Saturday, September 20, 2008



Code Language

Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius said on Tuesday that she believes race could be a factor in this election. "I think that the notion that, 'By the way, have any of you noticed that Barack Obama is part African American?' I think that is for a number of people difficult... I think we need to talk about the fact that that is a real issue." According the AP's original report, she also attacked Republicans for injecting "code language" to convince Midwesterners that Democrat Barack Obama is different from them. The terms "working class" and "blue collar" are "code" for "white."

One could reasonably ask who is injecting what into this campaign in Spanish, English, in reference to dollar bills and Bradley Effects. But, I will leave that, and all that "talk" the governor believes we need to have, to another post.

What I find more interesting - well, no, actually, incredibly crude - is the "code" language theory that "blue collar" and "working class" really means "white." Let's see. Obama has attracted millions of white voters. White Iowans put his campaign on track in the primaries. White Iowans convinced black South Carolinians to dump Hillary and move over to Obama. White college students and white professionals, along side of black voters, held Obama's candidacy aloft to the nomination. Blue collar and working class voters, however, stubbornly remain immune to the Obama magic. Those voters are overwhlemingly white. So, the logic goes, it must be race. Huh? Does that make any sense?

Let's try this again. If blue collar democrats are white, and upper income, college educated democrats are white, then race alone, obviously, does not account for the discrepancy in their voting preferences. As has been noted by many, many people here in "The Corner" and elsewhere, it's a culture thing.

What the "code language" camp really seems to be saying is that white, upper income, college educated democrats who have flocked to Obama's candidacy are not really white, or kinda white, but not that white, or not that kind of white. "White" is really "code" for "racist." And that, I believe, is the not-so-coded language that is being injected into this campaign.

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Obama ad and Reuters on immigration

I have reproduced a Reuters article below as written. Reuters are the people who think that terrorists are just misunderstood patriots. It's not a bad article as far as it goes. Good for Reuters anyway. But note their quite false assertion that Republicans killed the amnesty bill. Since Republicans don't have a majority in either house, how could they? Both Republicans AND Democrats voted against the bill. And a Republican President supported it! And Limbaugh is apparently a suspect character for "cigar chomping"! No doubt Democrat cigar-smokers are OK, however. Or is this just bigotry against cigar-smokers?

Immigration has been absent from the presidential campaign for months, but it came to the front again this week in a controversial television spot for Barack Obama. The Democratic presidential candidate sought to cast Republican rival John McCain as an anti-Hispanic hard-liner and link him to talk radio host Rush Limbaugh.

The Spanish language TV ad - dubbed "Dos Caras," or "Two Faces" - aired on Wednesday. It courted Hispanic voters who make up 9 percent of the electorate and who could help swing the outcome in battleground states in the U.S. southwest as well as in Florida on Nov. 4.

The 30-second spot begins with a voice-over attacking the Republicans: "They want us to forget the insults we've put up with, the intolerance . they made us feel marginalized in the country that we love so much." The screen then shows two quotes from widely syndicated radio host Limbaugh, one reads "stupid and unskilled Mexicans," the other, "You shut your mouth or you get out!"

The paid spot then says: "John McCain and his Republican friends have two faces. One that says lies just to get our vote . and another, even worse, that continues the policies of George Bush, which puts special interests ahead of working families." It closes with the line "more of the same Republican lies."

The advertisement is a stretch. McCain was the co-author of a bi-partisan bill that sought a path to citizenship for millions of mostly Hispanic illegal immigrants living in the United States. It was backed by President George W. Bush, but was ultimately killed by Senate Republicans last year.

His support for the measure brought McCain the ire of many immigration hard-liners in his own party, and met with scorn from cigar-chomping Limbaugh, who was outspoken in his opposition to the veteran Arizona senator during the primary election process.The McCain campaign shot back on Thursday with a rebuttal of the television spot. Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican, calling the immigration ad "offensive and dishonest." "Instead of making false ads with baseless attacks, Barack Obama should be apologizing to the Latino community," he said.

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Another comment on the Obama immigration ad.

Race-Baiting -- by the Obama camp. Shocking, I know. Spanish campaign ads twist Rush Limbaugh's words to P.O. Hispanics:
The commercial, to air in Limbaugh's home state of Florida as well as Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, features a picture of the conservative talk show host and shows his words on the screen: "Mexicans are stupid and unqualified" and "Shut your mouth or get out." It was first reported by the Washington Post's Ed O'Keefe. "Obama is now stoking racism in the country," Limbaugh wrote in an email. "Obama is a disgrace - he wants the public to think he is Mr. Nice Guy while his thugs are in Alaska looking for dirt on Palin and he runs race-baiting ads and lies about what he has done and what McCain has done." As for the quotes, Limbaugh said they were taken out of context.

Stock response, right? They always say its out of context.
The first, "stupid and unqualified," was from the NAFTA debate of the mid-90s, he recalled. Limbaugh, a NAFTA proponent, said in the fall of 1993 he got a call from a listener who was upset at the potential loss of American jobs. In response he said, "If we are going to start rewarding no skills and stupid people-I'm serious, let the unskilled jobs, let the kinds of jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do-let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work."

Hey, that doesn't say "Mexicans are stupid and unqualified." It just says the ones that are should be entitled to jobs, too.
On "shut your mouth," Limbaugh produced an April 2006 transcript from what he described as a parody of Mexican immigration laws. The talk show host read a list of stringent rules, adding "shut your mouth and get out," before revealing to listeners that the guidelines were those set by the Mexican government for immigrants.

So it turns out the ad is a big fat sleazy lie. Vile and stupid, too, says Surber, noting the absurdity of trying to paint amnesty-backer McCain as anti-immigrant. Awaiting widespread outrage and condemnation? Don't worry, I won't be staying up too late. But is this what Obamists mean when they say they want their guy to get tougher? Now, when he says he's "a leap for the American people" .
"We always knew this was going to be hard, and this is a leap for the American people," Obama said. "And we're running against somebody who has a formidable biography, a compelling biography. He's a genuine American hero, somebody who served in uniform and suffered through some things that very few of us can imagine."

. Does he mean because he's a black guy and the American people are bigots, or does he mean the experience thing, the long history of hanging out with weird radicals, and all the dangerously bad ideas?

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OBAMA AND SATAN

The Obamas Look to Oprah as Their "Global Role Model". Oprah Looks to Her Mentally Deranged Guru, Eckhart Tolle. Tolle Looks to His "Source," an Exact Match for Satan

The overlooked imperious theme of Michelle Obama's convention speech was "the world as it should be." She used the phrase four times, emphasizing that she and Barack are "committed" to "building the world as it should be." Mrs. Obama often speaks about remaking the world, as she did at the end of her UCLA speech: "We can change the world. Yes we can." But how do she and her husband imagine that they are going to effect this change? Michelle's own carefully considered written words give us a frightening clue, suggesting that the Obamas look to television personality, Oprah Winfrey, as their guide and inspiration in world affairs. What is doubly frightening is that Oprah looks, in turn, to her mentally deranged guru, Eckhart Tolle, and Tolle looks, in turn, to his inner "Source," an exact match for Satan.

On May 20, Time magazine published Mrs. Obama's tribute to Oprah as part of its 100 most influential people of 2008. It read in part: "Oprah is a wonderful friend and an incredible force. Her friendship and support have meant so much to Barack and me . . . Using her platform to serve as a global role model, she challenges us [Barack and me] to make the world as it is, the world as it should be. And she is always the first to show us how it can be done." The Obamas' vision of the "world as it should be" jibes with Oprah's.

Oprah's Obama-admired remake of the world is well underway. There is "a new kind of tribe emerging - a global community of seekers learning from and teaching each other how to be with our humanity," Oprah says. This new "global community" is made up of the millions who have responded favorably to her relentless promotion of her pathologically narcissistic, anti-Christian guru, Eckhart Tolle.

In March of this year, Oprah kicked off her ten-week global Internet online class touting Tolle's book, A New Earth, and its importance in raising everyone's "consciousness." The interactive webcast reached 500,000 people in more than 139 countries. Since that time, according to Oprah's Web site, millions more have downloaded Oprah's and Tolle's teachings. When Michelle Obama, two months after the Tolle kick-off, lauded Oprah as being "a global role model . . . show[ing] us how it can be done," to what was she referring, if not this most focused effort on Oprah's part to "benefit" humanity by building a one-world multi-cultural tribe?

When Barack speaks of himself as "a fellow citizen of the world," is he visualizing world peace becoming a reality through Oprah's expanding tribe? Don't doubt it. Michelle introduced Oprah in Iowa prior to Oprah's introducing Obama, gushing that the talk-show queen "touches the souls of so many of us" and "empowers us all." Michelle's "us" includes Barack. In his Berlin speech entitled, "A World that Stands as One," the Oprah-empowered Barack said that the "walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down." That's exactly what Oprah is all about, promoting the lunacy that Tolle's teaching transcends and unites all religions. Once the Christians, Muslims, and Jews join Oprah's tribe and accept Oprah's guru as their chief prophet, then Presto: world peace!

Oprah's guru, Eckhart Tolle, is a troubled and troubling individual. He claims to have experienced "a reincarnation as a spiritual teacher" through a self-admitted psychotic episode. He is a case study in the development of the mental illness of malignant narcissism. Like the original Narcissus, Tolle is obsessed with the two-dimensional reflection of his image. In his The Power of Now, Tolle writes about what he learns from viewing his own image in a mirror: "If you accept the image, no matter what it is, if you become friendly toward it, it cannot not become friendly toward you. This is how you change the world."

Here, in a nutshell, Tolle expresses the fundamental delusion and extreme grandiosity of his own malignant narcissism. A mirror image is not true, but backwards. Tolle is not the greatest spiritual teacher in the world as he imagines, but one of the least competent. Oprah welcomes Tolle's preposterous claims with uncritical glee because they justify the adoration of her own backwards and exalted mirror image of herself. Obama also exhibits the characteristics of malignant narcissism, most notably the delusions of grandeur that lie at the heart of the complex. His entire campaign is nothing more than a demand to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements.

To review: Barack and Michelle Obama look to Oprah Winfrey as their "global role model" for change. To effect this worldwide change, Oprah, in turn, relies on the "infallible" teachings of her guru, Eckhart Tolle. Tolle, in turn, looks in the mirror and makes friends with the backwards image of himself, thus enabling him to "change the world."

Beyond his backwards reflected image, Oprah's guru relies on something even more disturbing to change the world. It is a spirit or a force Tolle calls the "Source" which he claims resides within himself and Oprah, and within all those others who have learned through his teachings to "dissolve" their egos. That "Source" has told Tolle that the word of the God of the Bible is not reliable, that there is no death, and that he and Oprah both are as God, able to say of themselves "I Am That I Am." These things that the "Source" has told Oprah and Tolle are the exact same things the serpent told Eve in the ancient garden.

Let's review one more time: To change the world, the Obamas look to the New Age babblings of a self-adoring talk-show host, she looks to her mentally deranged guru, he looks to a friendly, backwards image of himself and relies upon the utterances of a "Source" that Christians, Jews, and Muslims recognize immediately as the deluding "wisdom" of the Genesis serpent.

But to Oprah, in her morally backwards narcissistic state, Tolle's recycled serpent's "wisdom" does not seem delusive, but true. Oprah goes on to attribute that same "wisdom" to Barack Obama. She praises his "intelligence" and calls him "brilliant." She says he has the "gift of wisdom," and a "tongue dipped in unvarnished truth." According to Oprah, not only does Obama always tell the truth, but also knows how "to be the truth," a straightforward messianic reference.

Oprah has said, "I don't think there's anything more important than awakening and also knowing what your purpose is." To her, awakening means embracing and spreading the ludicrous, grandiose notions of her guru, as she shamelessly tries to reconcile all of humanity to her and Tolle's "Source." Oprah and Tolle believe that "the transformation of human consciousness" is an "urgent task." We must "evolve" or perish. Oprah refers to Obama as an "evolved leader." After Obama's convention speech, before meeting with him, Oprah said, "We have to do whatever it takes to get [Obama] in office." Oprah's purpose is to expand her mutually parasitic coupling with her guru into a politically powerful triumvirate, getting Obama elected president so he will help her "save" the world, on behalf of her and Tolle's "Source." The most horrifying part is that Obama actually believes he can do it through the Obama-Oprah-Tolle-Satan School of International Relations.

Revelation 12:9 refers to "the ancient serpent called Adversary and Satan, who is deceiving the whole inhabited earth." Oprah Winfrey leads a global tribe that is part of that sinister process. She is backing a man for president who has become part of that sinister process, as well. Now we have a better understanding of what the Obamas and Oprah mean by "the world as it should be," and what their guru really means when he says, "This is how you change the world."

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Obama's Army

Today wasn't the first time Barack Obama asked his supporters to "get in the face" of people who disagree with Sen. Obama. In fact, yesterday's Chicago Tribune carried an illuminating story on the "Obama Action Wire"--Obama's flash-mob tool designed to disrupt media criticism of the candidate in real time. (h/t Steve Sailer)

Here's how the Obama Action Wire Works: The campaign has a large database of supporters. When the campaign gets wind of something in the media it doesn't like, for instance, a radio interview with an Obama critic or a TV ad being run critical of Obama, the Action Wire directs people in the database to flood the offending media outlet with phone calls and emails. Many times, this is done while the interview is being conducted on air.
It did so as recently as Monday night, when it orchestrated a massive stream of complaints on the phone lines of Tribune Co.-owned WGN-AM in Chicago when the radio station hosted author David Freddoso, who has written a controversial book about the Illinois Democrat. . . . Zack Christenson, executive producer of "Extension 720 with Milt Rosenberg," said the response was about the same. "It's just constant, constant phone calls, and the e-mails are pouring in," he said, adding that the extra volume of calls made it more difficult to run the show.

The effect of the Action Wire seems to be to create something like a Denial of Service Attack. Now, DoS attacks aren't illegal (at least not in the United States; they are in the U.K.).

But surely it says something about the Obama campaign's commitment to free and fair exchange of ideas that his campaign actively prods people into disrupting the airing of views it finds displeasing. It wasn't always that way. During the primaries, part of Obama's stump speech was about the need to listen to your political opponents and to interact with them politely. Obama didn't mean for this dialogue to result in the compromise of liberal ideals, of course. He explicitly meant that in order to achieve liberal political ends it would be necessary to appear collegial and open-minded in order to persuade independents to join the movement. Here's how he put it in New Hampshire:
[I]n my own life, I've discovered that if you really know what you stand for, if you know what you believe in, if you know who you are fighting for, if you know what you care about and cannot be compromised--then you can afford to reach out across the aisle. You can talk to people who don't agree with you. And you do so not just because you think that you're always going to persuade them, but because people out in America, outside of Washington, are listening.

And they want to see that we can--that we don't have to agree on everything to work on something. That we can disagree without being disagreeable. That's how we can attract independents [to the] change agenda. That's how we can attract some Republicans. That's how we build a working majority for change. .. And you can afford to be courteous. And you can say, "Yes, sir." And "No, sir." "Yes, ma'am." "No, ma'am." But if you're going to be in the way of change, get out of the way--we're pushing you aside. Very politely of course.

As the Action Wire show's Obama is still all for pushing people aside. But he no longer sees the necessity for politeness. Exit Question: I suppose it's one thing for a candidate to issue orders for what amounts to a DoS attack on media he dislikes. But would President Obama keep the Action Wire up and running?

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Radical leftist's son: 'Obama learned his lesson well'

Alleged Child of Saul Alinsky sees Democratic Party using his father's methods. The depiction of Alinsky's ideas is certainly accurate and so is the similarity between the Obama and Alinsky methods

In a letter to the editor of the Boston Globe, the son of radical socialist community organizer Saul Alinsky praised Barack Obama for stirring up the masses at the Democratic National Convention "Saul Alinsky style," saying, "Obama learned his lesson well." The letter signed L. David Alinsky closed by saying, "I am proud to see that my father's model for organizing is being applied successfully. . It is a fine tribute to Saul Alinsky as we approach his 100th birthday."

Saul Alinsky was a social revolutionist who advocated going beyond leftist approaches to the point of stirring mass organizations of "Have-nots" that would rise up and seize power from the "Haves." Alinsky's radical methods were often controversial, as were his words, such as the dedication of his book "Rules for Radicals": "To the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom - Lucifer."

Alinsky founded and trained community organizations to follow his methods, including organizations in South Chicago, where Barack Obama credits his political beginnings. As the Washington Post reported last year, Obama was hired shortly after graduating from college by a group of Alinsky's disciples to be community organizer.

"Barack Obama's training in Chicago by the great community organizers is showing its effectiveness," wrote L. David Alinsky.

How deeply the radical leftist Alinsky actually influenced Obama remains a point of controversy in the public eye, as demonstrated by the stir caused after his wife's alleged use of Alinsky's words at the Democratic National Convention and by the war of words between the Obama campaign and authors like Jerome Corsi, who have pointed to Obama's connections with radical socialists and communists in his early years.

If the Obama campaign was hoping to distance itself from connections to Saul Alinsky, however, the younger Alinsky's letter to the editor isn't going to help.

"All the elements were present," wrote L. David Alinsky, referring to the Democratic National Convention at which Obama was nominated, "the individual stories told by real people of their situations and hardships, the packed-to-the rafters crowd, the crowd's chanting of key phrases and names, the action on the spot of texting and phoning to show instant support and commitment to jump into the political battle, the rallying selections of music, the setting of the agenda by the power people. The Democratic National Convention had all the elements of the perfectly organized event, Saul Alinsky style.

"Barack Obama's training in Chicago by the great community organizers is showing its effectiveness. It is an amazingly powerful format, and the method of my late father always works to get the message out and get the supporters on board. When executed meticulously and thoughtfully, it is a powerful strategy for initiating change and making it really happen. Obama learned his lesson well."

Source

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