Cute War Criminal Pictures

I'd already seen these pictures online when a friend posted them on Facebook, gushing that you should leave politics out of it, they are just beautiful HUMAN BEINGS!  A couple of her friends gushed along with her.  I mentioned that Obama is a war criminal, and pointed out that Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki was a human being too, but my comment has disappeared, along perhaps (I haven't checked) with the photos.  I'm impressed that my friend didn't unfriend me, but I think I was moderate to a fault.

After all, the people in the wedding parties Obama droned were human beings too.  So were the people in the hospitals he bombed.  So were the people in Libya killed by his NATO bombing campaign.  So were the Yemeni adults and children killed by the weapons and support Obama gave Saudi Arabia to wage war against them.  So were people in various countries on which he imposed sanctions.  So were the Central American refugee kids he callously sent back to danger and death in the countries they fled.  But their humanity doesn't begin to balance the sublime beauty of Barack and Michelle, and it's "politics" to remember it.

It would be one thing if Obama's cult acknowledged his murderous record but honestly declared their support for it.  It would still be heinous, but it could be engaged with.  But accurately describing a politician's (a Democratic politician's, anyway) record is a smear, racist, sexist, whatever.  What most appalls me is that they are unaware of his record.  Even when the stories were covered in the corporate media, they just slid harmlessly off the teflon brains of Obama loyalists and went down the memory hole.

Noam Chomsky has used the analogy of ants: when he (or anyone) walks down the street, he probably steps on and kills numerous small insects.  This isn't because he hates ants; they just aren't important enough to him to impel him to watch out for them.  Similarly, my friend and other Obama fans don't hate Afghan wedding parties or hospital patients or Yemeni children: their lives simply don't matter to them.  They might care a little more about Yemeni children now that it's Donald Trump helping Saudi Arabia to kill them, but not much more from what I see, and they didn't care at all when Obama was in charge.  It's like the "When Clinton Lied Nobody Died" bumper stickers I saw for a few years during the George W. Bush regime: many innocent people died because of Bill Clinton, but they were nobody, and Clinton's defenders easily brush aside any attempt to remind them of what happened to nobody.  Another friend was surprised when I recounted Clinton's record to her at length.  She didn't remember any of it, though she is my age and was sentient and conscious between 1992 and 2000.  I fear she's forgotten it again since then, and we haven't discussed Obama.

Are the lives of nobody "politics"?  I'm not sure.  I don't think one can or should separate politics, whatever that means, from recently-former Presidents.  Now that Dubya himself has been taken under the shelter of the Obamas' wings, his crimes forgiven and forgotten, so that liberal Democrats consider it unfair to bring them up, what are we allowed to remember?  I doubt that they'll grant the same amnesty to Trump when he's out of office, however he leaves.

I'm In Ur Private Plane Surfing Ur Kite

I haven't had occasion to post any Cute Obama Pictures for some time, but I imagine we'll be seeing plenty more now that he's handed repressive surveillance, privatizing Social Security, and drone killings along to Donald Trump.  The AV Club fawns.

Where will Obama’s sick adventures take him next? Skydiving? Getting an ankle tattoo of a turtle? Paintball at his cousin’s property up by the reservoir? Edibles? It’s hard to say, but his future looks so sick, he’s going to have to wear rainbow-gradient Oakley shades. 

One commenter gushed, "I would give my life for Mr. President Obama if he parachuted into N. Korea and personally executed Kim Jong-Un."  But Kim Jong-Un is already cool.

Eleven Dimensional Twister?

I haven't posted a Cute Obama Picture here for a while, mainly I think because I haven't seen as many recently.  But this one crawled into my news feed not long ago, so believe and tremble.

I decided to do another post today when I got another message of links from Daily Kos, and right at the top was "Obama Has Rope-a-Doped These GOP Clowns Hard."  It's by a Kos blogger and Obama cheerleader called MinistryOfTruth, whom I remember from last year.  As a writer he's a good cheerleader, and as I noticed before, he seems unaware of the irony in his pseudonym, which refers to the ministry in charge of lies in George Orwell's 1984.  MoT chose better than he knew, giving away his game in advance.

The post is basically devoid of content, and MoT again reveals himself to be insensitive to irony and history.  We've heard before about Obama using the rope-a-dope against his hapless GOP opponents, most notably during the debt-ceiling clown show of 2011.  At that time, you may recall, Obama agreed to budget cuts that some members of his cult hailed as a rope-a-dope trick that would ultimately bring his GOP adversaries down.  When these cuts took effect, they were known as the Sequester, with everybody (including Obama) howling about how awful they were, how they threatened not only America but Civilization itself.  Each party blamed the other, with Obama and Boehner each trying to forget his role in producing the mess.  Who won that one?  Neither one, as far as I can tell, but the losers were, as usual, the ninety-nine percent, the vast majority of Americans.  Given Obama's record, I think it's safe to expect a similar outcome this time.

Bomb Bomb Assad, Plus Thousands of Civilians

An old friend posted a link to a story from the Onion today, which satirically imagined the managing editor of CNN.com explaining why Miley Cyrus's performance at the Video Music Awards was their top story today: it was a cynical move to get more web traffic.  It wasn't one of the Onion's better efforts.  (This one was better.)  Those who clicked through the Cyrus story and related items like the accompanying "Evolution of Miley" slideshow have only themselves to blame.  Still, it is possible to read about Miley Cyrus and the violence in Syria, Egypt, or elsewhere.  At least I think it is; I don't turn to CNN for serious news coverage anyway.  And I still can't be bothered to see what Cyrus did at the VMA the other night.

A mutual friend, someone I've known for almost as long, commented: "It's really a pathetic commentary on American homo sapiens that far more will weigh in on Cyrus than what's happening in Syria."  Someone else wrote "Miley's sexy dance was shown on the 'celeb news' in Germany, too. It was very awkward to watch, but I don't see how it needs to be international news... Then again, we also get more updates on Syria and even on the fire in California than we do 'in case you give a shit what American stars do in their spare time, here are some clips.'"  (I don't think that appearing and performing on a professional awards program counts as "spare time" -- it's part of the job.  But whatever.)

I'm hoping my friends aren't mistaking a piece from the Onion for real news.  I'm sure of the person who posted this link, not so sure about the second person.  She can put her mind at rest, though.  Judging by what people I know post to Facebook, artery-clogging recipes, exhortations to "like" Jesus or children with cancer, inspirational quotations, cat videos and cute Obama pictures far outnumber any weighing-in on Miley Cyrus.

When I travel I sometimes watch a little CNN on the hotel TVs.  Last time (before this month) I was in San Francisco, in September 2012, CNN's evening coverage devoted a couple of hours to Syria.  The gay anchor, what's-his-name Anderson, did a story on the possibility of private citizens legally supplying weapons to the rebels, which he clearly favored.  Right-wing wackette Erin Burnette was also, as I recall, very concerned about Syria.  From what I see in media-watch media like FAIR, the corporate media have maintained a fairly steady drumbeat of Syria coverage.  More recently, Obama has floated the possibility of the US government arming the rebels, and that has hardly escaped notice by the corporate media.  Democracy Now!, not a corporate program but a lefty/liberal one, has reports of Syrian casualties almost daily. The US government has been steadily supplying anonymous government officials to accuse Assad's regime of using chemical weapons, though actual evidence has been sparse, and I'm skeptical of the new claims for just that reason.  So I think it's ridiculous to accuse the US corporate media of ignoring Syria in favor of celebrity antics.  Maybe they haven't covered Syria 24/7, but by that standard, my friend herself would be guilty of not weighing in on Syria enough on Facebook.  For shame!  The Flying Spaghetti Monster will be ashamed of her in the world to come.

So, what would be a preferable alternative?  From the viewpoint of a non-elite US citizen, I don't know.  Should I be writing to the corporate media to urge them to provide more US-friendly propaganda about Syria, or to take an editorial stand in favor of US intervention?  If so, I refuse.  I'm open to suggestions for constructive actions that citizens or the government could take, but I haven't heard any.  Who is gullible enough to believe that Obama cares at all about the plight of the Syrian people?  (I was going to include Vladimir Putin in that question, but Putin doesn't matter here: he's a bad man, but he's not a US politician.)  Who is gullible enough to believe that a US intervention would have a good outcome -- for the Syrians, I mean, not for Obama's approval ratings or for the bank accounts of profiteers?  Plenty of people, to answer my own rhetorical question, and I find that a lot more worrisome than the numbers who are concerned because a twenty-year-old young woman danced suggestively on MTV.  The US is not and never has been interested in the welfare of people in the countries we attack, despite our humanitarian protestations.  Arming the rebels, who as far as I know are not good guys either, would be the first US step but it wouldn't be the last.  Remember when we were just going to impose a "no-fly zone" on Libya?  Obama was able to avoid any US casualties there, which is all that matters because only US military lives are of any value.  The Libyan civilians who died?  Who cares?  Not most American "progressives."

So when John Kerry -- not a person for whom I have any respect -- gets all stern and serious about the evil acts of Assad, I know something bad is going to happen.  Probably not for the US, though.  Anyone who gets behind the Obama gang on this discredits themselves.  If anyone has any serious ideas how to help the Syrian people without supporting a US or UN or (Cthulhu help us) NATO intervention, I'd be interested in hearing them.  But I don't see any point at all in griping because Miley Cyrus got some coverage.  Better that than the latest batch of foreign policy "experts" doing a CNN roundtable on any subject.  Let them talk about Miley instead.

What Does He Know?

The election is over, but the saga continues.  Thanks to the reader who passed this one along to me.

'Cause He's the One

Though the election is now behind us, the Cute Obama Pictures juggernaut grinds on.  It won't end until all resistance has been crushed, and every knee is bowed and every tongue has confessed that he is Lord.

I mean, c'mon, would a war criminal allow a picture like this to be released?

Sure he would, and he did.  But it's so cute!  You have to be a total hater not to love him.

Then there was this one, which came my way from my liberal law-professor friend:

This is a really vile distortion of the history of the Civil Rights Movement, and of race in America.  Rosa Parks "sat" -- that is, she refused to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama -- as a first step to break through Jim Crow segregation, and the ensuing bus boycott was for all African-Americans, not just to give Martin Luther King a leg up.  The Civil Rights Movement itself didn't just consist of a few charismatic individuals: there were thousands of courageous people who put their lives on the line in that cause.  This is important to stress because of the American tendency to ignore or vilify organization and solidarity in favor of the Hero who smashes injustice single-handed, and then passes the torch to his or her successor.

Likewise, Martin Luther King was a spokesman for a movement much greater than he, and without which he'd have been nothing.  Sometimes he had to run just to keep up with it himself.  No doubt he was interested in African-Americans' being elected to political office, and he wouldn't have objected to an African-American president, though it's fair to wonder what he'd have thought about the African-American president we in fact got, who used the occasion of winning a wholly unmerited Nobel Peace Prize to jeer at everything King stood for.  (Very neatly, and savagely, dissected here.)

As for Barack Obama, well, he doesn't really give a damn about anyone else's children, leaving aside his penchant for killing them.  (And cheering on other leaders who kill them.)  I've always been critical of the tendency to turn him into a Civil Rights hero, because although he stands on that movement's shoulders he clearly views it as his footstool, to be used for his own advancement and then tossed aside.  As Shirley Sherrod, whom he fired in a vain attempt to appease the racist Republican right, tells it (via):

[Ta-Nehisi Coates] asked [Shirley] Sherrod if she thought the president had a grasp of the specific history of the region and of the fights waged and the sacrifices made in order to make his political journey possible. “I don’t think he does,” Sherrod said. “When he called me [shortly after the incident], he kept saying he understood our struggle and all we’d fought for. He said, ‘Read my book and you’ll see.’ But I had read his book.” ...

In her new memoir, The Courage to Hope, she writes about a different kind of tears: when she discussed her firing with her family, her mother, who’d spent her life facing down racism at its most lethal, simply wept. “What will my babies say?,” Sherrod cried to her husband, referring to their four small granddaughters. “How can I explain to my children that I got fired by the first black president?”

And fired not because she'd done anything wrong, mind you.  The basis for her ejection was a falsified videotape, edited by the unlamented Andrew Breitbart to make her look bad.  She was barely out the door when the hoax was exposed.  Her boss had the resources to see if she deserved to be dismissed, but he couldn't be bothered.

Meanwhile he's working to extend the War on Terror indefinitely, so that "our children can fly" predator drones, forever.  What's appalling about stuff like this is that Obama cultists aren't content merely to insist that Obama is preferable to, say, Mitt Romney: they feel that they must exalt him as a hero and very nearly a saint -- which he isn't.

Blow Out the Candles, Malia

Another in a series.

OMFG that is so adorable!!!  I have to vote for him now, right away!  How could I ever have doubted him?  If Malia has the same birthday as America, then God must want Barack to be President for ever and ever!  It's all in His plan!

I shut off my Tabloid Friend's feed to my wall on Facebook a couple of days ago, because it had reached a level of shrillness that I didn't feel like dealing with anymore, attempting to match Republican hysteria point for point.  And the party national conventions haven't even taken place yet!  Both Obama and Romney are the candidates presumptive, without having been formally nominated.  I keep hearing about how expensive this campaign is going to be, with ominous letters from the Obama machine warning that he'll be "the first president in modern history to be outspent in his re-election campaign, if things continue as they have so far."  Obama outspent McCain in 2008, too -- does that mean that it's not the best candidate who wins, but the one with more money?  I don't think the President's devotees want to think about that too much.

But I have other Obamabot friends who are still passing along the memes, if less mechanically and obsessively than Tabloid Friend; one of them who shared the image above.  Four months to Election Day: it's going to be a long, hard pull.

It's not that I wish Obama's daughters anything but well.  It's not their fault their father is president.  But the moist, creepy doting on them that so many Obama devotees (most of them women, I think) indulge isn't balanced by any attention to issues or policy or reason.  A few days I quoted an Obama loyalist who insisted that most voters base their choice on "tribal loyalties and misunderstood rumors," not on policy or rationality, as "we" wise elites do.  But one thing that emerges from the battlegrounds of political debate is that any attempt to discuss policy or issues rationally (even away from TV cameras or the columns of the elite print media) will be met with furious denunciation and abuse.  If anything, it seems to be educated, respectable, nice party members who base their votes purely on tribal loyalties and misunderstood rumors.  Attention to issues is a usurpation by the mob, or perhaps by malignant outside agitators trying to stir up the mob, of the rights and privileges of those who are anointed to rule.

Cuter by the Minute

Latest in a series.  Notice the placement of the word "we": that might have worked a tad better if Michelle's name had been appended to it.  I don't imagine those words were written by Barack either, so it doesn't really matter.  "Without interference from the government" gives me pause, too.  Does government funding for poor women's reproductive choices constitute "interference," I wonder?  Does allowing the number of doctors who perform abortions to dwindle so that the right to choose becomes nominal, except for those who have the money to travel, as it was before 1973?  Don't mind me, I'm just cynical, and I have a book I want to finish reading tonight.

Vote for the Cutest

The latest in a series.  According to the New York Times article where it appeared, it's three years old but is still on a West Wing wall because people like it so much.  I do too.  But I first saw it when it showed up on Facebook yesterday, the writer Pearl Cleage was gushing about it, and so it fits into the Cute Obama Pics category.

David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s longtime adviser, has a copy framed in his Chicago office. He said of Jacob, “Really, what he was saying is, ‘Gee, you’re just like me.’ And it doesn’t take a big leap to think that child could be thinking, ‘Maybe I could be here someday.’ This can be such a cynical business, and then there are moments like that that just remind you that it’s worth it.”

Being the hater that I am, the first thing that occurred to me was what it means to "be here someday."  At a press conference closing last week's NATO conference in Chicago, with the attendant police violence and military lockdown of the city, Obama was upbeat:

"And the Chicago police -- Chicago's finest did a great job under, you know, some significant pressure and a lot of scrutiny. The only other thing I'll say about this is thank you to everybody who endured the traffic situation.

"Obviously Chicago residents who had difficulties getting home or getting to work or what have you, you know, that's -- what can I tell you? That's -- that's part of the price of being a world city.

"But this was a great showcase. And if it makes those folks feel any better, despite being 15 minutes away from my house, nobody would let me go home. I was thinking I would be able to sleep in my own bed tonight. They said I would cause even worse traffic. So I ended up staying in a hotel, which contributes to the Chicago economy. "

You see?  Even the Commander in Chief has to make sacrifices.  And if that little kid works hard, someday he can be there too: killing teenagers with predator drones, stuffing uncooperative journalists and random American students into Yemeni prisons, snooping on your telephone conversations and mine.  (I haven't written yet about the NATO conference, but I'd recommend this face-off about NATO from Democracy Now!  It's obvious to me that Obama is ultimately responsible for the storm-trooper tactics of the Chicago police, even if Chicago weren't his political home base and even if the Mayor weren't his crony and former chief of staff.  The people who planned it all must have reported to the President.)

I also remembered something that Thurgood Marshall said late in his illustrious career: that he no longer felt he could go around telling black students that if they worked hard, they could become the one black Justice on the Supreme Court, just like he had.

Also interesting has been the abrupt about-face of many African-American Christians on same-sex marriage since the President declared his support for it.  It's always inspiring to see people think for themselves, and as I've said before, it's educational to see how easily principled, Bible-based opposition to civilization-threatening change can evaporate, almost overnight.

His Eye Is on the Sparrow

The latest in what's becoming a series.  Barack loves me, this I know ...

Meanwhile the forces of Freedom are killing civilians, including children (via).  Of course this poses no difficulty to the True Believer, who simply reminds you that yes, He knows there is suffering in the world, and it makes Him so sad, because He loves; what could our mere human suffering be, compared to His?

The Fools Think About the Clever People, Of Course

My Tabloid Friend on Facebook posted this image to his news feed last night.  Of course, it never entered his mind, or the minds of his commenters who liked it, that Bernstein could have been talking about them.  No, it must be about the Reichtards, the wingnuts, the religious wackos.  Democrats, and especially pro-Obama Democrats, are smart.

I'm listening to a speech by Thomas Frank on Alternative Radio, on "Ideology Over Reality."  He's having fun telling how people like Eric Cantor, confronted with the information that Ronald Reagan raised taxes, simply refuse to believe it.  "Ideology," Frank calls that, but I think he's wrong there.  It's the cult of personality, which trumps both ideology and reality, and Tabloid Friend's posts bear witness to it.  (What does the President know?  Who cares?  He'll burp us.  He'll cover us with his feathers, and give us shelter under his wings.)

Can 50,000,000 Obama Fans Be Wrong? (Second Go-round)

I don't know the ultimate source of this photo, but my Tabloid Friend on Facebook reposted it today from another user. The previous poster commented:

Man .. these folks have been a-huggin' up on each other for quite awhile. Here's another piece of my "positivity carpet-bombing campaign" .. It's called L-O-V-E, y'all.

Haters .. don't hate .. just participate.

And he added, "You can see the peace she finds in his arms .. WOW!!"

This must be another talking point for the Obama campaign, focusing on personalities rather than issues. If anyone wants to talk about drone attacks that kill civilians (but not in huge numbers) or the erosion of civil liberties, just bring out the adorable pictures and demand that everybody say "Awwww!" If you don't go along with it, you're a "hater." I've been called worse.

It's a cute picture, all right, but it also shows how little you can tell from a snapshot, which in this case dates from before Obama's emergence as a national political figure anyway, before he'd been coached in posing for effective campaign photo ops. Michelle is hugging Barry, but he's not hugging back. He looks uncomfortable and distracted, though he may just be squinting in the sun. It looks like more of a "Quit hangin' on me, woman!" pose than a "Baby, baby, baby" pose to me.

Which doesn't mean there was trouble in paradise; I have no idea what it means, since I wasn't there and I don't know the Obamas' history. What I do mean is that it's not a romantic photo, and not a very good illustration for the the original poster's caption. But the important thing for the Obama campaign is to flood us with reasons to love Obama personally and distract us from his record. I have no doubt that Ronald and Nancy Reagan loved each other just as much, or George W. and Laura Bush for that matter. It's nice for them, but is no more relevant to Obama's (or Bush's or Reagan's) performance in office than Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton's considerably less warm and fuzzy relationship.

Another commenter, who claims to be able "to tell a lot from snapshots," just chimed in with "I love the way he is squeezing her shoulder and holding onto her jacket collar, they look at ease and just comfortable with each other..." It doesn't look to me like Barry's squeezing her shoulder or holding on to her jacket collar", but look and decide for yourself. And even if she's right, even if I agree that they're a "magnificent couple," what conclusion should I draw from the fact that a man who "look[s] at ease and just comfortable with" his young wife (long before he became President, mind you) can also joke about killing people with predator drones?

P.S. Yesterday someone wrote somewhere about Obama's golf game that it must drive a lot of Republican politicians crazy that a black man has a better swing than they do. No evidence that Obama's game is that good, of course, but it occurs to me now that it might be fruitful to compare Obama to Tiger Woods. Woods also had to contend with racism as he rose to fame and fortune. There must have been white golf fans who were furious to see a black man beating white men in a "gentleman's" game. But that didn't change the fact that Woods was, to put it mildly, a terrible sportsman, given to regular tantrums on the golf course, a player for whom winning was the only thing. This is much less important than Obama's war crimes and disdain for the Constitution, of course. The parallel I'm drawing is that though racism surely underlies a lot of right-wing criticism of Obama, he continues to show that he's not a decent man, no matter how well he photographs with his wife.

If You're Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands

BTCNews has this charming photo of our President, and elsewhere this suggestion for dealing with dunning e-mails from the Democratic Party.

I wrote back to tell her that if she can explain to my satisfaction why the president named walking tumor Alan Simpson to head a wholly unnecessary deficit reduction commission, and why the president thinks he has the authority to assassinate US citizens on his own say-so, I will send her $5 by midnight Tuesday despite being on a fixed income of the sort that Alan Simpson despises. She probably gets a lot of email but since she doesn’t spend a lot of time sending it I’m hoping she’ll find the time to respond to mine before the Tuesday midnight deadline. I want to help!

I want to help, too! I want to help Barack Obama return to private life and a cozy cell in the Hague, next to George W. Bush.