It’s hard for people to pinpoint exactly what it is they don’t like about President Barack Obama, but I think I can easily sum it up: his thinly veiled contempt for America, and his transparent resentment for the country he was elected to lead.

You’ll often hear people say, “He just hates America.”

But try this on for size: Barack Obama may just be our first “oppositional identity” president. What’s that mean?

I’d never heard the phrase oppositional identity before, because I don’t subscribe to collectivist identity theories. I believe–much like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.–that people should be recognized by their own individual actions, not those of their ancestors.

But when I recently met a special education graduate student from Antioch University in Los Angeles and she told me about oppositional identity, I wondered whether it could help explain why President Obama harbors such apparent animosity toward his own country–and why he’s said some of the things he has in the past.

So, she loaned me her textbook to write this article.

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Americans celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday to honor his contributions to our Republic. His struggle against racial prejudice and discrimination brought the words of the Founders–“that all men are created equal”–to true fruition.

Dr. King used non-violent protest, and an appeal to universal principles, to bring Americans together. His birthday should be a holiday that unites us.

Instead, Democrats are using it to divide Americans.

Consider the sermon offered by White House adviser Valerie Jarrett yesterday, at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta where Dr. King preached. She told the audience: “Teachers, and firefighters, and policemen, whose jobs are now in jeopardy because Congress–well let me be specific–because [of] the Republicans in Congress.”

Those in the audience laughed and applauded at Jarret’s brazen–and false–partisan attack.

Democrats have rewritten the history of the civil rights struggle to portray Republicans as the villains, when in fact most segregationists were Democrats. Republicans, in fact, voted for civil rights laws in greater proportions than Democrats. Moreover, Dr. King himself had been a Republican. Regardless, Dr. King was careful not to divide Americans along party lines in his struggle for justice–nor would he approve of it today.

Another Obama administration official who is exploiting Dr. King’s memory for political gain is Attorney General Eric Holder, who used the holiday to renew his attack on voter ID laws in South Carolina, falsely claiming they are racially discriminatory.

It is Holder, in fact, who practices racial discrimination by refusing to apply voting laws equally, notably in the New Black Panther Party case, an open-and-shut example of voter intimidation. (more…)

In the late 1940s — when the Democrat party began shifting from denying equal rights to southern blacks to championing them — race became a central tenet of American politics. Although the Democrat party fought for slavery during the Civil War, formed the KKK during reconstruction, and used Jim Crow laws to keep blacks from enjoying their rights well into the 20th century, blacks seemed more than willing to look the other way in exchange for a few social programs that promised to bring them the equality they so sorely desired.

Eventually, these social promises (cemented in wealth redistribution programs like the “war on poverty” and racial quotas like affirmative action) came to define the Democrat’s relationship with black voters. Over time the focus on race became so integral to everything the Democrats did that blacks began to define themselves not as black Americans but as “African-Americans” (and soon “Mexican-Americans,” “Italian-Americans,” and every other conceivable people group followed suit). In effect, the language of race became paramount over all other language, and allegiance to race over all other allegiances.

We were reminded of these things in 2008 when Barack Obama was elected in part due to the color of his skin (and the promise of America’s first “African-American President” and a fulfillment of Martin Luther King Jr’s dream). Now just look what this focus on race got us: an inexperienced president whose solution for the ailing economy was to raise taxes, take over healthcare, nationalize certain automobile manufacturers, and regulate the financial sector to death (literally). And this is what makes Herman Cain’s announcement that he’s a black American rather than an African-American so refreshing: he’s turning back the dial on this race-above-all-else bunk.

Cain Said: “I do not try to use race to my advantage. I don’t even bring it up unless somebody asks me about it, and I have said repeatedly [that] this is not about color. This is about the content of your ideas, and your character.” Talk about the fulfillment of MLK’s dream! MLK said he dreamt of a day when people would not be judged by the color of their skin but the content of their character — which is exactly what Cain’s saying. And it’s 180 degrees from what Obama and the Democrat party are saying.

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On August 21, 2011, Rep. Maxine Waters, a senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus, at what was supposed to be a “jobs fair”, in Inglewood, California, made the following statement: “This is a tough game. You can’t be intimidated. You can’t be frightened. And as far as I’m concerned — the tea party can go straight to hell and I intend to help them get there!”

At a town hall meeting in Miami, Florida, on August 22, 2011 Rep. Andre Carson, also a Congressional Black Caucus member, charged that there are members of congress, who are Tea Party members, that have nefarious intentions towards Americans of African descent. Among his accusations:

•The Tea Party is stopping change in Congress
•“This is the effort that we are seeing of Jim Crow”
•“Some of these folks would love to see us as second class citizens”
•“Some of them in Congress right now of this Tea Party movement would love to see you and me hanging on a tree”

Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL), another member of the Congressional Black Caucus, at the same “jobs fair” in Miami, Florida, stated: “Let us all remember who the real enemy is,” she said. “The real enemy is the Tea Party. The Tea Party holds the Congress hostage. They have one goal in mind, and that’s to make President Obama a one-term president.”

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Two names loom large in this week’s news. Two names that ordinarily we wouldn’t think about together.

But, in the great struggle now unfolding before us for our nation’s future, it seems to me these two quintessential Americans are worth thinking about in light of each other.

One is Steve Jobs.

The other is Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.

Jobs, of course, is in the headlines because of his decision to step down and retire from Apple Computer, the company he co-founded, from which he later got fired, and to which he subsequently returned and resurrected.

Dr. King is in the news because of the opening of the King monument in Washington, D.C.

Other than being in the news at the same time, why might we think of these two very different Americans together?

I think they are icons of two essential but different and opposing aspects of American life. One is the individual and the other is our social reality.

It’s these two aspects of American life, the dignity and potential of individuals living free, and the social reality, the rules by which we all agree to live and to which we all submit, that has always caused tension in American life. And this tension is becoming particularly acute today.

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Rev. Wallace Charles Smith, pastor of the historic Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington D.C., recently made national headlines after President Barack Obama and the first lady chose to attend Easter Service at his church. Then a video surfaced showing Rev. Smith (like Jeremiah Wright Jr.) making some inflammatory and derogatory comments about whites during a speech in January 2010.

In the speech, Smith said that even with a black president, America is not over its race problems. He said that since “Jim Crow” can now “get a regular news program on Fox” and Rush Limbaugh can make the same “statements that were once the purview of Robert Shelton and members of the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizen’s Council.”

Now a new tape of Obama’s Easter Sunday Pastor has surfaced. Smith was interviewed on my show  (The Jesse Lee Peterson Radio Show) on January 17, 2011, where he made more controversial remarks about race and defended his friend Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.

During the interview, I questioned Rev. Smith about race relations and Obama’s choice to worship in Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.’s church for 20 years. I also got Smith to go on record about his views regarding Attorney General Eric Holder’s handling of the Philadelphia New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case.

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Newsweek is running a distinctly condescending take on the recent Arizona Massacre. The clippings below are from their latest print addition.

The gist of their argument is that there are parallels to be drawn between the racist assassination of MLK, and the massacre committed in Arizona.

An Echo of the King Killing

Then, as now, the country was fighting an intractable and apparently interminable war against a hard-to-find enemy on the other side of the planet — a conflict that had drained the nation’s coffers and left the populace fatigued and paranoid. Then as now, the airwaves seethed with reactionary speech. Then, as now, gun sales were going up, up , up.

What a sweeping and condescending generalization, “fatigued and paranoid”.

When Newsweek cites reactionary speech, are they referring to Frances Fox Piven’s call for violent rioting,  or are they referencing the rioting Democrat-party-organized “arrestables” who have been purposefully unleashed on American cities over the past several years, with the explicit goal of political intimidation and disruption? (RICO, anyone???)

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In 1999, James Earl Ray was found innocent of killing Martin Luther King Jr. in the same way O.J. Simpson was found guilty of killing his wife Nicole and Ron Goldman – in a civil trial. In fact, King’s family was as convinced of Ray’s innocence as the families of Nicole and Ron were convinced of Simpson’s guilt. In King vs. Loyd Jowers and conspirators unknown, there were 70 witnesses called; twelve jurors found in favor of the King family, which held a press conference after the verdict.

One of King’s sons – Dexter – had expressed his adamant belief that Ray was not his father’s assassin. In 1997, King told Ray personally that both he and his family believed him. What would it have taken for the Goldmans and the Browns to have believed Orenthal’s story that he was innocent? Anyone who remembers the looks on their faces, their resolve and their anger would have to concede that it would have required nothing short of cold hard facts.

The verdict in King vs. Jowers found a government conspiracy involving city, state, and federal agents complicit in the murder. Dexter King went so far as to name Memphis Police Department Officer, Lt. Earl Clark as his father’s assassin.

One week prior to King’s assassination on April 4, 1968 he had gone to Memphis to show support for local sanitation workers. Riots erupted in Memphis; one person was killed and sixty were injured. The incident was incredibly damaging to the cause of King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). A consequence of King’s alleged involvement in those riots was that it caught the attention of some powerful politicians. A Democratic Senator from West Virginia delivered an extremely incendiary speech on the Senate Floor that was directed specifically at President Lyndon Johnson, also a Democrat. (more…)

Remarks of President Obama at Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Dinner, as prepared by the White House:

Hello CBC! It is wonderful to be back with all of you. I know you’ve spent a good deal of time talking about what the future holds for the African American community, and the United States of America as a whole. I’ve been spending time thinking about that, too. And at this time of great challenge, one source of inspiration is the founding of the Congressional Black Caucus.

I want us all to take a moment and remember what was happening forty years ago when 13 black members of Congress decided to come together and form this caucus. It was 1969. More than a decade had passed since the Supreme Court decided Brown vs. Board of Education. It had been several years since Selma and Montgomery, since Dr. Martin Luther King told America of his dream, all culminating in the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

The founders of this caucus could look back and feel proud of the progress that had been made. They could feel confident that America was moving in the right direction. But they…. (more…)

At today’s press conference, President Obama pledged to push Congress to fund the Pigford settlement involving the USDA and black farmers in the South.

April Ryan, the White House correspondent who asked the question, has said that the funding of the Pigford settlement would be seen as a “litmus test” in relation to the President’s commitment to African-Americans.

Transcript:
OBAMA: April Ryan.

APRIL RYAN: Thank you, Mr. President. I want to ask a couple questions. On the economy, could you discuss your efforts at reviewing history as it relates to the poverty agenda, meaning LBJ, and Dr. King? And also, since Senate Republicans are holding up the issue of Cobell and Pigford II, can you make any assurances before you leave office that you will make sure that those awards are funded?

OBAMA: Let me take the second question first. For those who aren’t familiar, Cobell and Pigford relate to settlements surrounding historic discrimination against minority farmers who weren’t oftentimes provided the same benefits as everybody else under the USDA. It is a fair settlement, it is a just settlement, we think it’s important for Congress to fund that settlement. We’re going to continue to make it a priority.

Unless you spent the a few weeks on a different planet, you knew that there would be two rallies in Washington D.C. on Saturday, one to honor Doctor Martin Luther King Jr., the other to restore Honor to America. In the days leading up to the events, there was much conjecture about each gathering. Liberals in the media blasted the Glenn Beck-run Restoring Honor rally predicting that it would be a political event filled with hatred divisiveness. At the same time they predicted the Al Sharpton-led rally would honor the memory of Dr. King. At the end of the day, it was the Glenn Beck rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that Honored Dr. King, while Sharpton’s taught divisiveness.

On August 28th 1963, Dr. King sent a message to all Americans, combining his great faith, his honor for all people he relayed his hope that together,  people could realize the dream of America.

This week, 30-year-old Albert Pujols became just the 47th player in Major League Baseball history to hit 400 career home runs–he’s the third-youngest player ever to reach the milestone.  We just got word how he plans to celebrate.  From the Associated Press:

Cardinals manager Tony La Russa and slugger Albert Pujols plan to attend a rally hosted by conservative pundit Glenn Beck on Saturday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

The newspaper posted a story on its website Friday that says the manager will introduce Pujols at the gathering by the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

The Cardinals are in Washington to play the Nationals.

La Russa and Pujols met with Beck in the Cardinals clubhouse two months ago. (more…)

The NAACP, once an important Civil Rights organization, has not only forgotten its mission, but has degenerated into what it was formed to prevent, it has become a racist organization.

If you go to the group’s website you can read all about the groups original goals:

Mission
The mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination.
Vision Statement
The vision of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is to ensure a society in which all individuals have equal rights without discrimination based on race.

Notice it calls for eliminating race-based discrimination against all persons and equal rights without discrimination for all individuals. Yet too many incidents in recent history has shown the group has strayed far away from its goals.

Take for example this rant by SEIU Executive VP Gerry Hudson where he portrays  African-American workers as easy dupes “it doesn’t take a whole lot to argue African-American workers to another place,” and stereotypes  those white workers are “so f***ing rabidly racist.”

Essentially he is saying that the black people he represents are all weak-minded idiots and the whites are all racists. In the old days the NAACP would have blasted Mr. Hudson for his racist comments about Blacks and Whites. But these “ain’t” the old days.

There’s nothing wrong with the fact Debra Blessman kept secret from her students the name of the film she would require them to watch and analyze during finals week at Francis Howell High School. Today, however, the teacher might be wishing she had not kept her superiors in the St. Charles, Mo., school district in the dark about it. She planned to base final exams on the Michael Moore film, “Sicko“.

Judging by the unedited plot summary below which Blessman distributed to students in her Senior Literature and Composition class, one might assume Blessman kept school district administrators in the dark about the controversial 2007 documentary on health care because she knew they might find the film objectionable:

In this documentary, the director/writer Michael Moore exposes the dysfunctional North American health care system, oriented to huge profits and not for their mission of saving lives. Further, he shows the corruption in the political system, with members of government and congress “bought” by the corporations and the situation of the average American citizens, including those that volunteered to work in the rescue mission of the September 11th. Then he travels to Canada, Great Britain and France to compare their systems showing their hospital, doctors, staffs and patients. Last but not least, he shows that the prisoners in Guantanamo have better medical treatment than the common people in USA, and he ends getting free treatment to the Americans that participate along the documentary in Cuba.

Apparently, however, Blessman did not expect any of her students to raise objections about the film. But one did.

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The left has been at war with traditional American values for decades: the Founding Fathers, the Constitution, free enterprise, Christianity. All are objects of scorn and ridicule by those who hope to “remake America” – to use President Obama’s phrase – into some sort of leftist utopia on the model of those that have already failed all around the world.

The war on Christianity is a particularly disturbing fight. The battle has been lowlighted over the years by leftists who twist themselves into intellectual knots in an effort to remove Christ from Christmas – which is like trying to remove the wet from water.

But the fact that they’re trying to defy the laws of physics doesn’t stop leftists.

Their war on American culture took a new turn this week, when the city of Davenport, Iowa, at the urging of its civil rights commission, decided to rebrand Good Friday as the “spring holiday.” A certain Baptist minister from Montgomery, Alabama might be shocked to find that civil rights activists these days are devoted to striking Christ from the public lexicon.

The decision sparked a national firestorm – Good Friday, after all, is merely the day that Christians around the nation and the world mark the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The city finally had to reverse its decision.

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