ON THE ORIGINS OF PRES. OBAMA’S EXPLOSIVE RISE IN POPULARITY

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: Virginia Vidaver <vvidaver>
Date: August 5, 2016 2:26:22 PM PDT
To: CLAUDEWELL THOMAS <cysid32>
Subject: ON THE ORIGINS OF PRES. OBAMA’S EXPLOSIVE RISE IN POPULARITY

Anger is spontaneous. Hate is forever–or so it seems. Sunni-Shite hatred goes back a millennium; anti-semitism is older still and we see no end in sight for racism. Pres. Obama, despite his clear majority and enthusiastic voter support was soon enough engulfed by racism’s hatred. Why? Is it that hatred is simply “natural” to the human species, as enduring as mankind itself to be dumped on anyone deemed different from oneself? No, I don’t believe so despite our ever-present potential for spontaneous violence towards members of “foreign” tribes. Homo sapiens are tribal creatures whose evolution over the last million years from our primate ancestors depended on the success of one’s tribe in overcoming neighboring tribes: for territory, for wildlife inhabiting that territory and for the enemies’ wives (thereby enhancing one’s gene pool). With time the dominant evolutionary force became less triumph over the natural world as the elimination of competing tribes. But victory could be short-lived. Once the enemy was subdued, territory/wives brought into the fold, there was every reason to get along with one’s captives; numbers added to the strength of the tribe and consolidation of former enemy tribes, where possible into networks, might lead to tribal “nations”. My premise is that however murderous, for the moment, violence towards enemy tribes is short-lived and derives from lower, more primitive, brain centers than hatred. The latter is a far more cerebral formulation with sophisticated underpinnings, complex organization and historical basis. Homo sapiens needed an advanced forebrain to “create” hate. OK, hatred has a “story behind it, but why, and how, does it last for centuries (while murder is momentary)? In actuality hatred isn’t easy to come by and takes a lot of work by leadership to convince the tribe to hate another group. Equally, hate dies away in the absence of constant reiteration of the hurt once suffered from the enemy. Hatred requires three components: first, past victimization (physically or ideologically, real or imagined), and, second, the need to rectify that “wrong-doing” in order to redeem, in the present the honor, or status of your tribe. One’s immediate identity hinges on getting-even for what might have been done a millennium ago. Third, most importantly, these two themes must be constantly, daily, thrust upon the mind’s of the tribe’s constituents to keep the hatred myth alive and in control of people’s thinking (and behavior). Hatred, like a rapacious animal, must be fed daily to facilitate its survival. Without constant repetition it fades away. The hatreds of WW II towards Germany and Japan (and theirs towards us) disappeared rapidly once the propaganda ceased despite the millions of casualties endured by the combatants. Provide jobs and Ireland and Northern Ireland stop blowing each other up. Moreover, somebody has to gain, in the here-and-now, to make worthwhile the enormous effort to keep the hate-myth alive. A few, leaders of some sort, have to work indefatigably to maintain the “enemy” in the minds of a larger population. Racism was a tool through which the Establishment elite kept the poor white share-croppers under control, the unions out and the mills running for ‘cheap’. Keeping black-America powerless in the process added to its “rationale”, but maintaining the elite in power was the underlying, all-powerful motivation to the ubiquitous lie.

So what’s that got to do with Pres. Obama’s renewed popularity? Plenty! Following the President’s election Mitch McConnell, Republican Senate chief, speaking for the Party said that his foremost mission was the electoral defeat of Obama in 2012. (Nothing about the needs of the country, alienating the terrible human costs of the Great Recession or, heaven forbid, the possibility of national prosperity derived from inter-party cooperation.) There followed an avalanche of anti-Obama propaganda, a literal orgasm of hatred from the media on all sides, especially the Fox network, for the most part thinly disguised racism. And no one objected. No Republicans and precious few Democrats. Why? Obviously racism, alive and well, serves the Establishment for its economic advantage. (It should be no surprise that during this same eight-year orgy of hatred towards our black President income inequality has grown at the fastest rate in history, middle income wages have declined and gridlock paralyzes Congress.) By creating a national, tribal animosity towards the President, accepted by the mindless white majority, innate racism made the rich and powerful richer and more powerful (and everybody else poorer). For example, half of the Federal judiciary posts which came open in the last four years have gone unfilled because of the refusal of the Republican Senate to evaluate the candidates qualifications, blaming Pres. Obama for the “problem” derived from their immoral, if not unlawful unwillingness to fulfill their Constitutional duty. Their hope, of course, is an eventual Republican President stuffing the judiciary with judges sympathetic to the rich and powerful. Meanwhile, the Establishment remains indifferent to our clogged courts and the lack of justice so long as the President is held culpable, however unreasonable that may be. “Obamacare” expansion to meet the health care needs of millions of Americans has been steadily blocked in many states with the President called to task for trying to alleviate the poor’s suffering. Racism hits a home run and the stream of anti-immigrant, anti black rhetoric flowed on maintained for nearly eight years by a captive media and brain-washed public.

In the last weeks Pres. Obama’s popularity measured in national polls has steadily risen to 54%–Reagan-like levels. Why? The unending flow of anti-Obama diatribe has stopped. Like the lighthouse horn that suddenly turns silent hardly anyone notices the silence. One possibility is that the Republican moguls have become preoccupied with “loser” Trump whose ineptitude and savagery threatens the entire house of cards. With threat to the Senate majority and perhaps the House, the Establishment has moved vigorously into action, experts and so-called party visionaries appearing on every news station and party platform to question Trump’s competence, veracity and sanity. Accused of everything from ADHD to empathic blindness it would seem the Establishment is desperately trying to put Trump in his place. What place? Obedience to the Establishment. No more tirades against globalization and pro-Putin rhetoric, but most of all, take orders from the Establishment and grovel like any good servant should.

While internecine warfare amongst Republicans bodes no good for the rest of us they have, in their preoccupation with denouncing Trump laid off President Obama; the daily diatribe from Republican media across the nation have, like the lighthouse horn, grown silent allowing for the natural ascendency of Pres. Obama’s image in the minds of the American people. Absent the daily torrent of racism–hate–and the President is seen as a competent leader of great intelligence, integrity and humanity. The false veil of racism falls away and the President is seen realistically, as the person he really is.

BOTTOM LINE; HATRED IS NOT INEVITABLE. MERELY ELIMINATE THE HATE MONGERS AND THE ADVANTAGE THE HATE-MYTH BRINGS TO THEM.

RMV