Posted by
Adam Cassandra on Sunday, April 19, 2009 6:54:11 PM
When I first heard that the Obama
administration would not attend the UN's racism summit, I was kind of
surprised. Could Obama actually be standing up for American principles
of free speech?
Reportedly the two main reasons that the US will not attend are an
intended criticism of Israel in the conference declarations, and a move
by Muslim countries to silence all criticism of Islam, Sharia law, the prophet Muhammad and other tenets of their faith.
The White House said it could not support a singling out of Israel, one
of America's close allies, or a limitation on speech, because as State
Department spokesman Robert Wood pointed out, such limitations, "run
counter to the U.S. commitment to unfettered free speech."
After thinking about Obama's decision, I'm pretty sure it has to do
more with the criticism of Israel being a problem, than limiting
speech. Jewish groups have aggressively lobbied the US and other
countries to not attend the conference after a previous UN draft
statement likened Zionism to racism. The Netherlands, Germany,
Australia, Canada, Israel and Italy will also not be in attendance.
I think the fight over Israel had more to do with Obama's decision
because he has already expressed here in America that he does not
support free speech. Obama and his administration aggressively
attacked Rush Limbaugh, a private citizen, after Rush criticized
Obama's policies. Obama and other top Democrats have also openly
stated that they support restricting the free opinions expressed on all
conservative talk radio programs.
After people realized that the "Fairness Doctrine" was anything but
fair, Democrats dropped the name, but began planning to implement its
regulations in other pieces of legislation. One of the provisions
amounts to affirmative action where station owners will be forced to
hire minorities and people of diverse view points to put on air or face
having their operating licenses revoked.
And we shouldn't forget about how Obama hired a team of lawyers during
the campaign to go after any citizen who criticized him, his past, his
nepharious relationships, or his policies.
I hope the political pundits are not fooled by this move.
