Glenn, I know you did not cast yourself as a Middle East expert and provide a platform for free speech, not endorsing all views expressed. FYI, just so you’re aware, regarding the attacks on Israel in the last few days, in which families were slaughtered, children and the elderly were taken hostage, young women were subjected to sustained brutal assault, Finkelstein has commented. According to ADL (no darling of the Right):
“On his Substack, academic and activist Norman Finkelstein wrote that Hamas’ actions “warms [sic] every fiber of my soul” and compared the attacks to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising:
“.. if we honor the Jews who revolted in the Warsaw Ghetto—then moral consistency commands that we honor the heroic resistance in Gaza. I, for one, will never begrudge—on the contrary, it warms every fiber of my soul—the scenes of Gaza’s smiling children as their arrogant Jewish supremacist oppressors have, finally, been humbled.”
I have a low regard for Finkelstein in his opinions or as a person when he opines on Israel (my grandmother said that worst ant-Semites are Jewish anti-Semites), however, no matter how or why he arrived at his feelings about Obama and in this, the Obama arena, he correct. To refute Finkelstein re Israel, you might have Dershowitz on, who he actually referenced.
The problem is that the choice we're presented with is a Republican Party that actively and unconstitutionally destroys rights, as with Dobbs, and a Democratic Party that actively does not stand up for rights. The GOP is the worst choice. Obama was and is not progressive, he's an Eisenhower Republican. He was in office at a time that the GOP was using him as a symbol to further their right-wing, conservative extremism while the Democrats, neo-liberals, wrung their hands.
I felt contemporaneously, he stood for, at least, speaking intelligently (given eight years of the cringe of W). I appreciated that then and now (after four additional years of Trump public speaking tragedy). It is embarrassing as a global traveler when our American President is, frankly, a verbal dufus. A mild burden, but real, very real for me personally.
Also, I felt Obama did not stand for going to war, directly, with Russia, North Korea or China. Out of pragmatism (not of fear -good- and not ethics-eh-) because going to war with nuclear adversaries requires such pragmatism over top of the US pyramid machismo.
Finally, I feel he stood for an ability to change his mind - publicly, given a mixed combination of democratic (small d) ideals that shifted faster than he did politically, vis à vis LGTB momentum.
This was not an ad for two terms of disappointing incrementalism and global projection of American violence. Rather, a direct conversational response to the episode that I didn’t “disagree” with.
You make good points and I appreciate the positive engagement. But I guess it come down to who watches the watchers? If he is calling out the industry by writing a book, where do his book profits go?
Thinking I might have judged Finkelstein harshly, I dug a little deeper and found this analysis that explains away my confusion. He’s just another racist grifter.
Read down through his quotes and tell me what you think.
Glenn comes off as performative in this silly dialogue. Cornel West criticized Obama throughout his presidency. And no U.S. president since Carter has had a hard sciences education. Why would a president need to understand the theory of relativity?
Obama played a role in more than a few major accomplishments that supersede his race: Dodd-Frank and CFPB; Affordable Care Act; eliminating the most wanted man in the world, Osama Bin Laden; ending the Iraq War; marriage equality; commuting the sentences of 1,200 nonviolent drug offenders; halved the veteran homeless rate in America over seven years; normalized relations with Cuba; signed the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act; Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act; repealed the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.
I swear it's more often than not the white liberal or conservative folks obsessing about race when no one else is.
Biggest percent increases in the debt Abraham Lincoln, GW Bush, and Donald Trump. Trump added $7.8 trillion to the debt.
Edit to add:
The bigger laugh here is that he supported Bernie Sanders. Sanders claim to fame in Congress has to have 3 bills passed. Two bills were for naming post offices. To see him support a do nothing like Sanders and say Obama is a fraud is rich.
Thank you. I thought I was the only one who saw through the smoke and mirrors. Obama was always a character of the Chicago Machine, and never understood that his job was not to pander nor to elect Democrats, but to lead. Ted Koppel infuriated fellow journalists when he noted that the difference between Clinton and Bush was 9/11. He could have noted that the difference between Bush and Obama was that Bush understood his job.
Any real discussion of Barack Hussein Obama—his remarkable parentage, upbringing in Hawaii, Kansas, and the Philippines, elite education, political defeats and victories, and personal drives and demons—is incomplete without consideration of Steve Sailer's 2009 book-length analysis of the man, his writings, and speeches in "America's Half-Blood Prince: Barack Obama's "Story of Race and Inheritance." Sailer looks closely at the many significant differences between Obama's image as meticulously crafted by master political tactician David Axelrod, the self-created and oddly cloaked hero of Obama's 1995 memoir "Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance," and the real man as only occasionally glimpsed when caught without his mask firmly in place.
The town square is public property. Twitter, Facebook et. al are not.
They have no such "duty", they are not the press, they are not journalists. You want to spew crap into the universe do it on your own platform.
You project straw man arguments when you say "you loved it when..., then you screamed when...". Apparently you still like adolescent arguments without forming coherent arguments of your own.
"Misinformation is in the eye of the beholder", how pathetic your arguments are. Stay on truth social where lies are peddled as truth.
You don't even know what censorship is. You are spewing crap here. you are not censored. Here's a truth bomb, you can't do or say whatever you want, wherever you want. That's Freedumb, not Freedom. With great freedom comes great responsibility, you want the former without the latter
I remember when nobody knew who the hell Barak Obama was. I, like most people, was curious. I am no fan of politicians or politics. Going back even farther, when I first heard Bill Clinton speak, as he ran for president, I thought the guy was so transparently phony and gratuitous that everyone would see right thru him. I was wrong.
But the first time I hear Barak Obama speck, I drew no instant conclusions. He had no glib answers to questions. He pondered his answers, looking for just the right words. Good, so far. But all he ever earned from me was style points. He never said anything that was insightful, or unique to his own mind. He simply rephrased the usual talking points.
He was the first president that I can think of that weighed in on a local political issue, early in his presidency. That would be the instance of a Cambridge cop, near Harvard, being called to a house concerning a possible break-in. You may remember, the owner of the house, a black man, had returned from a trip a few days early, and a neighbor, who knew he was away, was concerned to see someone in the house, and called the cops. The cops came, the black guy said he was the owner, and the cop asked him for ID. Rather than provide it, the black guy went off on the cop about racism. I'm a little sensitive about that, and could tell an interesting but overly long story, but the short form is I was similarly asked for ID in my own home. So, I provided it. Big damned deal.
But Obama, knowing NOTHING of the specifics, weighed in for the black guy and against the cops. That was NOT a good sign for the remainder of his presidency.
And then there was Ferguson, in which BLACK witnesses substantiated that Michel Brown viciously attacked a cop, trying to get at his gun. The cop was in his car, and Brown reached in and started punching him and trying for the gun. So, the cop shot him. It went on for a while as Brown initially backed off, and the cop got out of his car to apprehend him. It resulted in more attacks by Brown, and more shots from the cop. Remember, this is corroborated by multiple BLACK witnesses. Yet, Obama fed the "blame the cops" intolerance, supporting the totally phony "Hands up don't shoot movement." If you ever supported or participated in the "Hands up, don't shoot movement", you supported lies and bigotry against cops. And Obama was part of that.
Obama's foreign policy was an ongoing disaster. His "Arab spring" became an "Arab genocide".
I've gone on longer than I intended, yet I've only scratched the surface. Early on, I was calling Obama a stuffed suit. He looks good, he talks well, but he has nothing to say that's worth hearing.
Fyi, the whole 'black folks are pulled over for no reason stuff got a quite deep look under Obama. The key study was on the New Jersey Turnpike due to the data available, volumes etc. And guess what? Despite the racial hucksters lying about the findings, eventually it became clear that black people were pulled over more for good reason. They speed more, they break more traffic rules, these are just facts. I take no pleasure in it. Now I also hear lots of stories from black folks about being pulled over for no reason at times. I don't know how to square it, but having been lied to about race for my entire life, I am always dubious of such 'just so' stories at this point. If you are tempted to call me a racist for pointing out these facts, just know it's you, not me.
Glenn, I know you did not cast yourself as a Middle East expert and provide a platform for free speech, not endorsing all views expressed. FYI, just so you’re aware, regarding the attacks on Israel in the last few days, in which families were slaughtered, children and the elderly were taken hostage, young women were subjected to sustained brutal assault, Finkelstein has commented. According to ADL (no darling of the Right):
“On his Substack, academic and activist Norman Finkelstein wrote that Hamas’ actions “warms [sic] every fiber of my soul” and compared the attacks to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising:
“.. if we honor the Jews who revolted in the Warsaw Ghetto—then moral consistency commands that we honor the heroic resistance in Gaza. I, for one, will never begrudge—on the contrary, it warms every fiber of my soul—the scenes of Gaza’s smiling children as their arrogant Jewish supremacist oppressors have, finally, been humbled.”
https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/anti-israel-activists-celebrate-hamas-attacks-have-killed-hundreds-israelis
I have a low regard for Finkelstein in his opinions or as a person when he opines on Israel (my grandmother said that worst ant-Semites are Jewish anti-Semites), however, no matter how or why he arrived at his feelings about Obama and in this, the Obama arena, he correct. To refute Finkelstein re Israel, you might have Dershowitz on, who he actually referenced.
The problem is that the choice we're presented with is a Republican Party that actively and unconstitutionally destroys rights, as with Dobbs, and a Democratic Party that actively does not stand up for rights. The GOP is the worst choice. Obama was and is not progressive, he's an Eisenhower Republican. He was in office at a time that the GOP was using him as a symbol to further their right-wing, conservative extremism while the Democrats, neo-liberals, wrung their hands.
Not being obviously stupid is peculiarly impressive compared to his bookends.
I felt contemporaneously, he stood for, at least, speaking intelligently (given eight years of the cringe of W). I appreciated that then and now (after four additional years of Trump public speaking tragedy). It is embarrassing as a global traveler when our American President is, frankly, a verbal dufus. A mild burden, but real, very real for me personally.
Also, I felt Obama did not stand for going to war, directly, with Russia, North Korea or China. Out of pragmatism (not of fear -good- and not ethics-eh-) because going to war with nuclear adversaries requires such pragmatism over top of the US pyramid machismo.
Finally, I feel he stood for an ability to change his mind - publicly, given a mixed combination of democratic (small d) ideals that shifted faster than he did politically, vis à vis LGTB momentum.
This was not an ad for two terms of disappointing incrementalism and global projection of American violence. Rather, a direct conversational response to the episode that I didn’t “disagree” with.
You make good points and I appreciate the positive engagement. But I guess it come down to who watches the watchers? If he is calling out the industry by writing a book, where do his book profits go?
Thinking I might have judged Finkelstein harshly, I dug a little deeper and found this analysis that explains away my confusion. He’s just another racist grifter.
Read down through his quotes and tell me what you think.
https://www.blackagendareport.com/finding-your-whiteness-time-crisis-reeducation-norman-finkelstein
Glenn comes off as performative in this silly dialogue. Cornel West criticized Obama throughout his presidency. And no U.S. president since Carter has had a hard sciences education. Why would a president need to understand the theory of relativity?
Obama played a role in more than a few major accomplishments that supersede his race: Dodd-Frank and CFPB; Affordable Care Act; eliminating the most wanted man in the world, Osama Bin Laden; ending the Iraq War; marriage equality; commuting the sentences of 1,200 nonviolent drug offenders; halved the veteran homeless rate in America over seven years; normalized relations with Cuba; signed the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act; Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act; repealed the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.
I swear it's more often than not the white liberal or conservative folks obsessing about race when no one else is.
Biggest percent increases in the debt Abraham Lincoln, GW Bush, and Donald Trump. Trump added $7.8 trillion to the debt.
Edit to add:
The bigger laugh here is that he supported Bernie Sanders. Sanders claim to fame in Congress has to have 3 bills passed. Two bills were for naming post offices. To see him support a do nothing like Sanders and say Obama is a fraud is rich.
Obozo aka Barry Soetero and his evil husband 'Bike Mike' are THE biggest frauds perpetrated on the USA in the last 50 vears!
Absolutely vile human beings who were created by guilty white Shitlibs…...and the entire country fell for it - hook, line and sinker!
.
I Am Often Criticized
For Not Giving A Voice To Liberals.
Here Goes …
“ I Don’t Care If It’s True “
“ It Should Be True “
“ And That’s Good Enough For Me “
.
Thank you. I thought I was the only one who saw through the smoke and mirrors. Obama was always a character of the Chicago Machine, and never understood that his job was not to pander nor to elect Democrats, but to lead. Ted Koppel infuriated fellow journalists when he noted that the difference between Clinton and Bush was 9/11. He could have noted that the difference between Bush and Obama was that Bush understood his job.
What a child I hope your feelings aren’t hurt because you can’t propagate your BS under your banner of freedumb.
Any real discussion of Barack Hussein Obama—his remarkable parentage, upbringing in Hawaii, Kansas, and the Philippines, elite education, political defeats and victories, and personal drives and demons—is incomplete without consideration of Steve Sailer's 2009 book-length analysis of the man, his writings, and speeches in "America's Half-Blood Prince: Barack Obama's "Story of Race and Inheritance." Sailer looks closely at the many significant differences between Obama's image as meticulously crafted by master political tactician David Axelrod, the self-created and oddly cloaked hero of Obama's 1995 memoir "Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance," and the real man as only occasionally glimpsed when caught without his mask firmly in place.
The town square is public property. Twitter, Facebook et. al are not.
They have no such "duty", they are not the press, they are not journalists. You want to spew crap into the universe do it on your own platform.
You project straw man arguments when you say "you loved it when..., then you screamed when...". Apparently you still like adolescent arguments without forming coherent arguments of your own.
"Misinformation is in the eye of the beholder", how pathetic your arguments are. Stay on truth social where lies are peddled as truth.
You don't even know what censorship is. You are spewing crap here. you are not censored. Here's a truth bomb, you can't do or say whatever you want, wherever you want. That's Freedumb, not Freedom. With great freedom comes great responsibility, you want the former without the latter
I remember when nobody knew who the hell Barak Obama was. I, like most people, was curious. I am no fan of politicians or politics. Going back even farther, when I first heard Bill Clinton speak, as he ran for president, I thought the guy was so transparently phony and gratuitous that everyone would see right thru him. I was wrong.
But the first time I hear Barak Obama speck, I drew no instant conclusions. He had no glib answers to questions. He pondered his answers, looking for just the right words. Good, so far. But all he ever earned from me was style points. He never said anything that was insightful, or unique to his own mind. He simply rephrased the usual talking points.
He was the first president that I can think of that weighed in on a local political issue, early in his presidency. That would be the instance of a Cambridge cop, near Harvard, being called to a house concerning a possible break-in. You may remember, the owner of the house, a black man, had returned from a trip a few days early, and a neighbor, who knew he was away, was concerned to see someone in the house, and called the cops. The cops came, the black guy said he was the owner, and the cop asked him for ID. Rather than provide it, the black guy went off on the cop about racism. I'm a little sensitive about that, and could tell an interesting but overly long story, but the short form is I was similarly asked for ID in my own home. So, I provided it. Big damned deal.
But Obama, knowing NOTHING of the specifics, weighed in for the black guy and against the cops. That was NOT a good sign for the remainder of his presidency.
And then there was Ferguson, in which BLACK witnesses substantiated that Michel Brown viciously attacked a cop, trying to get at his gun. The cop was in his car, and Brown reached in and started punching him and trying for the gun. So, the cop shot him. It went on for a while as Brown initially backed off, and the cop got out of his car to apprehend him. It resulted in more attacks by Brown, and more shots from the cop. Remember, this is corroborated by multiple BLACK witnesses. Yet, Obama fed the "blame the cops" intolerance, supporting the totally phony "Hands up don't shoot movement." If you ever supported or participated in the "Hands up, don't shoot movement", you supported lies and bigotry against cops. And Obama was part of that.
Obama's foreign policy was an ongoing disaster. His "Arab spring" became an "Arab genocide".
I've gone on longer than I intended, yet I've only scratched the surface. Early on, I was calling Obama a stuffed suit. He looks good, he talks well, but he has nothing to say that's worth hearing.
Fyi, the whole 'black folks are pulled over for no reason stuff got a quite deep look under Obama. The key study was on the New Jersey Turnpike due to the data available, volumes etc. And guess what? Despite the racial hucksters lying about the findings, eventually it became clear that black people were pulled over more for good reason. They speed more, they break more traffic rules, these are just facts. I take no pleasure in it. Now I also hear lots of stories from black folks about being pulled over for no reason at times. I don't know how to square it, but having been lied to about race for my entire life, I am always dubious of such 'just so' stories at this point. If you are tempted to call me a racist for pointing out these facts, just know it's you, not me.