Some bits in the mosaic of our time are overlooked because we look for boulders. This column presents issues/ideas that might deserve attention.
 
1. There was a time when Obama’s candidacy seemed to be good news. His reach for the presidency might have brought America a step closer to bridging her racial divide. Thanks to Wright and especially Obama’s handling of the case, the splendid opportunity is lost. The primaries suggest that, no matter what, Blacks support unconditionally anyone they designate as their own. If true, this attitude makes color decisive and race into a criterion of right and wrong. Meanwhile for many whites, regardless of the matter at hand, it is of paramount importance to prove that they are not racially prejudiced. Despite of what is pretended, these attitudes do not make such groups color blind. At the same time, however, the described predisposition does cloud their perception of racism in a manner that, in the case of whites, would justly be found to be intolerable.
 
2. To prove that they are not white racists, America’s Liberals feel obligated to vote for someone who carries on with and is supported by black racists.
 
3. Liberal-White America is shocked that Afro-Americans can also be racists. Their way out of the embarrassment is akin to the solution that is often applied when the facts contradict dogmatized theories. Ignore the problem and try to move on to a simpler case.
 
4. Watching Obama’s Reverend Wright defend his candidate is a rich source of insights. The Preacher reiterates every one of the extreme and irrational allegations that have outraged everybody on this side of the Black Panthers. In part Wright tries to sell the idea that if “it” is White, it is bad, if “it” is Black, it is good. The obviously self-enamored man seems to feel that he needs to make Blacks stand together not as individuals but as Afro-Americans. To achieve this goal, in the manner of all extremists, separating, even alienating Blacks from the majority is a necessity. This makes the wished-for Black identity a consequence of self-segregation, apartness and of a claim of superiority.
 
5. Rejecting Wright’s worldview now that it has become the core of a scandal is, in PR terms, belated. The impression arises that the disassociation is not provoked by the message’s content but by the shady seditious blabber becoming public. Equally compromising is that Obama claims that in twenty years in the pews he has not noticed anything odd. If this is accepted as being quite candid then the man is not especially alert to the obvious consequences of ideas. The same goes for his ability to identify clearly articulated weird thoughts. Such naiveté makes a candidate suffering from this ailment ill suited to conduct the affairs of a nation. How will a myopically naïve person deal with the crooks that are the weed in the garden of world politics?
 
6. America’s coming election might turn out to be a decision on “Is it enough to be anti-American.”
 
7. The Republicans used to wish that Hillary be the nominee of the Democrats. Given the scandals surrounding Obama, he now seems to be easier to beat than a warmed up Clinton. She is left-of-center but is able to reach rhetorically for the middle. Obama is more to the left, racially tainted, and he courts the center only with shibboleths floating on hot air. On this basis, an Obama candidacy might be an advantage to the GOP. At the same time, a danger for the country should be pointed out. Anyone nominated can be elected. There is a potential majority composed by those who observe public life only casually and who, being superficial, do not comprehend the implications of Obama’s positions.
 
8. Major sins in PC-terms have been committed in the above items. The misstep makes the writer recall the case of the boy who, according to the tale, dared to cry aloud “the Emperor is naked.” In self-defense, it is to be emphasized that that not the boy had caused the nakedness. In the story (unlike some in real life) he is not punished either.
 
9. On September 6, 2007, an air strike eliminated an object in Syria. Israel dislikes discussing the matter but it is rumored that the target was a nuclear installation. The complex looked like Nuke Korea’s Yongbyon and there are indications of Koreans at the complex. So far there is nothing unexpected about the story or that the Syrians energetically trumpet their innocence. The interesting part is that subsequently the Syrians raised the ruins of the edifice. Could this mean tampering with the evidence? An IAEA inspection could have confirmed officially scandalized Syria’s claim of a civilian project. Only the inspectors were not allowed to visit the covered-up ruins. What a notable effort this is to deprive oneself of the proof of a terror attack! Or is there another, more convincing, explanation? An obvious version of events exists that conforms to logic. The case needs no elaboration but it involves an explanation that will certainly insult Syria.
 
10. PC is, as are all patterns of thinking that preordain conclusions, in its consequences harmful and humiliating in its practice. The cause of the distaste is the pressure forcing one to embrace an incredible version of events and to have to claim that the intellectual somersault is voluntarily. Often this imposition is topped when there is reason to surmise that the occurrence on which the tale is based might not have happened at all. One example is the case of the demolished Syrian non-reactor. Here you are supposed to allege that nothing is what it looks like. Furthermore, in any case, the innocent object was a local reactor and not a North Korean import.
 
11. Stable freedom is more than just the momentary absence of dictatorship. Therefore, destroying a dictatorship does not create a new order of liberty. This is the appropriate lesson from the Iraq imbroglio. The fitting lesson is not that, when facing a threat, nothing can and should be done no matter when and where it arises.
 
12. Virtue is always in danger of becoming identified by inbreeding elites as corresponding to their interests. Accordingly, their self-serving rule is declared to represent a moral imperative and to be an ethical necessity. If an effective control of the media – probably also run by the same elite – is achieved then the critics can be cast in the role of rednecks. Said to be seduced by populist, these are proclaimed, to the extent that they might become a majority, to constitute a threat. If they prevail, so the smear goes, they will act against the interest of the “real people” whose self-appointed vanguard is the clan of treacherous scribes.
 
13. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, defunct East Germany’s leadership denied that there has ever been an order to shoot “in defense of the anti-Fascist Wall.” In the light of new evidence that confirms what was common knowledge, the original tale is revised. The truth-of-the-month is that here was an order to shoot but there was no order to kill. We are to believe that it was bad marksmanship that caused bullets to kill the unintended targets, which the riflemen aimed to miss. Rewards that grew in value if the would-be deserter was felled must have been caused by a misinterpretation of orders. Or were they handed out because the inept guard at least did not hit his commanders?
 
14. It being 2008, it is fashionable to celebrate the “revolt” of the “68-ers”. The career in journalism after the bold lot ran out of shop windows to smash, might be an explanation. The self-adulation of those now nearing retirement – wisely, they advised not to trust anyone above thirty – leads one to reflect. What are those, who fought an “easy” enemy, congratulating themselves for? With some sincerity but little wisdom and sense for the possible, the “68-ers” wanted to create a society free of sanctions. This goal needed to be held high as sanctions imply an order and an order is imposed from “outside”. With this intellectual snake medicine the difference between the foreign (Communist) dictatorships, they sympathized with, and the democracy they lived in, could be negated.
 
15. The above allegedly made order and its laws into oppression because they kept the individual from exploring to limits he set unilaterally. The ideal society was to be built from the communes that were to be its basis. Indeed, some communities might function without formal rules. Their order based on voluntarism is possible because of the voluntary identification of individuals with a community they were free to choose – and to abandon. The smaller such a group, the greater the identification can be. The larger the organization, the less selective its membership. The more people belong, the less likely it becomes that the idealized commune and the real self can fully match. The consequence is that wherever this experiment is attempted, the voluntary association of free members develops its own oppressive order. Since the radicals of ’68 did not manage to replace the democratic state and to absorb society, their associations could not ripen into their own dictatorship. As a consequence they are still able to measure their claim to glory not on the basis of a record but by the standards of their “movement’s” dreams.
 
16. The (Western) “68-ers” main impact: they entered the struggle between freedom and Communist dictatorship by supporting the latter. They knew the pickles of free societies by examining them from close up with a magnifying glass. Reflecting their prejudices, they were quite content to observe the festering sores of real-existing “Socialism” through a wide angle lens.