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Home Front: WoT

VDH: The Roots of Obama's Appeasement

2015-02-17

"The architect of appeasement — for example, Neville Chamberlain, former prime minister of Great Britain — was predictably a narcissist. Chamberlain believed that his own powers of oratory, his insights into reason, and his undeniably superior morality would sway even a thug like Adolf Hitler."
...
"Obama sees a deal with Iran as a way to cement his legacy as a breakthrough statesman. In comparison, the long-term consequences of a nuclear Iran on the security of tiny Israel or on the stability of the largely Sunni Arab Middle East are future and more abstract concerns for others."
Yes, desperately reaching for a piece of 'legacy' in Iran (ValJar and Brennan's idea I suspect, he's doing it for the team). He's doing the same with Cuba as well. Tried it with Vlad, but Vlad and the Russians detest the bugger.... out of colour, if nothing else.

Posted by:Hupineger Glomomp15043

#9 who also have a wide practical streak and much common sense

They're called 'Critical Thinkers', no mo uro, and are becoming few and far between.

Posted by: Mullah Richard 2015-02-17 20:59

#8 I didn't know Chamberlain was a narcisist, I just thought he was a political coward and opportunist.

Posted by: rjschwarz 2015-02-17 15:18

#7 An intellectual, Anguper Hupomosing9418, exhibits two essential attributes: intellectual curiosity & intellectual integrity.
Look around our "Cognitive Elites": see any signs of either?

Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2015-02-17 12:40

#6 AH, I have dealt with what I would call true intellectuals in my time. People who are well read, well rounded, knowledgeable in many fields, who also have a wide practical streak and much common sense. They are to be distinguished form the likes of Chamberlain and Obama and the bulk of our education-governmental complex, who do not possess that sort of wisdom to go with the knowledge they purport to have.

Posted by: no mo uro 2015-02-17 11:13

#5 Precisely. Obama is a symptom.

Posted by: Lionel Thoth9784 2015-02-17 10:59

#4 "pseudointellectuals" - They are genuine intellectuals, no point in overstating your case. I have met enough stupid intellectuals in person and in historical readings to come to a realization that the human intellect has its limits.
Recent example, an abrupt change in the "official" recommendation to limit dietary cholesterol intake:

"It's the right decision," said Steven Nissen, chairman of cardiovascular medicine at the famed Cleveland Clinic. "We got the dietary guidelines wrong. They've been wrong for decades."

He noted that only 20% of a person's blood cholesterol — the levels measured with standard cholesterol tests — comes from diet. The rest comes from genes, he said.

"We told people not to eat eggs. It was never based on good science," Nissen said.

It took long enough for the 'good' scientists to change their ways. The "Best and Brightest" -- ain't.

Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2015-02-17 10:54

#3 Grom is right - its US Progressivism, and its support (via bias, and sometimes outright lies) in the larger press/media, as well as the selective disinformation put out by the academics. Obama is narcissistic idiot at the front of things, with ValJar as puppeteer, and Soros and his ilk doing the real guiding.

Posted by: OldSpook 2015-02-17 05:54

#2 So it is always.

A narcissist, who represents an elite built of narcissists (Oxford Union in Chamberlain's case, the NPR left in Obama's), who doesn't understand the concept of archetypes and has such a high opinion of himself and his chosen narrative that he cannot imagine that anyone might not be swayed by flowery rhetoric. "I am the best debater and negotiator and salesman ever, I can persuade anyone of anything."

As VDH says, malignant narcissism.

There are scores of examples of the autocrat archetype and personality type throughout history. Without exception, they interpret niceness and appeasement as weakness and an incentive to double down on their brutality. The histories are there, the facts are plain, yet there is always, in every age, someone like Chamberlain or Obama representing a class of vain, self-impressed pseudointellectuals who tell themselves that they, of all the humans who have ever lived, are the ones who've finally figured it all out. They never have or will.

Posted by: no mo uro 2015-02-17 05:48

#1 It's not Obama. Obama is just a symptom.

Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2015-02-17 04:29

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