Monday, September 20, 2010

Understanding the Witch-Hunt Against Obama



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Understanding the Witch-Hunt Against Obama

The paranoid style of American politics is alive and well, using all the classic smear tactics used against minorities and citizen heroes like Martin Luther King.
 
Photo Credit: cometstarmoon
 
 
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America is in the midst of a 21st-century witch hunt. A loose-knit network of right-wing ideological strategists, Republican Party operatives and media demagogues generate the odious smears. Their goal is to stymie the Obama administration's policy initiatives, capture Congress in November and unseat President Barack Obama in 2012. This propagandizing echoes the scapegoating of liberals, union and community organizers, peace activists, gay people, Jews and people of color during the anti-communist witch-hunts of the McCarthy era.

Anti-Obama rhetoric also mimics 1960s slurs dubbing Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. a dupe of a communist conspiracy — claims circulated by groups like the ultra-conservative John Birch Society, the white supremacist "Citizens' Councils" and the Ku Klux Klan. Billboards and flyers with this revelation appeared across the South, and postcards were distributed nationwide.

The underlying message is that liberals are either tools or agents of the plot to build collectivism and global governance. Such claims, once used to label President Franklin D. Roosevelt a fascist, and have resurfaced against Obama, who is tagged as Hitler and Stalin. Such sloganeering is a classic trope that distorts a complex idea into a short metaphor full of rich cultural or political baggage.

Into this guilt-by-association cesspool swims Aaron Klein, who fancies himself a shark of an investigative journalist but is really just another bottom-feeder. Klein, a senior staff reporter for the hard-right conspiracist World Net Daily, worked with Internet crank Brenda J. Elliott (therealbarackobama.wordpress.com) to write the new book The Manchurian President: Barack Obama's Ties to Communists, Socialists and other Anti-American Extremists.

Similarly gawdy anti-Obama books include: Newt Gingrich's To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine, Sean Hannity's Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama's Radical Agenda and Brad O'Leary's The Audacity of Deceit: Barack Obama's War on American Values. Slightly more histrionic are: Jerome R. Corsi's The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality, and Floyd Brown and Lee Troxler's Obama Unmasked: Did Slick Hollywood Handlers Create the Perfect Candidate?

According to The Manchurian President, Obama was groomed for office by a nest of socialists, communists and other dangerous radicals based in Hyde Park, the South Side neighborhood that includes the University of Chicago.

Klein writes, "[Brenda Elliot and I] began to realize the scope of Obama's radical associates and mentors … We realized we were piecing together an intricate puzzle that revealed a man with an agenda far more radical and dangerous than he portrays — a politician backed by groups and individuals who seek to drastically alter the U.S. system or destroy it altogether."

The book identifies Marilyn Katz, a well-known anti-war activist and public-relations consultant, as part of Obama's Chicago cabal. The writers spend "a lot of time mapping" an alleged subversive network of Obama operatives, Katz says.

Continued:
http://www.alternet.org/story/148180/understanding_the_witch-hunt_against_obama
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

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