Refutation of "How Obama Thinks" by D'souza

The story of why I can not and will not support the Tea Party.

A friend of mine sent me this today:

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0927/politics-socialism-capitalism-private-enterprises-obama-business-problem_print.html

He sent it as an "example" of how the Tea Party thinks. Articles like this make me a bit rancorous, so I wrote the following analyrant (analysis/rant).

You know, the interesting thing is that this article is exactly the sort of thing that makes me so against the Tea Party.

First, it makes factually FALSE points.

For example: "Obama underwrites offshore drilling" was published in 2009, and was REFUTED in 2009: https://pod51000.outlook.com/owa/redir.aspx?C=91272bdb25314301a2fb37d7aaeb8ac1&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.snopes.com%2Fpolitics%2Fgasoline%2Fbraziloil.asp

Wall Street Journal, btw, is very conservative-biased, so be careful with them (they do have some good stuff, but also, as you can see, they do tend to be all to happy to publish badly researched stuff, if it aligns with the political bent). Interestingly, notice that Forbes and WSJ, the two magazines/journals mentioned so far, are supported by the finance sector - which is many of the rich today. This should set off your warning lights.

And that's the first fact he cites!

Another one: "releasing Megrahi on 'compassionate grounds' was acceptable..."

https://pod51000.outlook.com/owa/redir.aspx?C=91272bdb25314301a2fb37d7aaeb8ac1&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fuk-scotland-10769210

The letter actually said: "The US is not prepared to support Megrahi's release on compassionate release or bail.
"Nevertheless if Scottish authorities come to the conclusion that Megrahi must be released from Scottish custody, the US position is that conditional release on compassionate grounds would be a far preferable alternative to prisoner transfer, which we strongly oppose."
This doesn't say it's acceptable, just that it's better than the alternative. Furthermore, this comes at the end of a long discussion between the US and Scottish governments on the issue. To say picking things out of context the way D'Souza did is exactly what's wrong and horrible about our media today.

These two things ALONE are enough for me to not support this article, and the dozens of other examples of Tea Party rhetoric that follow the same lines are enough that I can never support them - no matter what I feel about their policy suggestions. Any group that is so flippant with TRUTH and with TRUSTWORTHINESS and RESEARCH cannot be supported, because to do so is to undermine the TRUSTWORTHINESS of one's own cause, and trust is the only grounds on which one can make meaningful progress.

Beyond even this, where D'Souza does not tell lies (he may not know they are lies, but repeating lies is bad enough for a writer) he MISSES THE POINT.

His line about "the top 10% pays 70% of the taxes." I would say why not - the top %10 earns a tremendous amount of the income (40%) - and they have been more blessed by the opportunities available in this country - and percentage-wise, they pay far less of their income to live than the bottom 40% - which, by the way, I'm apparently part of (though just barely) - and which I can say, from experience, does not pay "close to nothing" compared to our income. We pay close to nothing compared to the top 10% - but that's because, compared to the top %10, we MAKE NEXT TO NOTHING.

Beyond that, why does taxing the wealthy make Obama "anti-business"? Aren't businesses helped by infrastructure? Would McDonalds (not that I support them) have started without the government building highways? Starbucks? Wal-Mart? Without taxing the wealthy to pay for government research, we wouldn't have the Internet. We probably wouldn't have Boeing - at least not as it is today.

Another point where D'Souza misses the point, and makes a factual error:

"Obama's foreign policy is no less strange. He supports a $100 million mosque scheduled to be built near the site where terrorists in the name of Islam brought down the World Trade Center. Obama's rationale, that 'our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable,' seems utterly irrelevant to the issue of why the proposed Cordoba House should be constructed at Ground Zero."

FOREIGN POLICY!? This is not foreign policy! This is domestic policy! To call this foreign policy is paramount to calling Muslims un-American, and saying that Islamic buildings can never be domestic, they are always foreign.

When reading that, I did happen across the line "to be built near the site..." and I thought "good" he's not saying it's "on the sight"; then he said, "constructed at Ground Zero." You know what? You want to support editorial honesty? Call it "Ground Two". It's two blocks away from Ground Zero, so that makes sense to me. Let's call it "Ground Two".

And then he doesn't go at all into the "issue" of why the proposed house should not be constructed at "Ground Two".

So let's take another: I haven't even fact-checked this, but apparently Bolden said that the "primary mission" of the space agency would be to improve relations with the Muslim world. Okay, I somewhat doubt primary mission, even if those were the words used (which I don't know) means what you think is means. But let's take that at face value. What did Obama actually say "find a way to reach out to the Muslim world... to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science and math and engineering." Well... why not? We have here a people who preserved the writings of Aristotle, who ran perhaps one of the greatest information societies the world has ever seen, and who had a hand in inventing the math that has allowed us to do all the things we've done, and they are now under the oppression of an anti-intellectual interpretation of their religion - and what better way to bring them back into some agreement with the west than asking them to join in a great venture, begun by the west, but with roots reaching back into their own culture and history, which may now save them from further violence and stupidity.

And this is the elemental point which leads into refuting the chain of conspiracy that D'Souza launches into. I won't get into all the links he makes - I have neither the time nor the interest to refute or reinterpret them. Even if they are true, they make little difference to the conclusion, so let us jump there.
D'Souza's conclusion:
"Colonialism today is a dead issue.... China, India, Chile and Indonesia have solved the problem of backwardness; they are exploiting their labor advantage..."

And here's the kicker:

"If America is going to remain on top..."

D'Souza cares about Colonialism! He just doesn't call it that. He considers it competition. He wants to remain on top - not to maintain a lifestyle, not to encourage wealth, not to participate in future, he wants to remain on top. He sees America's right position as being above other nations. Is colonialism, at root, anything else?

Beyond that, he says, "No one cares about [colonialism] except the man in the White House. That's where he's wrong. I care about colonialism. I care about it a great deal. With hundreds of my country's military bases overseas, I don't see how I can not. Having talked to Chinese people, and heard their concerns about America invading their country, I care about it a great deal - because I don't want them to think we'd do something we wouldn't. Because having lived in Israel, and talked to Muslims there about colonialism, I care about colonialism. Because I believe we are abusing the willingness of Chinese workers to be abused, I care about colonialism.

More than that - and, I hope, like Obama, I want to do something different.

I want to encourage others. I don't believe we will remain "on top" by competing in the traditional sense. I believe we can remain on top by careful, intelligent participation. By lending money to other countries that are interested in buying oil drilling equipment from our country. By inviting a people of a great intellect and intellectual history to turn that weight away from wrath and fear, and towards a great human project. Will there be competition? Sure. But I think competition is a given. It'll happen no matter what we do. What we need is participation. Participation, from the lowest wage earner to the most exalted of businessmen, participation from developing, developed, and post-developed countries. Participation from the government and from Business.

And what do we need if we want participation?

We need trust.

And that's why I can't support the Tea Party.

Peter Wallis

P.S. We could discuss this more, but honestly, you need to develop your own, for lack of a better term, "shit detector" - as Hemingway said:

"The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it."
Do your own research. When an article like this makes factual claims, investigate the first few of them. I don't have time or interest enough in politics to do that for you. I have other things to do, other things to fix. I have my own participation in this, and unfortunately, I must compete against some cruel and foolish men of great power - and some unfortunately mislead men of kindness and equally great power. I don't write any of this in support of Obama or anyone else for that matter, but merely to say why I don't support the Tea Party, its agenda, or, I suppose, the agenda of nationalistic capitalism- called by a better term, colonialism reborn.

If you agree with this, and want more trustworthyness, you know what, feel free to create one of those email-forwards out of it. Lord knows we need some better material out there.The story of why I can not and will not support the Tea Party.

A friend of mine sent me this today:

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0927/politics-socialism-capitalism-private-enterprises-obama-business-problem_print.html

He sent it as an "example" of how the Tea Party thinks. Articles like this make me a bit rancorous, so I wrote the following analyrant (analysis/rant).

You know, the interesting thing is that this article is exactly the sort of thing that makes me so against the Tea Party.

First, it makes factually FALSE points.

For example: "Obama underwrites offshore drilling" was published in 2009, and was REFUTED in 2009: https://pod51000.outlook.com/owa/redir.aspx?C=91272bdb25314301a2fb37d7aaeb8ac1&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.snopes.com%2Fpolitics%2Fgasoline%2Fbraziloil.asp

Wall Street Journal, btw, is very conservative-biased, so be careful with them (they do have some good stuff, but also, as you can see, they do tend to be all to happy to publish badly researched stuff, if it aligns with the political bent). Interestingly, notice that Forbes and WSJ, the two magazines/journals mentioned so far, are supported by the finance sector - which is many of the rich today. This should set off your warning lights.

And that's the first fact he cites!

Another one: "releasing Megrahi on 'compassionate grounds' was acceptable..."

https://pod51000.outlook.com/owa/redir.aspx?C=91272bdb25314301a2fb37d7aaeb8ac1&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fuk-scotland-10769210

The letter actually said: "The US is not prepared to support Megrahi's release on compassionate release or bail.
"Nevertheless if Scottish authorities come to the conclusion that Megrahi must be released from Scottish custody, the US position is that conditional release on compassionate grounds would be a far preferable alternative to prisoner transfer, which we strongly oppose."
This doesn't say it's acceptable, just that it's better than the alternative. Furthermore, this comes at the end of a long discussion between the US and Scottish governments on the issue. To say picking things out of context the way D'Souza did is exactly what's wrong and horrible about our media today.

These two things ALONE are enough for me to not support this article, and the dozens of other examples of Tea Party rhetoric that follow the same lines are enough that I can never support them - no matter what I feel about their policy suggestions. Any group that is so flippant with TRUTH and with TRUSTWORTHINESS and RESEARCH cannot be supported, because to do so is to undermine the TRUSTWORTHINESS of one's own cause, and trust is the only grounds on which one can make meaningful progress.

Beyond even this, where D'Souza does not tell lies (he may not know they are lies, but repeating lies is bad enough for a writer) he MISSES THE POINT.

His line about "the top 10% pays 70% of the taxes." I would say why not - the top %10 earns a tremendous amount of the income (40%) - and they have been more blessed by the opportunities available in this country - and percentage-wise, they pay far less of their income to live than the bottom 40% - which, by the way, I'm apparently part of (though just barely) - and which I can say, from experience, does not pay "close to nothing" compared to our income. We pay close to nothing compared to the top 10% - but that's because, compared to the top %10, we MAKE NEXT TO NOTHING.

Beyond that, why does taxing the wealthy make Obama "anti-business"? Aren't businesses helped by infrastructure? Would McDonalds (not that I support them) have started without the government building highways? Starbucks? Wal-Mart? Without taxing the wealthy to pay for government research, we wouldn't have the Internet. We probably wouldn't have Boeing - at least not as it is today.

Another point where D'Souza misses the point, and makes a factual error:

"Obama's foreign policy is no less strange. He supports a $100 million mosque scheduled to be built near the site where terrorists in the name of Islam brought down the World Trade Center. Obama's rationale, that 'our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable,' seems utterly irrelevant to the issue of why the proposed Cordoba House should be constructed at Ground Zero."

FOREIGN POLICY!? This is not foreign policy! This is domestic policy! To call this foreign policy is paramount to calling Muslims un-American, and saying that Islamic buildings can never be domestic, they are always foreign.

When reading that, I did happen across the line "to be built near the site..." and I thought "good" he's not saying it's "on the sight"; then he said, "constructed at Ground Zero." You know what? You want to support editorial honesty? Call it "Ground Two". It's two blocks away from Ground Zero, so that makes sense to me. Let's call it "Ground Two".

And then he doesn't go at all into the "issue" of why the proposed house should not be constructed at "Ground Two".

So let's take another: I haven't even fact-checked this, but apparently Bolden said that the "primary mission" of the space agency would be to improve relations with the Muslim world. Okay, I somewhat doubt primary mission, even if those were the words used (which I don't know) means what you think is means. But let's take that at face value. What did Obama actually say "find a way to reach out to the Muslim world... to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science and math and engineering." Well... why not? We have here a people who preserved the writings of Aristotle, who ran perhaps one of the greatest information societies the world has ever seen, and who had a hand in inventing the math that has allowed us to do all the things we've done, and they are now under the oppression of an anti-intellectual interpretation of their religion - and what better way to bring them back into some agreement with the west than asking them to join in a great venture, begun by the west, but with roots reaching back into their own culture and history, which may now save them from further violence and stupidity.

And this is the elemental point which leads into refuting the chain of conspiracy that D'Souza launches into. I won't get into all the links he makes - I have neither the time nor the interest to refute or reinterpret them. Even if they are true, they make little difference to the conclusion, so let us jump there.
D'Souza's conclusion:
"Colonialism today is a dead issue.... China, India, Chile and Indonesia have solved the problem of backwardness; they are exploiting their labor advantage..."

And here's the kicker:

"If America is going to remain on top..."

D'Souza cares about Colonialism! He just doesn't call it that. He considers it competition. He wants to remain on top - not to maintain a lifestyle, not to encourage wealth, not to participate in future, he wants to remain on top. He sees America's right position as being above other nations. Is colonialism, at root, anything else?

Beyond that, he says, "No one cares about [colonialism] except the man in the White House. That's where he's wrong. I care about colonialism. I care about it a great deal. With hundreds of my country's military bases overseas, I don't see how I can not. Having talked to Chinese people, and heard their concerns about America invading their country, I care about it a great deal - because I don't want them to think we'd do something we wouldn't. Because having lived in Israel, and talked to Muslims there about colonialism, I care about colonialism. Because I believe we are abusing the willingness of Chinese workers to be abused, I care about colonialism.

More than that - and, I hope, like Obama, I want to do something different.

I want to encourage others. I don't believe we will remain "on top" by competing in the traditional sense. I believe we can remain on top by careful, intelligent participation. By lending money to other countries that are interested in buying oil drilling equipment from our country. By inviting a people of a great intellect and intellectual history to turn that weight away from wrath and fear, and towards a great human project. Will there be competition? Sure. But I think competition is a given. It'll happen no matter what we do. What we need is participation. Participation, from the lowest wage earner to the most exalted of businessmen, participation from developing, developed, and post-developed countries. Participation from the government and from Business.

And what do we need if we want participation?

We need trust.

And that's why I can't support the Tea Party.

Peter Wallis

P.S. We could discuss this more, but honestly, you need to develop your own, for lack of a better term, "shit detector" - as Hemingway said:

"The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it."
Do your own research. When an article like this makes factual claims, investigate the first few of them. I don't have time or interest enough in politics to do that for you. I have other things to do, other things to fix. I have my own participation in this, and unfortunately, I must compete against some cruel and foolish men of great power - and some unfortunately mislead men of kindness and equally great power. I don't write any of this in support of Obama or anyone else for that matter, but merely to say why I don't support the Tea Party, its agenda, or, I suppose, the agenda of nationalistic capitalism- called by a better term, colonialism reborn.

If you agree with this, and want more trustworthyness, you know what, feel free to create one of those email-forwards out of it. Lord knows we need some better material out there.

Some Chesterton research

Take note, lit-heads! A tale of paraphrase masquerading as quotation on the high seas of popular debate! Startling discoveries! A cunning plan!

A friend posted the following on my facebook wall:
Do you know where this comes from in Chesterton's writing?

"A society that claims to be civilized and yet allows the sex instinct free-play is inoculating itself with a virus of corruption which sooner or later will destroy it. It is only a question of time"

Which prompted this response:
Now this is such an interesting case, I think I'll make a blog post of it (partially because I hope my method of literary detection might come in handy for others).

As soon as I read the quote, I suspected it was a paraphrase, and not a quote at all. Chesterton is known for his aphorisms, but this is too brief, and frankly too shallow. Beyond that, even in his day "it is only a question of time" must have seemed like one of those tired young phrases trying to seem like an old phrase, something Chesterton would have avoided.

Yet, Chesterton had an enormous output, so it's inevitable that he didn't always rise to his standards. So I began my search.

I found that the paraphrase comes from this article: http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/sexual_insanity/

"As G.K. Chesterton wrote a century ago: A society that claims to be civilized and yet allows the sex instinct free-play is inoculating itself with a virus of corruption which sooner or later will destroy it. It is only a question of time. He is worth quoting at length:

What had happened to the human imagination, as a whole,"...

Ah-ha! It does seem like a paraphrase in the first case, and a quote in the second. Let us use (and here's the really useful bit) Google Books "inauthor" search.

http://www.google.com/search?tbs=bks:1&tbo=1&q=%22it+is+only+a+matter+of+time%22+inauthor:G.K.+inauthor:Chesterton&btnG=Search+Books

Absolutely nothing there for "it is only a question of time." in all of GK Chesterton's works. How vindicated I feel by modern technology!

Let us try the second section.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbo=1&tbs=bks:1&q=%22What+had+happened+to+the+human+imagination%22+inauthor:G.K.+inauthor:Chesterton&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

And there it is a quote. "What had happened to the human imagination" immediately gets us Chesterton's biography of St. Francis of Assisi, in both collected and uncollected form. If you read the full quote, below, you will see how much more specific and deep the analysis is - though it is saying "essentially" the same thing it says it both with more care and with more understanding, and makes an argument rather than just a statement.

"What had happened to the human imagination, as a whole, was that the whole world was coloured by dangerous and rapidly deteriorating passions; by natural passions becoming unnatural passions. Thus the effect of treating sex as only one innocent natural thing was that every other innocent natural thing became soaked and sodden with sex. For sex cannot be admitted to a mere equality among elementary emotions or experiences like eating and sleeping. The moment sex ceases to be a servant it becomes a tyrant. There is something dangerous and disproportionate in its place in human nature, for whatever reason; and it does really need a special purification and dedication. The modern talk about sex being free like any other sense, about the body being beautiful like any tree or flower, is either a description of the Garden of Eden or a piece of thoroughly bad psychology, of which the world grew weary two thousand years ago."

I suspect many others have the same feeling of suspicion when they read quotes that seem too convenient, and I hope this record of my own suspicions and investigations has proved helpful.

Now go search inauthor:Tocqueville for "America is great because she is good" and see where that gets you.