President Obama likes to pontificate about being on the "right side of history" and rhetorically clobber those who are on the "wrong side of history". Debating Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election and defending his own record, Obama said, "… they can say that the president of the United States and the United States of America has stood on the right side of history." On numerous occasions, President Obama has invoked the moral commanding heights of "the right side of history" to proclaim American exceptionalism in the field of human rights. When Iranian protesters went into the streets in 2009, he proclaimed, "Those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history." At the UN General Assembly a couple of years later, Obama rhetorically asked, "Who in this hall can argue that the future belongs to those who seek to repress that spirit [of change] rather than those who seek to liberate it? I know what side of history I want the United States of America to be on." Right side?!?
President Obama likes to hector those who are not on the right side of history. Vladimir Putin is on the "wrong side of history" for annexing Crimea and supporting Syrian dictator Bashir Al-Assad. Assad himself is on the wrong side of history for visiting absolute misery on his people. All of the Arab dictators in the Middle East were briefly on the wrong side of history until President Obama absolved them of their transgressions; and arguably on the right side of history today.Read moreYou received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
No comments:
Post a Comment