Reflections From a Murky Pond

Americans are forced to hear a lot about the purported racism and evils of requiring basic photo identification for voting. With the upcoming 2014 midterm elections and slightly later 2016 elections, Americans are going to be forced to hear a lot more about it because our domestic enemies need to brand the American people and the politicians we support as racists.

The funny thing is that the Liberals like to portray themselves as knowledgeable citizens of the world yet they seem to know very little about the nations of the world…

India Is Racist!

That’s right; the world’s largest democratic republic has used and required Voter ID for some time and, despite the widespread real poverty in India, their voter turnout is comparable to America’s.

Then, the Democrats and those who support and feed off of them aren’t concerned with voting. They’re concerned with the realpolitik of maintaining the slavish support of minorities, especially the “Black Community.” To that end they’ll will always decry anything and everything that Americans desire and/or demand as racist.

It’s the mainstream expectation that Hillary Clinton will both run for President in 2016 and be the Democrats’ nominee. Certainly, with the MSM having already decided this, it’s the mainline chance.

Clinton Part Deux

So, we’re looking at Clinton Part Deux, which is most definitely a superficial, unnecessary, and overly bad sequel to its predecessor. But “what difference does it make?”

The Democrats had their “Bro” and now they’ll enter their “Ho” into the race for the Presidency. Nothing much will change except that “Racism” will be replaced by “Sexism” as their mantra.

Barack Obama has, throughout what there is of his political career, always understood the power of the media in politics and shaping public opinion.

I am who the media says I am. I say what they say I say. I become who they say I’ve become.

— Barack Obama
The Audacity of Hope (2006)

That’s all well and good. It shows a certain pragmatic wisdom that is often lacking in American politicians. The problem is that, as the POTUS, Obama and his regime have decided to become the media, replacing the free press with their own staff.

Reality Show President: White House TV

As Reason TV so aptly describes, Obama has not only become a media mogul of sorts, he became one of America’s best known Reality Television celebrities, with the carefully scripted but oh-so-real looking image that is less even than a caricature of the person or office in question.

“The White House has effectively become a broadcast company,” says Michael Shaw, publisher of Bagnewsnotes.com, a site dedicated to the analysis of news images. Shaw explains how strategically composed photos, taken by official White House photographers, travel from social media sites that are controlled by the administration to the front pages of newspapers around the world.

The press publishes the official White House photographs because independent photographers and videographers  are increasingly barred from covering the president. This practice has diminished the power of the independent media as an exclusive distribution channel while empowering official photographers such as Pete Souza, who are on the presidential payroll.  

And so, says Shaw, the public has been fed a steady diet of whatever kind of president the news cycle demands. When conspiracy theorists questioned Obama’s patriotism, we saw images of Obama the American everyman. To celebrate the anniversary of Rosa Parks’ 1955 refusal to move to the back of a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama, we saw Obama reenact her famous image. Time and again, we see Obama striking poses out of John F. Kennedy’s repertoire. The official White House photographers have created a presidential identity for every conceivable occasion—as long as the image is flattering, and almost always, larger than life.

This would be both sad and laughable if it wasn’t both scarily effective and yet another nail in the coffin of America’s constitution, which demands a free press. Nor is it in any way wrong for the Obama Regime to try to get their crafted image of the President out there. The issue is that they’re stifling and supplanting the free press in order to do so. Down that road, and not very far at all, lies tyranny.

The fourth of 46 point-by-point analyses of the “founder” of the concept of White Privilege, Peggy McIntosh’s claims of Whites having specific and special advantages solely because they’re White.

I can be reasonably sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.

— Peggy McIntosh
White Privilege and Male Privilege (1988)

Not only is the particular claim of Ms. McIntosh baseless, it’s in direct contradictory conflict with her second claim of White Privilege.

Simply put, no matter what race a person is, their neighbors may or may not be neutral or pleasant towards them and this may or may not be primarily due to racial differences, distrust, and animosity. Yet, even in cases where one is living amidst people of another race and culture, the vast majority will be “neutral” to you insofar as their interactions with you.

The third of 46 point-by-point analyses of the “founder” of the concept of White Privilege, Peggy McIntosh’s claims of Whites having specific and special advantages solely because they’re White.

If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.

— Peggy McIntosh
White Privilege and Male Privilege (1988)

There’s no real basis for Ms. McIntosh’s claim of privilege. Both Whites and non-Whites can, if they should need to move, be equally sure or – unsure – of renting or purchasing housing in an area which they can afford and in which they would want to live. The only barriers to such relocation are economic and perceptual in nature. A White is a likely to not be able to afford to live where they want to as a non-White is. The desires of members of any race tend to far exceed their ability to achieve them.

As a caveat to the above, a generation or two before Ms. McIntosh’s writings her claim was very true. Non-White were barred from living in many areas. This wrong had, however, been corrected, both in law and public consciousness, well before 1988.