The Obama Deception Debunked Part I

Since this movie was pushed by 9-11 Truth Groups at tea parties on Wednesday, and now is being advertised on both Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck's radio programs I thought I would discuss the film.

First, understand that the tea party crowd may enjoy the title, but they're really not the target market for this nonsense. This film is really aimed at leftist supporters of Obama, trying to peel them away, as anybody can tell very quickly.

For example, one of the early messages Alex Jones pushes is that Obama is just like Bush; not a sentiment likely to win converts on the right. He notes that Obama kept Gates as defense secretary; this of course is one of the things that conservatives would give Obama credit for.

The movie starts with KRS-One, apparently a famed rapper (dang, I knew I should have listened to that crap more). He gives a rather silly monologue about how Obama is the manager at Burger King. If you don't like your burger at Burger King, you can't just go to the cashier (which is the court system), you need to go above Obama the manager to the guy who actually owns the franchise. I'm thinking that the burger is the economy and the franchise owner is the New World Order.

Next we go to a group discussion including those noted deep thinkers, Jesse Ventura and Willie Nelson. Jesse tells us that politics is like pro wrestling; they may hate each other in front of the cameras but they're best buds when the red light goes off. This is relatively non-controversial; Orrin Hatch and Ted Kennedy apparently do get along famously in private life. But what Alex Jones is selling with this bit is that they're all secretly conspiring to do something nasty to us and just pretending to have political differences (which is completely untrue).

Now we get to the man that Jones is selling as his Obama expert: Webster Tarpley. Tarpley is a former Lyndon LaRouche follower; he was LaRouche's main man in Europe for decades, before being purged with the rest of the Baby Boomers in the late 1990s as LaRouche focused his hucksterism on Generation X.

I love the bit about 6:10 in regarding the end of "Posse Commentatus"; that's been a staple of kooks since forever, but most of them pronounce it right.

And indeed, much of the film could have been done by the LaRouche people; LaRouche often railed about the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, two organizatons that along with the Bilderbergers get prominent play in the movie. Tarpley is also the usual cited source for the idiotic leftist claim that Prescott Bush was the banker to the Nazis, a ridiculous misreading of the actual facts.

Tarpley tells us that Obama's working for Wall Street, another claim not likely to win the Obama Deception believers on the right wing.

Then comes Joe Rogan. I mean seriously. So far we've had a rapper, a wrestler, a country and western singer, a LaRouche cult member and now we get the former host of Fear Factor? Oh, but he's got so much credibility because he's a mixed martial arts announcer! One of the usual faults of conspiracy theories is the "Appeal to Authority," but in this case Alex seems to be going with "Appeal to Celebrity."

Jones' first words (his voice is distinctively gravelly) should likely cause the conservative tea partiers to pop open their DVD players and scale the Obama Deception towards the garbage can.

"America in 2009 was desperate for change. The prior eight years had been a disaster."

Okay, seriously, is there any conservative that needs to hear more? But in case they do, I would like to point out that this video is produced by Alex Jones, who spent the last 7 years claiming that the terrorist attacks of 9-11 were a conspiracy planned and orchestrated by the Bush Administration. No matter how much you may hate Obama (and I see a fair amount of it), you don't like Alex Jones.

Some claims in the movie:

Obama told workers he opposed NAFTA, but he later sent word to Canada that he was just posturing. This is true, but hardly unusual for a politician.

For the most part, this movie is yet another recycling of Alex Jones' master conspiracy theory. Jones believes that the New World Order is upon us, that the upper classes are going to kill 80% of us, and enslave the rest. At least, that's what he sells to the idiots who subscribe to his site. Let me put it this way; Jones is competing with the nice gentleman in Nigeria who alerted you to that fortune the uncle you never heard of left behind in his bank before that unfortunate plane crash.

Jones should not appeal to sincere conservatives. Let me point out that because his target market is mostly the kind of disaffected twenty-somethings wandering around in black tee-shirts, he routinely disparages the police, talking about how they pick the dumb, evil ones purposely. Ditto with the military; Jones despises the US military. Oh, remember that guy who shot three cops in Pittsburgh a couple weeks ago? Big Alex Jones fan.

Observe the people that Jones cites as his experts; Webster Tarpley, a Lyndon LaRouche 9-11 Truther who's such a jerk that fully 3/4 of the 9-11 Truthers hate him. And what does Tarpley accuse Obama of? Not being a socialist or a communist. He's a freaking agent of finance capitalism, a creature of Wall Street.

Okay, the next conservative who thinks that Obama represents the capitalists on Wall Street can raise their middle hand.

So why am I posting this now? Because we're now getting an incredible surge in traffic over the Obama Deception. We really try to be non-partisan around here, but it is no secret that I supported John McCain for president in 2008, and I remain critical of Obama's performance, particularly on the spending side.

I will put up more detailed pieces debunking the film, now that I see the reception it is getting. But any conservative that wants to know what I think of the Obama Deception should know that it's a piece of crap, and relying on it for anything is likely to make you look like a fool to anyone with Google. Let me give a simple example. In the movie, we are presented with the following quote from Abraham Lincoln:

I see in the near future a crisis approaching. It unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. The money power preys upon the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me & the financial institutions at the rear, the latter is my greatest foe. Corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few, and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless.

In fact, this is an old fraudulent quote. How old? It was debunked in an 1896 letter to the editor of the New York Times.

To our liberal readers, forgive me the political intrusion in the above post. I am trying to debunk a ridiculously stupid movie about Barack Obama that is apparently catching on with conservatives.

Update: Lotta gripes that I didn't debunk enough here; see that "Part I" part of header? This is just the broad brush. See Part II where I get into more specific debunking of claims in the movie.