Why We Are Excited About Obama And Why He Can’t Win
Shelby Steele – ISBN – 9781416559177

This essay is in keeping with, and a specific expansion upon his book White Guilt (published in 2006, a review of which is available on this site.)

Here Steele elaborates upon those same observations, but applies them specifically to Barack Obama in his quest for “blackness” and the presidency. The pair might have been published together with the title “Black vs. White in America, Fostering Greater Understanding.”

He notes that in order to advantageously position themselves in America blacks have had two options: challenging (currently Jackson or Sharpton, and previously the Panthers: Newton, Carmichael & Brown), or bargaining (Winfrey or Obama, and previously Poitier or Cosby). With the former there are implicit threats to--and demands upon—whites; the latter accept and trust that fair treatment will be accorded in exchange for mutual pleasantries pursuant the negotiation. Challengers get no gratitude, but do achieve power and money; bargainers gain affection and love, and commonly money as well as power, albeit of a different sort. Moreover, they are likely to be acknowledged as equals. A person can be one or the other persona but not both.

As an example he observes that for years Cosby was a bargainer, but his recent change is viewed by other blacks as hostile. He has become a challenger, and worse, since he challenges blacks. He now voices the rational societal rules which require discipline and responsibility for success, insisting that blacks have to improve themselves instead of depending upon whites to alleviate their problems. Now he is seen as being in the enemy camp, no longer a hero to his race.

Obama risks black wrath when bargaining, which is necessary to gain white acceptance, as he risks white rejection if he challenges. He cannot do both. Like Prometheus he is bound (hence the title.)

Barack has largely rejected his manifest ability to join mainstream society in questing to be black, and seems to be attempting to be in both camps, as he attempts to be all to everyone.

Steele sights numerous quotations from Obama’s prior writing to support that observation. Amongst myriad others, an early love of his life, also of mixed race, challenged Barack to explain why she had to choose to be black, noting:

• “It’s not white people who are making me choose. Maybe it used to be that way, but now they’re willing to treat me like a person. No—it’s black people who always have to make everything racial. They’re the ones making me choose. They’re the ones who are telling me I can’t be who I am.”

• “The chance to be yourself, racial self-acceptance—is not with blackness; it is in the same American mainstream [from whence you came.]”

She emphasized her trust in mainstream America more than black America to respect her for who she is and wishes to be.

Barack, intent on establishing his black “credentials” has chosen to disassociate himself from this mainstream position, diligently working to fit within black society and radical bastions, making it virtually impossible for him to be a bridge candidate and a healer of divisions. He has become just another liberal politician. Indeed, the most liberal in the Senate. While potentially an Icon, he is squandering his real potential as a candidate, and denying himself the opportunity to be who he really is—or is capable of being.

The rest you’ll have to read . . . and you definitely should, since it is as much about the black dilemma in America as it is about Obama himself.

It is enlightening, expository, insightful, and extremely well written.

J.G. Ballard – ISBN – 9780743265232

Immediately after Pearl Harbor the Japanese launched all out war in the Pacific, beginning in the Philippines and in Shanghai where Ballard’s family were English merchants. This novel encapsulates the experiences of its English author, an adolescent prisoner in a Japanese prison camp in China during WWII. It is a first person narrative embroidered with reliable hearsay into a metered exposition of the horrors of China itself, the war, the loss of fear in some situations, and the longing for death in other circumstances, when incarcerated and alone, as he was at the time.

He begins by describing the life of the expatriate communities (representing virtually all western countries), and does so largely in flash-backs. As well, he provides graphic descriptions of the ghastly life of the Chinese peasants of the era. This is an enlightening discussion of the “facts on the ground,” woven into a personal narrative of survival in an era and in a culture which most of us have never known much about, and never explored. It is informative, colorful, eloquent, fulsome, and engrossing. Much of the account describes the savage nature of Japanese occupation and the inherently punishing culture of the Chinese.

While not always an easy read, he explores the consequences of twentieth century technology in relating the flashes from the explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as he lays the groundwork for an understanding of the fact that, co-extant with WW II was the internecine war amongst the Chinese. He explains that as WW II war ended, the Chinese immediately began their separate war between Mao Tse Tung’s Communists and Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists.

It is a worthwhile read, and reminds of Give Us This Day (ISBN - 9780393319217), Sidney Stewart’s non-fiction account of experiences in Japanese camps and ships after his survival of the Bataan Death March.

Incidentally, I heartily endorse the latter book, the better to understand the horrifying experiences of American prisoners of Japan during that conflict. Reading both expands one’s historic appreciation of the grisly nature of the mid 20th century which is now being repeated in the Middle East. It is obligatory and productive to understand the nature of the enemy now as then.

Answering the Critics
Neal Boortz & John Linder – ISBN - 9780061540462

This is the capstone to their prior book suggesting and explaining the Fair Tax. Ever since the release of that book there has been excessive controversy based upon ignorance of their carefully studied program. In this volume, as is suggested by the title, they take on the critics and explain the malaprops, misunderstandings, misrepresentations and outright lies of the opponents of this proposal . . . to the satisfaction of all but the committed opponents, most of whom willingly suspend logic in order to attack the Fair Tax.

Their proposal is so logical, so simple, so uncomplicated and so right that one has to wonder how there can be any logical opposition. A cadre of tax attorneys and accountants might oppose it because they might become unemployed. Politicians might oppose it because they see that such a tax will emasculate them in some considerable measure. With no tax code, per se, they will be unable to dole out favors to contributing constituents searching favors. Not a few businesses benefit from said favors, and might also be expected to oppose the tax for obvious reasons. But make no mistake, the opponents—almost without exception—are in dire opposition for specific, parochial self-interest.

Imagine eliminating the impact of the IRS and FICA from your life: no income or payroll taxes, no records to keep, no audits, no bank searches, no invasion of your life and privacy! No 1040’s, or short-forms either. No deductions because there are no taxes (of the historic kind.) Imagine receiving your full pay check at week's end. No deductions.

Instead you pay a one-time tax . . . a sales tax, more or less, which is applied only to new goods and services. Buy an old car, a “used” house, whatever: no tax. And for all citizens that tax which would be assessed to essentials up to the poverty limit will be pre-reimbursed so that the poor—and the rest of us—will pay no tax upon purchased goods up to, say, $30-40,000. And imagine no underground economy. All will pay the tax. Only citizens (and legal residents) will receive the reimbursement, know as a prebate. The primary investigations will involve those who try to avoid charging or paying the tax, but they will be few because the penalties are severe.

Since every product purchased already has imbedded taxes, the 20+% end-tax will be largely, and in most cases completely, offset by the elimination of the imbedded taxes. Thus the cost of goods and services will change little, or not at all.

Most rational, however, in addition to those facts mentioned above, the Fair Tax will eliminate over 300 billion dollars in compliance costs to industry and citizens. Imagine what that would do for the economy. That's a hell of a lot of "found money," even in an 11 trillion dollar economy. And even that doesn't include the endless hours of aggravation and pain, or the paper, ink, chemicals and trees spared.

It all sounds complicated, but it isn’t if you carefully read, or re-read the first book and follow-up with the second. I recommend both.

IMAGINE! NO APRIL 15TH !
The time has come!!

A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
Simon Winchester – ISBN – 9780060839789

This fascinating saga is well told by Winchester. The protagonists are Dr. James Murray, editor of the dictionary, and Dr. Wm. Minor, a crucial contributor: Yale graduate, American physician in the Civil War, and schizophrenic “madman” convicted of, and incarcerated for, a bizarre murder in the slums of London.

Murray’s mission was to replace the only dictionary of record: that of Dr. Samuel Johnson, whose rendering had been in existence for over 100 years, and was in its fourth edition.

The author reviews principal biographic details of Murray and Minor, while briefly mentioning others and their contributions to this monumental work. He describes in well selected detail the development of this mind-numbing project which involved 10 times the word count of Johnson’s, and required 10 times as long to complete. It required sorting thru 6 million word-slathered slips of paper compiled by hundreds of unpaid volunteers (over 10,000 from Minor, alone.) In so doing he delivers an absorbing story which otherwise would have been a boring dissertation on an arcane subject.

He deftly chronicles the adventure from initial miscalculations, thru ill suited editors, to reluctant publishers, and ends describing Minor’s exacting standards and methods which endeared him to Murray. Amongst myriad other contributors Murray valued Minor’s “astonishing accuracy and eye for detail.”

Over a period of 30 years Minor became the equivalent of “just in time” production, a century before it was adopted by manufacturers. Every time Murray was struggling over a difficult word-- be it the definition or examples--he contacted Minor, who invariably had it already prepared.

Only after years into the endeavor did Murray discover that Minor was confined to a prison for the criminally insane; and only after that meeting did they establish a friendship which lasted for decades. Murray was instrumental in having Minor released and returned to America in his dotage. Sadly, Minor died in obscurity and was buried in New Haven, CT, in an old cemetery near what now is a slum.

There is much to be discovered about the Victorian era, language, a peculiar friendship and an elaborate unfolding of the line between sanity and madness. It is eloquent testimony to Simon’s own exacting standards of research and his incredible writing skills.

This is my idea of something “light” to read in leisure time, as opposed to murder mysteries and most modern fiction.

Observing the electioneering on the tube last night I was struck, listening to Barak Obama, at the similarities of the scene to those described in The True Believer, by Eric Hoffer over 50 years ago (a book I'd strongly recommend being re-read . . . or read, if you haven't.)

"People in the atmosphere of a mass movement are fashioned into incomplete and dependent human beings . . . The blindness of the fanatic is a source of strength. He sees no obstacles(!) yet is the author of intellectual sterility and emotional monotony. At root it is his conviction that life and the universe must conform to a simple formula--HIS !"

Do I hear change, anyone? Change to what? From what? Where are the "sheepul" being led?

"Mass movements substitute for individual hope. Folks who see their lives as spoiled cannot find a worth-while purpose in self-advancement, and look at self-interest as something tainted. Unless someone sufficient talent to make something of himself, freedom is a burden."

So he's selling hope, but hope for what? Prescribed by whom? To what purpose? Seems I rremember a time not long ago when the man from Hope was selling some of the same stuff. Now it's his wife competing with Barak to see who can offer most.

It is frustrating to witness what is most easily compared to the "Beatle-mania"of the 60's, Elvis in the 50's, or the fainting for Sinatra in the 40's, becoming the political activity of the new century. Politicians always promise more than they can deliver, but one senses that Barak doesn't even recognize that what he promises cannot be delivered. It is politically, economically, socially, and philosophically (not to mention rationally) impossible.

He really believes that what he says is the truth, the whole truth, etc. True believers, as was noted long ago by Hoffer, believe that everyone does--or ought to--believe as they do. Anyone who doesn't is wrong . . . at least!

Our government is not responsible for the people--at least that was not the intention of the founders of our republic. Our problem today is that people too willingly give over to government the responsibility for making life worthwhile. It cannot be done by government, and the sacrifice of the freedom to be in control of one's own destiny is frightful, at least to me. Barak is promising a government solution to everything: safety from the terrorists to security in your mortgage payments. He presumes to take responsibility for all of life's activities in our name. Do we want that? Should we? And if so, can it really be done?

The answer is NO! So, let's try a little analysis and reality, shall we? It's especially important before November's election.

“When hopes and dreams are loose in the streets, it is well for the timid to lock doors, shutter windows and lay low until the wrath has passed. There is often a monstrous incongruity between the hopes, however noble and tender, and the action which follows. It is as if ivied maidens and garlanded youths were to herald the four horsemen of the apocalypse. . . . .”