Most of us have heard about how Barack Obama has lifted language from others, people such as Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. It’s what prompted Hillary Clinton to say in one of the primary debates that Obama’s words didn’t constitute change you can believe in but ". . . change you can Xerox" (a truly great line, which proves that Clinton didn’t think of it herself). Now, I won’t accuse him of plagiarism, as that is a specific charge and his actions may not rise to the level of it. Yet, I do have to wonder whom Obama is borrowing ideas from. For example, consider the following chilling comparison (read the rest; believe me, you’ll want to see a larger version of the image on the left).
To be fair once again, you could probably make most any contemporary figure seem similar to some notorious historical villain by cherry-picking one quotation from each and juxtaposing the two passages; nevertheless, given Obama’s association with the socialist New Party in the 1990s, his alliance with "small c communist" Bill Ayers and the fact that he is a disciple of Saul "the Red" Alinsky, this warrants consideration. You can also bet your bottom dollar (that is, before the president-elect redistributes it) that Obama has read Mao Tse-tung.
Ecclesiastes tells us there is nothing new under the sun, and, as G.K. Chesterton pointed out, "Nine out of ten of what we call new ideas are really just old mistakes." So it’s not surprising that his "change" may seem, depending on one’s level of discernment, vaguely or extremely familiar. The question is, though, whom is he really xeroxing?
© 2008 Selwyn Duke — All Rights Reserved




Leave a reply to Meow Say Tounge Cancel reply