The Meta-Messages in Obama's Patriotism Speech

"We have a patriotic responsibility to the world's improvised as well as to our own."

I assume you meant "impoverished."

"cultural dysfunction within Iraq?"

What a euphemism for the chaos & mess that you created in Iraq?

Why is Burma & Zimbabwe different than Iraq under Saddam?

One might state that the problems in Zimbabwe & Burma are internal and should be taken up internally - Wasn't it the same under Saddam?

(please, spare me the war-shout on Iraq WMDs, nuclear weapons, links to Al-Qaeda. All that has long proved to be incorrect)

When the monks in Burma risked their lifes to oppose the military junta & the opposition party workers risked their lifes to participate in election, where was US & your demi-God Bush?

I am no supporter of Obama but am amused to the lengths to which conservatives go to glorify their viewpoint while denigrating others ....

L Cary is right on, brilliant PR and the use of "Strawmen and stickmen" to debate his negative message. McCain needs to pick up the tricks.

This is getting way beyond ridiculous. It is despicable. This empty suit is trying to lecture us again--all of us. Before, he tried to lecture us on "race". Now, on "patriotism".

And didn't you notice his condescending gesture in delivering those "historical and monumental" speeches? He was pretending like a professor lecturing freshman college students.

It is truly mind-boggling. I don't know how any normal thinking adults can take this guy seriously. Michael Savage is not wrong when he said that liberalism is a mental disorder.

When Obama gave his patriotism speech, it took me (and any normal thinking adults) a few minutes of his speech to understand that all is about him. He is the right one and the rest are wrong.

This guy, who has never had a full time job in his life, is really a grandiose narcissistic of few comparison in history. I believe he is indeed the son of Barack Obama, Sr. And one needs to learn the character of his father in order to understand that of the Obama Jr.

Scary--but with about 30% of Americans have very little clue about the complexity of life, this guy has a clear shot of winning the White House. And he will win even by looking down on his country and his countrymen.

The grimly statement there is this:

"...those who are fighting for a better America here at home, by teaching in underserved schools, or caring for the sick in understaffed hospitals, or promoting more sustainable energy policies in their local communities"

What is this? Is Obama insinuating that "community service" will be "enforced" and no longer voluntary.

Is he suggesting "forced labor"?

This threaten's one's freedom to choose what is best and good! This is socialism at its worst!

What is he really saying? Obama fans... please.

two things: First, I have never seen such a gas bag go on and on about NOTHING. The man says NOTHING. I'm beginning to think he truly is in love with his own voice. I have never seen so many non sequitors said in one speech in my life. That entire speech was just a bucnh of disjointed statements tied together trying to make himself sound "stately" That is very pathetic, Barry Hussein, you cna't even outsmart a man who proudly calls himself Bubba and clings to his god and his guns. That Harvard Education is sure paying off. Second, I will not question Obama's Patriotism because I can't find anything there to question. There is nothing there. The way he talks about that freakin flag pin just tells me that HE DOESN'T GET IT. Personally, I couldn't care less if he wears one or not, but just listening to his lame-assed explanations just made me want to puke. The way I look at it, if somebody is questioning your patriotism, something is wrong. NOBODY EVER Questioned Reagan's. Or GHW Bush's, or GW Bush's, or Cheney's. But they DO question Barry's Hussien's, Harry Reid's, and Nancy Pelosi's. Why is that? Why would that come into question? Usually, when you smell a rat, a rat is in fact lurking about. Keep talking B. Hussein, the more you open that yap of yours, the more you expose yourself as a sock puppet.

When you've spent much of your adult life breathing in the stench of Chicago politics and the rarified air of Hyde Park, you don't have time to get to know much about average America. You make assumptions about the clingers because you don't see the scout troops cleaning roadways, the church groups holding suppers to raise money for a family whose home burned down, and the very small business owners who donate time and money for cultural projects or a library addition.

It's a shame he didn't take time to learn a few life lessons from the American woman, who has done her share of community building with an arugula-free cassarole delivered in times of need.

I found these two parts of the speech interesting.
"As we begin our fourth century as a nation, it is easy to take the extraordinary nature of America for granted. But it is our responsibility as Americans and as parents to instill that history in our children, both at home and at school."

Huh? 4th century as a nation?

""I remember, when living for four years in Indonesia as a child, I listened to my mother reading me the first lines of the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they're endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.".."

His memory must be off because those aren't the first lines of the Declaration of Independence

Is he kidding? I don't know where to begin with this speech. What stood out the most was how education will lead to public service. Give me a BREAK. They don't even teach American history anymore in school, without a revisionist textbook. The only thing public schools are good for now are turning out compliant little Socialists. And those kids with a more conservative or traditional view of American life are denigrated and shouted down by their own teachers.

And to Kaylan: Did you have any family members over in Iraq? I did. I am insulted by your spin on "chaos and mess in Iraq". Why don't you talk to a military person who has been there before spewing out the liberal dogma? And gee, didn't Syria just allude to smuggled WMD's from Iraq a month or two ago? And Bush isn't the one whom half this country has been mesmerized by, those who think critically on what he has done with his administration know he has made mistakes, but he has done a lot of good also. What President hasn't made mistakes? Oh, I forgot, Barry is going to stroll across Lake Michigan and lay hands on everyone. Can you say Hallelujah friends?

RE: Kalyan,

The difference between Hussein's Iraq and the other nations you listed was that in a 9/12 world, Hussein was threatening to use weapons of mass destruction. All we knew for sure was that in a 9/10 world, Hussein had actually used weapons of mass destruction on his own citizens. It was prudent policy to take down such a terrorist sponsoring regime in order to hopefully prevent an event such as lines of refrigerated trucks waiting to be loaded with body bags at Disney World.

Senator Obama's Patriotism - What it means to this Navy Veteran. I hope you consider the following article: Senator Obama's Patriotism - a Veteran's Perspective
It is found at:
http://zachjonesishome.wordpress.com/senator-obama%e2%80%99s-patriotism-a-veteran%e2%80%99s-perspective/

Comrade Obama knows little of America, freedom liberty and the heritage of the country, and all 57 States.

He is a brilliant scam.

Although the presumptive Democratic nominee is an excelent orator whose advisors are pushing him to appear 'centrst' in order to appeal to more voters he is essentially a man of the far left. Obama's wordlview is similar to that of the Duke faculty whose meta-narrative is essentially anti-American, witness Michelle's off the cuff remarks on being proud for the first time. he is a leftist, a hard leftist who desires class warfare and confiscatory taxation, government run command economy and grievence driven political activism.
He is shaping the message for the election but will introduce socialist policies regardless of sound bites and focus groups.

I could go on and on about this good article, but again, I'm distracted by the "no WMD" rhetoric from a couple of the bloggers. How about instead of searching through your OWN limited resources on the web to prove there weren't any WMD, you open your mind. Here's a good site to start...showing FACTUAL links of the many evidences AND SMOKING GUN of WMD's.
http://www.bizzyblog.com/2005/11/02/the-no-wmd-lie-2/

A speech about patroitism, and the word "FREEDOM" is not uttered? Just Socialist/Marxist claptrap? This guy couldn't get my vote if he held a gun to my head.

Excellent article. Obama's team is utilizing very sophisticated propaganda techniques to win voters over. I wish the McCain team would do the same.

Brian Smith - members of te Bush administration put their repution on the line with the WMD story? Do you think someone like Karl Rove, dick cheney wouldn't have made a huge news when they discovered WMDs? I went through the link you provided and it is mostly analysis by a single guy whose credence cannot be judged by me. Of the 5 mins i spent on the site, it looked like a neocon site to me. In conservative language, there is as much proof of WMD as Obama's military experience.

Nancy Coppock - Bottomline, there was no WMD as agreed by the "World".

btw, did you guys know that the US army used depleted uranium shells during the Iraq war? Does that not count under WMD?

4. I come from a traditionally patriotic family.

Nonsense:

In "Dreams," he inadvertently sheds some light on his formative years and the political views of his mother, an anthropologist and Islamophile who hated America and subsequently goes native.

"Looking back, I'm not sure Lolo ever fully understood what my mother was going through ... why the things he was working so hard to provide for her seemed only to increase the distance between them ... He landed a job in the government relations department of an American oil company. ... Sometimes I would overhear him and my mother arguing in their bedroom, usually about her refusal to attend his company dinner parties, where American businessmen from Texas and Louisiana would slap Lolo's back and boast about the palms they had greased to obtain the new offshore drilling rights, while their wives complained to my mother about the quality of Indonesian help. He would ask her how it would look for him to go alone, and remind her that these were her own people, and my mother's voice would rise to almost a shout."

"They are not my people!"

Pam L:

To start, my prayers for the safe return of your loved one from Iraq.

'Chaos & mess in Iraq' refers to the failures of the leadership team - strategic & to some extent, military in the conflict. To me, the performance of the soldiers on the ground has been gallant but they have been let down by the leadership team. The soldiers shouldn't even be there in Iraq in the first place.

Did you also notice that i included only Iraq and no Afghanistan. Do people remember that there is one more war going on in afghanistan? Do people & the world critize US military presence in Afghanistan? Nope, because the world public recognizes that US has a legitimiate reason for being in Afghanistan.

If US wants to establish democracy around the globe, let them start with their friends Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Probably add Zimbabwe and Burma along with a dozen african nations as well.

What wasn't mentioned in the above article is that he ended the speech with 'God bless America.'

Odd, considering where he went to church and what he supported over the last 20 years.

Sorry...I can't let his approval, support, and encouragement of Mr. Wright vanish as a factor in his qualifications.

btw, did you guys know that the US army used depleted uranium shells during the Iraq war? Does that not count under WMD?

Posted by: Kalyan | July 2, 2008 10:20 AM

NO

When the 0.7 percent of U235 is removed from natural uranium, what remains is a silvery, very dense metal consisting of U238 plus a small percentage of U235 and a negligible percentage of the four other isotopes. We call this Depleted Uranium or DU.

Notice two things here: (1) "Natural" uranium is more radioactive than DU, because the ingredient with the higher level of radioactivity has been almost entirely removed from DU; (2) Since natural uranium is, itself, not dangerous, then the resultant DU must be even less dangerous. Notice also, that DU is very dense.

Let me first agree that Obama is an empty suit. He also taught constitutional law for a year and doesn't know what the 2d Amendment means. The MSM have fallen for him like the fell for the Clinton's. May their kind continue to diminish.
Now, about WMD. They are, by convention, weapons of mass destruction. Depleted uranium does not count as a WMD by this international standard.
Some of you may remember Saddam Hussein gassing a Kurdish village in the early 90's. Helicopters flew over and discharged a yellowish cloud which decimated the village of 1500 people. That made the news in a few places and that is WMD according to the standard. That happened on other occasions as well.
Even thought the entire world did not see Iraqi B-52's lined up on runways, full of atom bombs and engines smoking, there was never any doubt in anyone's mind at the time, UN included, that he had them. His own generals believed that. The six months warning he had in which to get ready for us gave him plenty of time to remove whatever he wanted. It is commonly believed that Syria's Bakaa Valley is the hiding place for alot of things that we would like to know about.
Okay, enough of that.

"...2. I stand with other great Americans whose patriotism has been challenged.
'Thomas Jefferson was accused by the Federalists...John Adams was [said to be] in cahoots with the British...'"

I think he should have added President Bush's name to that list. After all, hasn't he been referred to countless times as a "Hitler?" And, may we add ironically, by many of the same people who are now supporting Senator Obama. You're being very selective, Mr. Obama.

And in regards to #3, freeing a country from a totalitarian dictator who was considered a threat by the previous two administrations is "out of alignment with our ideals?" I'm assuming Mr. Obama doesn't consider freedom one of America's ideals. Sorry if I sound like I'm questioning your "patriotism," Senator.

Patriotic or unpatriotic - either way Comrade Obama is a Marxist.

btw, did you guys know that the US army used depleted uranium shells during the Iraq war? Does that not count under WMD?

No.

Concerning:

1) "cultural dysfunction within Iraq" a euphemism for "chaos & mess that you created in Iraq"
Tyranny is a form of cultural dysfunction. In the case of Iraq, tyranny was used by one dysfunctional party to control other dysfunctional parties. The existence of this dysfunction before our presence indicates there is a cause of "chaos & mess" that goes deeper than an attempt to eliminate both. Also, the commenter is critical of "you" who support US intervention in Iraq.

2) "Burma & Zimbabwe different than Iraq under Saddam"
Two differences; a) to my knowledge, B&Z have not attacked neighbors like SH did, indicating a minimal military security threat, and b) to my knowledge, B&Z have no resources capable of being used to subjugate the rest of the world, indicating a minimal economic security threat. The tyranny is the same. The threat is different, even absent consideration of WMD, AQ, etc.

3) "problems in Zimbabwe and Burma are internal and should be taken up internally - Wasn't it the same under Saddam"
This comment implies that the US should take no action against the tyranny in Burma and Zimbabwe, and to do so would be no different than US intervention in Iraq, which was earlier criticized by the commenter.

4) When the monks in Burma risked their lifes [sic] to oppose the military junta & the opposition party workers risked their lifes [sic] to participate in election"where was the US and your demi-God Bush"
This comment implies the US should intervene in Burma and Zimbabwe. Also, the term "your demi-God Bush" appears intended to ridicule.

Observation: It appears the person leaving this conflicting commentary is mentally dysfunctional.

5) "I am no Obama supporter"
Why not?

6) "the lengths to which conservatives go to glorify their viewpoint while denigrating others"
There is no evidence in the article of "glorification". To claim such is a straw man. Also, in this case, "denigrating others" is a euphemism for critical analysis of Obama's speech that denigrates the author of the article (and those who agree with the author), and so is an ad hominem.

Conclusion: The comment by "Kalyan" puts Alinsky's rules 3, 4, 5, and 12 into practice to 1) sow insecurity, 2) make the opposition live up to their own rules, 3) ridicule, and 4) freeze, personalize, and polarize the target. The comment is shallow, self-conflicting, and relies on logical fallacy. It is therefore, defective, and has no basis for its intended purpose.

Kaylan:

Forgive me for seemingly piling on here. But I felt compelled to add the following for what it's worth. We tend to forget two very important points neither of which relate to what we've discovered or have failed to discover in Iraq since March 2003 (embarrassing and compromising of our credibility to be sure) but, rather, what was indisputable, first, and what was overwhelmingly believed to be true, secondly, leading up to March 2003.

What's indisputable: The resolution to go to war overwhelmingly approved by Congress contained 26 "whereas" clauses - reasons for declaring war on Iraq. Only two of those clauses referenced WMDs. Twelve referenced Iraq's repeated defiance of the UN's disclose and disarm resolution that was a product of the first Gulf war. Also indisputable: the war resolution and the underlying regime change policy merely echoed the foreign policy articulated clearly, openly, and repeatedly by the Clinton administration. Right or wrong, this administration not only articulated but pursued that policy.

What was overwhelmingly believed: All relevant parties, from our president (this and the previous administration); the Congress; domestic and foreign intelligence assets, including those of Russia, France, and Israel to name only a few; and even Hussein himself believed Iraq possessed significant stockpiles of chemical and biological agents and the means with which to deliver them. Iraq's persistent resistance to open and random inspections by UN teams only exacerbated these suspicions.

We were center stage with our pants around our ankles for sure when we pulled back the Wizard's curtain only to find a rather small, impotent (and, in this case, bearded) man. It's certainly easy to criticize this decision now with the benefit of more complete information that comes with hindsight. It's only predictable to condemn and even ridicule those who made that decision especially when we disguise our visceral ideological hatred of principally one man as an objective assessment of a decision or execution of policy by his administration.

I only wish there was a way to put other leaders - past, present, and future - in the same scenario to see how they would react or respond given the same exact set of circumstances and imperfect information this administration faced between September 2001 and March 2003. What decision or decisions would they make in the looming aftermath and emotional chaos of the most horrific terrorist attack on U.S. soil; in the growing apprehension and uncertainty of what's next and when; in a room filled with an ever deepening sea of dots that they would be tasked with connecting by hand in a meaningful way before "time" would be called.

It's easy to Monday-morning quarterback; it's easy to give grand, sweeping speeches that have been prepared and rehearsed. It's not so easy, I would imagine, to make such a key decision in a bind and with intelligence estimates that read more like incomplete riddles than decision supporting data. If only such a way existed, then would could objectively evaluate the Commander in Chief potential in any candidate and give props, even if only reluctantly, to those who've already made those kinds of decisions - not necessarily because they were prescient enough to make the right decisions, but because they had the courage to actually make any decision at all.

Props to you if you had the courage to read through this thought-dump.

Thanks "Beckwith". This is the most telling thing about Obama, is that he has been influenced all he life by people who hate this country, it's people and it's culture. It's critical that this message gets out. Every indication is that they feel we are racists and greedy and must change or be changed. His mother stating "They are not my people" are Obama's feelings exactly, I'm convinced of this. It's no wonder the mindless silly portion of the Left has fallen head over heals in love with him, they loath themselves so much they could do nothing else. This doesn't include the hard left, they don't love anybody. The hard left looks at things in a very pragmatic way. Someone or something is useful to them or not. I'm not certain whether Obama is really hard left or not, he might be. This would depend on whether he believes what he is saying. Although it seems like he has been surrounded by people of this ilk his entire life, and the wheels have definitely been greased for him. The more I hear from him and about him the more suspicious I am.

Listening to this man "lecture" on american patriotism is akin to the idea of listening to Joseph Goebles "lecture" on german freedom of the press.

The arrogence that even allows him to broach the subject is monumental. With his background how on earth could he possibly know the meaning of the word as it applies to the average american. Aint no way!

The idea of Obama as Commander in Chief of our military is way beyond repungent. It really, really stinks!

PC is Thought Control
LEE

Like so many of Sen. Obama's speeches this one left me wondering just how many puppeteers are pulling his strings.

Obama's speech at the '04 Dem Convention serves as a classic example of the use of meta-message and socialist code-speak. Break that speech down in the same manner that Lee Cary did the "Patriotism" speech here and it's plainly obvious that Obama is nothing more than a slick charlatan. That so many people are swayed by his academia street con act is a sad commentary on American gullibility.

In answer to Kaylan, spread democracy by conquering Saudia Arabia and Kuwait is that what Obama supporters want? Alinsky # 5 an #8