Bush may have spoken these words: "Those who are poor, those who suffer, those who have lost hope are not strangers in our midst; they're our fellow citizens." However, when a citizen dared to criticize him during a promotional event for his "faith-based" programs, he snarled, "Who cares what you think?"
Ernest Partridge writes that the --absence of empathy' is "the one characteristic that connects' most of the immoral and misbegotten tenets of Bushism: that dogmatic mix of market absolutism, libertarianism, corporatism and simple greed that falsely describes itself as "conservatism,' and which I choose to call "regressivism.' "Absence of empathy' is the essence of evil which, if unchecked and unreversed, is certain to bring about the demise of the American republic as we know it, just as it led to the advent of the Third Reich."
One has to ask: has the United States evolved an electoral system that deprives its presidents of empathy, or are presidental candidates selected because they have an absence of that quality?
Is President Obama a Member of the Ruling Elite?
President Obama was not raised with wealth, but by a single mother who, at one time, had to draw upon food stamps. However, he was privileged to receive an upper-class education. He received a scholarship to the exclusive Punahou School at age 10, where he spent the next eight years on the lush hillside campus preparing for college. Following graduation, Obama received scholarships to attend Occidental College in Los Angeles and Columbia University in New York City.
After taking a break to work as a community organizer, Obama received a scholarship to attend Harvard Law School, where he served as editor and president of the law review journal, and he clerked for two prestigious law firms in Chicago during his summer vacations.
Upon graduation in 1991, Obama returned to Chicago where he was employed by the University of Chicago Law School as a visiting fellow in order to complete his book, Dreams from My Father.
In 1992, Obama married Michelle Robinson, who was a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School. Their two daughters have attended the private University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and, after they moved into the White House, the children were enrolled in the private Sidwell Friends School.
Like Clinton, Barack Obama relied upon scholarships to raise himself by education from modest circumstances, but can it be said that his experiences resulted in empathy for other underprivileged children who do not qualify for such assistance, or who do not have the family or community support to take advantage of available opportunities? Does he blame these children for their own failures?
In September 2009, President Obama recorded a message to American students, and the Department of Education suggested that teachers have their students "write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president" and "to make students accountable to their goals." The government also recommended that, after listening to the speech, students should discuss what "the President wants us to do." Obama laid his expectations upon the students, but he failed to mention what they could expect from him.
After a year in office, the evidence is convincing that Obama is willing to make politically advantageous deals on behalf of his corporate sponsors and, in doing so, fail to serve the interests of the voters who elected him, and their children.
The world has seen that President Obama is also willing to sacrifice the lives of innocent civilians, including children, to achieve the objectives of the ruling elite. These lives are simply "collateral damage" in the wars being fought around the globe against "terrorism," "drugs" and in support of Israel's program of apartheid in Palestine.
One must conclude that, irrespective of his race, creed, or culture, President Obama is much more a part of the international ruling elite, than the ordinary people of America, who seized upon his message of hope and change and elected him as their president. Sadly, it appears his soul was already spoken for.
Who Cares for the Suffering Children?
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