Well to be clear I'm not so sure it would be an accurate statement to say the stuff Bush did was 10 times worse than what Obama did. Now, domestically this is a 100% true statement, but these videos were critique's of American foreign policy, nobody gives a s**t what our domestic policies are as those policies only impact us Americans. Now, regarding your perception that they are particularly critical of Obama 1) They are speaking on current events & Obama was the President during the time these songs were made, I don't believe their personal positions on politics have changed all that much so I'm sure they will make songs criticizing Trump & other leaders/countries like they did Obama. You have just only heard the songs you have heard, but they have plenty of other works that show the consistency of their viewpoints.... it is nothing personal against Obama. 2) Lowkey was born in 1986, Black the Ripper was born in 1987, & M-1 was born in 1972. So, other than M-1 (the 1st rapper & the only American,) the other 2 would have reached the age of 18 a mere 2 years for Lowkey & 1 year for Black the Ripper before Obama became President. 3) This answer is more in the "my opinion" category rather than the "factual" category like the first 2 were. Speaking in broad generalities here, for anyone who might be offended, but broadly speaking the political viewpoints expressed in these songs (Obama Nation part 1 & part 2) are more on the "left" spectrum of politics. During the Bush presidency the Democrats, who at least in the American political system represent the "left" compared to the Republicans on the "right", were strongly protesting & shouting about all the illegal behaviors Bush & his administration committed. But, after Obama became President, despite essentially keeping most of the more atrocious aspects of Bush's behavior that Democrats complained about & in fact actually expanded many of them, the Democrats for the most part no longer had any problems with the behavior now that it was their guy in the office. So personally yeah I see it as a duty of those who actually care about these issues to try & point out to those who at some point claimed to be your allies regarding these issues that their guy is doing the same stuff, some of it to even greater degrees, as the person they were just b**tching about was doing. In terms of economic policy & foreign policy Obama was in the exact same continuum as every President before him was. The administrations are only perceptibly different in some, & I do mean only some, social areas & then in the rhetoric they use. The actual policies don't differ all that much in any other area. So Obama never closed Guantanamo Bay, he gave retroactive legal immunity to tech companies for domestic spying & expanded it's use, we are still in Iraq & Afghanistan (& still doing drone strikes in Pakistan,) as well as becoming involved in Yemen, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine & already overthrew Gaddafi in Libya. He has even expanded the drone strike policies that Bush implemented to include killing U.S. citizens on foreign soil with drones (so far Anwar al-Awlaki & Samir Khan, then al-Awlaki's 16-year-son, also U.S. citizen, & then while this next one was under Trump & not Obama the government killed al-Awlaki's 8-year-daughter in Yemen earlier this year.)
Aaron Hoy Ironically he won a the Nobel peace prize but became the first president in the history of the US to wage war every day he was in office. Quite astonishing really, in terms of foreign policy he was far worse than Bush.
+Zachary Sylvester Well first of all the factoid is he was the first 2-term president to be at war every day of his presidency. That though is not really true. Both Bill Clinton & George W. Bush were "at war" (since none of them, including Obama, were technically "at war" as defined by Congress signing a declaration of war,) every day of their presidency & both were 2-term presidents. During Clinton's entire presidency & Bush's before his major wars began in 2001 enforced no-fly zones in Iraq which included regular bombing of Iraq (in 1999 $1 billion was spent on bombs dropped on Iraq,) then of course there were other conflicts for both. Also, while I don't know off-hand if it was literally every single day of his presidency Ronald Reagan was involved in a war every year of his presidency & sense I am about to go sleep I don't have time to look up if these conflicts took up every day of his presidency (of course I am also including in Reagan's count him carrying out proxy wars, death squads, etc.. in Central/South America.) At the very least both Clinton & Bush (#2), were 2-term presidents who were both at war every day of their presidency with a potential for Reagan to be included as well. I don't know if I would rate Bush or Obama as worse on foreign policy, though I do tend to lean towards Bush being worse, but they are both so horrible that the difference is rather negligible.
just to be clear, Obama actually expanded Bush's surveillance - domestically and abroad - increased the president's personal army (JSOC) from a few thousand to tens of thousands (30,000 last time I checked), ramped up prosecution and persecution of whistleblowers and journalists to unprecedented levels, cradled wall st billionaires like no one's business, and on, and on, and on. He was worse than Bush on almost every account, domestically as well as foreign policy.
You have to look at it from this perspective: Many people already know how terrible Bush was and how terrible Trump is. And for the people who don't, at this point, there's not really any hope for them. Making a song about those guys won't change anybody's opinion of them. In Obama's case, so many people blindly support him simply because he's a Democrat or a person of color. When in reality, he continued many of the same policies from the Bush regime, and in some cases extended them further. Not to mention carrying over the majority of Bush's cabinet members. Bush was bombing three countries, Obama extended it to seven. I think there are many more misconceptions about Obama than these other Presidents. We know Bush and Trump are assholes already. It's more important to show people that it really doesn't matter who's in that position, they're NEVER going to represent us, and they're all going to carry on the same agendas for the elites. Whether it's a black president, a Latino president, a female president, an LGBTQ president...if they're making it to that level, they already sold out a long time ago. It's more to wake people up so they stop supporting that entire two-party system.
its the fact obama was considered a hope, the structure of power remains the same. remember the first song where he said the shit wouldnt change by the race of the president however people still hold him in high regards, yet he did the same shit.
@Wilfred "I Tapped Dat Ass" Kensington very true I've heard so many black people say they voted for Obama just because he was black , that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
the thing about Obama is that he talked about bringing troops back and ending war but under his 8 years more troops were deployed we invaded more countries and more innocent people were killed. Google the numbers. also he's gone in on bush you need to check his other music out. it's like this if I tell you I'm going to do something and do the complete opposite what does that make me? granted a president doesn't have complete control but they can veto and inform the American people about what they don't agree with right? so if Obama didn't agree with our military's actions why didn't he speak up about it and address it to the American people? I know you get a lot of people saying listen to this artist or that artist, and it's hard to keep up with it all, but people like lowkey and immortal technique are very opinionated and strong believers in what they rap about and some things might not make sense to most of us because all we see in the media is what our government wants us to see you have to dig a little bit to understand their perspectives on these topics.
+Kyle Denton Wow, I found this very insightful. Thank you for taking the time to break this down for me. I truly appreciate it and the fact you didn't do it in a rude or demeaning way. Thank you
BestFriends Since Birth it's no problem, hip-hop is such a vast musical outlet for us and nobody knows everything about every artist of sub group or style. That's why we share with each other to expand the culture. I appreciate how you give everything a chance and don't jump to conclusions you put thought into what your saying and appreciate what these artists are doing. keep it up and it would be cool if you made videos of you reading information on artists after you watch some videos to delve deeper into what the meaning is behind their music. happy 4th
Interesting reaction. They went in so hard on Obama because he was the corrupt puppet politician in power at the time. When this song was released, Obama was still fooling a lot of good people into believing he was something he's not. As you said yourself, if Obama was doing all this, it was done in secret. That's one of the reasons this song was necessary. And in all honesty, Obama had me fooled at first too. I'm British, but I still remember celebrating with friends when he was elected. Little did we know that he would turn out to be no better than Bush. :( In the end, Obama reminded me a lot of Tony Blair (in that both were good speakers, and both initially fooled a lot of good people). That aside, here's Lowkey's latest song about your current puppet president Trump. Enjoy! :) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-QTeUmVZrhr0.html
I hate adding to the criticisms cause they coming at you hard lol but yeah, really, if you don't know, you ain't really ready for this music and shouldn't be commenting. You seriously don't know why Obama is hated more on the left than the right? Check Cornel West, check Noam Chomsky, check Chris Hedges, check Naomi Klein lol I mean you can go on and on literally every titan, every relevant commentator, academic and activist - if they didn't see the illusion of Obama by the time he was elected, they certainly seen it within years of him coming to office. It's not a secret and if you were actually interested in Obama's record (compared to Bush, anyone else or on it's own), you wouldn't be asking these questions, you would already know. Again, I really don't wanna come off as harsh lol you seem nice and truly, innocently ignorant about the reality here. It's just breathtaking that in 2017 there still exists people that don't know. I mean, lol, Hillary was defeated literally on this issue, that she was running for Obama's 3rd term (the critique of the left, not the racists on the right), it's literally everything Bernie's support was about lol (in terms of foreign policy, domestic policy wasn't covered in this vid but the same argument was made by Bernie supporters, progressives and liberals on domestic and economic issues).
Under bush we were only in iraq and Afghanistan,immortal technique has songs aimed at bush but lowkey wasn't making music yet under bush..but obama campaigned on closing guantanamo bay and being the peace candidate that would end those 2 wars,and instead turned 2 wars into 7 along with multiple coups in south/central America and a coup in the Ukraine just continuing the same imperialism thats been going on for decades..all the things he said hillary would do in the primaries he basically did as president..but you're right,the media was silent on his illegal wars(dropped over 100,000 bombs to Bush's76,000),continuation of mass surveillance,his mass deportation(obama deported more in his 1st 4 years than trump will),and his coziness with wall street(less than a month out of office wall st gave him 400k for a speech,obama campaigned on being tough on wall st,how tough do you think he was if they gave him that kinda money right after leaving office?)..and you're also right about our presidents being puppets,kennedy was the last president to stand up to the unelected intelligence agencies and the military industrial complex and we all know how that ended,and since then rhetoric and faces change but the policies remain the same..also if you're unaware lowkey has dropped a song called "Macdonald Trump"
I remember back when this song came out and I would share it but nobody gave AF. Now that Trump is president everyone wants to play *woke* but in reality they’re sleepy sheep still getting played. Btw ObamaNation 3 is better imo
Yeah it's interesting how everyone got really into politics right around when Trump became president but most of them can't even tell you the three branches of government.
President Obama did reduce the number of US soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, but he dramatically expanded the air wars and the use of special operations forces around the globe. In 2016, US special operators could be found in 70% of the world’s nations, 138 countries - a staggering jump of 130% since the days of the Bush administration. America dropped 26,171 bombs in 2016.
