Comments | jordan179: "Is Obama an Enlightened Being?"

jordan179

"Is Obama an Enlightened Being?"

Jul 26, 2008 16:37

Courtesy of Mark Morford, SF Gate columnist, who is not kidding in his article "Is Obama an Enlightened Being?":

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/06/06/notes060608.DTL

Barack Obama isn't really one of us. Not in the ( Read more... )

obama, charismatic leaders, 2008 election

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john_j_enright July 27 2008, 04:25:54 UTC

Nice Fisking! Also, excellent history on JFK. That's how it was. The "peaceful JFK" is an alternate universe character.

JFK, Martyr and Saint jordan179 July 27 2008, 05:29:50 UTC

Also, excellent history on JFK. That's how it was. The "peaceful JFK" is an alternate universe character.

Having actually studied the history of the Cold War (in college, in the 1980's when it was still ongoing), I find the conspiracy-theories' pacifist martyr version of JFK surreal, along with the notion that he was murdered over the issue of Vietnam.

If you actually read accounts of his Administration, his disagreements with the military over Vietnam amounted to reinforcement schedules. Both JFK and the military commanders agreed with the general notion that US troops needed to be brought in to stablize the situation; the only issue was which troops and how fast. Literally, it boiled down to conflicting estimates of the relative worth of airpower versus infantry, armored cavalry versus airmobile units, and how many to dispatch over the next few months ( ... )

Re: JFK, Martyr and Saint cutelildrow July 27 2008, 07:02:03 UTC

But... but they ARE your friends! They only killed him because he was against them! Because he was supporting the Allah-be-cursed Jewish Pigs, may Allah burn them! He deserved to die, and Allah be praised, he is now burning on the coals of his sins!

/sarcasm

Speaking of alternate realities, this little dream I had should amuse you, if nothing else because of the scrambling of political landscape.

Re: JFK, Martyr and Saint eric_hinkle July 28 2008, 17:55:21 UTC

Very OT, but I love your various LJ icons, cutelildrow. Do you make them yourself?

And yes, once you understand history, the whole "JFK was a pacifist" does seem like an odd argument.

Re: JFK, Martyr and Saint cutelildrow July 28 2008, 22:58:55 UTC

Some of them, I did (the one above was ganked from a Lineage II fancomic, cleaned up, and words added; others are just resized and cropped and need no words because of the expression) some I drew, my default sleeping, exhausted online avatar was a gift from a friend, the rest are obtained from all over the place (message boards, asked from people, and some found in the depths of my hard drive.)

Understanding history is too much of an effort for a lot of people, I've observed; it requires too much reading (and reading, that's for geeks!) and most people find it intensely boring (depends on the teacher hahahaha). Most people prefer recent events to history - in and out, flash in the (brain)pan; yet do not consider that our present becomes history. The ones that DO realize it are the ones who think "hmmm, better act a bit smarter, I don't want future generations laughing at me because I was a raging idiot."

Re: JFK, Martyr and Saint eric_hinkle July 29 2008, 18:06:46 UTC

Understanding history is too much of an effort for a lot of people, I've observed; it requires too much reading (and reading, that's for geeks!) and most people find it intensely boring (depends on the teacher hahahaha).

I find the latter half of your comment sadly true. History can be so amazing -- more fascinating that any novel ever written -- yet when it's taught it's usually done in such a dull fashion that the students couldn;t care less.

I still wonder if it's a pity that I probably learned more about history (and several other subjects) from my own reading after leaving school than I ever did as an actual student.

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