Obama a target for anti americans? - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

dlish · 11-11-2008, 03:07 AM

so now that obama is going to be the new president, does it make him a target for anti americans?

my feeling is that being the president of the USA, you will always have your haters. regardless of what you do. you cant keep everyone happy. the only problem here is that Obama will be faced with many objectors from many sides, ranging from white supremecists to anti americans.

with the reputation GWB built, it certainly hasnt done Obamas' job any easier in winning over the muslim population outside of the USA. i personally feel that the war on terror will continue, and will automatically place Obama in the cross hairs of terrorists and anti americans. whereas he may have been a favourite and a champion of causes, stepping into the role of President of the USA makes you an automatic enemy of islamists.

In essence its the title that people hate (maybe not the case with GWB), so id like to see what everyone thinks on this.

abaya · 11-11-2008, 03:24 AM

Since when are "anti-Americans" an actual group of people?... heh.

But in any case, yeah, it's lonely at the top. That would be the case for almost any politician or leader... not just the US President. But I really cannot imagine anyone hating our next president *as much* as they hated Bush, or at least not for the same reasons. I don't think it's the title in itself that people hate... plenty of US presidents were well-liked by both domestic and international citizens throughout history. No, Bush has done himself in--his 20-odd% approval rating IN the US should demonstrate that clearly enough. I truly don't think that Obama will sink that low, though of course his life will always be in danger due to the power he wields. But that's nothing new.

I thought the opinion offered in Thomas Friedman's latest editorial (which I read in the Seattle Times) had an interesting take on this topic:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Friedman

Much has been written about how people all around the world are celebrating the victory of our Hussein — Barack of Illinois, whose first name means "blessing" in Arabic. It is, indeed, a blessing that so many people in so many places see something of themselves reflected in Obama, whether in the color of his skin, the religion of his grandfather, his African heritage, his being raised by a single mother or his childhood of poverty. And that ensures that Obama will probably have a longer than usual honeymoon with the world.

But I wouldn't exaggerate it. The minute Obama has to exercise U.S. military power somewhere in the world, you can be sure that he will get blowback. For now, though, his biography, demeanor and willingness to at least test a regime like Iran's with diplomacy makes him more difficult to demonize than George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

"If you're a hard-liner in Tehran, a U.S. president who wants to talk to you presents more of a quandary than a U.S. president who wants to confront you," remarked Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment. "How are you going to implore crowds to chant 'Death to Barack Hussein Obama'? That sounds more like the chant of the oppressor, not the victim. Obama just doesn't fit the radical Islamist narrative of a racist, bloodthirsty America, which is bent on oppressing Muslims worldwide. There's a cognitive dissonance. It's like Hollywood casting Sidney Poitier to play Charles Manson. It just doesn't fit."

dlish · 11-11-2008, 04:20 AM

they're not. but while winning the muslim vote in the USA is important, winning the muslim population worldwide is equally if not more important. the actions of barack in the coming months and years will lay testament to how the muslim world will percieve him. i can see a gradual change in the way they see him now and how they will see him after the honeymoon is over.

i know more than just a few people who dont like american foreign policy. i too dont like american foreign policy. but being the leader of such a powerful nation makes you an automatic entry to no. 1 enemy to a lot of crazies.

i thought iran chanted 'death to america' and not necearily death to bush or obama? i may stand corrected.

abaya · 11-11-2008, 05:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dlish

winning the muslim population worldwide is equally if not more important.

... and damn near impossible, if you ask me. Obama is a swell guy, and I'm ecstatic that he will be our next president. But I don't think *any* American president is going to "win over" the worldwide Muslim population, or any worldwide population, really (once the honeymoon is over). He's only won over 52% of the American population as it is... and even the leaders of Muslim nations haven't won over their own populations (certainly doesn't do much good in Lebanon, you must admit)... so why would Obama have any more of a chance than they do?

I guess I just don't have a whole lot of star-studded expectations for Obama. He's going to be an American president, above all. And my bets are that he may well be a damn good one, when the books are written. But I'm quite sure that he's not going to revolutionize the place of America in the world--there's too much shit going on at home that he must focus on, and too much shit that goes on beyond his limited power (e.g. the policies that persist throughout every American president's tenure, including unadulterated support for Israel). He'll be a hell of a lot better than Bush, and for that I hope that the United States will step on fewer toes and have less hatred aimed in its direction, but otherwise I would not expect too much.

And you know, for those "crazies" that you mention... no American president is going to change their ways, not even if he's Superman (which Obama is not). Their resistance to a very real American hegemony is a force that gives them meaning, to borrow a phrase... and I'd be willing to bet that they won't be willing to set down their raison d'etre anytime soon, if ever.

roachboy · 11-11-2008, 05:30 AM

while there are many reasons to be pleased about obama's having been elected--not least of which is that it puts a definitive period at the end of the sentence of fascism-lite that has been floating around the states since september 2001--sooner or later relations to him, and by extension to the united states to the extent these are shaped by the person of the president, will tip into being conditioned by what his administration does rather than by who obama himself is.

carrying on a rational policy toward iran, for example, could go a long way toward enabling the americans to extricate quickly from the debacle in iraq, since iran has a definite interest in regional stability...ahmadinejad has been politically weak as president and has used the bush administration's nitwit policies to prop himself up, much in the way that the khomeni aspects of the iranian revolution used the signifier of the united states as an aspect of their campaign to change the revolution and stabilize themselves at its head--so the shift may at one level pose a problem, but i doubt seriously that will prevent anything--at this point, i suspect that ahmadinejad would try to spin a shift into negociation with obama as a demonstration of the success of his actions relative to cowboy george, but who cares?

obviously the critical regional question will be american policy toward israel and palestine. on this, i think obama is in an advantageous position initially because frankly almost anything he does short of replication will be an improvement over the catastrophe that has been the bush administration's policy, which is in significant measure responsible for the appalling situation in gaza. there is an interesting opening that turned up last week: olmert, on his way out the door, cut off state funding (which was not suppsed to exist in the first place, but you know how these things are) to the settlements in the west bank. it remains to be seen how long this window stays open, but a forward looking policy from the states would use it to attempt to force a change with respect to the settlements. these are the primary obstacles to any coherent arrangement, the primary reasons for the continuation of the occupation in its brutal routinised form.

i would hope that obama participates in a forward looking manner in the reshaping of globalizing capitalism away from what it's been---an expression of american hegemony--toward something more equitable. but i don't know if that'll happen---mutation is under way and it's hard to say which of many directions it'll take in the end. the model that is falling apart--the neoliberal model--was a generator of opposition.

over the past few years, there's been lots of rightwing ink spilled in trying to make "anti-american" into a substantive category. that simplifies the world for conservatives, makes it over into their own image. it lets american actions and policies off the hook by attributing an essence to a category that exists largely in the collective imagination of the neo-con set and which derives more from the nature of nouns than from anything in the empirical world. it is useless, though, the category. not only does it depoliticise *political* opposition, but it groups phenomena together in a superficial, stupid, self-defeating way. such moves have been characteristic of the world a la neo-con, and the consequences of this are self-evident if you look around (think iraq)....

there will undoubtedly be opposition, and there should be opposition, not only internationally but domestically as well. but the opposition is particular and political, not an expression of some floating general essence. and it happens in response to actions and policies, not because "they" don't like "us"---so another effect of putting a period at the end of the sentence may be the abandonment of a stupid, debilitating view of not only the world but of american power in the world.

but we'll see how things play out.
i am not one of the folk who is smitten with who obama is. i want to see his administration and get an idea of what he's going to do. then we'll talk.

Amaras · 11-11-2008, 07:06 AM

Here is an example of someone being just a bit anti-american already, not recognizing a democratically elected president, and comparing him to Hitler:

Original link: Republican Congressman Warns of Obama Dictatorship - FOXNews.com Elections

Republican Congressman Warns of Obama Dictatorship
A Republican congressman from Georgia said Monday he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship.

AP

Monday, November 10, 2008
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WASHINGTON -- A Republican congressman from Georgia said Monday he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship.

"It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he's the one who proposed this national security force," Rep. Paul Broun said of Obama in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. "I'm just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may -- may not, I hope not -- but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism."

Broun cited a July speech by Obama that has circulated on the Internet in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military.

"That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did," Broun said. "When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist."

Obama's comments about a national security force came during a speech in Colorado about building a new civil service corps. Among other things, he called for expanding the nation's foreign service and doubling the size of the Peace Corps "to renew our diplomacy."

"We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set," Obama said in July. "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."

Broun said he also believes Obama likely will move to ban gun ownership if he does build a national police force.

Obama has said he respects the Second Amendment right to bear arms and favors "common sense" gun laws. Gun rights advocates interpret that as meaning he'll at least enact curbs on ownership of assault weapons and concealed weapons. As an Illinois state lawmaker, Obama supported a ban on semiautomatic weapons and tighter restrictions on firearms generally.

"We can't be lulled into complacency," Broun said. "You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I'm not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I'm saying is there is the potential."

Obama's transition office did not respond immediately to Broun's remarks.

The_Dunedan · 11-11-2008, 08:50 PM

Quote:

Here is an example of someone being just a bit anti-american already, not recognizing a democratically elected president, and comparing him to Hitler:

I've spent the last 8 years refusing to recognise George Bush, and calling him much worse names than that, and in far more direct language. Suppose that makes me un-American too, eh?

11-11-2008, 03:07 AM	#1 (permalink)
dlish Currently sour but formerly Dlishs Super Moderator Location: Australia/UAE	Obama a target for anti americans? so now that obama is going to be the new president, does it make him a target for anti americans? my feeling is that being the president of the USA, you will always have your haters. regardless of what you do. you cant keep everyone happy. the only problem here is that Obama will be faced with many objectors from many sides, ranging from white supremecists to anti americans. with the reputation GWB built, it certainly hasnt done Obamas' job any easier in winning over the muslim population outside of the USA. i personally feel that the war on terror will continue, and will automatically place Obama in the cross hairs of terrorists and anti americans. whereas he may have been a favourite and a champion of causes, stepping into the role of President of the USA makes you an automatic enemy of islamists. In essence its the title that people hate (maybe not the case with GWB), so id like to see what everyone thinks on this. __________________ An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy

11-11-2008, 04:20 AM	#3 (permalink)
dlish Currently sour but formerly Dlishs Super Moderator Location: Australia/UAE	they're not. but while winning the muslim vote in the USA is important, winning the muslim population worldwide is equally if not more important. the actions of barack in the coming months and years will lay testament to how the muslim world will percieve him. i can see a gradual change in the way they see him now and how they will see him after the honeymoon is over. i know more than just a few people who dont like american foreign policy. i too dont like american foreign policy. but being the leader of such a powerful nation makes you an automatic entry to no. 1 enemy to a lot of crazies. i thought iran chanted 'death to america' and not necearily death to bush or obama? i may stand corrected. __________________ An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy

11-11-2008, 05:30 AM	#5 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	while there are many reasons to be pleased about obama's having been elected--not least of which is that it puts a definitive period at the end of the sentence of fascism-lite that has been floating around the states since september 2001--sooner or later relations to him, and by extension to the united states to the extent these are shaped by the person of the president, will tip into being conditioned by what his administration does rather than by who obama himself is. carrying on a rational policy toward iran, for example, could go a long way toward enabling the americans to extricate quickly from the debacle in iraq, since iran has a definite interest in regional stability...ahmadinejad has been politically weak as president and has used the bush administration's nitwit policies to prop himself up, much in the way that the khomeni aspects of the iranian revolution used the signifier of the united states as an aspect of their campaign to change the revolution and stabilize themselves at its head--so the shift may at one level pose a problem, but i doubt seriously that will prevent anything--at this point, i suspect that ahmadinejad would try to spin a shift into negociation with obama as a demonstration of the success of his actions relative to cowboy george, but who cares? obviously the critical regional question will be american policy toward israel and palestine. on this, i think obama is in an advantageous position initially because frankly almost anything he does short of replication will be an improvement over the catastrophe that has been the bush administration's policy, which is in significant measure responsible for the appalling situation in gaza. there is an interesting opening that turned up last week: olmert, on his way out the door, cut off state funding (which was not suppsed to exist in the first place, but you know how these things are) to the settlements in the west bank. it remains to be seen how long this window stays open, but a forward looking policy from the states would use it to attempt to force a change with respect to the settlements. these are the primary obstacles to any coherent arrangement, the primary reasons for the continuation of the occupation in its brutal routinised form. i would hope that obama participates in a forward looking manner in the reshaping of globalizing capitalism away from what it's been---an expression of american hegemony--toward something more equitable. but i don't know if that'll happen---mutation is under way and it's hard to say which of many directions it'll take in the end. the model that is falling apart--the neoliberal model--was a generator of opposition. over the past few years, there's been lots of rightwing ink spilled in trying to make "anti-american" into a substantive category. that simplifies the world for conservatives, makes it over into their own image. it lets american actions and policies off the hook by attributing an essence to a category that exists largely in the collective imagination of the neo-con set and which derives more from the nature of nouns than from anything in the empirical world. it is useless, though, the category. not only does it depoliticise political opposition, but it groups phenomena together in a superficial, stupid, self-defeating way. such moves have been characteristic of the world a la neo-con, and the consequences of this are self-evident if you look around (think iraq).... there will undoubtedly be opposition, and there should be opposition, not only internationally but domestically as well. but the opposition is particular and political, not an expression of some floating general essence. and it happens in response to actions and policies, not because "they" don't like "us"---so another effect of putting a period at the end of the sentence may be the abandonment of a stupid, debilitating view of not only the world but of american power in the world. but we'll see how things play out. i am not one of the folk who is smitten with who obama is. i want to see his administration and get an idea of what he's going to do. then we'll talk. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

11-11-2008, 07:06 AM	#6 (permalink)
Amaras Junkie Location: At my daughter's beck and call.	Here is an example of someone being just a bit anti-american already, not recognizing a democratically elected president, and comparing him to Hitler: Original link: Republican Congressman Warns of Obama Dictatorship - FOXNews.com Elections Republican Congressman Warns of Obama Dictatorship A Republican congressman from Georgia said Monday he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship. AP Monday, November 10, 2008 4 x in order to recommend a story, you must login or register. 876 Comments \| Add Comment WASHINGTON -- A Republican congressman from Georgia said Monday he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship. "It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he's the one who proposed this national security force," Rep. Paul Broun said of Obama in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. "I'm just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may -- may not, I hope not -- but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism." Broun cited a July speech by Obama that has circulated on the Internet in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military. "That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did," Broun said. "When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist." Obama's comments about a national security force came during a speech in Colorado about building a new civil service corps. Among other things, he called for expanding the nation's foreign service and doubling the size of the Peace Corps "to renew our diplomacy." "We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set," Obama said in July. "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded." Broun said he also believes Obama likely will move to ban gun ownership if he does build a national police force. Obama has said he respects the Second Amendment right to bear arms and favors "common sense" gun laws. Gun rights advocates interpret that as meaning he'll at least enact curbs on ownership of assault weapons and concealed weapons. As an Illinois state lawmaker, Obama supported a ban on semiautomatic weapons and tighter restrictions on firearms generally. "We can't be lulled into complacency," Broun said. "You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I'm not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I'm saying is there is the potential." Obama's transition office did not respond immediately to Broun's remarks. __________________ Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state. -Noam Chomsky Love is a verb, not a noun. -My Mom The function of genius is to furnish cretins with ideas twenty years later. -Louis Aragon, "La Porte-plume," Traite du style, 1928