Cult of Personality (2009 update)

(With Apologies to Living Color)

Look in my eyes, what do you see?
The Cult of Personality
I know your anger, I know your dreams
I’ve been everything you want to be
I’m the Cult of Personality

Like Mussolini, (not Kennedy)
I’m the Cult of Personality
The Cult of Personality
The Cult of Personality

Neon lights, a Nobel Prize
When a mirror speaks, the reflection lies
You don’t "have" to follow me
Only you can set me free

I sell the things you need to be
I’m the smiling face on your T.V.
Oh, I’m the Cult of Personality

I exploit you, still you love me
I tell you one and one makes three
Oh, I’m the Cult of Personality

Like Joseph Stalin, (not Ghandi)
I’m the Cult of Personality
The Cult of Personality
The Cult of Personality

Neon lights, a nobel prize
When a leader speaks, that leader lies
You don’t "have" to follow me
Only you can set you free

You gave me fortune
You gave me fame
You me power in your God’s name
I’m every person you need to be
I’m the Cult of Personality

I’m the Cult of

I’m the Cult of

I’m the Cult of

I’m the Cult of

I’m the Cult of
Personality

“I saw the decade end, when it seemed the world could change in the blink of an eye…”

I was listening to Jesus Jones’ “Right Here, Right Now” from their 1991 album “Doubt,” yesterday, and thinking about that period of my life. The policies of Ronald Reagan, and his successor George H.W. Bush, defying their liberal critics, had defeated the Soviet Union, and freedom was breaking out in Russia and the Former Soviet Republics. I remembered the intense, giddy relief at the end of the tension that marked the Cold War, the end of the fear of a nuclear Armageddon, and my hope that the Russians and we could at last be friends instead of enemies. That time for me defined Hope and Change. It occurred to me, listening to Maya Angelou’s interview with Harry Smith on CBS, that black Americans must be feeling that same mélange of relief and triumph now that I felt then.

As I’ve walked about my place of employment the last few days, I’ve noticed something different. My coworkers of African descent seem to be walking a little taller and standing straighter. They are quicker with a smile and a friendly word, greeting me as we pass in the hallways with a nod that bespeaks a greater sense of confidence and esteem and real pride. I believe it has to do with the fact that finally, FINALLY, Americans of all ethnicities have elected a black to the highest office in the land, and finally blacks have a sense – a feeling – that they have arrived, that they are “real” Americans at last.

Perhaps Maya Angelou put this feeling into words best, in the above referenced interview:

“I'm so proud and filled, I can hardly talk without weeping. I'm so filled with pride for my country. What do you say? We are growing up. My God, I'm so grateful.... I mean, look at our souls, look at our hearts. We have elected a black man to talk for us, to speak for us. We, blacks, whites, Asians, Spanish-speaking, Native Americans, we have done it. Fat, thin, pretty, plain, gay, straight, we have done it. My Lord, I am an American, baby.”

I must admit with some embarrassment that I had never really noticed any lack of pride and confidence before in my black coworkers before the election of Mr. Obama, but its presence now makes its prior absence more conspicuous. For this gift, I rejoice with my black coworkers.

However, I find it more than somewhat sad that despite the end of slavery, despite the success of the civil rights movement, despite all that America has done to put citizens of African ancestry on an equal footing with those of European descent, it still took the election of Mr. Obama to make blacks like Dr. Angelou finally feel that they are Americans. I hate to have to tell you this, Dr. Angelou, but, uh, you were an American before Obama was even a gleam in his father’s eye.

I, and millions like me, have never thought of blacks as not Americans. We have always believed in Dr. King’s dream of a society and a nation in which people “will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”   Believing in this dream, we have made a moral and ethical decision never to look at the color of a person’s skin and prejudge them solely on that basis; but instead we have striven to look at their words, deeds and associations as an individual, and it is inconceivable to us that any rational, sane person would do or think any differently. For us, color-blindness is a good thing. We neither understand nor condone the politics of race.

Biological science shows us that there is no such thing as race. You wouldn’t speak of “races” with any other species, despite color variations among their members. We are one species with a number of color variations that represent adaptations to differing environments. That’s it.

“Race” is only a convenient socio-political distinction without a difference. It is a social construction that merely allows one group to easily identify another group for scapegoating. For proof, look at the 2007 Salon.com article about Mr. Obama not being “authentically black:”

“‘Black,’ in our political and social reality, means those descended from West African slaves. Voluntary immigrants of African descent (even those descended from West Indian slaves) are just that, voluntary immigrants of African descent with markedly different outlooks on the role of race in their lives and in politics. At a minimum, it can't be assumed that a Nigerian cabdriver and a third-generation Harlemite have more in common than the fact a cop won't bother to make the distinction. They're both ‘black’ as a matter of skin color and DNA, but only the Harlemite, for better or worse, is politically and culturally black, as we use the term.”

By this logic then, neither I, nor my family, nor any of the other hundreds of millions of descendents of European immigrants who were never slaveholders can be considered “authentically white.” And if that’s the case, then none of us has any cause to feel any “white guilt.” Nor do we have any cause to treat blacks with any special favor or disfavor. We owe them nothing, save the basic respect due to any other human being.

Imagine our shock and outrage, then, when despite our best efforts to keep race from being a factor in our dealings with our fellow citizens, we inauthentic whites of European descent are incessantly accused of being racist.   Certain blacks constantly throw their skin color into the national discussion as if that trait alone qualifies them for special preference. In short, we inauthentic whites of European descent are tired of having our skin color used to identify us as scapegoats for the culturally based social and economic failures of non-white individuals – in America or anywhere else. 

Just like race, class is also socially constructed. As I have tried to point out on this blog for years, the Marxist-Liberal politics of the left wing of the Democratic Party are the politics of envy. Politicians like this constantly reinforce the socially constructed differences among us and then claim that differences in group identity are the root cause of the unjust privation of some and the unjust success of others, rather than differences in individual actions. It is the politics of something-for-nothing; the politics of taking from those that have (who earned it) to give to those who have not (and have done nothing to earn it). It is the mistaken belief that everyone has a right to everything they want but has no commensurate responsibility to work for it. It is the politics of social control, in which people voluntarily give up their personal liberty along with their personal responsibility. As Benjamin Franklin said: “Those who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security.”

So let me be as clear as I possibly can be: I care not what color Mr. Obama is. His skin color is a distinction without a difference. Only to the extent that today’s descendants of former slaves of African ancestry feel better about themselves, to the extent that they will finally start thinking of themselves as Americans, vice hyphenated Americans, to the extent that his Presidency can begin healing our self-inflicted political wounds, does Mr. Obama’s skin color matter.

Unfortunately, I suspect that in their excitement at FINALLY being able to elect a “black” man to the office of the President, over 60 million Americans utterly failed to consider his other – more important – individual traits: his belief in Socialism, his fundamental lack of belief in the ideals of the American Constitution, his rejection of the values of personal responsibility, and his association with men and women who actively hate all that America has (often imperfectly) stood for and symbolized. His openly stated policy plans show this:

In one fell blow, Obama would force millions of American children into involuntary servitude, placing the left’s objective of raising “social consciousness” above the serious and already challenged business of actually educating them.

Obama would, like Hillary Clinton, “take those profits” of the oil companies through taxation and redistribute them to lower income Americans who have done nothing to earn them.

Obama also would seek passage of the once already defeated Matthew Shepard Act, which would essentially criminalize thoughts; punishing people for their thoughts in addition to punishing them for their deeds by creating an entire new class of “hate crimes.”

Sadly also I fear that Mr. Obama’s ascendancy will not mean the end of racially motivated hatred among blacks, as evidenced by statements by Harvard law professor (and plagiarist) Charles Ogletree, who seems to believe that even Obama’s election is not evidence of the end of white racism, because Obama is half white.

I fear that the country I grew up in, for whose revolutionary history and ideals I have felt such unabashed pride and love, will be no more than a cherished memory if Mr. Obama and the leftists now holding the majority in Congress are able to use the mechanism of representative democracy to deceive a majority of Americans into surrendering their liberty for the sake of envy.

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average an Obama voter."

"From Stettin in the Baltic Manhattan on the Atlantic to Trieste in the Adriatic Los Angeles on the Pacific, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent."

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."

"Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon." 
 
"Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft."

"In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might."

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."

"Never give up, never give up, never, never, never give up."

As Sean Hannity says, we are witnessing the death of journalism in this country:

Halloween Palin Prop Sparks Controversy In WeHo

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (AP) ― A Halloween decoration showing a mannequin dressed as vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin hanging by a noose from the roof of a West Hollywood home is drawing giggles from some passers-by and gasps of outrage from others.

The mannequin is dressed in brunet wig, glasses and a red business suit. Another mannequin dressed as John McCain emerges from a flaming chimney.

Chad Michael Morisette, who lives in the house, told CBS 2 News that drivers and bus passengers have been stopping to snap pictures of the macabre scene.

Morisette says the effigy would be out of bounds at any other time of year, but it’s within the spirit of Halloween.

He says “it should be seen as art, and as within the month of October. It’s Halloween, it’s time to be scary it’s time to be spooky.”

And just earlier this year a sports reporter and a golf magazine editor lost their jobs because the former used the word “lynch” in a jocular reference to an African-American athlete, and the latter approved the use of the image of a noose on the magazine’s cover with regard to a popular African-American golfer (who apparently wasn't offended anyway).

 
Guess it’s okay to advocate lynching conservative white women though. (h/t to S&L)

 
And now the piéce de résistance (h/t to Michelle Malkin):