The Destruction Of Barack Obama
By Robert J. Burrowes
17 July, 2013
Countercurrents.org
Some people have been surprised or disappointed by certain decisions of
President Barack Obama. His war-making, his use of illegal drone strikes,
his failure to close Guantanamo, his failure to genuinely help those
ordinary Americans who voted him into office, and even his pursuit of
whistleblowers like Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden have all raised
concerns among those with the audacity to hope that he would be different.
But there is no reason for surprise. Obama told us all about himself in
his autobiography 'Dreams From My Father'. Most of us just chose not to
listen and to then analyse the significance of what he told us.
It takes someone with a particular psychological profile to kill and
exploit people. See 'Why Violence?' http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence Most of
us cannot kill: we respond to our conscience or feelings such as empathy,
sympathy, compassion or even the fear of our guilt or shame if we know our
actions will cause harm to others. What happened to Barack Obama that
makes him so violent? Let us analyse what he told us now.
In his book Obama describes his childhood. This includes, for example,
explicit reference to his violent maternal grandfather as well as key
behavioural descriptions of himself in contexts that reveal his emotional
state, even if this was, and still is, suppressed below his own conscious
awareness. In essence, the book contains a largely delusional account of
his early life, reflecting his effort to leave his past behind without
dealing with the effects of the violence he suffered.
One incident he describes clearly reveals his justified but unexpressed
fury at his father for abandoning him. Because this fury was suppressed,
it left young Barack with a gaping hole in his sense of self-worth: he
wasn't worthy of his father's time, attention and love. Moreover, because
he was unable either to prevent his abandonment by his father (because his
love, as a baby, for his father was insufficient to bond his father to
him) or to express his feelings (which would usually include fear, pain
and sadness in addition to his obvious anger) about this abandonment, he
acquired a deep sense of powerlessness and a large measure of self-hatred
too. However, given the extraordinary unpleasantness of these feelings and
without support and preferably encouragement to feel them, he
unconsciously suppressed his awareness of these as well. But they live in
him still.
His book makes it clear that it was his mother who was primarily
responsible for 'teaching' young Barack to suppress his awareness of his
feelings. She didn't comprehend her child's need to feel the fear raised
by his father's abandonment, to cry about it and to get angry about it
(perhaps by having a series of 'tantrums') because listening to his
feelings frightened her: listening might trigger equivalent feelings in
herself (and, as a child, she had been scared into suppressing her
awareness of her feelings too). So she scared the young Barack into not
having these feelings by, for example, contradicting his perceptions of
his father and offering justifications for his father's behaviour.
His mother didn't understand the enormous healing power of crying when you
feel sad, of consciously feeling scared when something frightening happens
to you and of expressing one's legitimate anger when one has been 'done
over'. Barack had been abandoned! How would you feel? She didn't
understand that evolution intended us to have feelings partly to guide us
and partly as a 'safety release valve' so that we can move on from trauma
to lead a productive and fulfilling life. Unfortunately, by suppressing
his awareness of his feelings (even though the feelings themselves cannot
be suppressed out of existence) throughout his childhood and in adult
life, they became deeply embedded in his unconscious and play the major
role in generating his now-warped behaviours without him even knowing it.
Another incident his book describes occurred after an older boy threw a
rock at the young Barack; he powerlessly complained to his stepfather 'It
wasn't fair'. This incident confirms that the boy had been terrorised into
suppressing his awareness of his anger: the anger that evolution intended
would tell him that this behaviour by his assailant was not just unfair -
it was an unprovoked, outrageous and violent assault; the anger that would
enable him to defend himself powerfully (primarily by showing his anger)
against such assaults, thus reducing the likelihood of their repetition;
and the anger that would also tell him how to change his behaviour in
future so that such assaults were less likely. Why is this important?
Because the young Barack had already learned to suppress his justified
fear of, and anger at, the abuse of people who were supposed to love him
(particularly his father and mother) and of whom he was (unconsciously)
terrified (such as his maternal grandfather), he learned to project his
own terror, self-hatred and anger onto other people and groups of whom he
is not actually afraid ('terrorists' in foreign countries, prisoners at
Guantanamo, US citizens), and to use violence to control their behaviour
instead. This enables him to regain his desired, but delusionary, sense of
'having control'.
Equally instructive is Obama's stepfather's response to this incident.
Rather than listen to the young Barack's feelings about the attack,
including its obvious injustice, so that he could rebuild his sense of
self-esteem, develop his sense of personal power, and learn skills and
develop capacities for dealing with conflict nonviolently, his stepfather
explicitly taught him to use violence, by giving him boxing lessons, in
'self-defense'. As a result of this and other experience, Obama has a
delusional belief in the effectiveness and morality of violence (perceived
as 'self-defense') whenever it is used by the United States while
believing hypocritically that it 'wasn't fair' when used by 'terrorists':
he has no capacity to perceive the dysfunctional and immoral outcomes of
using violence in any context.
Moreover, because the young Barack's suppressed anger was also warped by
the fear and pain he experienced as a result of the violence he suffered
as a child, he now acts vindictively towards people who have the courage
to tell the truth, such as Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden. Because he
lacks the courage to act on the truth himself, and people such as Manning
and Snowden expose the contradiction between how he wants to be perceived
(both by himself and others), and how he actually is, he now inflicts
unnecessary and/or excessive violence on those who have the courage to do
what his own fear prevents him from doing. For Obama, the truth of Manning
and Snowden is, literally, terrifying and he will go to great lengths to
silence it.
In another incident during his life in Indonesia, Obama mentions his
mother's generosity in giving money to beggars: a generosity which the
young Barack copied despite 'the few coins' in his possession. However,
his stepfather regarded this behaviour as 'endearing but silly': he
encouraged the boy to ignore beggars and 'make sure you don't end up on
the street yourself'. Given Obama's later work as a community organiser,
in which he apparently displayed concern for those who were 'less
fortunate', his subsequent behaviour as president, in which he has
overseen the continuing impoverishment of working and middle class
Americans, appears inconsistent. How can we account for this?
The adult Obama lacks integrity: his mind is not integrated in such a way
that memories, thoughts, feelings and conscience function seamlessly to
drive his behaviour in a consistent direction. And this is why he is such
a useful tool of those corporate elites who selected him to govern the
United States. Like most people who (unconsciously) feel unloved (an
outcome of the fact that loving his father didn't gain him love in
return), he now has the unconscious desire to please and to gain approval.
And Obama wants this approval from his corporate masters (not merely
American voters); it's not love but it's better than nothing. In turn, he
has the pleasant face and oratory which they can use to both mask and
'sell' their ruthless exploitation of the people of America and elsewhere
around the world, including when he must lie outright to do so (as he did
when he denied that the NSA spies on US citizens).
Obama makes it clear that his mother wanted him to have 'values'. What his
mother, like most parents, did not realize is that socially positive
values are deeply anchored in certain emotions and that these emotions and
the values they generate can only emerge as a result of childhood
experience (not including lectures and admonishments from adults). The
reason that the adult Obama has no conscience and feels little or no love,
compassion, empathy and/or sympathy for the victims of his government's
violence is simply the logical outcome of his own childhood which was
largely devoid of genuine love, compassion, empathy and sympathy. This is
another reason why the adult Obama is so violent, both internationally and
even domestically. As Obama oversees the increasing militarization of US
society and the systematic dismantling of the social contract – the
removal of centuries-old constitutional protections and the ongoing
encroachments on human rights and civil liberties (including those which
protected American citizens from arbitrary detention or execution by their
own government), the dramatic expansion of poverty and homelessness, the
spying on fellow Americans, the ongoing consolidation of predatory
corporate governance – we are simply witnessing the logical outcome of the
violence he suffered as a child.
At a personal level, we must understand why Barack Obama is violent and
support him to find the courage to travel the journey of emotional healing
because, like all perpetrators of violence, he was terrorised and
brutalised as a child. At a political level, those of us committed to
ending human violence must nonviolently resist his killing and his
exploitation. There is a better world for all of us but violence by
anyone, for any purpose – even when referred to as 'punishment' – cannot
bring it forth.
If you wish to join the worldwide movement to end all violence, you can
sign online 'The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World'
http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com
Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and
ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an
effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a
nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of 'Why Violence?'
http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence His email address is [email protected]
and his website is at http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com
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