Fault lines of Obama’s mind By Dr. David Hill
The Bear on May 08 2008 at 8:24 am | Filed under: Election 08’
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) believes that investigations of his questionable relationships — with dubious characters like Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko and William Ayers — is nearing an end as the public tires of persistent inquiries into the past of its newfound prince and his one-time courtiers. But Obama may face a new and more serious scrutiny, one that doesn’t look back at past outward associations, but that instead looks inward. The mind of Barack Obama is about to get a once-over.
Political psychology has always been one of the most interesting and broadly embraced genres of political science.
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Soon, psychologists will focus on Obama’s personality and potential pathologies associated with what researchers refer to as “status inconsistency.” Obama recently opened a window onto this fascinating topic when he became incensed at charges from the Clinton and McCain campaigns that he is elitist. After letting the charge linger for a few days, Obama finally had had enough and self-righteously exploded with his side of the story — that he grew up with fewer means and advantages than either of the other two presidential finalists. So we know that there is some smoldering resentment and angst in the now-yuppiefied memory of the likely Democratic nominee. Status inconsistency theory suggests that the great divide between what Barack was as a child and what he is today can distort personality.
The other obvious status-inconsistency issue for Obama is race. Is Obama black, an American of African descent, white, multiracial or what? For the politi cal psychologist, it is not important what the public thinks of this issue. Rather, the crux of the issue is Obama’s self-identity. The obvious conclusion is that pondering this issue creates some cognitive dissonance for the Illinois senator. When Obama is beating Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) in Southern states like North Carolina, based mainly on his success in the African-American community, shouldn’t he deeply respond, psychologically, to his blackness? But when he is punking Clinton in red states because of his charismatic appeal to young white voters, does he think of his white Kansas roots? And might that thought disturbingly remind him that his own white grandmother, according to his recent revelations, fears black men?
Another potential area of status inconsistency that could roil Obama’s mind is his representation of Illinois, a state known for serious political corruption. I believe that Obama thinks of himself as a Dudley Do-Right, an upstanding, honest guy. So the fact that some voters may assume otherwise about someone from Illinois probably haunts him.
Related
Revealed: Obama’s dad polygamist, alcoholic By Jerome R. Corsi
In his autobiographical book “Dreams from My Father,” Barack Obama paints a heroic picture of his father as having emerged from a poor Kenyan village, where he was nothing more than a simple goat herder, to become a Harvard-educated economist, destined to return to Africa to fulfill his promise.
Unfortunately, the reality is much bleaker than the tale Obama tells in his book.
In truth, Barack Obama senior, Obama’s father, was a polygamist who had already abandoned one wife and child in Africa when he met Obama’s mother in Hawaii.
After being educated at Harvard, Obama senior returned to Africa, abandoning Obama and his mother, to live the life of a chronic alcoholic who ultimately killed himself in his second drink-induced car accident, while driving drunk on the streets of Nairobi.
And then there is this from Weatherman William “Bill” Ayers own website…
In November 2006 at World Education Forum in Caracas, Venezuela he had this to say….
(Excerpts from his speech)
President Hugo Chavez, Vice-President Vicente Rangel, Ministers Moncada and Isturiz, invited guests,comrades. I’m honored and humbled to be here with you this morning. I bring greetings and support from your brothers and sisters throughout Northamerica. Welcome to the World Education Forum! Amamos la revolucion Bolivariana!
This is my fourth visit to Venezuela, each time at the invitation of my comrade and friend Luis Bonilla, a brilliant educator and inspiring fighter for justice. Luis has taught me a great deal about the Bolivarian Revolution and about the profound educational reforms underway here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chavez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution, and I’ve come to appreciate Luis as a major asset in both the Venezuelan and the international struggle—I look forward to seeing how he and all of you continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane. Thank you, Luis, for everything you’ve done.
I also thank my youngest son, Chesa Boudin, who is interpreting my talk this morning and whose book on the Bolivarian revolution has played an important part in countering the barrage of lies spread by the U.S. State Department and the corrupted North American media.
I began teaching when I was 20 years old in a small freedom school affiliated with the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The year was 1965, and I’d been arrested in a demonstration. Jailed for ten days, I met several activists who were finding ways to link teaching and education with deep and fundamental social change. They were following Dewey and DuBois, King and Helen Keller who wrote: “We can’t have education without revolution. We have tried peace education for 1,900 years and it has failed. Let us try revolution and see what it will do now.”
I walked out of jail and into my first teaching position—and from that day until this I’ve thought of myself as a teacher, but I’ve also understood teaching as a project intimately connected with social justice. After all, the fundamental message of the teacher is this: you can change your life—whoever you are, wherever you’ve been, whatever you’ve done, another world is possible. As students and teachers begin to see themselves as linked to one another, as tied to history and capable of collective action, the fundamental message of teaching shifts slightly, and becomes broader, more generous: we must change ourselves as we come together to change the world. Teaching invites transformations, it urges revolutions small and large. La educacion es revolucion!
I taught at first in something like a Simoncito—called Head Start—and eventually taught at every level in barrios and prisons and insurgent projects across the United States. I learned then that education is never neutral. It always has a value, a position, a politics. Education either reinforces or challenges the existing social order, and school is always a contested space – what should be taught? In what way? Toward what end? By and for whom?
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Totalitarianism demands obedience and conformity, hierarchy, command and control. Royalty requires allegiance. Capitalism promotes racism and militarism – turning people into consumers, not citizens.
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Education contributes to human liberation to the extent that people reflect on their lives, and, becoming more conscious, insert themselves as subjects in history.
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Education is not preparation for life, but rather education is life itself ,an active process in which everyone— students and teachers– participates as co-learners.
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Despite being under constant attack from within and from abroad, the Bolivarian revolution has made astonishing strides in a brief period: from the Mission Simoncito to the Mission Robinson to the Mission Ribas to the Mission Sucre, to the Bolivarian schools and the UBV, Venezuelans have shown the world that with full participation, full inclusion, and popular empowerment, the failings of capitalist schooling can be resisted and overcome. Venezuela is a beacon to the world in its accomplishment of eliminating illiteracy in record time, and engaging virtually the entire population in the ongoing project of education.
Visit his website here… You will find it very informative.
SideBear: And with that I will close with this video ARBEITER EINHEITSFRONT…
The marching hymn of Socialist and Marxist.
Lest we forget what we fight for!
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