Sigh: Obama bows to Chinese leader

“What does one have to do to merit a show of deference from The One? Is it a debt thing?”

It’s a simple formula. It’s actually the standard internalized Ivy League view, a self conscious and yet secretly condsescending deference to “the other” — it’s why Pakistan is pronounced “Pok-ee-ston” according to the local patois, I imagine, but Obama wouldn’t be caught dead calling Worcester “Wusta”. (Remember in the 80s how Nicaragua was suddenly “Neegharagua” to the bien pensants but Montreal was oddly not Mohnrayall”) Here’s the formula: be 1) Non-western or 2) a “person-of-color” or 3) an indigenous person from a former Western colony or 4) some combination of the preceding and you are worthy of respect.

China? Easy. East. Bow. Saudi Arabia? Middle East. Certainly not Western. Muslim, with whom we want to make peace, and all those petro-dollars. Layup. Bow. Brazil? A little tougher. Well, people of color, creoles, indigenous people formerly oppressed by European colonialists. Socialists with big dreams like “Brasilia” for organizing people. On balance, merits a bow. France? Western. No bow, and blow off the prime minister when he wants to do dinner. England? White and Western. Double-fault. No bow and give crappy gifts and return their iconic statues and other valuables in an agitated fashion like a couple breaking up. Israel? Uhhh. Middle-eastern. Uhh. Kind of dark skinned. Uhh. Oppressed by Europeans. Tough call. Screw it. They’re jooooos and they oppress the browner and more disadvantaged and more third-worldy Palestinians and their religion is responsible for the West in the first place and they are successful beyond their station. No bow. Think of Obama as wearing a bracelet with “WWHZD” embroidered upon it. “WWHZD” standing for “What Would Howard Zinn Do?”, of course. Yes, it is really all that simple.

I went the schools that Obama went to, basically, and they tried to beat this crap into me. It didn’t take, but I learned enough to mimic them Invasion of the Body Snatchers style so that I could answer a hypothetical when-to-bow-and-when-not-to-bow question in my sleep.

Obama considers himself the Jesus who has come to atone for Western colonial sins. No, really, that’s how he sees himself. That’s why he bows. He is apologizing to the downtrodden of the world for the all the oppression that the West has visited upon him. The message is “I am sorry the people I represent have been so repulsive in the past, but I assure I am different and I will demonstrate this by licking your boots.” Bowing is simply the cross he has to bear for all our sakes to atone for how awful we have all been.

shazbat on April 13, 2010 at 12:08 AM