Was Obama Reagan 2.0?
In 1831 & 1840, Alexis de Tocqueville, described America as exceptional. While to neocons exceptionalism is a city on a hill, & British colonists in 1630, exceptionalism has been targeted by liberals, leftists groups & Democratic Party ideologues, based on the premise that America is not inherently different from other nations.
American Exceptionalism
Exceptionalism, in the American sense, includes:
The first new nation
Americanism : liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, republicanism, democracy, & laissez-faire
American history & mission makes America superior to the rest of the world.
A mission to transform the world.
government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg address
Contrary to popular narrative, President Barack Hussein Obama, was a traditional exceptionalist, even a Reagan 2.0.
Image from JonMcNaughton.com, McNaughtonArt
The America I know is full of courage, and optimism, and ingenuity. The America I know is decent and generous. Sure, we have real anxieties—about paying the bills, protecting our kids, caring for a sick parent. We get frustrated with political gridlock, worry about racial divisions; are shocked and saddened by the madness of Orlando or Nice. There are pockets of America that never recovered from factory closures; men who took pride in hard work and providing for their families who now feel forgotten; parents who wonder whether their kids will have the same opportunities we had.
Barack Obama
All that is real. We’re challenged to do better; to be better. But as I’ve traveled this country, through all fifty states; as I’ve rejoiced with you and mourned with you, what I’ve also seen, more than anything, is what is right with America. I see people working hard and starting businesses; people teaching kids and serving our country. I see engineers inventing stuff, and doctors coming up with new cures. I see a younger generation full of energy and new ideas, not constrained by what is, ready to seize what ought to be.
Barack Obama
Most of all, I see Americans of every party, every background, every faith who believe that we are stronger together – black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American; young and old; gay, straight, men, women, folks with disabilities, all pledging allegiance, under the same proud flag, to this big, bold country that we love.
Barack Obama
A lot of people talk about American exceptionalism. I’m a firm believer in American exceptionalism. You know why I am? It’s because of folks like this. It’s because we don’t run and hide when there’s a problem….
Barack Obama
So we’re having not just effect by what we do directly but also by a change in mindset in the countries affected and around the globe. That’s what’s happening because of American leadership, and it is not abstract: It is people who are willing to go there at significant sacrifice to make a difference. That’s American exceptionalism. That’s what we should be proud of. That’s who we are.
Barack Obama
Imperial interests versus national interests
Subsitute imperial for national
What is in the interest of the American empire?
From the time that Woodrow Wilson committed the United States to World War 1, the population of the Washington, DC metropolitan area has exploded from about 8,000 in 1800 to over 6 million today. As the Government began expanding the war department, private sector contractors stepped in to feed the military industrial complex. In World War 2, John Foster Dulles, expanded the intelligence bureaucracy. Edward Snowden was a Booz, Allen Hamilton employee contracted to the NSA, based in Hawaii when he finally blew the whistle.
For the founding fathers, a key characteristic of a tyrant is the capacity to wage war without the approval of the US Congress.
Having been effectively locked out of China, Google is attempting to keep the internet open, for the sake of its own search business. Other tech companies are following suit.
Is the last bulwark against protection form the deep state in the hands of the C-suites of Google, Facebook, Amazon & Apple?
Or like the telcos, are they already deeply embedded into the deep state?
Has every American President taken congressional approval for every war
that they waged?
As government institutions, agencies & departments are established, like corporations, these artificially created persons develop a life their own. Like all life forms, their primary focus is to protect their very existence & to explore ways & means whereby they can advance their institutional power.
Shadow government
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men
Wikileaks on CIA's Vault 7
We now need a digital Geneva convention that will
protect individuals in times of peace.
Eisenhower on the military industrial complex
Public policy can become capitive to scientific
& technological elites.
Kennedy on secret societies
The test of journalism versus the test of national security.
Ron Paul on the deep state
There's not much of a difference between the two parties
The Deep State Hiding in Plain Sight
It is how we had deregulation, financialization of the economy,
the Wall Street bust, the erosion or our civil liberties and perpetual war,
What do you think, @Steemit community?
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