The Obamanation Of Hope
By Robert Klein Engler (02/17/07)
CHICAGO--(16 February '07) Illinois Senator Barack Hussein Obama's campaign to become President claims to be a campaign of hope. Instead, like most political campaigns, it is a campaign to get political power. This becomes evident when we look at the content of the Senator's hope in three areas: his support for the Chicago Democrats, his desire to retreat and surrender in Iraq, and his support for abortion.
Senator Barack Hussein Obama's recent book is The Audacity of Hope. The title should really be The Audacity of Politicians. We say this because Senator Barack Hussein Obama has endorsed Mayor Daley in his bid for reelection as mayor of Chicago, and the mayor has endorsed Senator Barack Hussein Obama's Democratic bid to become President.
If you know anything about the Chicago Democrats, then you know all they really want is political power. Hope is irrelevant to them. Senator Barack Hussein Obama's hopeful campaign for President would be more believable if he ran as an independent instead of associating himself with the Democratic Party in the Windy City.
Senator Barack Hussein Obama claims he wants to fix a "political process that is broken." Yet, where is this political process more broken than in the nanny city-state of Chicago? Here, few vote, and when they do they vote for segregation, higher taxes, gay marriage and abortion. Only 34 percent of those registered to vote in Chicago actually voted in the last municipal election of 2003. The Senator from Illinois may want to fix politics in this city before he hopes to fix this country.
Fixing a political process that is broken in Chicago begins with repudiating the political party that runs the city. There is no hope Senator Barack Hussein Obama will do that. If he did it, then he would have to beat the horse he rode into town on.
It is one of the audacious ironies of political history that the Democratic Party in Chicago, once the hope of many traditional Roman Catholic immigrants, has now become the hope of atheists, transnational socialists and secular progressives. The Chicago Democrats end up being like the conservationist who wants to clean up the environment, yet lives in a dirty and disorganized apartment where San Francisco values have pushed out working-class values.
Senator Barack Hussein Obama claims the billions spent on the war in Iraq could have been spent to improve the south and west sides of Chicago. He does not say that for the past fifty years the Chicago Democrats kept the south and west sides poor and segregated for the sake of votes. He does not say that in Chicago the Dan Ryan Expressway was built to keep Chicago segregated, or that illegal immigration is encouraged in the city nowadays to get more votes for the Democrats.
How many millions were spent in building Millennium Park in Chicago, millions that could have gone to improve the south and west side or Chicago's "L"? You don't hear a message of hope from Senator Barack Hussein Obama that is critical of that monument to a mayor's ego, nor is Senator Barack Hussein Obama critical of the Chicago Democrats who built the housing projects along south State Street.
These housing projects have been a fifty year long disaster, a disaster that is perpetuated by the policies put in place by Chicago Democrats. Many of the CHA projects are being torn down, now, with the idea that a half a century of mistakes will be forgotten. Yet, what about the money wasted on this misadventure? How can we have hope if we don't remember?
Senator Barack Hussein Obama says he wants a new direction in politics, yet he accepts the support of a man who has been mayor for almost twenty years and has presided allegedly over a house of corruption. Senator Barack Hussein Obama claims in an interview "We give too much of our power away, to the professional politicians, to the lobbyists, to cynicism. And our democracy suffers as a result."
If the Senator from Illinois wants to offer hope to thousands of African Americans in Chicago who suffer more than he does, then he could at the very least support Dorothy Brown's campaign for mayor. Recently, Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., called Ms. Brown a "solid public servant who has served ably as the Clerk of the Circuit Court."
Jackson continued, "The issues confronting the voters of Chicago are numerous and serious--including waste, fraud and abuse." As for Senator Barack Hussein Obama, instead of doing something about waste, fraud and abuse in Chicago, he offers us hope for something new in Washington, D. C!
When is Senator Barack Hussein Obama going to tell the African Americans of Chicago that he wants to give their power away? The Democratic Party in Chicago is going to cast it's lot with illegal Mexican immigrants, for the sake of future election victories, not with Chicago's African Americans. Sorry, unless you speak Spanish in Chicago, it's go to the back of the bus again. So much for Martin Luther King's hope in the hands of Senator Barack Hussein Obama.
The new politics of hope from the Obama campaign sounds very much like the old politics. When Senator Barack Hussein Obama claims the war in Iraq is a "tragic mistake," is he offering a hopeful solution? The Senator wants us to retreat and surrender by March, 2008. Furthermore, for political reasons he wants to turn the war in Iraq into the war in Vietnam, when this war resembles more our war in Korea. The next Vietnam may be on the horizon if the Senator becomes President and we have to engage Iran. Let's hope not.
We may criticize President Bush for calling the war in Iraq a "war on terror," as opposed to what it really is, a reoccurring war against Islam, but that does nothing to dismiss the threat from Iran or al-Queda in Afghanistan. The Iranians would be developing nuclear weapons even if U. S. forces were not trying to transform Iraqi society. Furthermore, it is in our national interest and the interest of the West to secure Iraq in face of a growing Chinese threat and its demand for oil.
What of the young who follow after Senator Barack Hussein Obama because they are drawn by an irrational charisma and are hungry for hope? Perhaps his youthful supporters see him as the "Senator Eugene McCarthy" of this age. Most importantly, do those who are young today want to live in a prosperous United States of America, or do they want to be victims living in a multicultural chaos managed by bureaucrats at the United Nations? If they prefer the former to the latter, then their hope must not ignore history.
Yet, the young voters who support Senator Barack Hussein Obama seem cut off >from history. Goose-stepping soldiers in the streets of Tehran do not trouble them the same way goose-stepping Nazi's on the streets of Berlin troubled past generations. Because few in the new generation believe in a religion, or understand its traditions, they do not understand the religion that wants to engage us to the death.
This lack of understanding is unfortunate, because the hopefulness of youth gives shape to our future. If this hope is empty of tradition, then it remains a hope without content. Perhaps that is why some follow a candidate who mirrors their soul. If your hope is only in iPods, then who will ask if Senator Barack Hussein Obama has hope in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, or in the god of Muhammad?
It may be difficult to persuade the idealism of youth to look realistically at a politician who seems like a rock star to them, yet they must look closely for they will inherit the muddled efforts of the current generation. They ought to look closely, indeed, for if they do not, they may be given a stone when they ask later for bread.
The coming campaign for President of the U. S. will also be about American Civilization and the efforts we make to defend it. Some say even this is indefensible because America is hopeless. Nevertheless, Senator Barack Hussein Obama's position on abortion and gay marriage sets him in direct opposition to the hope and moral values of American Civilization.
Many traditional Americans believe that where there is life, there is hope. Certainly, then, where there is abortion there is despair. Plainly put, what hope is their for a nation whose women do not want to have children?
When he ran for the U. S. Senate, Barack Hussein Obama dismissed the abortion issue as irrelevant. He said, "As I travel around this state, I don't get asked about gay marriage, I don't get asked about abortion. I get asked, 'How can I find a job that allows me to support my family?'"
Perhaps, now, while he travels around the country as a candidate for President, others will ask him how he can have hope and at the same time support abortions. If Senator Barack Hussein Obama says the lives of our soldiers are wasted in Iraq, then he should know that the lives of those aborted are also wasted.
It is difficult for politicians to look into the future, because power is what they want and power is for the moment. This is the same moment in which most of us live. So, whatever hope Senator Barack Hussein Obama offers is more a hope for the moment than for truth.
Truth would show at the very least how over fifty years in Chicago the Democrats and their policies have taken away hope and replaced it with first a plantation and now a hacienda. It was not despair that destroyed the community at 63rd and Halsted in Chicago. It was devastation brought on by Democratic, urban politics and neglect.
Some are struck these days by how our politics is approaching a point of crisis similar to the crisis that proceeded the Civil War. Then, every politician tried to ignore the obvious. That ignorance worked until the cannons fired on Fort Sumter and over sixty-thousand eventually died in the ensuing years of war.
Countless others lived in a daze, but the union that President Lincoln believed in was preserved. Now, we may be caught on a surging tide of history, just like our ancestors were. We may think we have control to shape our destiny, but events happen, surprises come out of the blue, and the unexpected coalesces with the unknown.
In partisan politics as in winter, the wolf, draped in the wool of hope cannot remain unknown for long. Expect, then, that the idealism of youth will be undermined. In Chicago, the politics of hope slips easily into the politics of betrayal. When will Mayor Daley announce that he no longer supports Senator Barack Hussein Obama for President, but supports Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, instead?
As shocking as it may seem to some in Chicago, Mayor Daley's endorsement could prove to be irrelevant. The next Presidential election may be decided in the suburbs, not in the city. It was the Republican suburbs that elected Eisenhower. Kennedy's and President Bush's elections were also decided by a suburban vote. Presidential hopefuls will go most likely to Schaumburg before they go to Englewood.
What, then, of those 34 percent who vote in Chicago? Some hope for a hallow peace instead of a brave victory. Some hope for abortion instead of life. Some want lakeside parks for tourists instead of safe neighborhoods for Chicagoans. Are these the political compromises we hope to make in order to get by? "Alas," as one commentator wrote, Senator Barack Hussein Obama's "...muddled, uninspiring proposals bear the stamp of those compromises." While a few men from Chicago hope for political gain, others hope for something beyond.
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