The Great Pretender
"The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam" ~ Barack Obama
It is I guess the topic of Obama's soul which has ultimately kept me intrigued and alert whenever there is a new development from the Obama Administration on the mainstream media.
After all, Obama has become quite clearly a savvy, personable and highly skilled operator/performer and it has visibly placed him in a different league to his opponents as it has made him the exception rather than the rule.
And yet there is a schism, a deep divide within Obama's foreign policy initiatives which signals an irreconcilable rift between thoughts and substance.
A divide which visibly points to inherent conflict, opposing world views within the American government...for example the recent divisive speech by Netanyahu to the American Congress in Washington.
In the area of Speech-making i.e oratory and in the general arena of public relations I can think of few presidents in recent years more accomplished in the art and delivery, the performance of speeches and communications generally.
Obama is a smooth, intelligent Operator and one can detect his skill at side-stepping journalistic mines and rhetorical traps whenever he is interviewed.
Not for Obama the illiterate, disconnected, autistic responses which George Bush never failed to display.
His diction and grammar are by contrast polished in the manner of a legislative lawyer, which is far removed from the 'down-home' 'good-ole-boy' twangy drawl I had become accustomed to with George Bush's vernacular and in direct contrast, Obama delivers his lines articulately in rich, velvety smooth tones which are easy on the ear and subtly disarming.
It is difficult to objectively assess a figure such as Obama which is why I have wondered about his soul and how he sleeps at night...
It is difficult firstly because of a torrent of words i.e propaganda emanating from Congress and their masters in the Corporatocracy, and now that Money is speech, there is a ceaseless tower of babble pouring over the air-waves concerning Obama in an unrelenting assault on American ears.
Yes folks its the Red, white and Blue circus on every one of 150 channels whether directly through interviews and newsflashes and live-to-air crosses or indirectly and folded, interwoven like a multilayer cake within the daily chatting and general entertainment.
I just cannot listen to most modern Politicians today without laughing, especially the Republicans as it is, (with the exception of Senators Alan Grayson and Bernie Sanders) well nigh impossible to find an honest one who hasn't been co-opted by corporate lobbyists.
Although traditionally understood to be slightly more centrist in their politics and policies and hence not quite so radical, the voices coming from the Democratic Party are unfortunately, similarly disingenuous as they of course too are required to obey the Money.
The Democrats additionally have the added disadvantage of having to white-wash and attempt to legitimize what has become the most militaristic, imperialistic machine in US history, and so we have propaganda about the so-called 'leader' of America coming at us furiously from both sides...
Due to the camouflaged and increasingly Dark aspect of the Military/Industrial complex, it is naturally equally difficult to see the man Obama, as distinct to his Office, from behind the 'Fog of War' as much of his negotiations and planning are shrouded behind a veil of secrecy these days due to their 'highly classified' nature.
So I am left with Obama's interviews and speeches such as the grand speech which he delivered in Cairo to the Arab League of Nations in 2009.
This was a speech that was so moving, so rousing that it instantly received rapturous acclaim right around the world and it eventually led to his selection as a Nobel Peace Prize recipient for the stirring proposal outlined in his 'New Beginning'...
His speech and their noble sentiments were meant to signal a change in the winds and the charting of a new course in America's relationship with Islamic countries in the Middle-East, a new way forward based on 'mutual interest and mutual respect'.
Fine words...fine sentiments indeed which are all the more damning today for the huge departure that Obama has apparently since chosen to take from them, in a blatant contradiction of the very principles he had outlined in his speech.
In a new study from the Center for International Policy which came out this month his betrayal of the Arab League of Nations and the World in general has been made clear.
It is now official that the Obama administration has sold more lethal Arms and Weaponry overseas than any other US administration since WWII.
But this is hardly surprising when we see the amount of suffering and war-torn strife being played out all over the Earth, and there is hardly a single War in which Obama does not currently have his blood-stained hands.
In fact by one estimate doing the rounds of Cyberspace currently there are at least 900 documented examples of Obama’s lawbreaking, lying, corruption, cronyism, hypocrisy & waste
Read more at http://freedomoutpost.com/2014/11/900-documented-examples-obamas-lawbreaking-lying-corruption-cronyism-hypocrisy-waste/#yl6yKc6Q8A8shgcH.99
I do not intend to list Obama's transgressions against civil liberties, against the Constitution, jurisprudence, his own citizens and humanity generally as that would take some considerable time and this is just meant to be a short note.
And I do acknowledge that Obama has been up against a stone-wall of Republican opposition to literally Anything which he proposes that began on day one of his inauguration, and which can certainly be said to at least somewhat mitigate his crimes....
I also accept the essential work which the Obama administration have done in establishing some level of sane accord and rapprochement with Iran, and I guess his efforts with Obama Care and regarding Cuba can also be listed among his positive achievements.
That being said, Guantanamo remains a seriously ugly blight on his record and unfortunately for all of us, against these positive strokes and achievements I have to weigh his criminal behavior in the middle-east in general, from Libya, to Syria, to the 10,000 troops which he decided to keep in Iraq, to the announcement of a 30-year War against Terrorism which is to be perpetrated all over our Earth, to his indiscriminate use of Drones, to his 'Hit-list' and the complete eradication of the presumption of Innocence i.e the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" for any citizen on Earth.
This is no small legal transgression...
Not only has it always been one of the most sacred principles in the American criminal justice system, holding that a defendant is innocent until proven guilty.
In other word that the prosecution must prove their charges 'beyond a reasonable doubt', and not only is it a principle component of The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, but it actually stretches right back to antiquity, to ancient Rome and the ancient Latin : "The burden of proof is on him who declares, not on him who denies", which is why I say, this is no small legislative transgression...
Additionally in the negative column I mustn't neglect to cite these further crimes i.e the Coup D'etat in the Ukraine, the civilian deaths in Yemen and finally his perpetuation of an apartheid regime in Palestine.
Every single time that Palestinians have cried out for a homeland at the United Nations, in keeping with an aging American tradition of hypocrisy on this subject, it has been vetoed down by the Obama administration!
Considering the Obama Drone Wars i am reminded of a classic scene from a favorite Orson Welles movie :
"The Third Man" in which the mysterious Orson Welles meets his old pal Joseph Cotton once again after an absence of years high up at the top of a Ferris Wheel's rotation...
Orson Welles, supreme in his role as the Nietzschean superman, and with complete cynical amorality looks down at the ground seemingly miles away and then taps the glass lightly with his fingernails saying to Cotton :
"Look down there Harry...Do you see all those Ants scurrying about?
What if Mephistopheles were to offer you a bargain?
What if he offered you the wealth of an entire kingdom in exchange for just some of those Ants???
How many of those Ants that you can see scurrying about down there do you think you might be able to sacrifice?
After all...there are just so many of them!"
That was a paraphrase of the conversation from my memory of a Movie I saw perhaps 20 years ago.
And whilst it is true to say that Obama has made some of the right noises, nevertheless...noises fade fast while the blood remains, and when the fog of War clears, when the muddy waters settle, when we wipe away the vomit of media propaganda about Obama coming from the mainstream media and from Washington, either for or against, we are left with very little to focus on in any tangible way except for an affable, intelligent public persona, a perfect impassive mask ripped from a tragic harlequin that made some sensible-sounding noises using pretty words and glossy sentiments full of integrity and decency, and at the very least quite the opposite of the Imperialistic, violent behavior we see paraded before us each evening on the nightly news.
Hmmm....it seems that we have once again entered 'The Theatre of the Absurd' and we are now lost inside a wall of sleek, black idiot boxes.
Hence the mask which befits a Farce or a Comedic Tragedy.
As certain friends of mine love to point out to me : Actions speak so much louder than words.
As to Obama's soul, simply ask yourself ; How would you feel deep inside if everyday you had to get up and lie to billions of people?
Would you lie to yourself in order to cope?
Knowing that each and everyday you were forced to put on a mask and commit actions which you knew to be a betrayal, which were ultimately a sell-out of your own ethics, and against your citizen's best interests?
Such as the clandestine manoeuvrings to hastily usher in the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement in secret before anyone has had the opportunity to assess it's merits for the American people as opposed to the interests of the Global Corporations...
Such as Obama's War on Whistle-blowers and the Freedom of the Press, a betrayal which is especially heinous when you read from his campaign speeches prior to his election where Obama had eloquently and some would even say passionately argued for Transparency and a reduction of secrecy in Government.
I could go on but I think the situation is clear...i.e the 'Hypocrisy' is rife with the smell of cordite and gunpowder in the air all over the Middle-East.
Meanwhile Obama maneuvers into place surrounding Russia in a ludicrous, pathological military bloc...
To what aim??? A Third World War???
According to an official Pentagon accounting of U.S. military bases around the world ; the "Base Structure Report, Fiscal 2010 Baseline."... the U.S. has 662 overseas Military bases in 38 foreign countries around the World, which is a smaller number than the 900 bases I have seen quoted elsewhere by Ron Paul for example.
But the list leaves out certain nations in 'active operations' such as in Iraq and Afghanistan, so it’s conceivable that the actual number of sites approaches 900...!
Remember Orson Welles scanning the terrain from a great height in the Third Man?
Looking down onto the landscape with its teeming ant hordes via computer screens, how many lives I wonder has Obama now sacrificed to his Mephistopheles in order to gain the wealth of a Kingdom?
Under Obama's watch we now have more Wars and military skirmishes and bombings happening around the world than under any previous US president in history!!!
Under Obama's watch, the Petro-Dollar has become a monstrous Fascistic entity which attempts to strangle the World into obedience as it plays self-appointed Cop to the World...
A Good Cop or a Bad Cop to the World, both are played with equal relish, using a soft economic touch or a hard military stick reminiscent of Imperialistic tyrannies through out History such as Rome for example.
Under Obama's watch that great leviathan of corporate greed known as Wall Street has become even more of a bloated obscenity and the Casino is once again in full swing...its party time on Wall Street!
Taking a glance at the horrendous statistics which have accumulated at his feet, Obama has now betrayed all of his original promise, and has, since his election leaned so far to the right that he has become one of the most anti-progressive, anti-left, and the most Neo-conservative, War-hawkish, Democratic Presidents in recent memory.
When I look at Obama, I see a highly polished, slick Puppet on a leash, a leash which is held by the largest Military/Industrial Corporatocracy in history.
As Obama continues to perform his role on the local and the World stage, using noble sounding noises with enviable poise and a cordial equanimity for his audience beyond the looking-glass, he does so with the full knowledge that simultaneously somewhere, from behind the velvet curtain and deep within the corridors of real Power, there is a gun being held at his head.
And the American people are finally faced with their first and oldest bitter pill to swallow...:
and that is that they have in America, the Best Democracy that Money can buy.
After all, Obama has become quite clearly a savvy, personable and highly skilled operator/performer and it has visibly placed him in a different league to his opponents as it has made him the exception rather than the rule.
And yet there is a schism, a deep divide within Obama's foreign policy initiatives which signals an irreconcilable rift between thoughts and substance.
A divide which visibly points to inherent conflict, opposing world views within the American government...for example the recent divisive speech by Netanyahu to the American Congress in Washington.
In the area of Speech-making i.e oratory and in the general arena of public relations I can think of few presidents in recent years more accomplished in the art and delivery, the performance of speeches and communications generally.
Obama is a smooth, intelligent Operator and one can detect his skill at side-stepping journalistic mines and rhetorical traps whenever he is interviewed.
Not for Obama the illiterate, disconnected, autistic responses which George Bush never failed to display.
His diction and grammar are by contrast polished in the manner of a legislative lawyer, which is far removed from the 'down-home' 'good-ole-boy' twangy drawl I had become accustomed to with George Bush's vernacular and in direct contrast, Obama delivers his lines articulately in rich, velvety smooth tones which are easy on the ear and subtly disarming.
It is difficult to objectively assess a figure such as Obama which is why I have wondered about his soul and how he sleeps at night...
It is difficult firstly because of a torrent of words i.e propaganda emanating from Congress and their masters in the Corporatocracy, and now that Money is speech, there is a ceaseless tower of babble pouring over the air-waves concerning Obama in an unrelenting assault on American ears.
Yes folks its the Red, white and Blue circus on every one of 150 channels whether directly through interviews and newsflashes and live-to-air crosses or indirectly and folded, interwoven like a multilayer cake within the daily chatting and general entertainment.
I just cannot listen to most modern Politicians today without laughing, especially the Republicans as it is, (with the exception of Senators Alan Grayson and Bernie Sanders) well nigh impossible to find an honest one who hasn't been co-opted by corporate lobbyists.
Although traditionally understood to be slightly more centrist in their politics and policies and hence not quite so radical, the voices coming from the Democratic Party are unfortunately, similarly disingenuous as they of course too are required to obey the Money.
The Democrats additionally have the added disadvantage of having to white-wash and attempt to legitimize what has become the most militaristic, imperialistic machine in US history, and so we have propaganda about the so-called 'leader' of America coming at us furiously from both sides...
Due to the camouflaged and increasingly Dark aspect of the Military/Industrial complex, it is naturally equally difficult to see the man Obama, as distinct to his Office, from behind the 'Fog of War' as much of his negotiations and planning are shrouded behind a veil of secrecy these days due to their 'highly classified' nature.
So I am left with Obama's interviews and speeches such as the grand speech which he delivered in Cairo to the Arab League of Nations in 2009.
This was a speech that was so moving, so rousing that it instantly received rapturous acclaim right around the world and it eventually led to his selection as a Nobel Peace Prize recipient for the stirring proposal outlined in his 'New Beginning'...
His speech and their noble sentiments were meant to signal a change in the winds and the charting of a new course in America's relationship with Islamic countries in the Middle-East, a new way forward based on 'mutual interest and mutual respect'.
Fine words...fine sentiments indeed which are all the more damning today for the huge departure that Obama has apparently since chosen to take from them, in a blatant contradiction of the very principles he had outlined in his speech.
In a new study from the Center for International Policy which came out this month his betrayal of the Arab League of Nations and the World in general has been made clear.
It is now official that the Obama administration has sold more lethal Arms and Weaponry overseas than any other US administration since WWII.
But this is hardly surprising when we see the amount of suffering and war-torn strife being played out all over the Earth, and there is hardly a single War in which Obama does not currently have his blood-stained hands.
In fact by one estimate doing the rounds of Cyberspace currently there are at least 900 documented examples of Obama’s lawbreaking, lying, corruption, cronyism, hypocrisy & waste
Read more at http://freedomoutpost.com/2014/11/900-documented-examples-obamas-lawbreaking-lying-corruption-cronyism-hypocrisy-waste/#yl6yKc6Q8A8shgcH.99
I do not intend to list Obama's transgressions against civil liberties, against the Constitution, jurisprudence, his own citizens and humanity generally as that would take some considerable time and this is just meant to be a short note.
And I do acknowledge that Obama has been up against a stone-wall of Republican opposition to literally Anything which he proposes that began on day one of his inauguration, and which can certainly be said to at least somewhat mitigate his crimes....
I also accept the essential work which the Obama administration have done in establishing some level of sane accord and rapprochement with Iran, and I guess his efforts with Obama Care and regarding Cuba can also be listed among his positive achievements.
That being said, Guantanamo remains a seriously ugly blight on his record and unfortunately for all of us, against these positive strokes and achievements I have to weigh his criminal behavior in the middle-east in general, from Libya, to Syria, to the 10,000 troops which he decided to keep in Iraq, to the announcement of a 30-year War against Terrorism which is to be perpetrated all over our Earth, to his indiscriminate use of Drones, to his 'Hit-list' and the complete eradication of the presumption of Innocence i.e the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" for any citizen on Earth.
This is no small legal transgression...
Not only has it always been one of the most sacred principles in the American criminal justice system, holding that a defendant is innocent until proven guilty.
In other word that the prosecution must prove their charges 'beyond a reasonable doubt', and not only is it a principle component of The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, but it actually stretches right back to antiquity, to ancient Rome and the ancient Latin : "The burden of proof is on him who declares, not on him who denies", which is why I say, this is no small legislative transgression...
Additionally in the negative column I mustn't neglect to cite these further crimes i.e the Coup D'etat in the Ukraine, the civilian deaths in Yemen and finally his perpetuation of an apartheid regime in Palestine.
Every single time that Palestinians have cried out for a homeland at the United Nations, in keeping with an aging American tradition of hypocrisy on this subject, it has been vetoed down by the Obama administration!
Considering the Obama Drone Wars i am reminded of a classic scene from a favorite Orson Welles movie :
"The Third Man" in which the mysterious Orson Welles meets his old pal Joseph Cotton once again after an absence of years high up at the top of a Ferris Wheel's rotation...
Orson Welles, supreme in his role as the Nietzschean superman, and with complete cynical amorality looks down at the ground seemingly miles away and then taps the glass lightly with his fingernails saying to Cotton :
"Look down there Harry...Do you see all those Ants scurrying about?
What if Mephistopheles were to offer you a bargain?
What if he offered you the wealth of an entire kingdom in exchange for just some of those Ants???
How many of those Ants that you can see scurrying about down there do you think you might be able to sacrifice?
After all...there are just so many of them!"
That was a paraphrase of the conversation from my memory of a Movie I saw perhaps 20 years ago.
And whilst it is true to say that Obama has made some of the right noises, nevertheless...noises fade fast while the blood remains, and when the fog of War clears, when the muddy waters settle, when we wipe away the vomit of media propaganda about Obama coming from the mainstream media and from Washington, either for or against, we are left with very little to focus on in any tangible way except for an affable, intelligent public persona, a perfect impassive mask ripped from a tragic harlequin that made some sensible-sounding noises using pretty words and glossy sentiments full of integrity and decency, and at the very least quite the opposite of the Imperialistic, violent behavior we see paraded before us each evening on the nightly news.
Hmmm....it seems that we have once again entered 'The Theatre of the Absurd' and we are now lost inside a wall of sleek, black idiot boxes.
Hence the mask which befits a Farce or a Comedic Tragedy.
As certain friends of mine love to point out to me : Actions speak so much louder than words.
As to Obama's soul, simply ask yourself ; How would you feel deep inside if everyday you had to get up and lie to billions of people?
Would you lie to yourself in order to cope?
Knowing that each and everyday you were forced to put on a mask and commit actions which you knew to be a betrayal, which were ultimately a sell-out of your own ethics, and against your citizen's best interests?
Such as the clandestine manoeuvrings to hastily usher in the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement in secret before anyone has had the opportunity to assess it's merits for the American people as opposed to the interests of the Global Corporations...
Such as Obama's War on Whistle-blowers and the Freedom of the Press, a betrayal which is especially heinous when you read from his campaign speeches prior to his election where Obama had eloquently and some would even say passionately argued for Transparency and a reduction of secrecy in Government.
I could go on but I think the situation is clear...i.e the 'Hypocrisy' is rife with the smell of cordite and gunpowder in the air all over the Middle-East.
Meanwhile Obama maneuvers into place surrounding Russia in a ludicrous, pathological military bloc...
To what aim??? A Third World War???
According to an official Pentagon accounting of U.S. military bases around the world ; the "Base Structure Report, Fiscal 2010 Baseline."... the U.S. has 662 overseas Military bases in 38 foreign countries around the World, which is a smaller number than the 900 bases I have seen quoted elsewhere by Ron Paul for example.
But the list leaves out certain nations in 'active operations' such as in Iraq and Afghanistan, so it’s conceivable that the actual number of sites approaches 900...!
Remember Orson Welles scanning the terrain from a great height in the Third Man?
Looking down onto the landscape with its teeming ant hordes via computer screens, how many lives I wonder has Obama now sacrificed to his Mephistopheles in order to gain the wealth of a Kingdom?
Under Obama's watch we now have more Wars and military skirmishes and bombings happening around the world than under any previous US president in history!!!
Under Obama's watch, the Petro-Dollar has become a monstrous Fascistic entity which attempts to strangle the World into obedience as it plays self-appointed Cop to the World...
A Good Cop or a Bad Cop to the World, both are played with equal relish, using a soft economic touch or a hard military stick reminiscent of Imperialistic tyrannies through out History such as Rome for example.
Under Obama's watch that great leviathan of corporate greed known as Wall Street has become even more of a bloated obscenity and the Casino is once again in full swing...its party time on Wall Street!
Taking a glance at the horrendous statistics which have accumulated at his feet, Obama has now betrayed all of his original promise, and has, since his election leaned so far to the right that he has become one of the most anti-progressive, anti-left, and the most Neo-conservative, War-hawkish, Democratic Presidents in recent memory.
When I look at Obama, I see a highly polished, slick Puppet on a leash, a leash which is held by the largest Military/Industrial Corporatocracy in history.
As Obama continues to perform his role on the local and the World stage, using noble sounding noises with enviable poise and a cordial equanimity for his audience beyond the looking-glass, he does so with the full knowledge that simultaneously somewhere, from behind the velvet curtain and deep within the corridors of real Power, there is a gun being held at his head.
And the American people are finally faced with their first and oldest bitter pill to swallow...:
and that is that they have in America, the Best Democracy that Money can buy.
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