By: Daniel Nardini
U.S. President Barack Obama. For many people they see very different things about this man. There are people who see him as not a U.S.-born citizen. There are people who see him as a secret Muslim “trying to convert America to Islam.” There are people who see him as a Communist sympathizer who has had personal relations with the likes of former Weather Underground founder William Ayers (one of the people responsible for a series of bomb blasts in a number of major cities during the late 1960’s and 1970’s). There are those who believe that Obama is “trying to make the U.S. government more socialist and attempt to intervene in people’s private lives.” When you put the entire picture together of what Obama is, the composite picture is that of a non-American who secretly practices Islam while trying to foist communist ideology on the nation in the name of welfare and is in league with domestic terrorists because he is a Communist.
If this whole picture sounds absurd, bear in mind that there are millions of Americans who not only do not like Barack Obama but are actually afraid of him. In my view, I do not like Obama because his domestic and international policies are confusing, and he is more of a talker than a doer. But that is a very, very different picture of Obama the man than of Obama the conspirator and evil pawn of forces “waiting to destroy the American way of life.” Yet there are so many Americans who truly fear Obama because they see the incarnation of evil as presented strangely enough not only by extreme right wing propaganda but also in speeches and denunciations from current Republican Party contenders for the presidency. In a report published in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report magazine, a record number of people have joined racist white supremacist, neo-Confederate, and neo-nazi groups in 2011.
Actually the group category that grew the most in 2011 were the patriot groups. Patriot groups include militia groups, the American Independent Party, the Constitution Party, the Oath Keepers, the John Birch Society, etc. During Obama’s entire presidency, the membership numbers of patriot groups has grown by 755 percent. Unlike the other groups, the patriot groups generally do not seem racist or violent-prone. Many of them in fact are not violent at all, and have been known to actually have membership and position in local and state Republican Party branches. Nevertheless, their views are extremist, and they see Obama as part of a “conspiracy” to change America “from the original intentions of the Founding Fathers” (i.e. the ones who wrote the U.S. Constitution). The sad truth is that myth has a tendency to endure when all is said and done about the legacy of any leader in this country. Obama has become the incarnate of “all that is wrong with America.” This way of thinking is in my view extremely dangerous as it is simplistic and wrong. I just find it sad that there are people who still see the color line (read race ) as how some people define good and evil.
The Obama Myth
By: Daniel Nardini
If this whole picture sounds absurd, bear in mind that there are millions of Americans who not only do not like Barack Obama but are actually afraid of him. In my view, I do not like Obama because his domestic and international policies are confusing, and he is more of a talker than a doer. But that is a very, very different picture of Obama the man than of Obama the conspirator and evil pawn of forces “waiting to destroy the American way of life.” Yet there are so many Americans who truly fear Obama because they see the incarnation of evil as presented strangely enough not only by extreme right wing propaganda but also in speeches and denunciations from current Republican Party contenders for the presidency. In a report published in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report magazine, a record number of people have joined racist white supremacist, neo-Confederate, and neo-nazi groups in 2011.
Actually the group category that grew the most in 2011 were the patriot groups. Patriot groups include militia groups, the American Independent Party, the Constitution Party, the Oath Keepers, the John Birch Society, etc. During Obama’s entire presidency, the membership numbers of patriot groups has grown by 755 percent. Unlike the other groups, the patriot groups generally do not seem racist or violent-prone. Many of them in fact are not violent at all, and have been known to actually have membership and position in local and state Republican Party branches. Nevertheless, their views are extremist, and they see Obama as part of a “conspiracy” to change America “from the original intentions of the Founding Fathers” (i.e. the ones who wrote the U.S. Constitution). The sad truth is that myth has a tendency to endure when all is said and done about the legacy of any leader in this country. Obama has become the incarnate of “all that is wrong with America.” This way of thinking is in my view extremely dangerous as it is simplistic and wrong. I just find it sad that there are people who still see the color line (read race ) as how some people define good and evil.