Blaming the Victim

Mitt Romney is back.  He has barely dipped a toe into the electoral waters and already the Jackals have gathered.  Despite the smiles on their faces and measured words, they would like nothing better than to tear him to pieces.

Even Mitt’s most bitter critics reluctantly admit that he would have made a good president.  He would certainly have been preferable to Barack Obama.  Nonetheless, they complain that he was a terrible candidate and therefore does not deserve a third bite at the apple.

What was Romney’s sin?  It was that he was a decent human being.  Honest and gentlemanly, he refused to sink to the level of his opponent.  For this, he is decried as lacking a “killer instinct.”  He was simply not mean enough.

But what do we want in a president?  Some are asking for a “new car smell.”  They desire someone different even if he/she is a lemon.  In fact, many of his detractors plainly view Romney as insufficiently conservative.

Lest we forget, Mitt was right about Russia.  It is our number one international adversary.  He was also right about the Middle East.  Radical Islamist Terrorists have not been defeated and the Palestinians are hindered by their culture.  He was likewise right about Benghazi.  Despite being ridiculed, he called out the administration’s deceit before anyone else.

Mitt was similarly on target about the economy.  His policies would have created many more jobs.  For one thing, he would have stopped ObamaCare in its tracks.  Unlike Obama, he is a learner.  He would never have repeated the mistakes he made in Massachusetts.

Romney did not earn his fortune by being an economic ignoramus.  Nor did he do it by cleaving to unproductive strategies.  Successful businesspersons adjust to changing circumstances.  Mitt proved capable of this, whereas Barack clings to the convictions he had in high school.

So why did Romney lose to Obama?  How could the American people have preferred a shallow narcissist to a proven leader?  Part of the reason is that the Democrats ran the dirtiest campaign since John Quincy Adams squared off against Andrew Jackson.  They told more lies than the slimiest of used car salesmen.

Nor did his fellow Republicans help.  They forgot Reagan’s eleventh commandment and gleefully spoke ill of a colleague.  It was they, not the Democrats, who first branded Mitt a “vulture capitalist.”  It was they who kept up this barrage for the better part of a year.

Neither did the evangelicals help.  When the time came to go to the polls, they stayed home.  Because many regarded Mormons as religious turncoats, they refused to support Mitt.  Obama won not because he got more votes than four years earlier, but because Romney got fewer.

Then there is this blather about how Romney did not care about ordinary Americans.  Amazingly, polls showed that voters believed Obama did.  Thus a man who spent years personally helping others was thought callous, whereas another whose selfishness has become legendary was regarded as compassionate.  Wow!

Even the weather conspired against Romney.  Hurricane Sandy could not have arrived at a more inopportune moment.  Suddenly Obama had an opportunity to look presidential, while Romney was obliged to hold his fire.

Decades earlier another gentlemanly politician was also let down by events, Republicans, and the American people.  Despite having masterfully handled the breakup of the Soviet Union and assembling a winning coalition in the Gulf War, George H.W. Bush was not awarded a second term.

A recession that was over, but did not seem to be, plus a mealy mouthed opponent (Ross Perot), gave his foes an excuse to lambast Bush for having broken his promise not to raise taxes.  Meanwhile, Obama can break every promise he ever made, but survives.  Somehow decency and competence could not save a Republican.

Is this what we conservatives are?  Is this what we want to be?  If we can’t be honest and forthright, who will be?

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

War Wary

The attacks keep coming and we keep doing next to nothing.  Radical Islam would like to destroy us, and our lifestyle, but many politicians cannot even bring themselves to say its name.  Indeed, they must be coaxed into calling its fighters terrorists.

One of the reasons we are told that we have not reacted more vigorously is that the American people are war weary.  A decade of combat in faraway lands has left them tired battle; thus they wish to bring the troops home.

This is not true!  We aren’t war weary; we are war wary.  We Americans haven’t been worn down by war; we never favored it in the first place.  General Patton was mistaken.  Americans do not love war.  We tolerate it.  We like to win, but we don’t like to fight.

Consider the evidence.  About seven times as many people die in highway accidents per year than have perished in a decade of combat.  This is less than one hundredth the body count from World War II.  Nor have our defenders been drafted.  They volunteered.  As a consequence, only the willing have been exposed to death.

Nor has the war been particularly costly.  Barack Obama wasted more on ineffectual domestic outlays in a single year than was expended in ten years on Iraq and Afghanistan.  We have not had to choose between guns and butter.  We got both.

So why the complaining?  We can begin by noting that the carping began shortly after we took Bagdad.  Once Bush stood before a banner proclaiming “mission accomplished,” voices were raised insisting that this had been a fool’s errand.  And besides, Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction.

Democrats, who voted to authorize the war, suddenly transmuted into doves.  The reason was two-fold—and obvious.  First, they could not allow a Republican president too much glory.  If he was permitted to bask in victory, he might later be difficult to beat at the polls.

Second, ever since Viet Nam Democrats have been isolationists.  They insist on concentrating on domestic policies, while withdrawing from foreign entanglements.  Why, they wonder, should we waste our time and treasure on other people’s troubles?

Barak Obama is definitely of this opinion.  Like any orthodox liberal, he assumes that if we are nice to others, they will be nice to us.  This includes, the Russians, the Chinese, the Cubans, the Iranians—and the radical Islamists.  Everyone wants peace; hence if we are peaceful, they will be too.

No matter how much goes wrong, this article of faith remains intact.  The Crimea can be attacked, ISIS can chop off heads, and French journalists can be massacred, but all we get are a few sanctimonious words.  Then, when the fuss dies down, it is business as usual.

Obama treats the Islamists as if they were a few flies buzzing around his head.  Thus, all he needs to do is shoo them away.  This, however, could not be more wrongheaded.  We are at war.  We are immersed in World War III.

Our enemy is not a nation state.  It is an international movement.  The armies we face are not conventional, but they are deeply committed.  Although the damage they inflict may seem trivial, it is not.  Our city centers haven’t been gutted, but our way of life, including freedom of speech and travel, is under assault.

The only sensible way to respond is to seek out and destroy the enemy.  Half-measures (or more accurately one-fiftieth measures) only prolong the agony.  Why don’t we go into Yemen and wipe out its nest of vipers?  We could if we so chose.

And why don’t we destroy ISIS?  We got to Bagdad in three weeks, why should a less capable foe take three years?  The way to defeat an enemy is to defeat that enemy—not to play patty fingers.  If we don’t crush them, it is we, and not they, who are to blame.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Liberal Propaganda

The term “propaganda” entered our lexicon thanks to the Roman Catholic Church’s “Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith.”  Created by pope Gregory XV in 1622, it was charged with the dissemination of information favorable to the Vatican’s mission.

Earlier, in 1559, pope Paul IV had initiated the “Index of Prohibited Books.”  These were works deemed antithetical to the true faith and therefore which could not be printed or read.  Both of these programs were launched as part of the Counter-Reformation.  With Protestantism gaining momentum, the Church sought means, however heavy-handed, to crush it.

Today, with Liberalism under assault, it has resorted to comparable tactics.  Despite talk about transparency, censorship and bias have become the order of the day.  The Obama administration and the mainstream media are more interested in promoting an authorized perspective than in sharing the truth.

Bias is nothing new in politics.  Three thousand years ago, with the advent of writing, Ramses II ordered Stella constructed that boasted of his enormous victory over the Hittites.  The battle had, in fact, been a draw, but news of that would have been bad for the Pharaoh’s reputation.

What is different today is the extent of the bias and the sophistication of the technology used to propagate it.  The liberal establishment, whether in government, the media, or academe, is dedicated to non-stop distortion of the facts.  If these must be suppressed, that’s no problem.  If they need to be turned on their head; so be it.

Back when progressivism was in full flower, things were different.  Teddy Roosevelt believed in the agenda he was promoting.  He did not feel a need to disguise it.  As a result, he could bring journalists such as Lincoln Stephens and Ray Baker into his office to candidly share his opinions.

Barack Obama pretends to do the same, but journalists know they are being manipulated.  Most go along with this because they agree with his policies.  While they may grumble in private, in public they pass along the party line.  The phony statistics about ObamaCare provide a good example.

The extent of this misinformation has been revealed in Sharyl Attkinsson’s excellent new book Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington.

Attkinsson was a star reporter at CBS until she ran into the network’s version of the “Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith.”  Literally told that the news department did not intend to embarrass the president, the sort of investigative reporting she had done under Bush was now unwelcome.

Time and again, stories that challenged the orthodox views on Fast and Furious, Green Energy, and Benghazi got canceled—especially if they were hard hitting.  While reporters were complicit in this censorship, the weightiest measures came from editors who had axes to grind.

As for the government, it is today riven with public relations offices.  Each agency has its own PR staff, the mission of which is to publicize favorable stories and quash unfavorable ones.  They are not in the business of informing the public, but in seeing to it that it is deceived.

Why?  The answer is simple.  It is for the same reason that the Roman Catholic Church resorted to propaganda.  If is for the identical reason that the pope Paul V ordered Galileo never to publish his work on a heliocentric universe, and then placed him under house arrest.

The Church was frightened by the success of Luther and Calvin.  Too many of the faithful had been converted to Protestantism.  This trend needed to to be reversed regardless of the consequences.

Today, liberalism is under siege.  It policies have failed to deliver on the economy, health care, education, race relations, crime, foreign policy, and so forth.  This cannot be admitted out loud; ergo the blizzard of lies and suppression.

Why does the public tolerate this?  Almost everyone is aware of the deception.  Are we too complicit in protecting an antiquated faith?

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw StateUniversity

Manufactured Racism

Why does it feel like the 1960’s again?  With race riots, civil rights marches, and strident demagogues filling the air with anti-police, and by extension, anti-white, vitriol, the echoes of a bygone era are resounding in the streets.

But why should this be?  Has there been a resurgence of police brutality or of white insensitivity?  The statistics argue against it.  There have been far fewer instances of white cops shooting innocent blacks and, given the prevalence of political correctness, far fewer racist slurs.

Today’s accusations are, in fact, manufactured.  They are not based upon facts on the ground.  Not even the Ferguson and Staten Island grand jury decisions can explain what has happened.  These were ambiguous at worst; examples of the rule of law at best.

So what is going on?  Part of what is taking place can be attributed to Barack Obama and Eric Holder.  They have fanned the flames of latent hostility.  Each routinely speaks out of both sides of his mouth.  On the one hand, they condemn violence, but on the other they understand the feelings of the alleged victims.

Our president was elected to office because he seemed to be a sensible black man.  Apparently not angry at whites, he promised to bring us together.  Just as Harry Reid averred, he spoke like a white man and therefore was not threatening.  Besides, his mother was white.

As recently as this fall, pundits attributed our president’s negative attitude toward the police, and his acquiescence in racially tinged campaign rhetoric, to political motives.  He was merely trying to gin up his base.  Yet that account no longer rings true.  He is not running for office and hence does not need to curry the favor of black voters.

The hard truth is that Obama harbors a deep animus toward white Americans.  Perceiving himself as a disrespected outsider, he seeks vengeance.  Oh yes, he hides it well.  He has, after all, had many years of practice convincing whites he is a “good guy.”

Hard to believe?  Consider the evidence.

Why would he attend a church that specialized in berating white Americans?  And why would he befriend a radical bomb-thrower like Bill Ayers?  Why too, whenever a question of police brutality comes up, does he assume the cops are to blame?  Why, indeed, does he have a smoldering 7love affair with Al Sharpton?

Holder too is anti-white.  His campaign against police departments is of long standing.  So was his decision not to prosecute black ruffians for intimidating voters.  No wonder he went to comfort the parents of Michael Brown, while heaping scorn upon a police officer who did his duty.

What then about the blacks who rioted?  Why did they turn violent so quickly?  I submit that it was for the same reason that crime rates are so high in black neighborhoods.  Black rage is always on a simmer.  Nevertheless this is more the legacy of slavery, and its aftermath, than of contemporary oppression.

The real question is why have so many whites joined in this anti-establishment crusade?  Shelby Steele argues that whites acquiesced in charges of racism because they felt guilty about the way blacks were treated.  Perhaps this was true decades ago, but does it apply now?

It seems to me that white activists scarcely feel any guilt.  Self-righteous in the extreme, they regard themselves as the vanguard of a brave new world.  These self-loathing folks also hate America.  Whatever their personal reasons, they would like to tear our nation down.

For the radicals, agitation about police violence is an excuse.  They know as well as anyone that far more blacks are killed by other blacks than by the police.  They do not care.  Despite what they say, black lives do not matter to them.

What matters is that they need a grievance if they are to effect the Revolution.  The war on women has lost its salience; ergo they invented a war on blacks.  Shame on them!

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University