They played Lacrosse at Duke with heroic stamina, right up until Nifong became a verb.

I guess after all that, they finally ran out of gas.

5/5/08, 2:24 PM

Anonymous c23 said...

Steve deserves a Purple Heart for wading through Obama's book. My eyes glazed over after the first paragraph.

5/5/08, 3:01 PM

Anonymous SFG said...

There is not a single outrage inflicted by the Nazi's on the Jews that has not been inflicted countless times on countless forgotten individuals in every society since the beginning of history.
I think what happened in Nazi Germany was that the Germans were much more organized than other murderous groups in the past; the Turks had to drive all the Armenians out to the desert and leave them to die there, whereas the Germans had the idea of just building gas chambers locally around Europe. Also, jokes aside, German culture was heavily organized and bureaucratic, which is great for running a death camp or any other enterprise. The Poles would kill a few Jews every so often in a pogrom, but only the efficient Germans could kill 6 million of 'em in a few years.

Lucius: he's just idealizing his dad. It's not a crazy thing for a man, especially one with a mixed relationship with Dad, to do. Not rational, certainly, but not insane. As for 'organizing', I think he means community organizing, but it can mean anything from a labor union to a church group to a death squad. Some people just have that power lust. Hillary has it a lot worse, IMHO. And I'm not voting for that warmonger McCain. Sorry.

The guy's a pretty good writer. I wonder who his ghostwriter is? ;)

5/5/08, 3:19 PM

Anonymous rast said...

Ugh. Steve, the whole point of you reading Obama's book is so that we don't have to. Please summarize.

In related news, Chris Hitchens has clearly been reading your blog... Are We Getting Two for One? Is Michelle Obama responsible for the Jeremiah Wright fiasco?

5/5/08, 4:53 PM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

the Turks had to drive all the Armenians out to the desert and leave them to die there,.."
The Turks slaughtered and tortured to the extent they were able. It's just a lot more time consuming. The armies of Genghis Khan also did their best at slaughtering much of the population of what is now Afghanistan: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-80633682.html
There have been massive extermination campaigns throughout history--Atilla the Hun, Rwanda, Paraguay (1900s), Cambodia, Armenia--they tell me several million Germans died AFTER World War II, deliberately done in, but I wouldn't know about that since the media and encyclopedias in this country never say so.
The only thing other mass murder attempts had lacking for an effective genocide, is technology, not organization. And I don't know of any other genocide scenario where the perps apologized and paid reparations for several generations. That too, takes organization and sense of civil conscience, i.e. crimes against the "other" not your kin, is still a crime. Really.

5/6/08, 9:29 AM

Anonymous Lucius Vorenus said...

sfg: Lucius: he's just idealizing his dad. It's not a crazy thing for a man, especially one with a mixed relationship with Dad, to do. Not rational, certainly, but not insane.

Look, I understand that Obama is carrying all sorts of Freudian/Oedipal/Electral emotional baggage - the guy had a tortuous childhood, and it's obvious just from glancing at him that he's got all sorts of mental health problems.

But what I am asking for here is just a modicum of intellectual consistency on his part - it is impossible for the following three propositions to be true simultaneously:

1) Prior to going to law school, Obama Jr eagerly anticipated learning how to use the legal devices of a free market as it exists under the rule of law [ostensibly so as to become a participant in such a free market as it exists under the rule of law], and

2) Prior to coming to America, Obama Sr was telling himself "the same story", and

3) Obama Jr was well aware by 1995 [when he wrote these passages] that Obama Sr had been a died-in-the-wool communist agitator [who tried, with Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, father of Raila Amolo Odinga, to impose communism on the nation of Kenya].

So how do you get around this dilemma?

Well, you could try to attack #3 by positing that Obama Jr was blissfully ignorant of the fact that Obama Sr had been a very high-level communist agitator back in Kenya. But that's gonna be kinda difficult given the fact that Obama Jr has himself travelled to Kenya repeatedly, and less than two years ago [in August of 2006], campaigned so aggressively with Raila Amolo "Sharia Law" Odinga that [apparently] the Kenyan government filed a complaint with the US State Department about Obama Jr's interference in the internal politics of Kenya.

Or maybe you could try to attack #2 by positing that the young Obama Sr was indeed a free-market idealist as a young man in Africa, but was only converted to communism after the year or two he spent at the University of Hawaii and at Harvard - i.e. that Obama Sr came to the USA with dreams of Smithian/Hayekian liberalism, but left with a credo of Marxist/Engelist tyranny.

But I don't think that either of those explanations is the correct explanation: I think that Obama Jr is telling the truth when he says that he and his father lived "the same story", but I think that Obama Jr is lying when he tries to give us the impression that he ever had any intent to become a participant in a free market economic system within the confines of the rule of law.

BTW, the only year of private sector employment on Obama Jr's resume is circa 1983/1984, at Business International Corporation, three or four years prior to his anticipation of leaving for law school [which Steve Sailer dates as September 1987 to February 1988].

And do you know how Obama Jr describes his role during his only year of employment in the private sector? As "a spy behind enemy lines"!!!

sfg: As for 'organizing', I think he means community organizing, but it can mean anything from a labor union to a church group to a death squad. Some people just have that power lust. Hillary has it a lot worse, IMHO.

Yes, but "community organizing" for what purpose? I mean, seriously, what the hell is "community organizing" in the first place?

The phrase doesn't even have any meaning to normal people - I have never in my life interacted socially with anyone who was involved in "community organizing" - the very concept is utterly foreign to any series of events in which I or any of my acquaintances have ever participated.

Look: We know that Obama Jr's mother was a communist, as was her father [Obama Jr's maternal grandfather]. And we know that Obama Jr's father was a very high-level communist, who worked with Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, in Kenya. And we know that, as a child growing up in Hawaii, Obama Jr was mentored by the communist, Frank Marshall Davis. And we know that Obama Jr sought out Edward Said at Columbia, and remained close friends with Said for years thereafter. And we know that Obama Jr considered his single year of employment in the private sector to have been a year spent as "a spy behind enemy lines". And we know that Obama Jr has had a very close, personal friendship with the Bolshevik terrorists, William Ayres and Bernardine Dohrn, for more than a decade now. And we know that Obama Jr is deeply committed to the career of Raila Amolo "Sharia Law" Odinga, who himself was educated in communist East Germany.

And now Steve Sailer has just posted a new piece in which we learn that Obama Jr rejected Black Nationalism & Farrakhanism because they were INSUFFICIENTLY INSULAR political philosophies!!!

insular: characteristic of an isolated people; especially : being, having, or reflecting a narrow provincial viewpoint

And we know that Obama Jr dreamt of how he "would learn power's currency in all its intricacy and detail".

So what's the logical conclusion here?

Frankly, it's not that Obama Jr is a crypto-Stalinist, but rather that Obama Jr is a crypto-Maoist, or even a crypto-Potist: If you take him at his word, then the logical conclusion is that he wants to empty the cities and send everyone to live in the "insularity" of the countryside [just like Pol Pot did], and that the purpose of Obama Jr's obsession with "organizing" is to foist some sort of Maoist or Potist "insularity" on the American people.

Or maybe Obama Jr simply wants to put all the white people on cattle cars and send them off to the lampshade & soap factories, so that black people can then be free to live in peaceful, "insular" harmony with one another.


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PS: You know, as I was glancing back over all of this, before hitting the "publish" button, something else just dawned on me.

The second of my three mutually inconsistent propositions was:

2) Prior to coming to America, Obama Sr was telling himself "the same story".

Now let me reproduce the exact Obama Jr quote as Steve Sailer posted it: "That’s the story I had been telling myself, the same story I imagined my father telling himself twenty-eight years before, as he had boarded the plane to America, the land of dreams."

Anyway, it just dawned on me that there is a sense of the phrase "to tell a story" which means "to lie":

story: 5: lie, falsehood

So it could be that when Obama Jr says, "That’s the story I had been telling myself, the same story I imagined my father telling himself twenty-eight years before, as he had boarded the plane to America, the land of dreams," he's saying that both he and his father lied to themselves when they dreamed of going off to some distant place to learn about free market economics - that deep down inside, they both knew that they were committed communists, and that they would never willfully participate in a free market economy, or adhere to a rule of law.

[Remember, Obama Sr's 1965 Master's degree is listed at Harvard with a Concentration/Department: ECONOMICS.]

Of course, if this conjecture is correct, then it would be a positively Clintonian use of the language, and I'm not sure that Obama Jr is smart enough to pull it off.

Still, though, I wonder...

Do you suppose that Obama Jr is such a sociopath that, in his own mind, the concepts of story-telling and lying are indistinguishable?

If so, then it would go a long way towards resolving my three-part paradox.

5/6/08, 10:32 AM

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