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| 5/26 |
| 2008/3/31-4/6 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:49615 Activity:moderate |
3/31 Mark Steyn analyzes 'Dreams From My Father'
http://csua.org/u/l5p
This transcript covers on feature of Obama's first book that I found
so odd. I surprised more people who plan on voting haven't read it.
\_ Gee townhall. Surprise surprise.
\_ Ahhh, the Hugh Hewitt show! Let me guess, you're a Romney voter.
\_ Actually, I'd never heard of Hugh Hewitt until today. I got this
off a blog. I take it neither of you have read "Dreams From
My Father?" It's not that it's an amazing book or anything,
but it was the first thing I read when I first heard of
Obama and was thinking about voting for him. It's also the
reason I decided I didn't want to vote for him. I continue
to be surprised that more people haven't read it, especially
among those who love and those who hate him. -op
\_ Which aspect(s) of the book made you not want to vote for
him, and does that mean you chose Clinton instead?
\_ Well, I actually voted for Obama in the primaries because
I still like him a lot more than Clinton. Looks like I'll
end up voting for McCain in the general election unless
something big changes.
The book bugged me in a couple of ways. He seems to
realize early on that he can choose who he wants to become.
This is an unusual and admirable quality. So he decides
to join the black radical culture. This I find less
admirable. He then spends a lot of his youth trying to
prove how 'black' he is. Even going so far as to pressue
other african-american students if he doesn't think they're
acting black enough. He even calls one guy an Uncle Tom
for studing too hard, although he apologizes for that.
There seems to be a sort of 'hate whitey' undercurrent
throughout the text, although he never actually says
something so quoteable. There is one line where he
writes (as I recall) 'I came to the conclusion that
perhaps not all whites are worthy of our scorn.' Umm,
thanks? And perhaps not all blacks are criminals?
I would be okay with this if he ever seemed to get past it,
but near then end of the book he suggests that some
random white family in a restraunt in Kenya is there
because they "want black people to serve them."
This is all difficult to draw strong conclusions about
because, as the article mentions, he never overtly
states his positions, or if his ideas have changed.
He also comes across as ignorant of economics. -op
\_ Did you try the second book?
\_ No, I read the first book partially because I figured
the second book was likely to be written purely for
political reasons, and would therefore not show his
true beliefs. He stated in an interview that Dreams
From My Father contained things that were
'politically inconvinent' but that he stood by them.
I was impressed by that bravery. However, since he
never really makes any solid statements in the
first book, I guess I may as well read the 2nd. -op
\_ Okay, you piqued my curiosity enough that I am going
to read this book. I wonder what kind of book Dubya
would have written at that age. Probably nothing
as impressive.
\_ This constant bringing up of Dubya sounds kind of
pathetic, along the lines of 'Ok, but the Republicans
are still worse... right? right? Just checking'.
-- ilyas
\_ Why is it pathetic? Wasn't Dubya the best possible
candidate the Republican Party could nominate?
We have heard for years what a great President
he was, from many Conservative pundits. Would
McCain be any better?
\_ What's pathetic is your fixation on Dubya.
This thread isn't even about Dubya but you keep
somehow trying to bring him in. -- ilyas
\_ Dubya == McCain. I am not the one who
brought up McCain.
\_ No, Dubya is not McCain. McCain is
McCain. I think you should let Dubya go.
\_ I think it is pathetic that the Bush
voters want us to forget history so
quickly. You should have the loyalty
to stand by your man or at least be
willing to learn from your mistakes.
In what significant way do McCain's
In what significant way does McCain's
policy positions differ from Dubya's?
\_ I am not a Bush voter, and I grow
tired of this conversation.
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!
\_ Facts are such tiresome things.
You are going to vote for McCain
even though you have no idea
what his policies are, just
because you don't like a book
the other guy wrote 20 years
ago? That is a reason to vote
for someone I guess. Kind of a
lame reason, imho, but it is
your right.
\_ This has got to be a troll.
We have no idea what McCain's
policies are? No one here
could make such a stupid
statement seriously, could
they? -!pp
\_ So tell me then where
McCain would be different
than Bush. Their important
policies are the same.
\_ And Obama = Clinton = LBJ!
\_ Also LBJ == JFK == FDR
\_ No Obama's policies are quite
different than LBJ's. Depending on
which Clinton you mean, you are
actually pretty close to the mark
there.
\_ The quotes I've seen clearly seem written
from the perspective of exploring the mindset of
various individuals and groups, not really statements
of personal philosophy. Obama clearly has "racial
baggage" and identity confusion as part of his life
experience. The book seems more of an explanation of
why/how he would be involved in black radicalism rather
than an espousal of it. Can you honestly say you have
never had racist thoughts? Obama's book is open about
it, but I can't see any evidence he "hates whitey" at
this point in time, or understands less about econ.
than his rivals.
\_ Well, I find that theory even more disturbing. Does
he have no principles at all? What does it mean
when someone goes to so much trouble to avoid making
any sort of personal statement of principles?
\_ Most of us have a personal and moral philosophy
that evolves as we mature. I think that this is
a good thing and a sign of a smart and agile mind,
but I know that some (mostly extremists, on all
ends of the political spectrum) find that to be
a sign of moral weakness.
\_ That's not the focus of that book. The second
book is. Honestly though, I'm not sure what you
expect. How do you write a book on the subject
he did? Did he need a "for dummies" chapter
to reassure white people that he doesn't hate
them? What is "the solution" to the problems he
deals with? Should blacks ignore racism, pretend
it doesn't exist? On balance it seems better for
him to have written the book than not. It shows
that he has allowed himself to process and
consider ideas that we don't find appealing.
But I think in the end he rejects them, if only
because he decides the ideas not effective. Have
you ever seriously considered the merits of
communism, segregation, etc.? The reality is that
most smart people don't pretend to have a simple
rulebook for every situation in life. The best
he can do is point to his past actions and show
that he considers all angles of a problem and its
solution. There doesn't seem to be any way for
him to prove himself to you -- after all, if he
simply says something you can suspect him of
hidden resentment and hatred.
\_ The most common objection I've seen to the book is that
Obama's description of himself as a young man doesn't match
up with the experience that others had of him - that he was
much more outgoing and cheerful than he seems to have thought
himself. I'd say this is really common - I'm willing to bet
most of you would have a description of your younger self that
contradicted what others saw. Self-awareness takes a LONG
time to really develop, and some people never develop it.
\_ I love how Barack just confuses the hell out of conservatives.
\_ I love how Barack demonstrates so clearly how shallow the
majority of Dems are.
\_ What defines a non-shallow Dem for you?
\_ The silence just speaks volumes, doesn't it? |
| 5/26 |
|
| csua.org/u/l5p -> hughhewitt.townhall.com/talkradio/transcripts/Transcript.aspx?ContentGuid=23d13477-3c5a-4cb1-b5e0-e6caef00e848 Do you think looking back, it was a wise idea for Barack Obama to record this book? MS: Well, let me say first of all, about the book, I'm not a big audio book man, so when I read the book, I read it in old fashioned print form. And the reason I think it's better than so many political autobiographies is because it feels like a novel. In a sense, you get the feeling that he created a character for this book. It's not the usual political memoir in which the guy retells a dull story of how he got the airport parking lot extension bill passed. It's actually, it actually feels as if Barack Obama is an invented character. And that's one reason why the book works, but it also gets to the heart of some of the problems he's had in the last few weeks. HH: As a way of talking about that, I'm going to play some of the clips, some my audience has heard before, some new ones today. Cut number one, Barack talking about Malcolm X and what it meant to him. It's audio number three: BO: Only Malcolm X's autobiography seemed to offer something different. The blunt poetry of his words, his unadorned insistence on respect, promised a new and uncompromising order, martial in its discipline, forged through sheer force of will. All the other stuff, the talk of blue-eyed devils and apocalypse, was incidental to that program, I decided. Religious baggage that Malcolm himself seemed to have safely abandoned toward the end of his life. And yet, even as I imagine myself following Malcolm's call, one line in the book stayed with me. He spoke of a wish he'd once had, the wish that the white blood that ran through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged. I knew that for Malcolm, that wish would never be incidental. I knew as well that traveling down the road to self-respect, my own white blood would never recede into mere abstraction. I was left to wonder what else I would be severing, if and when I left my mother and my grandparents at some uncharted border. HH: Mark Steyn, clearly a first for presidential memoirs, if he becomes president. MS: Yes, I think so, and I think as we were saying earlier, the key word there, what he identifies with in Malcolm X, is self-creation. And I think it's, in a sense, there's a tragedy about Barack Obama, because he didn't have to be a guy who mired himself in all the grim pathologies of the racial grievance industry. I thought when he first appeared on the national stage, that he was a character more like Colin Powell. Colin Powell and Barack Obama are both the children of British subjects. In Colin Powell's case from the West Indies, in Obama's case, from Kenya. And the advantage of that is that they're not part, they're not part of what we call now the African-American experience. They're not part of the Jesse Jackson-Al Sharpton narrative. So there's something very bizarre about Obama in effect artificially trying to find ways of identifying with that particular, I would regard, that particular self-defeating narrative. HH: That's almost the perfect analytical tool, as will become obvious in the next two clips. Cut number four: BO: I spent the last two years of high school in a daze, blocking away the questions that life seemed insistent on posing. I kept playing basketball, attended classes sparingly, drank beer heavily, and tried drugs enthusiastically. I discovered that it didn't make any difference whether you smoked reefer in the white classmate's sparkling new van, or in the dorm room with some brother you'd met down at the gym, or on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids who had dropped out of school, and now spent most of their time looking for an excuse to brawl. Nobody asked you whether your father was a fat cat executive who cheated on his wife, or some laid-off Joe who slapped you around whenever he bothered to come home. And if the high didn't solve whatever it was that was getting you down, it could at least help you laugh at the world's ongoing folly, and see through all the hypocrisy and bullshit and cheap moralism. He's in college at Occidental: BO: To avoid being mistaken for such a sellout, I chose my friends carefully: the more politically active black students, the foreign students, the Chicanos, the Marxist professors and structural feminists, and punk rock performance poets. At night in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Frantz Fanon, Euro-centrism, and patriarchy. When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet, or set our stereos so loud that the walls began to shake, we were resisting Bourgeois society's stifling constraints. Cut number eight: BO: Freshman year, when I was still living in the dorms, there'd be the same sort of bull sessions that I'd had with Ray and other blacks back in Hawaii - the same grumblings, the same list of complaints. Otherwise, our worries seemed indistinguishable from those of the white kids around us: surviving classes, finding a well-paying gig after graduation, trying to get laid. HH: Mark Steyn, it's all sort of, piece by piece, he's putting himself together. MS: Yes, and the interesting thing about it is, which strikes you when you see Obama live, there's a reserve about him, and a remoteness about him when you see him on stage at one of these rallies, as if he is, in some sense, unknowable. And I think that's true when you listen to this book, too, that he's talking about neocolonialism and patriarchy and Euro-centrism. And there's a kind of air of amused detachment about it. But it's never clear, and never swims into focus what it is he really believes. If you listen to Michelle Obama, and she was using words like Euro-centrism and patriarch and neocolonialism, you would feel for sure that she meant that for real, and meant it seriously. With Obama, again, there seems to be something empty deep down inside him. Cut number 13: BO: In 1983, I decided to become a community organizer. When classmates in college asked me just what it was that a community organizer did, I couldn't answer them directly. And my friends, black and white, would heartily commend me for my ideals before heading toward the post office to mail in their graduate school applications. HH: But before he became a community organizer, he had to go to work for a little bit. Cut number 14: BO: Eventually, a consulting house to a multinational corporation agreed to hire me as a research assistant. Like a spy behind enemy lines, I arrived every day at my mid-Manhattan office, and sat at my computer terminal, checking the Reuters machine that blinked bright emerald messages from across the globe. As far as I could tell, I was the only black man in the company, a source of shame for me, but a source of considerable pride for the company's secretarial pool. HH: Mark Steyn, throughout the memoir, there is a hostility, sometimes not concealed at all, to basic capitalism, and a sort of profound economic ignorance. And we heard that today in a speech he made on the economy. MS: No, and when he says he's a spy behind enemy lines at this company he was working for in midtown Manhattan, this is ridiculous. This is a fellow who's had a privileged upbringing, been to some of the best educational institutions on the planet. What smells phony is his decision to become a "community organizer". As he says, he can't explain to any of his college pals what it actually is. I mean, it has a sort of Marxist air, as if you're in a sense corralling the proletariat into, and honing them into a tool to overthrow capitalist oppression. But other than that, nobody can tell me what it is that a community organizer is. This is Barack at his father's gravesite, weeping and reflecting on his life. Cut number 24: BO: For a long time, I sat between the two graves and wept. When my tears were finally spent, I felt a calmness wash over me. I realized that who I was, what I cared about, was no longer just a matter of intellect or obligation, no longer a construct of words. I saw that my life in America, the black life, the white life, the sense of abandonment I'd felt as a boy, the frustration and hope I had witnessed in Chicago, all of it was connected with this small plot of Earth an ocean away, connect... |