I can’t remember if I mentioned that I bought both of Barack Obama’s books. The campaign to see who gets to campaign against the President is in full swing, but I anticipate a fantastic political season ahead. And these will be fascinating references.
I’m sure to call our President a whole bunch of “ists”. I suspect I’ll call him a socialist. For sure a statist. Without a doubt a lefitst. Maybe even a communist. Who knows? But is it fair? Is it fair to label a man those things without really kinda knowing what that man thinks, and feels, says and write?
I think maybe I owe him the benefit of the doubt.
So here it is. Barry O in his owns words. Here we can see what he really thinks, or thought, as he put pen to paper.
Before I go into the books I wanna write down what I think of the man, his life experience and his beliefs.
- I think that Obama’s view of America is unlike that of virtually every American alive. He grew up in a state that had only recently been granted statehood. He didn’t grow up in the America that we envision America to be. He grew up in an island paradise hours from the mainstream mainland of America.
- I think that Obama was highly influenced by his education in Indonesia. I think the schools he attended, the friends he had and the society he lived in had a tremendous impact on his world view.
- I think that his mother was a very far left wing radical.
- I believe that when Barack Obama attended college he sought out non-mainstream individuals and organizations.
- I think that Barack Obama sees the American version of capitalism as flawed. I feel he believes that it creates winners and that it creates losers. Further, that the losers are not losers of their own actions.
- I believe that a young collegiate Barack Obama cared for the poor, the weak and the downtrodden; I think his cause was a noble one.
- I think that he entered an occupation that would help those he saw as victims.
- He became political and became a player in that system. Especially that system of Chicago politics.
In short, the people that surrounded a young child Obama and the people that surrounded an older Obama were not mainstream Americans. These were people who held an antagonistic view of America. An antagonistic view based either on nationalism or one of “nature”, as in, what is Americanism?
So, I begin by reading Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama.