Obama's Triumph of the Will

Barack Obama had planned on addressing the world from Berlin's historic Brandenberg Gate. But German leadership, which still harbors deep fears about cults of personality, has said no.

It was at the Brandenberg Gate that President John Kennedy made his famous Ich bin ein Berliner speech, in which he made it clear, to the leaders of monolithic Communism, that America would go to the mat to keep Berlin free:



In 1987 Ronald Reagan stood at the Brandenberg Gate, and demanded that Premier Gorbachev tear down the Berlin Wall:



Barack Obama has not done a thing, nor does he yet stand for anything, that makes him worthy to address the world from that hallowed place of freedom and democracy.

Barack Obama stands for one thing—himself. He has been in the United States Senate for four years, and has not done anything of note. Nor is his record in the Illinois legislature particularly memorable. He was head of the Harvard Law Review, yet has not written any scholarly legal papers.

He has authored two books, which were basically about one idea—how special Barack Obama is, and his importance and place in the great tides and dialogue of history.

The Obama campaign wants to portray itself as a movement, rather than a political campaign. Obama has transcended post-modernism. It is his claim that he has not only moved beyond the divisive politics of conservative and liberal, but is post-politics entirely.

Although there is no real reason to believe that Obama is this transcendent historical figure, it is a theme quite familiar to Christians. Christianity is all about faith in the person of The Christ, and that is why so often good Christians are able to rationalize away the actual things the historical Jesus said—if you believe in the Son of God you will be saved—nothing else matters.

Jesus, whether God, man or both, was a good person—and that is why the history of this cult of personality is not as bad as it could have been. But, without going into the whole litany of Christianity's sins throughout the ages, this, all too often shameful history, proves what dangers lie in personality cults, even when that person may be God.

America has always been reluctant to jump aboard ideological movements in general, and personality cults in particular. It has to do with our national character, which was born in the anti-authoritarianism and individualism of the Revolution, and then forged on the Western Frontier.

Not so the rest of the world. Much of the misery of the twentieth century was caused by ideological movements—which almost always evolved into personality cults—and, without exception, turned out badly---Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Mussolini, Lenin,Pol Pot, Hirohito, Castro—and all the minor tyrants such as Saddam Hussein.

The one thing all these leaders had in common is they not only sold themselves as the embodiment of their nation, and all its hopes, dreams and aspirations---but believed it themselves.

Michelle Obama has said “Barack Obama is the only person in this race who understands that, before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls--our souls are broken in this nation”

And it is through Obama that our souls will be saved:

“Barack Obama is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.”

In other words our uninformed, uninvolved broken souls can be saved simply by voting for Barack Obama. We don't have to sacrifice, or even know how Obama stands on the issues, much less think--- belief in Barack Obama will make us whole and bring us to the promised land, and America will finally shine in all its glory.

Obama likes to say, “we are the change that we seek” and “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” Despite the soaring collective rhetoric, what he really means is that Barack Obama is the one we have been waiting for:



It's as scary as The Führer was at Nuremberg—adoring youth, fainting frauleins—and the triumph, renaissance, restoration and glory of the German Will, through the personhood and adoration of Adolph Hitler:



Rudolpf Hess closed the proceedings, by offering a benediction:

"The Party is Hitler--Hitler however is Germany-- just as Germany is Hitler."

Germans did not know then what the Third Reich would evolve into—they only knew that Hitler was the embodiment of the fatherland, and the one they had been awaiting.

That is a big part of the reason why German Chancellor Angela Merkel, among others, did not want the Democratic presidential candidate using the Brandenberg Gate to mythologize himself, and his place in history.

So instead, The One addressed, and offered himself up to us, from the Victory Column in Tiergarten park, a venue of colossal phallic proportions, appropriate for a global manifesto--- the place where angels gathered in Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire, and which was erected as a monument to Prussian superiority, and was to have been ground zero of the Reich's New World Order:

"People of Berlin -- people of the world -- this is our moment. This is our time."

It is Barack Obama time.