{"id":157075,"date":"2015-06-05T20:10:22","date_gmt":"2015-06-05T20:10:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=157075"},"modified":"2016-05-31T01:33:16","modified_gmt":"2016-05-31T01:33:16","slug":"an-obama-statement-packed-with-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/an-obama-statement-packed-with-lies\/","title":{"rendered":"An Obama Statement Packed with Lies"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/b>Eric Zuesse<\/span><\/p>\n

Here was Obama\u2019s\u00a0rhetoric, in Tallinn Estonia, on 3 September 2014<\/span><\/a>\u00a0(click on the linked parts to see the actual reality<\/b> regarding each given allegation):<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013\u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re not afraid of free and fair elections, because true legitimacy can only come from one source — and that is the people.<\/i><\/a><\/span>\u00a0We\u2019re not afraid of an independent judiciary, because\u00a0<\/i>no one is above the law.<\/i><\/span><\/a>\u00a0We\u2019re\u00a0<\/i>not afraid of a free press or vibrant\u00a0debate or a strong civil society<\/i><\/span><\/a>.\u00a0\u2026 And yet, as we gather here today, we know that this vision is\u00a0threatened by\u00a0<\/i>Russia\u2019s aggression against Ukraine<\/i><\/span><\/a>. It is a\u00a0<\/i>brazen\u00a0assault on the territorial integrity of Ukraine — a sovereign and\u00a0independent European nation.<\/i><\/span><\/a>\u00a0It challenges that most basic of\u00a0principles of our international system —\u00a0<\/i>that borders cannot be redrawn at the barrel of a gun;<\/i><\/span><\/a>\u00a0that nations\u00a0<\/i>have the right to determine their\u00a0own future.<\/i><\/span><\/a>\u00a0It undermines an international order where the rights of\u00a0peoples and nations are upheld and\u00a0<\/i>can\u2019t simply be taken away by\u00a0brute\u00a0force.<\/a>\u00a0<\/i><\/span>This is what\u2019s at stake in Ukraine. This is why we stand\u00a0with\u00a0<\/i><\/span>the people of Ukraine<\/i><\/a><\/span>\u00a0today. \u00a0(Applause.)\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

Now,\u00a0<\/i>let\u2019s put to rest,<\/i><\/span><\/a>\u00a0once and for all,\u00a0<\/i>the distortions or outdated\u00a0thinking<\/i><\/span><\/a>\u00a0that has caused this crisis.\u00a0<\/i>Our NATO Alliance is not aimed\u00a0\u201cagainst\u201d any other nation;<\/i><\/span><\/a>\u00a0we\u2019re an alliance of\u00a0<\/i>democracies dedicated\u00a0to our own collective defense.<\/i><\/span><\/a>\u00a0Countries like Estonia and Latvia and\u00a0Lithuania are not \u201cpost-Soviet territory.\u201d You are\u00a0<\/i>sovereign and\u00a0independent nations with the right to make your own decisions. No\u00a0other\u00a0nation gets to veto your security decisions.<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The protests in Ukraine, on the Maidan,<\/i><\/a><\/span>\u00a0were\u00a0<\/i>not led<\/i><\/span><\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0<\/i>neo-Nazis<\/i><\/span><\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0<\/i>fascists.<\/i><\/span><\/a>\u00a0They were led by\u00a0<\/i>ordinary Ukrainians.<\/i><\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u2026<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

As a result of state-run propaganda,<\/i><\/a><\/span>\u00a0many Russians have become convinced that the actions taken by their government is\u00a0<\/i>[are] strengthening Russia. \u2026\u00a0Just as we refused to accept smaller European nations being dominated by bigger neighbors in the last century,\u00a0<\/i>we reject any\u00a0talk of spheres of influence today.<\/i><\/span><\/a>\u00a0(Applause.)<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2013\u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

Click onto each link there, and see that each one of those statements by Obama is a lie<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Many other lies were in that speech, but the core of his deception was this: his lying \u2018history\u2019 regarding the matter, and his lying about his intentions in it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Obama\u2019s most blatant lies concern foreign policy (the topic of that speech), not domestic policy. Anyone who trusts anything he says about international relations will be deceived, because he builds his foreign policies upon an agenda that is\u00a0profoundly different from his rhetorically stated purposes.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0And, so, he needs to lie a lot, in order to argue for his foreign policies.\u00a0And, he does.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, there is a deeper context to this, and it\u2019s Obama\u2019s relationship to lying, itself \u2013 his attitude toward deceiving the public, and also the public\u2019s acceptance of that attitude; and, ultimately, this concerns even the type of nation that the United States has become, and now sadly is:<\/span><\/p>\n

President Obama had his Supreme Court attorney, the U.S. Solicitor General, present\u00a0a friend-of-the-court brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of a claimant whose case alleged that political lying is 100% protected by the First Amendment\u2019s Free Speech provision and so no state may issue any law limiting the right of anyone to lie in a political campaign.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0The U.S. Supreme Court, in the 2014 case of Susan B. Anthony List v. Dreihaus<\/i>,\u00a0issued a decison 9-to-0 (unanimous) endorsing that view: the public has no right to be provided the truth, but politicians and their monied backers have an unlimited right to deceive the public in any political campaign, the 9 \u2018Justices’ unanimously agreed.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This Supreme Court case was virtually ignored by the U.S. \u2018news\u2019 media: there were a\u00a0few<\/span><\/a>\u00a0snickering\u00a0blog-posts<\/span><\/a>\u00a0about the oral arguments, but by the time the Court issued its ruling, even that coverage didn\u2019t exist \u2013 as if the case were only a minor one, about a minor issue, rather than about the very possibility (or not) that democracy can actually function (in more than merely a nominal sense) in the United States.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

By the time the final decision was issued, even the snickerers were no longer interested in the case. However, someone at the (Republican) Sean Hannity online forums celebrated (and with links to the sources, moreover) the ultimate end of the case after it went back to the lower court, and he\u00a0noted<\/span><\/a>:\u00a0\u201cBased on that [Supreme Court] ruling, the case was filed and a Federal Judge has now struck down the Ohio law [against lying in politics] as being an unconstitutional\u00a0burden on electoral speech.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And, so, anyone in American politics who is accused of lying can say, \u201cSo, what?\u201d and, if there is more money for the lie than against it, then the lie will probably win. And there can be no legal consequences against that victory for lies, and for liars. This is now American \u2018democracy.\u2019 In order to change it, the Constitution would now have to be amended. <\/span><\/p>\n

This is not what the Founders intended, when they wrote the First Amendment; but what they intended has been raped by this U.S. Supreme Court on a number of occasions, the two worst of which have been 2010\u2019s Citizens United<\/i> decision, and 2014\u2019s Susan B. Anthony List v. Dreihaus<\/i> decision. Those two decisions complement each other in raping America\u2019s Founders, by one rapist after another, from the same Supreme Court gang: one decision replaces one-person-one-vote by one-dollar-one-vote, and the other provides total impunity when those dollars are then devoted to spreading political lies to the public.<\/span><\/p>\n

So: America is now a fascist country. The Big Dollar has now become even the Big Lie, in America.<\/span><\/p>\n

What remains, in America, of the Founders\u2019 intent, isn\u2019t enough to be honestly called a \u201cdemocracy.\u201d<\/span><\/a> And, of course, when President Obama was in Estonia, he was lying about that, too. And his pro-\u2018democracy\u2019 rhetoric has been quite successful around the world, at fooling publics in many countries into thinking that he favors democracy. And the same rhetorical line, which has been stated by all U.S. Presidents (some of whom believed it, unlike he), has produced a generally positive image of the United States around the world<\/span><\/a>; though, anomalously, the U.S. is also considered to be the nation that constitutes the greatest threat to world peace<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps after two war-seeking Presidents during the past 15 years (George W. Bush and Barack Obama), global public opinion about the U.S. is gradually changing, and America is coming to be viewed as a declining world power that\u2019s increasingly trying to impose its will upon the world, even at the cost of waging perpetual war, after the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact were long gone and America\u2019s \u2018defense\u2019 industry needs invasions in order to continue growing<\/span><\/a>. However, The international image of Obama is still much better than is the international image of Bush. Obama is a far more skillful liar than his predecessor was. But they both have played the public for suckers, and in the same general direction, though one a conservative and the other a \u2018not conservative\u2019 (in rhetoric, which fools the public even on ideology). (Both<\/i> have been lying war-mongers, no different than Hillary Clinton would be if she becomes President.)<\/span><\/p>\n

———-<\/span><\/p>\n

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of \u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a>, and\u00a0of \u00a0Feudalism, Fascism, Libertarianism and Economics<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eric Zuesse Here was Obama\u2019s\u00a0rhetoric, in Tallinn Estonia, on 3 September 2014\u00a0(click on the linked parts to see the actual reality regarding each given allegation): \u2013\u2013 We\u2019re not afraid of free and fair elections, because true legitimacy can only come from one source — and that is the people.\u00a0We\u2019re not afraid of an independent judiciary, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":145727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[115,30,27,32,96,535,59,526,524,523,49,76,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-157075","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-barack-obama","9":"tag-big-brother","10":"tag-bush","11":"tag-cia","12":"tag-cover-up","13":"tag-global-news","14":"tag-military","15":"tag-propaganda","16":"tag-russia","17":"tag-ukraine","18":"tag-usa-news","19":"tag-warfare","20":"tag-white-house"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}