Terra Incognita 61 The Obama issue

Terra Incognita
Issue 61
“Written to enlighten, guaranteed to offend”

A Publication of Seth J. Frantzman
Jerusalem, Israel

The Obama issue

Website: http://journalterraincognita.blogspot.com/

November 16th, 2008

1) Liberalism: "Americans discriminate against Obama because he is black, so let's vote for him because he is black." One of the odd things to come out of the 2008 election is the claim that people wouldn’t vote for Obama because he was black and thus the odd claim that he needed to be supported because he was black.

2) How much hate does the Obama victory engender?: One of the outcomes of the election of Obama was an avalanche of hate directed against those who refused to be taken in by the idea that “if you don’t vote for him you are racist and not progressive.” So now those seen as ‘behind the times’ are being told they are the embodiment of evil, with all sorts of insults and slander being heaped upon them.

3) Cheering for nothing: lies about Obama at home and abroad: One cartoon that appeared after the Obama victory showed a black man hugging a white man in the U.S and foreigner cheering that “Yes they can.” This implies that America is some sort of ‘behind the times’ racist place that has finally caught up with the world. Its odd, because we don’t see Christians running Muslim countries or Muslims being elected to run European countries. Who are they to cheer for us Americans? The world should examine its own soul and its own failings for it is more of a racist cesspool than America. Its time for the world to stop living vicariously through the U.S, blaming it for its problems and then celebrating for it as if the world is America. It is not.

4) Where are the world’s Obamas: More stupidity: Now people in the world are saying “where is our Obama?” Israelis are saying they need an Arab prime minister and the French are trying to find an ‘Obama’. This racist idiocy that believes a country is better off just because it has someone different at the helm is tragic. Should Leon Blum have been judged based solely on his being Jewish and not on his socialist ways? Should Indira be judged based solely on being a woman and not on Operation Blue Star? Judge people based solely on one quality and one then finds they may very well be blamed for that one quality.



Liberalism: "Americans discriminate against Obama because he is black, so let's vote for him because he is black."
November 2nd, 2008
Seth J. Frantzman

As if to tell us, 'thank god, Jesus has come to cleanse the temple', our media is telling us that this is the most important U.S election of our lifetime; "this 2008 election is a milestone that may put a black man in the White House." And yet, oddly, at the same time we are being served odd tripe alongside this dish. The media tells us that the election shouldn't be about race. Then it tells us that Obama would be leading by more points if it weren't for the racism of Americans. Senators Murtha and Biden both tell us that 'Americans are having a hard time voting for a black man.' And now we learn that in fact it is our 'subconscious' racism that is keeping Obama down. This is how the race scam works in the United States. We are presented with a candidate. We are told he is black. Then we are told that if we vote against him we are racist and even if there is no evidence for that racism we are told that we are 'subconsciously racist' and then when that doesn't work we are told that we can participate in a 'milestone' event by putting a 'black man' in the white house. This rubric of racism, whereby we are first told we are racist, then convinced that we are 'subconsciously' racist and then told to like something merely because of its racist, thus making us racist even if we weren't in the first place, is part of the great lie that is 'lets talk about race.'

That was the title of Nicholas Kristof's piece in the New York Times on October 30th, 2008. Kristof tells us that a recent study by Harvard's Project Implicit showed that "the mind balked at accepting a black candidate as fully American…[which shows] the gulf between out conscious ideals of equality and our unconscious proclivity to discriminate…[We] associate the idea of 'American' with white skin." One might accept that there is some truth to some of this. But Kristof takes the reader one stop further, exhorting us about how the "2008 election is a milestone that may put a black man in the white house." Kristof is subconsciously telling us something as well. He is telling us that we are all secret racists and to make up for our racism we must vote for Obama, not because Obama is a great candidate, but because he is a "black man" and we need to make this year a "milestone."

Where is all the evidence for this 'secret' racism and this unconscious racism that is keeping Obama's poll numbers down and keeping people from voting for him, because as Joe Biden reminds us "a difficult time just culturally making the change, making the move for the first African American president in the history of the United States of America." Are we kidding ourselves? What poll numbers and media attention and support does Obama need in order for us to prove that we are not all 'unconscious' racists? Does he need 90% of the vote? Is it enough that only 70% of NBC media coverage of him is positive or does it have to 95%?

It seems the constant claim that 'unconscious' racism is keeping Obama down and that we are having "trouble" electing a black candidate is designed to make us non-racists feel bad about ourselves and vote for Obama merely because of his race in order to prove that we are not racist. This is a brilliant tactic on the part of those, like Biden, Murtha and Kristof, who peddle it. But it is also a very low political tactic and it is, ironically, racist. There is nothing more racist than selecting a candidate because of his race. There is nothing that does less justice to the cause of equality and to African-Americans than voting for a man because of the color of his skin rather than the content of his character.


How much hate does the Obama victory engender?
Seth J. Frantzman
November 10th, 2008

One of the odd dividends of the Obama victory has been the hate being dished out against those, like myself, who did not vote for this new Jesus. It began with the pre-election idiocy dished out by Nicholas Kristoff in the Times, accusing everyone who didn’t vote for the new Kennedy of being ‘secret’ racists. Then after the election Paul Krugman of the Times proclaimed that the “Republican Rump” had become the “party of intolerance.” Then Orna Coussins, evidently another extremist oped writer, in Haaretz, declared “the era of the conservative white male is over.” She claimed that “one could argue of course that the long, continuous struggle against him has not been completed yet… He has not disappeared. He still makes his voice heard - a somewhat strident voice - in newspapers, on the op-ed pages.. When he can, he still tries to deride women, or blacks, or his critics, regardless of religion, color and gender… For hundreds of years he ruled unthreatened. He had slaves - people without freedom, to fulfill his needs, manufacture his products and carry out his menial work. For hundreds of years he felt comfortable. He kept women - denied of their freedom - to take care of his sexual and feeding needs, and to raise his offspring.” Hey, sister, I’m still here and the ‘death’ of the old white conservative male is a myth, behind the conservatives whites of the U.S are conservative blacks and Hispanics and Indians and Asians. And in the end conservative Islam, which is run by white Arabs, will crush liberalism in a way conservatives never dreamed of, to an extent and in a manner that will make leftists like Coussins scream for mercy and wish the old style ‘conservative’ like Goldwater would return. The leftist who plunges a dagger into our erstwhile democratic conservatism will find it has the same affect as those Communists who plunged the dagger into Hindenberg’s conservative Wiemer administration, heralding the era of Nazism.

But the odd gloating and baseness never ends. Paul Krugman writes again on November 9th that “if you’re an American and the election of the first African-American president didn’t stir you, if it didn’t leave you teary eyed…there’s something wrong with you.” Teary eyed? Is that what we are supposed to be? Just over some skin color? Is that all we are to be measured by? That’s the tragedy of liberalism, in its obsession with multi-culturaism, it cannot see beyond race and judges solely on this fact, which is disturbing. Did they get teary eyed when Condi rice was our National Security Advisor or Coin Powel was our Secretary of State or when, in 1866, the first black American, a genuine former slave, was elected to the Senate. I guess we weren’t tear eyed back then when Senator Bruce took his oath. But that may have been because we judged better back then. And yes, we were Republicans back then. And yes, some of us were white, male and conservative.

Leftists condemn us at their peril. They support candidates based on the color of skin and weep for no reason. It is precisely because liberals support Obama based on skin color that they have decided those who didn’t support him were ‘racists’. How funny to see how racism actually works.

Cheering for nothing: lies about Obama at home and abroad
November 6th, 2008
Seth J. Frantzman

Every newspaper and media outlet is on about it: "nation elects first black president." It is as if one should be proud just to have a change of skin color in the white house (something long predicted in Hollywood movies from Dave Chapelle's comedy to 24 to Morgan Freeman as President in Deep Impact. When asked how he felt playing the first black president he said "I'm not playing the first black president, I'm playing a president who happens to be black." Thank you Mr. Freeman.) , as if that were all it is, as if a man or woman is nothing but his skin color. Truly this is the most base act of man, the most base instinct and savage judgment, the lie that permeates all of our liberal presumptions about people. It is the lie of race. It is the greatest lie, made even more of a lie in the case of Obama, because he is not connected, culturally, ethnically or historically, to the heritage and history of Black Americans. But that is all the more great for him, for we can say that his path is more interesting. But it is not the same path that Mr. Jesse Jackson or David Dinkins represented. And yet we are deceived because we see that skin color and pat ourselves on the back and say "I am good today, we are good today, we overcame racial divides and we did it, we expelled the sins of our past, we have elected a black man." You see it in the smiles and adoration of the public, the semi-orgasmic displays of raunchy cheering and excitable youth, the people that are happy because they feel they have done something good, that by voting they took part in a 'civil rights struggle'. That is good for them perhaps. It is good for Americans, especially leftists, to feel good about themselves. Even rightists it seems are overtaken, Brit Hume and the rest of the hard men and women of Fox News were all over emotion. "We did it."

I am happy for Mr. Obama. His energy is a positive thing. His blank slate, the fact that we know nothing about his policies, thoughts or beliefs, may bode ill or good. After all, untested young men have achieved great things, lest we forget Henry V or Alexander the Great. Obama is, of course, first an American and he embodies many things about America, the least of which is his skin color and the phony obsession with it. At his worst we must say of him, as John Gotti said of Paul 'Big Pauly' Castellano; "we got the boss we got." But the greatest lie concerning Mr. Obama is not the lie being told at home, it is the lie being told abroad.

Zvi Barel wrote in Haaretz on November 4th in an article entitled 'Arab Commentators want to be able to admire America again' about how the Arabs feel about Obama. Hamad al Majid wrote in Asharq al-Awsat in London that the election of Obama is a positive thing because "it will put an end to the white man's monopoly on the White House." Lets pause for a moment and reflect on this statement. An Arab is celebrating the fact that the white man's monopoly is ending in the U.S. But what race is the Arab? He is not black and in this base world if one is not black or Asian they are white. Do Arab nations elect black leaders? Egypt had Sadat and he was murdered. In Sudan they simply genocide the blacks, such is their admiration for them. In Saudi they still import blacks as slaves. In fact the Arab world is full of racism towards blacks who are referred to variously as 'Abd' (slave) or as 'Kaffir' (infidel). In places where there are concentrations of formerly enslaves blacks, such as in the Bedouin village of Rahat in Israel or in southern Iran, southern Morocco, Niger, Mauritania, Sudan, northern Egypt or Somalia we find that those blacks are subjected to rape, genocide, assaults, harassment, discrimination, verbal abuse, enslavement and suppression. We might say its 'like the Old South'. The irony that Arabs cheer for Obama because he is black would be as ironic as Apartheid South Africa cheering had Jesse Jackson won when he ran for president.

But the lies and hypocrisy doesn't end with the white Arabs. As revealed previously a survey taken in Europe showed that while Europeans wanted America to have a minority as president (and the word 'minority' is probably a fairer and more accurate description of Obama than to call him either 'Black' or 'African-American'). But those same Europeans didn't want a minority running their country. This hypocrisy of the European and the Arab and others is illustrated no better than in the cartoon that appeared in the New York Times on November 6th, 2008. It shows a white man hugging a black man in the U.S. The black man is weeping. And standing outside the U.S are five figures seeming to represent Europe, the Arab world, Asia and Africa. The five figures are cheering "Yes they could!"

The insinuation is that America is some bastard child of the world, a place of racial divisions and hatred and discrimination where the people cannot see past race. They are cheering for us? As if we need their approval? Are we kidding ourselves. Lets just recall a few things about America. Was it Europeans who fought wars to end slavery. No. Was it Arabs? No. Was it Asians? No. Was it Africans? No. It was Americans. We are the only nation to have fought a war to end the institution of slavery. That is no mere thing. We only fought a war to end it because it was an institution never practiced in half of the country. But while the U.S outlawed slavery in 1863 it seems that slavery still continues in parts of Africa and the Arabian peninsula. They cheer for us? What of the other minorities? When the Irish were starving from the Potato famine did they not come in the hundreds of thousands to the shores of United States? When the Jews were called up for 30 years of brutal service in the Tsarist army where they were raped of their religion was it not the U.S that granted them entry? In fact it was the U.S that granted all the unwanted Europeans entry. And yet today they cheer for us? Is it because we took their "tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free." We took them all. Asians, Hispanics, Africans of every tribe, Cubans, Haitians (a country of freed slaves that the U.S was the first to recognize by the way) , Germans. We took them. And now their former oppressors cheer for us? We turned these poor huddled masses into strong men and we sent them back to their former lands to defeat the scourges of their past. We sent them back in legions upon legions of men to defeat Nazism and Communism and all the other brands of evil that the world has conjured up. But it has not stopped. The genocides continue, recently in Rwanda, and in Darfur. The cleansing of minorities continues and is covered up. And yet they cheer for us?

I am suspicious of a savage world that cheers for us. We do not cheer for them. We never cheer because we know what the world is capable of. We Americans have not seeked the approval of the world ever and it is unfortunate that we do now. We have done things on our own time and usually before the world has done them. We have ended slavery with our own strength, not because some European asked us to. We have granted rights to women and given men without property the vote. We have had our Bill of Rights and our right to guns and our abortion rights. All absent of the world telling us how to do it. And they cheer for us? It is like the man who is in the sewer cheering for the man who has already pulled himself out. We are out of the cesspool. But the world is still in it. The world lives vicariously through the U.S. If it makes them happy that is great. But they shouldn’t kid themselves that they are like us. White genocidal Arabs shouldn’t pretend that they are really cheering for the 'black man'. It’s the same black man who they support the murder of in the Sudan. And his children are just old enough to be stoned alive in Somalia. So don't cheer for us. Look into your own soul and ask yourself why you are so happy. Is it not because you, as a world, have failed so miserably and that we Americans have always done so much better? So we have Obama. We have the boss we got. Who do you have?






Where are the world’s Obamas: More stupidity
Seth J. Frantzman
November 15th, 2008

Hatred, idiocy, and other myths were not the only thing engendered by the Obama victory. Now the newspapers are asking throughout the world ‘where is our Obama’. The week of November 8-15th saw the headline in the New York Times ‘Where is Europe’s Obama.’ Bradley Burston wrote in Haaretz that He desires to see an Arab elected the prime minister of Israel so that Israel will have its ‘Obama.’ There is something deeply foolish in all this. People are simply unable to judge this election beyond skin color. They believe that France needs a black president now, regardless of his policies. It is as stupid as judging former French president’s Leon Blum and Mendes-France based on the fact that they were Jews. But were they any good? One was a socialist and perhaps his social programs were more influential or damning than his Jewishness? No. That couldn’t be. Its enough that he was Jew in a nation of gentiles. An inability to see past his Jewishness means that he must be judged solely on that, on the idea that the ‘Other’ is positive based solely on his being the ‘other’, regardless of his politics. Is it enough to judge Golda Meir and Indira Gandhi on being women, or on their ordering Operation Blue Star and waging the Yom Kippur war in a semi-disastrous manner? But they were women. That’s enough. Can we judge between Elizabeth and Victoria, or must we seem them as the same, women, regardless of Elizabeth’s role in fighting for the Anglican church and repelling the Spanish Armada? Judge them only as women and we cannot see their failures and their greatness.

The oddity of this is that Europe has had the ‘other’ in power. Holland had its Ayan Hirsi Ali, a Somali born women turned women’s rights activist and fighter against Islamism. But she was run out of the country, first by death threats and then threats to deport her. England has its Lord Ahmed. It had its Disreali. It had its Stanley Baldwin, a man distinguished not by his skin color but his average workaday demeanor and humble nature. Russia has had its Obamas. It had Stalin, a Georgian, and a whole host of other foreigners and non-Russians, running the country during Soviet times, from Khruschev to Beria and Mikoyan, not to mention all the Jews such as Kamanev, Zinoviev and Trotsky. Should they be judged on their ethnicity alone? If so then the Jews certainly come off badly for their role in Communism, a link often made by Nazism and even by Churchill. Judge them on something more than skin and we might see more nuance. But in our world we can only judge on skin color, an odd byproduct of leftist run wild whereby in order to make up for the racism of the past we do the opposite, we become positive racists, judging people positively for being an other. Colleges in the U.S often reward points for certain things, such as being a ‘legacy’ or from some minority or some region. But that has overflowed into society as a whole. Now any old ‘other’, especially if he comes from one of the romantic ‘others’, will do. This is a dangerous savagization of society, a return to the base instincts of the tribe, except that the instinct is now reversed, instead of suspecting the ‘other’ we love him more. The men of the hill country of Appalachia would not be impressed. In the 17th century their songs, idioms and poems mostly justified hatred of the stranger: “Put the stranger near the danger” and “All bad and no good on the back of a stranger.” The New York Times has relegated Appalachia and the South now to being ‘out of touch’ because these were some of the few districts that went more Republican in 2008, apparently because they are backward and racist. The Times celebrates the end of the appearance of “southern accents” in the halls of Washington. People celebrated this fact in 1865, and it was so for many decades. But the South and the hill country have an odd way of returning to America from time to time. Maybe they judged Mr. Obama on being a stranger, as Republican Saxby Chambliss supposedly said something along the lines of “look the other folks are voting.” But such are the dangers of racism. Define a man by his race and one finds that one gets both ends of the stick, those who hate him based on his race and those who love him based on his race. Is that truly such an accomplishment for society? So does the world need its Obamas? Not if it just means that we get a change of color and religion in some places. It is society itself that needs reforming, the extreme-secular liberalism of Europe and the Islamism found elsewhere. Changing the color of the president may not be enough unless the ‘change’ embodied in the color will help the world role back immorality and terrorism.