Reason #30/31 – America is “Just downright mean!”/Obama: Americans “Manic and self-absorbed”

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Reason #30

America is “just downright mean!”

In 1990, Obama called our Country “mean-spirited,” and ungenerous.  Some might think this ancient history – as ancient as Obama’s association with Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright.  But, In 2008, campaigning for her husband, before parishioners of a predominantly black South Carolina church, Michelle Obama gave her own view of life in America.  According to Michelle:

“…life in America in 2008, and life is not good.  We’re a divided country, we’re a country that is ‘just downright mean,’ we are ‘guided by fear.’ We’re a nation of cynics, sloths, and complacents.”[i]

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Reason #31

Obama: Americans Manic and Self Absorbed

In Dreams From my Father, Obama tells us that he decided to become a community organizer in 1983 and provides a few insights into his thinking.  The first is that he was dedicated to “change” – change in everything from the White House to the Congress, to what he called the “manic and self absorbed” “mood of the country.” [ii]


[i] Lauren Collins,(March 10, 2008), The New Yorker.com Profiles, The Other Obama: Michelle Obama and the Politics of Candor, retrieved November 2, 2010 from http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/03/10/080310fa_fact_collins?currentPage=1

[ii] Barack Obama, Dreams From my Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, 1st pbk Edition, (New York, 2004, Three Rivers Press), 133