Who Is Barack Obama?

We know that young Barack Obama came under the influence of the ideas of Saul Alinsky. Alinsky was a communist who taught, as I understand it, that socialists should become part of the capitalist power structure in order to destroy it from within.

(I have my doubts as to how effective this theory is. Once you become part of the power structure, and your livelihood, your mortgage payments, your future and your children's future all depend on that structure, would you want to destroy it? The system changes radicals before they can change it. Gaining power in our mixed economy would turn communists into fascists. At worst, socialists would work to destroy everything but their power and their 401k's.)

The still unanswered question about Obama is: what does he want? Does he secretly intend to destroy capitalism from within? Or does he want power to further the welfare state like your garden variety Democrat? How radical is he?

We know one disturbing thing about Obama. He is willing to lie in order to gain power. He said Ayers was just a guy in his neighborhood. That was a lie. He said he did not know Jeremiah Wright was an anti-American radical. Larry Elder writes,

In "Dreams from My Father," Obama talks of attending the "Audacity of Hope Sermon" (pages 292-293). There is an audio book in Obama's own voice reading this passage. Obama hears Wright speak of Hiroshima and Sharpeville as examples of acts of injustice....

What is Sharpeville? In 1960, the South African apartheid government shot down unarmed protestors, killing 69 black men, women and children. Most of the dead were shot in the back, and nearly 200 more were wounded.

Obama felt no sense of outrage to hear Hiroshima and Sharpeville mentioned in the same breath. Indeed, he was so inspired by the sermon that he uses the sermon's title -- "Audacity of Hope" -- for his second book, and as the theme of his campaign!

I would have run from Wright. Only an anti-American radical would liken Hiroshima to Sharpeville. Obama forged an alliance with the man, then lied about it when Wright became politically inconvenient.

Rush Limbaugh made an interesting observation of Obama yesterday. Obama is being praised for keeping his cool in the debates. Rush said Obama is not cool, he is cold. This is true. He keeps his emotions so controlled that he comes off passionless and reserved. It makes him hard to read. He seems to have made a conscious decision to create a persona of "presidential temperament," which is a front intended to reassure voters that he is no wild-eyed radical. It makes me more suspicious that he is hiding his true intentions -- which brings us back to my original question. What does he want?

I've linked to this several times, but we would do well to remember it:

His mild-mannered style has thrown off even some angry black radicals, who want him to speak out more forcefully about the legacy of U.S. racism and economic inequality.

One is Princeton professor Cornel West, a militant black and self-described socialist. Reportedly, West was reluctant to join the refined Obama's presidential campaign until Obama took him aside and explained to him that he had to walk a rhetorical tightrope to reassure whites. West is now solidly on board his campaign as an adviser.

Another thing worries me. We have seen in Obama's campaign a brazen new approach to political success that seems to be working (Obama's election as President will be the fruit of this new approach). Here's how it works. Obama will lie and depend on the MSM to let the lie rest uncontested. Then he will accuse his opponents of lying, which is taken up by the MSM and the left side of the blogosphere. Finally, Obama's opponents are smeared as racists or full of hatred if they stand in the Messiah's way.

The lies and smears are part of the totalitarian contempt for reason on the left that has been around a long time, but never before have we seen a candidate so willing to lie (and so good at it) coupled with a media so willing to make his lies the accepted "narrative." The left believes that the truth is irrevelant; politics is the conflict to establish your narrative over your opponent's narrative. The next step will be shutting up conservative talk radio and developing a brown shirt force to use force and intimidation against all those capitalists too blinded by greed to understand that they exist as sheep to be sacrificed to the state.

(The foolish George W. Bush has given statist Presidents a new tool to use in any ginned up "crisis":

On October 17, 2006, President Bush signed into law the John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007. The new law allows the President to declare a “public emergency” at his own discretion, and place federal troops anywhere throughout the United States. Under this law, the President also now has the authority to federalize National Guard troops without the consent of Governors, in order to restore “public order.” The President can now deploy federal troops to U.S. cities, which eliminates the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act. In short, Bush can now declare Martial Law anytime he pleases.)

Another troubling trend has been the collapse of the conservatives. As altruists they are intellectually helpless against any expansion of state power framed as helping the needy among us. Every year fewer conservatives bother to oppose big government. The more voters depend on government handouts, the harder it is for politicians to advocate any cut in spending.

The trends on the left and the right indicate that we are entering a new period in America. This new period will see the spread of state power and the death of our freedoms, one by one.

Whether or not Obama consciously wants to destroy freedom in America -- and I think that as a "blank screen" he has become more a mixed economy Democrat than any communist -- the welfare state is doing it anyway, crisis by crisis.