In his book "The Roots of Obama's Rage," D'Souza uses Obama's support of his father to paint the president as an angry, anti-colonial, kenyan national. This was subsequently parroted by Newt Gingrich, who was forced to pull back much of his statement and has since been somewhat silent on the national scene. As one might expect from the media obsessed only with politicians and not with the truth, most stations neglected to mention that his words come almost verbatim from D'Souza's book. The media moved on to another topic without even mentioning the horribly racist pages from which the quote was taken.
I usually take these books as what they are. Trashy talking points and ignorant sensationalism thrown together in some neo-con media machine trash-mill with a famous name slapped on the cover. Seriously, I think they have manuscripts laying around where all you have to do is insert a famous name and whatever group is out of favor (muslims, socialists, communists, etc.) and you've got a conservative bestseller. And the conservative masses do their job. They go out and eat this crap up like the mindless drones they are.
Anyway, I digress. What is different about this book for me is that it's no longer just mindless conservative drival touting economic policies that don't work, mainstreaming religious extremism, or justifying trillions of dollars in war spending. This is just good old fashion racism. There is just nothing else you can say about it.
Let's break it down:
Obama is angry (Rage was a pretty good word, I'm sure they will be keeping that in their manuscript pile for the next time a black person gets elected president): This WREAKS of "angry black man." I mean, when has Obama EVER gotten angry? has anyone ever seen him blow up at anyone? has he ever lost his temper in an interview? Is there ANY evidence what so ever that he has ever been anything other than cool and collected? No, exactly the opposite. Try reading Game Change, and you'll realize that Obama's cool, collected attitude probably does mask his irritations better than most, but never has he ever gotten close to anger, much less "rage." Contrast that to the Republican candidate in 2008 and maybe you'll get a clue.
Obama is anti-colonial: WELCOME TO THE 21st century... oh wait, no, your still about 200 years behind. Colonialism has been out of vogue since about the 1800s. In fact, we had a whole revolutionary war about that I'm pretty sure. Does the US still engage in "colonial-esque" activity. Yeah sure it does, but I'm pretty sure just about every liberal (and most conservatives for that matter) are categorically opposed to that kinda thing. So why is it suddenly a pejorative when Barack Obama is anti-colonial? Maybe Mr. D'Souza has it in with an undercurrent of American pro-colonialists the rest of us have never heard of before. Or maybe he's just a d-bag.
Obama is Kenyan: whether D'Souza was using it as a descriptor "kenyan anti-colonialism" or just accusing the president of being Kenyan all together, it's trash. In the second instance he is lying through his teeth, which I think everyone should be opposed to no matter how much an ignorant conservative redneck you may be. He's not a Kenyan, he's an American. Get over it you xenophobic d-bags. The first instance is slightly more sinister. It's meant to point out the "he's not one of us" message that the conservatives have been pushing since Nov 3, 2008. It plays on our Xenophobia in the same way that "illegal aliens" and Obama's middle name play on our xenophobia. So what is it conservatives? is he muslim? or is he Kenyan? or he both? or is he a Socialist, Maoist, Communist, Muslim, Kenyan?? is it even possible to be all of those things? (the correct answer is no, but heaven forbid a neo-con would have stayed in school long enough to learn the differences)
To put it simply, this book is trashier than usual, and as such worthy of scorn. Another truly sad development is that it is now #2 and #4 on the Amazon.com bestseller list. What is the world coming to where we eat up trashy, racist, zenophobic garbage like this and thinks it's legitimate. There were actually people commenting on the book who thought it was a biography of Barack Obama!! How did we become that stupid as a nation where people think a radical conservative would write a biography (or at least one that wasn't clearly tainted with lies and misinformation) about a democratic president?
There is ignorance, and then there is willful ignorance. The latter seems to define today's conservative movement.
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