Scared Monkeys Discussion Forum

The big question on the horizon is "Is race the question?" Now that it is 2008, I would have thought we reached a point of civilization wherein racism was in the past. Apparently not.

I think people feel they would be stigmatized if they came right out and said ... I don't want no "&$%^&*()#$%"  running the country. It is no longer acceptable to denigrate a person because of his race ... as in Barack Obama. It is illegal to discriminate and 100 other things.

So they found another way. Instead of saying Obama is black, they say he is Muslim. There is a lot of baggage associated with electing a Muslim. And people are more skeered of a Muslim than a black American.

Please respond only if you can discuss this matter seriously and without personal rancor and anger.  ::MonkeyWink::

Hi LV,  I hope this helps you see my views and that I am not a racist.

Racist came into play, when Obama's church was brought in to the spotlight, though I have always had an issue with his church's vision statement..  It's in itself racist and got worse when the pastor's remarks came out, which I fund EXTREMLEY"  racist and quite frankly scary.   I just cannot believe as a parishioner of that church for 20 yrs., he had no idea of the pastor's radical and treasonous beliefs and comments of our country.

It's not about a black man to me, it's what the candidate brings to the table, outside of his comments of "Hope and Chang", which, I've still yet to see the meat of his objectives or plans.  This whole church deal, which most of us have know about for a year, has finally been brought out to the public.  Only, it's worse than I thought!

Now as for a black President, I would vote for General Schwartzkopf in a heartbeat!  He seems a man of true integrity and somebody with a lot of experience, very intelligent ).  Even he, backed out of Bush's cabinet, when he disagreed with the administration/pentagon's tactics.  He's a man of his word of great integrity, experience and a true American!

Though, I personally would never have voted for Obama, it had nothing to do this his race.  It goes far deeper than that.
Personally,  I do NOT like any of our options at this stage and it is not going to change.  Obama, Hillary and McCain.  So I'm extremely disheartened by this entire election!

MY Personal Opinion?  Nothing to do with the color of his skin, it's what he stands for, or lack there of.  ANYBODY can use his words "Hope" and "Change", but how will this be accomplished.   His former pastor just so happened to dig his grave as far as "Uniting this country.   

OH MY!   I apologize!   I did not  use spellcheck and my post is horrendous.  I hope I got my point across with all those typos!

As a "spell check" dependent, I fixed it for you, Dihannah!  ::MonkeyWink::

I think we all relate issues best to our own point of view and experience, and I can honestly say that whatever influence the "traditional" race issue has by the voting public is minimal. By that, I mean that of course there will always be the "remnant" of white Americans who hang on ignorantly to deep seeded prejudice, but I don't think their numbers are high enough to impact the outcome of a general election.

Nontraditional race issues seem to be having a major impact on the Obama campaign, at this point anyway. I, for one, do not agree politically with Obama's positions, which seem to me to be defined by Hillary Clinton and delivered far more compellingly by Obama. I do, however, wish that a candidate who was more closely aligned to my political beliefs, could be as inspirational as Obama. I believe that quality was the source of his campaign's success. His pastor's rants are the epitome of racism, hatred, divisiveness, and shocking to many supporters of Obama's candidacy. It remains to be seen if Rev. Wright will be the catalyst for Obama's free fall from frontrunner position. The question, in my mind is: Should it?

It's a rhetorical question, but I will give my 2 cents, for whatever it's worth. What church I attend is very personal for me. It's purely my choice where or if I attend at all. My church is where I choose to donate my money without being compelled to do so, where I choose to fellowship with others of kindred spirits and faith, and where I choose to set aside my time to block out this world and humbly open my heart to God. It's a restoration of the wear and tear that beat against God's peace throughout the week, and it's where I'm reminded of the principles of love, mercy, and directions that God gave us all to walk in a world that is not our home.

My church is where I took my newborn to pledge to raise him in a Christian home, and publically ask my church family to help me support that pledge. My church is where I joined with a man in a Holy Sacrament and asked God to Bless the union. My church is where I chose to lay my Mother, Father, Brother, and Grandmother for the last time in my life and leaned on my pastor to help me say goodbye.

My church is where I've invested time to teach and reach out to the broader community, whether it be victims of Katrina, Vacation Bible School, or local homeless and hungry people, because God's love cannot be contained within walls. I am taught and teach the Bible in my church and stand by the guidance found there that our most effective witness is our own heart displayed to others, and that others shouldn't see us, but Christ within us.

Having said this, I must also say that I have left a church that felt more like home than any place on Earth to me and that I had been a member of for 30 years. I left after a stance the new pastor took that overrode the spirit of "the law" for the letter of it. It broke my heart, and there were many tears and much anguish as I searched my heart for the decision. But in the end, I lifted the bar of truth, given to me in God's word, and put the pastor's stance to measure, and found it fell short.

Because the public hasn't just heard a reporter relay the hate-mongering rantings of Rev. Wright, but seen and heard the tenor, tone, and flavor of his "sermons", we are able to evaluate his incendiary remarks without influence. I, and others, are left to ponder the character of a man who has chosen to have a steady diet of such a spirit for 20 years. We can evaluate the parishioners, who don't seem shocked by the content or delivery of his remarks, and we can conclude that what we are witnessing is not an anomaly.

Very early in the Obama campaign, I saw coverage of an Obama speech given to a group of pastors of Black churches; I believe it was a particular conference but don't remember the name. I was shocked at the time. The Obama speaking there was very different from the Obama I had been impressed with when he was addressing a crowd of mixed race supporters. Although he did not use the word "whitey", that word encompasses the focus of his message. He, like his pastor, was fostering reverse racism, promoting the concept of entitlement by virtue of race, and crippling his audience with the message of inevitable victimization.

This is a very long answer to a very simple question. Ultimately, my answer would be "yes"; race is playing a role in the primary race. It has been put into play by Obama himself and his own choices and perhaps his own heart.

MOO

Dear CBB,

Thank you for taking the time to write an excellent post. You summed up my feelings too.

I have some brief comments.

Freedom of religion does not apply to presidents.

Mrs.red told me about the speech in the black church.

I think Obama has run the best campaign I've ever seen. He is very smart and has tons of advisors. He knows he has to be squeaky clean. So what exactly happened that his association with his church was overlooked in terms of being squeaky clean? What were they thinking? I can't believe they could overlook it. They still have my phone number and email address from the rally I attended in February 2007.

Additionally, I want to mention that all religions have their own traditions. The church leaders wear costumes. The Vatican men dress up in really fancy red, fushia and orange costumes. No women are allowed. They speak in Latin. Jews dress up also, in black suits and fedoras. Long beards and earlocks and prayer shawls. In the synagogue, men are separated from women and it's all in Hebrew. Reverend Wright was dressed up in typical African priest's garb. Of course what he said was despicable, maybe all black churches rail against what Whitey did to them. Jews still rail against their past oppression.

I don't like what I'm seeing with Obama's church. It looks to me that the Reverend Wright is scaring people half to death. I would hate to see Obama brought down by his church.

Just my two cents. 

Does anyone actually believe that Barack Obama is a religious man, let alone a Christian? His (absentee) father was a muslim. As for his mother, who raised him alone, Obama not long ago spoke about choosing the “faith of [his] mother,” but by most accounts his mother was an atheist, or at least an agnostic. It seems unlikely that Obama would come to any religious faith, let alone Christianity, given his upbringing.

People who knew Obama when he first came to Chicago depict his religious affiliation as a matter of political expediency. New in town, he was hoping to pursue a political career there, and tirelessly worked to introduce himself to the voters in various political and community settings. Much to his dismay, when introduced to someone, the first question that person almost always asked him was, “What church do you attend?” This surprised Obama given that he was raised outside of organized religion and educated in the liberal, atheist tradition. The political life of black America, however, centered around the church. If he was to represent that community, he first had to become a visible member of it.

It was against this political backdrop that Obama chose to join the congregation at the Trinity United Church of Christ. He specificly selected Trinity because it was among the largest (if not THE largest) and best known black churches in the City of Chicago. It was also, perhaps, the most politically active. Once a member in good standing, Obama would have a built-in constituency and have instant “street cred” within the wider black community. His connections to Trinity United, and Jeremiah Wright in particular, served Obama well in his Illinois political career, but things are very different now. 10 years ago, Obama was a typical “black politician,” and happily successful in that role. Obama smilingly listened to Jeremiah Wright spew hatred for 20 years becuase it furthered his local political ambitions. He couldn’t have imagined the present day, when he would be a leading candidate for President of the United States. To win the office he now seeks, he needs to represent ALL the people, not just some small, radical segment, and his political origins at Trinity United could well be his undoing in that regard.

If not for Trinity United and its black racism, Obama would not have had a political career and would not now be contesting for the Presidency.  Ironically, it is his association with that same church that now threatens to derail his Presidential campaign.  Frankly, I can't see any easy way for Obama to extricate himself from this trap of his own making.  He can't continue to embrace Trinity United and Mr. Wright without alienating many white votes, support from whom he desperately needs if he's to win the Presidency.  Neither can he disown Wright and Trinity United without alienating many black voters, support from whom he needs in order to secure the Democrat nomination.  Neither can he can simply admit the truth: that he's really an atheist and for 20 years played the black community for fools to further his personal ambitions.  That would probably alienate just about everyone. 

  Is Race the Issue???  I believe that depends on what Race you are!  IMO it is members of the African American Race who are the guilty ones here. I work in a mult-ethnic area, mostly white and African American. I have not spoken to one member of the latter who is NOT totally mesmerized by Obama, while the white people are fairly equally split between the two Democratic candidates.  It's reminisent of the  OJ trial, when I found the same bias.  That is scary and unfortunate to think how color-blinded African Americans have chosen to be, at a time when White children are being educated to look beyond color.

      Many cities have Black mayors...NY has had a black mayor and now a Black Governor....   I agree with the poster who said she/he would vote for who she felt was a qualified Black candidate.  Nominate Colin Powell or Condolezza Rice, and I would vote for them in a heartbeat, no matter what ticket they were running on.

     My suspicions about Obama have been confirmed after hearing the Clergy man he has chosen to listen to on a weekly basis for twenty years.  The reverand Wright is a racist of the worst kind.....he spews hatred of not only "whitey", but Jews and Americans (what does he consider himself?), from his pulpit.
     
     Obama, must certainly share the opinions and hatreds of this man, as he has not only chosen to worship at his church for two decades, but to bring his children there to be indoctrinated with this ideology at an early age!!

    For any American, be they Black or White, to consider Barak Obama a good candidate for President of the United States of America, which includes people of many cultures, colors and religions, IMO, is a very SAD thing. In no way does this candidate represent the Constitution of the United States.

End the Drama, Stop Obama.

Racist?  No, not at all.  Hoping that Bobby Jindal will run with McCain. 

Obama is not a Muslim. His father is. Obama grew up with his white mother. I posted I think a page from the interview long ago. Guess no one wants to read it.

Ty,

Obama is as racist as your roses are.

Barack Obama's opportunity to distance himself from the anti-white, anti-Jew and black-supremist theology of Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan .... was on November 2, 2007.  That is the date when Obama's long-time pastor/friend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr bestowed a "lifetime achievement" upon Farrakhan.

Barack Obama's opportunity to refute the anti-white and black-supremist theology of his pastor/friend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. would have been sometime in their 20 year relationship.

Barack Obama did not speak out until challenged while striving for the leadership of the Democratic Party  ... a position which could ultimately lead to him being elected President of the United States of America.

Janet

The issue is that Obama ... who may very well be the next President of the United States of America.  This man never challenged Jeremiah Wright's theology as he sat in the pews of Trinity United for twenty years.

Jeremiah Wright was bestowed the honor by Obama of officiating at his marriage ... the most memorable day of his life and ... officiating at the baptism of his two precious children.

Obama supported the furthering of Wright's agenda in annual contributions of $27,000 ... the largest annual donation by far that Obama donated to any charity.  Logic dictates that a $27,000 donation is an informed action.

Louise ... the concern many have inregards to Obama is not his race ... it is his close association to those who possess a racist ideology.

Janet

+++++++++++

Barack Obama's Pastor his Christianity Jeremiah Wright
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUbUBTlmAiA&feature=related


BARACK OBAMA Pastor ANTI-AMERICAN Rev Jeremiah Wright Racism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwQWuQVE6sw&feature=related


Barack Obama Pastor Jeremiah Wright NEW TAPES!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc2FCJ7zWEQ&feature=related

Just a few quotes from his book.  Does answer the question here?
From Dreams of My Father:  "I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites."

From Dreams of My Father :  "I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mothers race."

From Dreams of My Father: "There was something about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white."

From Dreams of My Father:  ; "It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names."


From Dreams of My Father:  "I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa , that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela."

From Audacity of Hope:  "I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."

 ::MonkeyShocked:: ::MonkeyShocked:: ::MonkeyShocked::

This needs to be exposed!!!  I believe that this wolf in sheep clothing may very well be the next President of the United States of America.

Janet

 ::MonkeyShocked:: ::MonkeyShocked:: ::MonkeyShocked::

Barack Obama

Dreams of my Father:  "I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites."


Does one person think that McCain or Clinton would be a Presidential candidate for the United States of America tomorrow if today they stated the following words:

"I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to blacks."

DREAMS OF MY FATHER - BRACK OBAMA

"I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother's race."

"I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites."

"Any distinction between good and bad whites held negligible meaning."

"Desperate times called for desperate measures, and for many blacks, times were chronically desperate. If nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self-respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence."

"To avoid being mistaken for a racial sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy."

"there was something about him that made me wary,” Obama wrote. “A little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.”

"That hate hadn't gone away, white people, some cruel, some ignorant, sometimes a single face, sometimes just a faceless image of a system claiming power over our lives"

"There were enough of us on campus to constitute a tribe, and when it came to hanging out, many of us chose to function like a tribe, staying close together, traveling in packs. . . It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names"

"the reason black people keep to themselves is that it's easier than spending all your time mad, or trying to guess whatever it was that white folks were thinking about you."

One line in Malcolm X's autobiography "spoke" to Obama "it stayed with me," he says. "He spoke of a wish he'd once had, the wish that the white blood that ran through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged."

"I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."

"I Studied the Koran."

Di ... the following are Barack Obama words ... not Jeremiah Wright's word.  I thought I would clarify ... there is no difference between Obama and Wright's anti-white ideology.

Janet

+++++++

Dreams of my Father:  "The person who made me proudest of all, though, was [half brother] Roy .. He converted to Islam."

Dreams of my Father:  "In Indonesia, I had spent two years at a Muslim school" "I studied the Koran.."

Audacity of Hope: "Lolo (Obama's step father) followed a brand of Islam ...."  "I looked to Lolo for guidance".

Audacity Of Hope:  "I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."

Dreams of My Father: "I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother's race".

Dreams of my Father:  "The emotion between the races could never be pure..... the other race would always remain just that: menacing, alien, and apart."

Dreams of My Father:  "I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites"

Dreams Of My Father:  "I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa, that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself..".

Dreams Of My Father: "That hate hadn't gone away," he wrote, blaming "white people — some cruel, some ignorant, sometimes a single face, sometimes just a faceless image of a system claiming power over our lives."

Dreams Of My Father:  "There were enough of us on campus to constitute a tribe, and when it came to hanging out many of us chose to function like a tribe, staying close together, traveling in packs," he wrote. "It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names"

Dihannah ... thank you for revealing the words written by Obama in his books.  I had no idea.

I cannot comprehend why Obama's true colors ... his true ideology is not front page headlines in the major publication throughout the United States.  Also the television networks are not milking this revelation for all its worth.  WHY??  There appears to be a major media conspiracy that is allowing the American people to be deceived in regards to this wolf in sheeps clothing.

The other candidates would not be spared from media crucification if they utter the same words in reverse yet ... Obama is given a free pass.  I would call that racism in the first degree!

Janet

As ugly as politics has become, I'm surprised it hasn't been brought out in the open more, but I do have faith in his contenders, it will be brought out soon enough.   Funny, cause you'd think the Obama supporters (non-black) would read it.  But not question it?   We are at a critical stage, the worlds stage right now.  We HAVE to get it right!

I just don't understand how people think he's NOT racist!!!!   It truly scares the me to think he could be our next President.  We will be doomed!

More to come.....

Believe me; it's much more entertaining to LISTEN to Obama SPEAK the words rather than merely read them on a page.  'Dreams of My Father' was released as a book on tape, with Obama personally narrating.  It's a real eye-opener to hear him utter each and every offensive phrase cited above.  For being a self-styled "post-racial" candidate, Obama is more preoccupied with race and racial animosities than any person I'm aware of.  I'm inclined to believe that he "clings" to his Marxism and demagoguery out of an irrational "bitterness" toward white people.  What a condescending JERK! 

This may be a little O/T to some here, but I believe at least Janet will my thoughts, maybe others as well.  But the "wolf in sheep clothing", reminds me of the Bible prophecy and description of the Anti-Christ?   Not saying it's so, but eerily familiar....  just throwing it out there, though it's not politically related.......

 ::MonkeyHaHa::

Di ... I have fitted so many politicians into that role over the years ... I just do not go there anymore.  However ... I could change my mind at a moments notice.

 ::MonkeyHaHa::

Janet

Good Night Di.  Good Night Steve.

It is so good to know that I am not alone in the twilight zone.

Janet

Steve, after hearing the pastors rants, which totally infuriated me, I don't think I could take hearing Obama say what I've read, as it has also sent me over the edge.  Thanks for your input and sharing what I believe to be a true racist.

Good night Janet and thank YOU for sharing as well.  We are living in a Twilight Zone and it really scares me to think of what our world will become if he's elected. The world is scary enough as it is.

So true.   All polititions are that for that matter, but it just struck a chord with me.  But one thing you said is so true.   Use it in reverse, a white saying the same things in reverse and we'd have riots everywhere.    Racism is racism, no matter the color of one's skin.  If a white man spoke like that,  I would be just as outraged!    Or even asian, etc....   Don't bring it up at all, if it's not an issue! 

Today ... I am going to hold my breath as well as plug my nose when I purchase a copy of Barack Obama's DREAMS OF THE FATHER as well as a copy of his AUDACITY OF HOPE.

These book will go down in history ...

For easier comprehension in regards to the topic being dialogued ... I have compiled all the quotes that have been accumulated on this thread into a single list.

How will Barack Obama defend his own racist words which reveal an ideology that reflects that of his pastor and mentor for twenty years ... the Pastor Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United.

Why has media sources yet to expose or challenge this "wolf in sheep's clothing" in regards to his own words?

Something is not right.  This man could be the next President of the United States of America!

Janet

+++++++++++++

BARAK OBAMA - IN HIS OWN WORDS

Audacity of Hope: "Lolo (Obama's step father) followed a brand of Islam ...." "I looked to Lolo for guidance".

Dreams of my Father: "The person who made me proudest of all, though, was [half brother] Roy .. He converted to Islam."

Dreams of my Father: "In Indonesia, I had spent two years at a Muslim school" 

Dreams of my Father:  "I Studied the Koran."

Audacity of Hope: "I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."

Dreams of My Father: "I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother's race".

Dreams of my Father: "The emotion between the races could never be pure..... the other race would always remain just that: menacing, alien, and apart."

Dreams of my Father:  "Any distinction between good and bad whites held negligible meaning."

Dreams of My Father: "I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites"

Dreams Of My Father: "I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa, that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself..".

Dreams of My Father: "That hate hadn't gone away," he wrote, blaming "white people — some cruel, some ignorant, sometimes a single face, sometimes just a faceless image of a system claiming power over our lives."

Dreams of My Father: "There were enough of us on campus to constitute a tribe, and when it came to hanging out many of us chose to function like a tribe, staying close together, traveling in packs," he wrote. "It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names"

Dreams of my Father:  "Desperate times called for desperate measures, and for many blacks, times were chronically desperate. If nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self-respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence."

Dreams of my Father:  "To avoid being mistaken for a racial sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy."

Dreams of my Father:  "there was something about him that made me wary,” Obama wrote. “A little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.”

Dreams of my Father:  "the reason black people keep to themselves is that it's easier than spending all your time mad, or trying to guess whatever it was that white folks were thinking about you."

Dreams of my Father:  One line in Malcolm X's autobiography "spoke" to Obama "it stayed with me," he says. "He spoke of a wish he'd once had, the wish that the white blood that ran through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged."

DREAMS OF MY FATHER - BARAK OBAMA

by Michael Gaynor
Audacity of Barack Obama and Rev. Wright
March 18, 2008 01:00 PM EST

<snipped>

In Senator Obama's first book, titled Dreams of My Father and published in 1995 (after he had been elected president of the Harvard Law Review but before he had been elected to public office), Senator Obama wrote at length about Rev. Wright and his moving "Audacity of Hope" speech.

In Dreams, Senator Obama explained how he met Rev. Wright, whom he mentioned had been "dabbling with liquor, Islam, and black nationalism in the sixties."

He acknowledged that Rev. Wright immediately had given him fair warning that he was controversial, by quoting Rev. Wright as having said: "Some of my fellow clergy don't appreciate what we're about. They feel like we're too radical. Others, we aren't radical enough. Too emotional. Not emotional enough."

He also acknowledged that Rev. Wright let him know at their first meeting that he looked unfavorably on America and expected to continue to do so, by stating, "Life's not safe for a black man in this country, Barack. Never has been. Probably never will be."

Senator Obama left with one of Rev. Wright's "Black Value System" brochures.

When Senator Barack listened to Rev. Wright's "Audacity of Hope" sermon, September 11, 2001 was years away, but, Senator Obama admitted in Dreams, Rev. Wright castigated America.

Senator Obama put it this way: "Reverend Wright spoke of Sharpsville and Hiroshima, the callousness of policy makers in the White House and in the State House. As the sermon unfolded...the stories of strife became more prosaic, the pain more immediate...."

So it's hard to believe that Senator Obama was not familiar until very recently with Rev. Wright's position on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It's even worse for Senator Obama and Rev. Wright.

In Obama: From Promise to Power, by the Chicago Tribune's David Mendell, Mr. Mendell relates (pp. 159-160) a meeting between Senator Obama and Rev. Wright when Senator Obama was deciding whether or not to run for the United States Senate:

"'My name should be out there,' Obama told his pastor. 'but Carol Moseley Braun won't say what's she's going to do, and I'm not gonna run against a black woman. If she's gonna run, then I'm out. Until she says yes or no, I can't say anything."

<snipped>

http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/31321.html

Controversial Video of Obama's Radical Pastor
By Amanda Carpenter
Thursday, March 13, 2008

The controversial pastor who inspired the title of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s autobiography has been videotaped invoking racial slurs while discussing Hillary Clinton.

In the video, available on YouTube, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, a fierce Obama supporter, delivers a sermon about how Clinton cannot relate to American black culture like Obama does.

“Hillary ain’t never been called a [n-expletive]!” Wright fumes.

The following is a full transcription of Wright’s remarks about Clinton, which begin at the 49 second mark.

“ Folks are hatin’ on Barack Obama. He doesn’t fit the mold, he ain’t white, he ain’t privileged. Hillary fits the mold. Europeans fits the mold. Giuliani fits the mold. Rich, white men fit the mold. Hillary never had a cab whiz past her and not pick her up because her skin is the wrong color. Hillary never had to worry about being pulled over in her car as a black man. I am sick of Negros who just do not get it. Hillary was not a black boy raised in a single parent home, Barack was. Barack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich, white people! Hillary can never know that. Hillary ain’t never been called a [n-expletive]. Hillary has never had her people defined as non-persons. Hillary ain’t had to work twice as hard just to get accepted by the rich, white folk who [indiscernible] everything just to get a passing grade when you know you are smarter than that C student sitting in the White House. Oh, I am so glad that I have a God who knows what it’s like to be a poor, black man in a country, in a culture that is controlled and run by rich, white people. He taught me, Jesus did, how to love my enemies. Jesus taught me how to love the hell out of my enemies and not be reduced to their level of hatred, bigotry and small-mindedness. Hillary ain’t never had people say she wasn’t white enough. Jesus had his own people siding with the enemy. That’s why I love Jesus, y’all. He never let their hatred dampen his hope.”

Obama has attended Wright’s south side Chicago church, the Trinity United Church of Christ, for the last 20 years and told reporters in the past he didn’t think there as “anything particularly controversial” about Wright.

Obama’s second best-selling autobiography “Audacity of Hope” and 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote speech was inspired by one of Wright’s sermons titled “Audacity of Hope.”

Good Morning America uncovered another controversial sermon delivered by Wright in a report Thursday. ABC’s Brian Ross said Wright delivered a speech in 2003 in which he said, “No, no, no, not ‘God Bless America” but “god damn America."

According to Ross, Wright said “The government gives them [African Americans] the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three strikes law and then wants us to sing 'God bless America,' No, no, no, not 'God bless America,' God damn America -- that's in the Bible, you're killing innocent people, God damn America for treating us citizens as less than human."

Ross also says Wright told his congregation after 9/11: "We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye...America's chickens are coming home to roost."

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/AmandaCarpenter/2008/03/13/controversial_video_of_obamas_radical_pastor

WASHINGTON POST

Obama's church founded on radical creed
By S.A. Miller
April 1, 2008

The church where Sen. Barack Obama has worshipped for two decades publicly declares that its ministry is founded on a 1960s book that espouses "the destruction of the white enemy."

Trinity United Church of Christ's Web site says its teachings are based on the black liberation theology of James H. Cone and his 1969 book "Black Theology and Black Power."

"What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love," Mr. Cone wrote in the book.

Mr. Cone, a professor at the Union Theological Seminary in New York, added that "black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy."

Mr. Obama's campaign, which for weeks has weathered criticism about inflammatory racial language by the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. at Trinity, said the candidate "vehemently disagrees" with those tenets.

"It's absurd to suggest that he or anyone should be held responsible for every quote in every book read by a member of their church," said Obama spokesman Reid Cherlin.

"Barack Obama is not a theologian, and what he learned in church is to love Jesus Christ and work on behalf of his fellow man, regardless of race, class or circumstance. This is a faulty and disingenuous approach to a church, and a flawed way to judge a candidate," he said.

Mr. Obama has been a member of Trinity, on Chicago's South Side, since finding religion there 20 years ago under Mr. Wright's mentorship. Mr. Wright married the Obamas and baptized their children, and a sermon of his inspired Mr. Obama to title his book "The Audacity of Hope."

http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20080401/NATION/766118950

One thing that stands out to me, besides the obvious.  For a supposedly, intellectual, well respected person (reverand), his grammar is atrocious!  Isn't he supposed to be a role model for underprivledged and the young?  Well, he might begin with using Proper English! And as far as privileges?  Obama WENT to Harvard AND Columbia (I believe)???!!   That's more than I EVER dreamed of going to!  I have a college degree, but nowhere near a priviledged school, such as those.  And I paid for it with loans totally on my own, working my butt off!  It wasn't given to me, such as it was to his father, when he came here for his education free and returned to his home country.   WHAT MORE DO THEY WANT!!!!?????   It infuriates me to no end, the priviledges given to them AND other non-Americans of other races (including my Greek neighbor), that some CHOOSE not to take advantage of, but still blame the "Rich Whiteys" and blame slavery, of which our generation had no part of.   Not to mention his shame of his own "white" mother.    Makes me totally sick and disgusted! 
GET OVER IT ALREADY!  GET OFF THE PITY PARTY!  Non-American's and races, other than whites, ARE AFFORDED MORE PRIVILEGES THAN ANYBODY!   People need to listen to Bill Cosby more and take notice to him and his intelligent "NON-PITY" attitude to those who feel so damn sorry for themselves,rather than stepping up and do something with themselves!   Where is MY and MY CHILDRENS free education!?  AND THAT GOES FOR WHITE, ASIAN, MEXICAN, ETC....   Get your own shit together and quit feeling as though you are OWED something.  Do other countries offer this freedom????  If you think so, then be on your way!

Ok, off my rant for now.

Oh, I am not condoning what happened in Hiroshima, as I wasn't born yet, by MANY years!  However, I know what they did to us.  But damn if the world didn't  depend on us and still does to bail them out of there troubles.   I could go into WWI and WWII, as my father fought in WWII, but what does that have to do with us coming home to roost?   What did Wright do to make the world a better place then or other wars, preach hatred and bigotry?  The God in MY bible, doesn't even come close to his teachings!  Speaking of coming home to roost,  what does Wright think of Bin Laden's fanatic teachings and anti-semitism?  I suppose he condones and supports the fanatatical muslims and there hatred for peace, as that is closest to his own teachings.

Di ... my son and daughter-in-law were shopping in town tonight  so ... I requested that they drop by our local Chapters and pick up DREAMS OF MY FATHER by BARACK OBAMA that I had on hold.

Those two went out of their way to drop it off just a few minutes ago.

I will be busy tomorrow highlighting quotes.  I will also source the page of the quotes which you posted yesterday.

Good Night Di

Janet
10:20 PM

Di ... I hear the frustration you feel in your words.

Hugs

Janet

Steve ... I see ya lurking.

 ::MonkeyHaHa::

Good Night.

Janet

Yes, I do sometimes let my emotions overcome me, can u tell?   ::MonkeyHaHa::

That was nice of them to pick the book up for you, and your citing my copied quotes, however, I probably would have bought it used on Ebay or Amazon, so as he does not profit from the sale...    ::MonkeyWink::

I am too impatient.

However ... I do believe I may be returning the book to Chapter's.  I just finish talking with the buyer and ... he explained to me why my copy was not the original ... why it was an edited edition.

Obama originally wrote DREAMS FROM MY FATHER in 1995 following his associated with Jeremiah Wright but prior to entering politics and then ... in 2004 his book was editing and reprinted and ... the 1995 verson was recalled at that time and replaced with the edited version.

You guessed it ... apparently many of Obama's words that directly associated him with the racist ideology have been deleted from the edited edition.  The buyer at Chapters has had several requests for the original edition but ... it no longer exists.  His suggestion to me was used book stores ... EBay (probably very expensive) or ... the public library.

Even if I have to pay a premium price on EBay for the coveted edition ... Obama will not be getting the proceeds.

Janet 

Barack's speech on race in America and building a more perfect union.
http://my.barackobama.com/hisownwords

BARAK OBAMA - IN HIS OWN WORDS

Audacity of Hope: "Lolo (Obama's step father) followed a brand of Islam ...." "I looked to Lolo for guidance".

Dreams of my Father: "The person who made me proudest of all, though, was [half brother] Roy .. He converted to Islam."

Dreams of my Father: "In Indonesia, I had spent two years at a Muslim school"

Dreams of my Father: "I Studied the Koran."

Audacity of Hope: "I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."

Dreams of My Father: "I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother's race".

Dreams of my Father: "The emotion between the races could never be pure..... the other race would always remain just that: menacing, alien, and apart."

Dreams of my Father: "Any distinction between good and bad whites held negligible meaning."

Dreams of My Father: "I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites"

Dreams Of My Father: "I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa, that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself..".

Dreams of My Father: "That hate hadn't gone away," he wrote, blaming "white people — some cruel, some ignorant, sometimes a single face, sometimes just a faceless image of a system claiming power over our lives."

Dreams of My Father: "There were enough of us on campus to constitute a tribe, and when it came to hanging out many of us chose to function like a tribe, staying close together, traveling in packs," he wrote. "It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names"

Dreams of my Father: "Desperate times called for desperate measures, and for many blacks, times were chronically desperate. If nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self-respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence."

Dreams of my Father: "To avoid being mistaken for a racial sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy."

Dreams of my Father: "there was something about him that made me wary," Obama wrote. "A little too sure of himself, maybe. And white."

Dreams of my Father: "the reason black people keep to themselves is that it's easier than spending all your time mad, or trying to guess whatever it was that white folks were thinking about you."

Dreams of my Father: One line in Malcolm X's autobiography "spoke" to Obama "it stayed with me," he says. "He spoke of a wish he'd once had, the wish that the white blood that ran through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged."

My husband of almost 43 years is Japanese ... I am white.  Our three beautiful grown children are mixed race.  From day one they have been embraced with love by both sides of their extended family.

Our grown kids are well informed of the injustices that have occurred in history.  Many of their Father's relatives who were Canadian citizens were interned during the Second World War and ... had their possession confiscated for unpaid taxes.  Our  children's British Grandfather spend seven months in deplorable conditions as a prisoner of war in Japan during that same period.

Nevertheless ...  all three are are able to learn from history and move on.  They all have pride in both their Japanese heritage and their British heritage.  Above all they are all proud Canadians who contribute to society as a whole.  These values are being passed down to our five grandchildren.

My heart breaks for Barack Obama's white mother ... the woman who gave him life ... the woman who raised him as a single parent.  What a betrayal!

Janet

++++++++


BARAK OBAMA - IN HIS OWN WORDS

Audacity of Hope: "Lolo (Obama's step father) followed a brand of Islam ...." "I looked to Lolo for guidance".

Dreams of my Father: "The person who made me proudest of all, though, was [half brother] Roy .. He converted to Islam."

Dreams of my Father: "In Indonesia, I had spent two years at a Muslim school"

Dreams of my Father: "I Studied the Koran."

Audacity of Hope: "I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."

Dreams of My Father: "I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother's race".

Dreams of my Father: "The emotion between the races could never be pure..... the other race would always remain just that: menacing, alien, and apart."

Dreams of my Father: "Any distinction between good and bad whites held negligible meaning."

Dreams of My Father: "I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites"

Dreams Of My Father: "I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa, that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself..".

Dreams of My Father: "That hate hadn't gone away," he wrote, blaming "white people — some cruel, some ignorant, sometimes a single face, sometimes just a faceless image of a system claiming power over our lives."

Dreams of My Father: "There were enough of us on campus to constitute a tribe, and when it came to hanging out many of us chose to function like a tribe, staying close together, traveling in packs," he wrote. "It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names"

Dreams of my Father: "Desperate times called for desperate measures, and for many blacks, times were chronically desperate. If nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self-respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence."

Dreams of my Father: "To avoid being mistaken for a racial sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy."

Dreams of my Father: "there was something about him that made me wary," Obama wrote. "A little too sure of himself, maybe. And white."

Dreams of my Father: "the reason black people keep to themselves is that it's easier than spending all your time mad, or trying to guess whatever it was that white folks were thinking about you."

Dreams of my Father: One line in Malcolm X's autobiography "spoke" to Obama "it stayed with me," he says. "He spoke of a wish he'd once had, the wish that the white blood that ran through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged."  

Di ... my son checked EBAY.  A few 1995 original editions of Obama's DREAMS OF MY FATHER are for sale.  A brand new copy ... still in the wrapper is going for $2400 and ... other copies are selling between $900 and $1500.  Copies available on Amazon are selling in the same price range.

I hinted that Mother's Day was coming up.

::MonkeyHaHa::

Janet

I would be impressed if ... in a vacuum ... I listened to Barack Obama's recent speech as he strives to become the next President of the United States.   I would be impressed if I never considered his twenty year affiliation with a Pastor/Mentor ... Jeremiah Wright ... who embraces and ... from the pulpit ... furthers an anti-American racist ideology and a marxist philosophy.

Barack Obama recently ... only when challenged ... severed his affiliation with Trinity United and ... attempted justify his relationship with Jeremiah Wright.

Also, Jeremiah Wright is the pastor/mentor/friend who Obama and his wife bestowed the honor of officiating at the most memorable day of their lives ... their wedding and ... baptised their precious daughter.

Then when you consider Barack Obama's own words in DREAMS OF MY FATHER and AUDACITY OF HOPE (dedicated to Wright) ... it is crystal clear that Obama and Wright's anti-American racist ideology and marxist philosophy are one.

Janet

++++++++

JEREMIAH WRIGHT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUbUBTlmAiA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwQWuQVE6sw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcOOSpvC2JI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ38N8OUg3Q

 ::MonkeyEek:: $2400?   ::MonkeyNoNo::

 ::MonkeyHaHa::

I mad a  suggestion to my son ... rather than flowers for Mother's Day ...

 ::MonkeyHaHa::

Janet

LV,  I haven't seen you on here in awhile.  I know it has turned into a thread of people who's passions are very against Obama,  but I do respect your opinion.   As we speak of ethnic injustices, as Obama has for blacks, I am curious on your thoughts of a German of Nazi ancestory, who was just as charismatic and said all the same things that impress you of Obama, but made questionable remarks about Jews, if you would feel a little bit different?   

I ask, because, he may be charismatic and all those things Obama supporters feel, but isn't it the same, when any Presidential candidate speaks such divisively about another's race, when they are supposed to be uniting the country?

I sincerely would love your input.

Rather than supporting a church to the tune of $27,000 in 2007 ... a church where his pastor/ mentor/ friend preaches an anti-American racists gospel ... Baraka Obama should be challenging the words of Jeremiah Wright.  After all ... Obama's life is proof that the American dream is alive and well.

JEREMIAH WRIGHT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUbUBTlmAiA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwQWuQVE6sw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcOOSpvC2JI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ38N8OUg3Q

Janet

+++++++++++++++


Obama Reports Earning $4.2 Million in 2007 Tax Return
by Associated Press
Wednesday, April 16, 2008

PHILADELPHIA — Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, made $4.2 million last year as widespread interest in the presidential candidate pushed the sales of his two books.

In tax returns the campaign released Wednesday, the Obamas reported a significant jump in their income from the previous year as profits from the books “Dreams From My Father” and “The Audacity of Hope” accounted for some $4 million. The Obamas paid federal taxes of $1.4 million and donated $240,370 to charity.

Their salaried income was $260,735, which included his $157,102 salary as a U.S. senator and hers of $103,633 as vice president of community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

For part of 2007, Michelle Obama collected a salary for serving on the board of Westchester, Ill.-based TreeHouse Foods Inc., which produces pickles, nondairy powdered creamer and other products. She resigned in May after two years on the board.

The position had generated some complaints because TreeHouse is a supplier to Wal-Mart, and Barack Obama has criticized some of Wal-Mart’s policies and treatment of employees.

The Obamas reported $29,443 from Treehouse Foods.

In 2006, Obama and his wife reported income of $991,296. The sum included Obama’s Senate salary of $157,082 and his wife’s earnings of $273,618 from her position as an administrator at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Michelle Obama also earned $51,200 in director’s fees from TreeHouse Inc., a food distributor.

They paid $277,431 in federal taxes — an overpayment of $40,856, which they designated for estimated tax payments this year.

Among the charitable donations in 2007 was $26,270 to Trinity United Church of Christ, where the incendiary sermons of Obama’s former pastor have created problems for the candidate. The Obamas’ largest charitable donation was $50,000 to the United Negro College Fund. They also gave $35,000 to CARE.

The campaign released the returns just hours before a candidate debate with rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

By comparison, Clinton and her husband, the former president, reported $20.4 million in income for 2007. Almost half the former first couple’s money came from Bill Clinton’s speeches. The Clintons made nearly $109 million since leaving the White House in 2001, capitalizing on lucrative business ventures and his speaking engagements.

Likely Republican nominee Sen. John McCain has not released his tax returns for 2007.

The release of the returns comes as Obama has fought criticism that his comments about bitter voters in small towns smack of elitism. Campaigning in Indiana on Wednesday, Michelle Obama rejected that characterization, pointing out that the couple were fortunate enough to pay off their academic loans because of her husband’s two books.

Barack Obama graduated from Columbia University, Michelle Obama from Princeton. Both attended Harvard Law School.

“I am a product of a working-class background, I am one of those folks who grew up in that struggle. That is the lens through which I see the world,” Michelle Obama said, referring to her family that lived on the South side of Chicago on her father’s city salary.

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/04/16/obama-reports-earning-42-million-in-2007-tax-return/

In a speech to Jewish community leaders in Philadelphia, the Democratic presidential candidate was asked whether the recent controversy over Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s retiring pastor, could lead to him being attacked by Republicans in the fall and create the possibility of turning his candidacy into one akin to failed candidates George McGovern and Michael Dukakis.

Obama: ‘I’m a Pretty Darned Good Politician’
by FOXNews.com
Wednesday, April 16, 2008

In a speech to Jewish community leaders in Philadelphia, the Democratic presidential candidate was asked whether the recent controversy over Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s retiring pastor, could lead to him being attacked by Republicans in the fall and create the possibility of turning his candidacy into one akin to failed candidates George McGovern and Michael Dukakis.

At the end of a long response, Obama said: “Let me make one last point about the comparison to McGovern and Dukakis, both excellent men, but I’m a pretty darn good politician. And I can give a pretty good speech and I can connect and inspire the American people in ways that I think will become apparent.

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/04/16/obama-im-a-pretty-darned-good-politician/

Klaas ... I messed up again.  Would you please delete the first paragraph of the above post.

Thank you.

Janet

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/11/opinion/main4009369.shtml

The Bad Company Of Barack Obama
National Review Online: The Senator's "Change" Would Radically Alter This Country
April 13, 2008

Why is Barack Obama so comfortable around people who so despise America and its allies? Maybe it’s because they’re so comfortable around him.

He presents as the transcendent agent of “change.” Sounds platitudinous, but it’s really quite strategically vaporous. Sen. Obama is loath to get into the details of how we should change, and, as the media’s Chosen One, he hasn’t had to.

But he’s not, as some hopefully dismiss him, a charismatic lightweight with a gift for sparkling the same old vapid cant. Judging from the company he chooses to keep, Obama’s change would radically alter this country. He eschews detail because most Americans don’t believe we’re a racist, heartless, imperialist cesspool of exploitation. The details would be disqualifying.

MICHELLE
So, instead, we get glimpses. The most profound influence in his life, his wife Michelle, is notoriously less circumspect than her careful husband about where she’s coming from. Her college thesis, which Princeton tried to keep under lock and key, testifies to a race-obsessed worldview. She may have refined it, but she’s never grown out of it.

After four years at one of America’s most esteemed academic institutions, Michelle recoiled at the thought of “further integration and/or assimilation into a white cultural and social structure that will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society; never becoming a full participant.” That the sky has been the limit for her, that she has managed to ride the “periphery” from Princeton to Harvard Law School, to one of the country’s top law firms, and to a plethora of prestigious institutional positions, has not much altered her perspective. Through the windows of her mansion on Chicago’s south side, American society still appears as a caste system.

The United States, she says, is “just downright mean.” Never, prior to her husband’s presidential run, had she had a reason to feel proud of it, she told a campaign throng. But by last November, with Barack’s pursuit of the brass ring catching momentum, she suddenly got plenty proud. And confident: so much so that she was moved to tell MSNBC, “Black America will wake up and get it” -- unite and carry him over the finish line.

THE REV. WRIGHT
Years earlier, the Obamas had gravitated to the baleful Rev. Jeremiah Wright, an unapologetic racist and hard Left firebrand. They were comfortable with him -- and he with them.

By the senator’s own account, Wright is the inspiration for his memoir, The Audacity of Hope -- the title is cribbed from a Wright sermon (“The Audacity to Hope”). For Michelle, who had written that a racial “separationist” would have a better understanding of American blacks than “an integrationist who is ignorant to their plight,” Wright’s Trinity Church mission statement had to resonate, right from its opening declaration:

We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian… Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain ‘true to our native land,’ the mother continent, the cradle of civilization.

Rev. Wright inspired his congregation -- of which the Obamas were 20-year members -- with “black liberation theology.” The doctrine is itself the inspiration of James Hal Cone, a professor of “Systematic Theology” at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. Cone is also the author of several books, which a tendentious Wright urged Sean Hannity to read during a recent interview.

It’s a useful suggestion. For example, there is Cone’s 1969 opus, Black Theology and Black Power, in which he helpfully explains:

Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community.... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.

Black liberation theology, as Wright has elaborated, is closely aligned with the “liberation theology” of Nicaragua during the seventies and eighties: i.e., the doctrine that catalyzed Marxist revolutionaries. It spurred an unabashedly Leftist movement that emphasized, you guessed it, the crying need for “change” -- as George Russell aptly described it in a 2001 Time magazine analysis, “social change in the process of spiritual improvement.”

It is this same drive for upheaval, for supplanting a political order which purportedly treats blacks as “less than human,” that impelled Wright’s plea for God to “damn America.” In the oppression narrative, the murder of 3000 Americans on 9/11 isn’t terrorism but social justice. America, after all, had it coming. For Wright, it was “chickens coming home to roost.” Indeed, Wright sometimes prefers to call our country “the U.S. of KKK A” -- a grotesque sentiment which, we shall see, is shared by others with whom the Obamas choose to associate themselves.

For their part, the Obamas couldn’t get enough of Wright. Barack and Michelle had him marry them. They chose him to baptize their children, who were routinely exposed to Wright’s race-baiting bombast.

Obama and his supporters brusquely dismiss the drawing of sensible inferences from these gestures of admiration as “guilt by association.” In point of fact, though, the Obamas didn’t just associate with Wright. They subsidized him to the tune of over $20,000 -- not exactly chump change from a couple without great means or any history of philanthropy to speak of. And until recent public attention to the pastor’s noxious rants threatened to derail his White House bid, Sen. Obama kept Wright officially on board as part of his campaign’s “African American Religious Leadership Committee.”

BILL AYERS AND BERNADINE DOHRN
With this as background, is it really all that startling that Sen. Obama enjoys a friendly relationship with Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn, a pair of terrorists?

I want to be clear here: Not terrorist sympathizers. Terrorists.

The mainstream media, in their zeal to elect a Democrat, are assiduously airbrushing Ayers: “an aging lefty with a foolish past,” as the Chicago Sun-Times has so delicately put it. In fact, it is the press that is rife with foolish, aging lefties. Ayers, by contrast, is an unapologetic terrorist with a savage past -- one who beat the system he so reviles when, after his years of fugitivity, terrorism charges were dropped due to government surveillance violations. He’s “guilty as sin,” by his own concession, but “free as a bird.”

Ayers didn’t just carry a sign outside the Pentagon on May 19, 1972. He bombed it. As his memoir gleefully recalled, “Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon. The sky was blue. The birds were singing. And the bastards were finally going to get what was coming to them.”

Whether Pentagon bombing day was more or less ideal than other days, when he, Dohrn and their Weathermen comrades bombed the U.S. Capitol, the State Department, and sundry banks, police stations and courthouses, Ayers does not say. But on each occasion, there was surely optimism that the bastards were finally going to get what was coming to them.

There were lots of bombs. There is no remorse. “I don’t regret setting bombs,” he told the New York Times in 2001, sorry only that he and the others “didn’t do enough.” Like what? We can’t be sure, though National Review Online’s Jonah Goldberg recounts Ayers’s sentiments back in the day: “Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that’s where it’s really at.”

Ayers and Dohrn have done the actual dirty work of terror, while Jeremiah Wright draws the line at waving pom-poms. But the prism through which they assay the dirty work is precisely the same: America has it coming.

For them, that makes all the difference. It’s not terror, just chickens coming home to roost. “Terrorists destroy randomly,” Ayers rationalizes with nauseating arrogance, “while our actions bore ... the precise stamp of a cut diamond. Terrorists intimidate, while we aimed only to educate.” Right. As her companion Discover the Networks profile illustrates, Dohrn now goes even further: insisting their bombings weren’t terrorist acts at all: “We rejected terrorism. We were careful not to hurt anybody.”

Maybe she’s forgotten the “bastards getting what was coming to them” part. Or maybe she’s just lying. She was, we can be confident, something less than a model of compassion back then -- like at the Weathermen “War Council” meeting in 1969, when she famously gushed over the barbaric Manson Family murders of the pregnant actress Sharon Tate, coffee heiress Abigail Folger, and three others: “Dig it! First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them. They even shoved a fork into the victim’s stomach! Wild!”

Charming. The “War Council,” it should be noted, concluded by first condemning the United States for -- what else? -- its pervasive racism, then formally declaring war against what the Weathermen called “AmeriKKKa.” Rev. Wright would have understood.

It was at the Chicago home of Ayers and Dohrn that Obama, then an up-and-coming “community organizer,” had his political coming out party in 1995. Not content with this rite of passage in Lefty World -- where unrepentant terrorists are regarded as progressive luminaries, still working “only to educate” -- both Obamas tended to the relationship with the Ayers.

Barack Obama made a joint appearance with Bill Ayers in 1997 at a University of Chicago panel on the outrage of treating juvenile criminals as if they were, well, criminals. Obama apologists say, “So what? People appear with other people all the time.” Nice try. This panel was orchestrated by none other than Michelle Obama, then an Associate Dean of Student Services. Ayers didn’t happen to be there -- he was invited by the Obamas to educate students on the question before the house: “Should a Child Ever Be Called a ‘Super Predator?’”

And here’s how the University’s press release chose to describe this would-be super predator:
William Ayers, author of A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court (Beacon Press, 1997), says “We should call a child a child. A 13-year-old who picks up a gun isn’t suddenly an adult. We have to ask other questions: How did he get the gun? Where did it come from?”

Ayers, who spent a year observing the Cook County Temporary Juvenile Detention Center in Chicago, is one of four panelists who will speak on juvenile justice[.]
The other panelists included “Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama … who is working to block proposed legislation that would throw more juvenile offenders into the adult system.” The goal was to promote change, to actuate the vision of “Chicago reformer” Jane Addams, who’d sought “the establishment of a separate court system for children which would act like a ‘kind and just parent’ for children in crisis.” Never mind the crises they’d caused the victims of their wanton murders and mayhem -- the fault for those, surely, was our downright mean society.

The Ayers and Obama, meantime, kept up. There was yet another panel in 2002, Obama and Ayers waxing on “Intellectuals in Times of Crisis.” Dohrn, too, was asked to weigh in, on a panel addressing the question, “Why Do Ideas Matter?” I’m sure it was, er, wild.

RASHID KHALIDI
In the interim, Ayers and Obama had teamed up for three years on the board of the Woods Fund, a Chicago charitable organization. Together, they voted to donate $75,000 of the largesse they controlled to the Arab American Action Network. The AAAN was co-founded by Rashid Khalidi, a longtime supporter of Palestinian “resistance” attacks against Israel, which he openly regards as a racist, apartheid state. Despite considerable evidence to the contrary, Khalidi peremptorily denies having been a PLO operative or having directed its official press agency for six years (from 1976 to 1982). There can be no gainsaying, though, that he was an influential apologist for Yasser Arafat, the terror master who spawned two Intifadas and ordered the murder of American diplomats.

In the mean, besotted United States, of course, being a terrorist, a terror apologist, or simply raging at the machine qualifies one for a cushy academic soapbox. Thus did Khalidi eventually land on his feet at the University of Chicago, where he ran in the same circles as Associate Dean Michelle Obama, Law Professor Barack Obama, University of Illinois-Chicago Education Professor Bill Ayers, and Northwestern Law Professor Bernadine Dohrn (who prepared for a career in instructing future officers of the court with a stint in federal prison for flouting a judge’s order that she testify in a grand jury investigation into the Weathermen’s infamous Brinks robbery-murders).

For Khalidi, though, greener pastures called: the opportunity to become a professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University. There, he now directs Edward Said’s legacy: Columbia’s notoriously Israel-bashing Middle East Institute -- though, much to the University’s chagrin, he was scratched in 2005 from a program designed educate teachers on instructing their young students about the Middle East. New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein concluded Khalidi’s splenetic meanderings mightn’t be the best model.

They didn’t faze Barack Obama, though. He was front and center with Ayers and Dohrn at a farewell bash when Khalidi left Chicago for New York. It was only right. Khalidi, after all, had hosted a fundraiser for Obama in 2000, when the latter launched an unsuccessful campaign for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. And so it goes. A few weeks ago, Khalidi told worldnetdaily.com he supports Obama’s presidential run “because he is the only candidate who has expressed sympathy for the Palestinian cause,” and because Obama has promised negotiations with Iran.

Ayres, too, provided a minor ($200) contribution to Obama, in 2001. That was the year of September 11, just a few days before the Times published its excerpt of Ayres’s remembrances of bombings past. Read the short interview and ask yourself: Could anyone, let alone someone as sophisticated as Barack Obama, chat with Bill Ayers for about 30 seconds and not know exactly where is coming from?

Could they really have been friends? Well, Ayers is virtually channeling Michelle Obama and Jeremiah Wright when he wails that American “society is not a just and fair and decent place.”

“God, what a great country,” he scoffed to the Times. “It makes me want to puke.”

Hey, right back at you there, Professor. At least that’s how most of us are likely to feel. But not Sen. Obama. And that’s why Ayers -- like Khalidi and Wright and Michelle Obama, and others who know the senator well while we’ve been told precious little -- sees in Barack Obama the change he’s been waiting for.

No thanks.


By Andrew McCarthy
Reprinted with permission from National Review Online.

The original source of the above commentary ....

April 11, 2008 6:00 AM
The Company He Keeps
Meet Obama’s circle: The same old America-hating Left.
By Andrew C. McCarthy

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YThjYTU1ZDBjNmQ2YzcwNzU1MmYwN2JiMWY0ZGI0NDA=

(http://weblogs.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/blog/obamabash470x3430.jpg)

Janet!  You are the Mother of ALL info and stats.!  You totally amaze me!   I wanna be just like you!  LOL
No wonder you have such a special family.

For a Canadian to distribute more info., than this typical American,  You are awesome! 

I also miss Anna and Tyler's intelligent input on this topic here at SM!

*****************
 
Dear Di,
 
You are right, I haven't been here lately. I've been bashed because I like my candidate. I've lost friends. I couldn't believe it. But last week at the AA meeting, I asked a mature actor what he thinks about the election. He said, "I never discuss politics. I've lost too many friends."
 
To answer your question about if a German of Nazi ancestory, who was just as charismatic and said all the same things that impress you of Obama, but made questionable remarks about Jews, if you would feel a little bit different? 

Of course, I would not support such a candidate. Your premise is incorrect. A German cannot run for president as you have to be born in the United States to run for office.

With love,
Louise

PS: I'll email you  soon. 

Here's how it breaks out:

    * After Pennsylvania, we have a lead of at least 159 elected delegates earned through all of the primaries and caucuses so far. We have a total of at least 1493 pledged delegates.

    * Meanwhile, we've been rapidly gaining ground among the so-called superdelegates (elected leaders and party officials who get a vote to choose our nominee), cutting Senator Clinton's lead from more than 100 early this year to less than 25. We have a total of 238 publicly committed superdelegates.

    * The total number of delegates needed to secure the nomination is 2,024. That means we are only 293 delegates away from securing the nomination.


he Clinton campaign claims they've raised $3.5 million dollars since the polls closed yesterday.

Kermit,

Who is "we"?

Thanks, Louise

Sermon Video Presents Obama's Former Pastor in His Own Words
Friday, April 25, 2008

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, in an interview with PBS newsman Bill Moyers broadcast Friday, says his fiery comments, including his controversial “God Damn America” proclamation, have been taken out of context by the news media.

Barack Obama’s former pastor says people should listen to his entire sermon to have a complete understanding of his message.

FOXNews.com has compiled video from the full sermon delivered by Wright on April. 13, 2003, from the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

Was criticism of Wright’s fiery sermons “unfair” and “devious,” as he argued in the PBS interview?

Click on the links below to watch the full, unedited speech.

You decide.

• Wright Sermon: Part 1

• Wright Sermon: Part 2

• Wright Sermon: Part 3

• Wright Sermon: Part 4

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352661,00.html


++++++++++++++++++


Rev. Wright: Critics twisting sermons for political gain
By RACHEL ZOLL
The Associated Press
Friday, April 25, 2008; 6:59 PM

NEW YORK -- The former pastor to Democrat Barack Obama said his sermon blaming U.S. policies for the Sept. 11 attacks was a warning against vengeance and the view that all American actions are perfect, according to transcripts of a PBS interview released Friday.

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright said he was in Newark when the terrorist strike occurred and, from his hotel window, he said he saw the second plane hit the World Trade Center. Some of his congregants lost loved ones in the Pentagon and at the World Trade Center, he said.

"We want revenge. They wanted revenge," Wright told "Bill Moyers' Journal." "God doesn't want to leave you there, however. God wants redemption. God wants wholeness. And ... that's the context, the biblical context, I used to try to get people sitting again in that sanctuary."

The interview, for broadcast Friday night, is the first the pastor has given since video of his preaching gained national attention in March, putting Obama's campaign for the presidential nomination on the defensive.

The controversy forced Obama to distance himself from the minister, after a 20-year association through Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. In a March 18 speech in Philadelphia, Obama described the history of injustice that fueled Wright's comments, while also condemning his pastor's statements and acknowledging white resentment of African-Americans.

Wright, who is stepping down from Trinity's pulpit, said he and his successor, the Rev. Otis Moss III, have received death threats, and that the there have been threats to bomb the church.

In the Sept. 11 sermon, Wright pointed to U.S. military strikes on Panama and Libya, American slavery and its treatment of Indians and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans and now we are indignant?" he said in the sermon. "America's chickens are coming home to roost."

Wright told Moyers that "the persons who have heard the entire sermon understand the communication perfectly." The pastor said that the video is being publicized by people who want to make him out to be a fanatic instead of someone expressing problems with U.S. policies.

"To put an element of fear and hatred and to stir up the anxiety of Americans who still don't know the African-American church, know nothing about the prophetic theology of the African-American experience," Wright said, "who don't even know how we got a black church."

Among the most remarked upon part of Wright's sermons was his proclaiming from the pulpit "God damn America" for its racism. He told Moyers that his message was that people shouldn't confuse the government with God, and that governments have "failed and how they lie."  

"And when we start talking about, `my government right or wrong,' I don't think that goes, that is consistent, with what the will of God says or the word of God says, that governments that want to kill innocents are not consistent with the will of God" he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/25/AR2008042502978.html


+++++++++++


Rev. Wright Says Media Treatment of Sermons Was ‘Unfair’ and ‘Devious’
by Associated Press
Thursday, April 24, 2008

NEW YORK — The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, former pastor to Barack Obama, said that publicizing sound bites of sermons in which he condemned U.S. policies was “unfair” and “devious,” and done by people who know nothing about his church, according to excerpts of a PBS interview released Thursday.

Wright said that, as an activist, he is accustomed to being “at odds with the establishment,” but the response to the sermons has been “very, very unsettling.”

The interview, scheduled for broadcast Friday night, is the first the pastor has given since video of his preaching gained national attention in March, putting Democratic presidential hopeful Obama on the defensive.

Among the most remarked upon sound bites was Wright proclaiming from the pulpit “God damn America” for its racism. He accused the government of flooding black neighborhoods with drugs.

The controversy forced Obama to explain his 20-year association with the minister, who is stepping down from Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

“The blowing up of sermons preached 15, seven, six years ago and now becoming a media event, not the full sermon, but the snippets from the sermon … having made me the target of hatred, yes, that is something very new,” Wright told “Bill Moyers’ Journal.”

“I felt it was unfair. I felt it was unjust. I felt it was untrue. I felt — for those who were doing that — were doing it for some very devious reasons,” he said.

In a March 18 speech in Philadelphia, Obama described the history of injustice that fueled Wright’s comments, while also condemning his pastor’s statements and acknowledging white resentment of African-Americans.

Asked his response to the senator’s speech, Wright said, “He’s a politician, I’m a pastor.”

“I do what I do. He does what politicians do,” Wright said. “What happened in Philadelphia, where he had to respond to the sound bites, he responded as a politician.”

Wright said he has never heard Obama repeat any of the pastor’s controversial statements as his own opinion. “No, no, no. Absolutely not,” Wright said.

Wright gave the interview as presumptive Republican nominee John McCain and the North Carolina GOP argue over a TV ad with Obama and the pastor scheduled to run Monday, ahead of the state’s crucial May 6 primary. A narrator in the spot says, “He’s just too extreme for North Carolina.” McCain has asked local officials not to run the ad, but the state GOP said no.

Wright is scheduled to speak Monday at the National Press Club in Washington.

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/04/24/rev-wright-says-media-treatment-of-sermons-was-unfair-and-devious/all-comments/#comments


++++++++++++

Rev. Wright Sounds Off on Controversial Comments in New Interview
by Associated Press
Friday, April 25, 2008

NEW YORK — Barack Obama’s efforts to shift attention away from the fiery remarks of his former pastor were set back Friday with the broadcast of an interview in which the preacher says his quotes condemning America were taken out of context by people “for some very devious reasons.”

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/04/25/rev-wright-sounds-off-on-controversial-comments-in-new-interview/all-comments/#comments

+++++++++++++

Please access the following link to hear Barack Obamas' pastor/ friend/ mentor's unedited "God Damn American" speech.

Sermon Video Presents Obama's Former Pastor in His Own Words
Friday, April 25, 2008

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352661,00.html

Obama's campaign people. I rec emails from them and Michelle.

http://www.barackobama.com/tv/

(http://www.barackobama.com/images/temp_flashheader.jpg)

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/04/020358.php

April 22, 2008
The Friends of Barack Obama, Part 1

When Illinois State Senator Alice Palmer decided to retire in 1995, she hand-picked local left-winger Barack Obama as her successor. In order to introduce Obama to influential liberals in the district, she held a function at the home of Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. This was, really, the beginning of Obama's political career, and it linked him forever with Ayers and Dohrn, with whom, as his campaign has acknowledged, he continues to have a friendly relationship.

Ayers and Dohrn were famous radicals, and fugitives from the law, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Dohrn, actually, was the more famous of the two; she was the head, as I recall, of Students for a Democratic Society or one of its factions. Dohrn was crazy. She is the only public figure, to my knowledge, to approve publicly and enthusiastically of the Charles Manson murders.

Ayers was a would-be murderer of soldiers and policemen, but he wasn't a very good terrorist. He had the ill fortune to be the subject of a profile in the New York Times on September 11, 2001, in which he said that he didn't regret his attempted murders and only wished that he had planted more bombs.

In last week's Pennsylvania debate, Barack Obama was finally asked about his friendship with, and the political support he has accepted from, Ayers and Dohrn. Obama replied that Ayers had done reprehensible things forty years ago, when Obama was eight years old, and scoffed at the idea that Ayers's ancient history could be relevant. That was disingenuous, of course, given Ayers's 2001 regrets.

It turns out that we don't have to go back as far as 2001 to find that Obama's friends are as unrepentant as ever. Just last year, Ayers and Dohrn attended a reunion--no kidding--of what must have been the tiny remnant of SDS members who still haven't figured out that they were wrong about everything. Listen to what Bill Ayers, who hosted Barack Obama's first fundraiser, has to say about the United States. Not when Obama was eight years old, but in 2007:

Clip: Access above link.

At the same event, Obama's friend and supporter Bernadine Dohrn described the United States as "the monster." Obama was 47 years old at the time:

Clip: Access above link.

Barack Obama has declined to repudiate or distance himself from his neighbors, supporters and friends, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. There is a certain consistency of perspective among Obama's friends and mentors, which can be summed up in Jeremiah Wright's memorable phrase: "God damn America."


http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/04/020362.php
April 23, 2008
The Friends of Barack Obama, Part 2

Last night, in The Friends of Barack Obama, Part 1 I reviewed Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, who helped to kick off Obama's first political campaign and with whom Obama's campaign says he has a "friendly" relationship. Ayers and Dohrn were domestic terrorists in the 1960s and 1970s, and they are as radical now as they ever were, as evidenced by their own words. Obama emerged from the far-left fringe of Chicago politics, and his relationship with Ayers and Dohrn, like his relationship with spiritual mentor Jeremiah Wright, raises important questions about Obama's own political beliefs.

Obama has defended his relationship with Ayers and Dohrn by saying that Ayers did "reprehensible" things forty years ago, when Obama was eight years old. He says that Ayers and Dohrn are now respectable, mainstream figures in Chicago. But the reality is quite different; they, like Wright, are anything but "mainstream" in their views of America. The audio clips in which Ayers and Dohrn reveal their still-radical views were uncovered by Guy Benson, a recent college graduate who works for radio station WYLL in Chicago. Guy writes to introduce this series of clips:

In the process of doing some late-night research for both my own radio show and the program I produce, I stumbled upon a number of breathtaking videos featuring unrepentant terrorists William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. Both are now gainfully employed at major Chicago-area universities, and both have longtime connections to presidential candidate Barack Obama. The audio linked below falls into two categories: First, a number of "terror era" comments from Ayers and Dohrn from the late 1960s and 1970s emphasize how truly radical, violent, and virulently anti-American they were. The second batch comes from a recent reunion of aging radicals in November 2007. These clips show that Obama's pals are as unhinged as ever, and they severely undermine Team Obama's spin that Ayers and Dohrn are now "respectable" members of the political "mainstream."
The Top Five - THEN and NOW:

1. William Ayers Then: clip titled- Ayers fighting and upheaval

In 1970, the Weather Underground's top leadership was forced to go into hiding after three fellow weathermen accidentally blew themselves up while building an explosive devise in New York City. The bomb was intended to target a military dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey. While living in the shadows, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn participated in a series of short films. In this clip, Ayers explains how living underground served as a convenient "base" for his group's destructive plots.

Clip: Access above link.

2. William Ayers Now: - Ayers 2007 rebellion and Mao

Ayers addresses a Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) reunion in November 2007. He favorably quotes Chairman Mao's right-hand man while discussing the past and future roles of revolution.

Clip: Access above link.

3. William Ayers Now: Ayers on leftist strategy

Addressing the SDS reunion in 2007, Ayers outlines the Left's strategy for the future, which requires them to "speak in a language that is large, and generous, and encompassing…and then we have to act." (One wonders if a certain Left-blessed presidential candidate with a nice smile and a vague mantra of "change" might fit the bill perfectly.)

Clip: Access above link.

4. Bernadine Dohrn Then: Dohrn says "guard your children"

In this vintage recording (circa 1970), the voice of Bernadine Dohrn warns Americans that the Weather Underground is planning a series of violent attacks. She cautions her fellow citizens to guard their colleges, banks, and even their children. Dohrn explains that the revolution is designed to bring American society (or the "pitiful, helpless giant," as she so elegantly phrases it) "to its knees."

Clip: Access above link.

5. Bernadine Dohrn Now: US violent "monster"

At the same 2007 SDS reunion, Dohrn quotes Martin Luther King, Jr., referring to the US government as "the greatest purveyor of violence" in the world. She says she believes this sentiment to be true today. She tells the audience that living in America constitues living in "the belly of the beast" and "the heart of the monster."

Clip:  Access above link.

Also important, I think, is this 2007 clip in which Ayers describes his bizarre vision of contemporary America:

Clip:  Access above link.

There are many more. In this 2007 clip, Ayers describes the United States as an incipient fascist country:

Clip: Access above link.

Here, Ayers recalls his own use of "guns and bombs" to try to destroy the government of the United States:

Clip: Access above link.

In this recent PBS interview, Ayers talks about overthrowing capitalism:

Clip: Access above link.

In this 2007 clip, Dohrn denounces capitalism and the American "empire:"

Clip: Access above link.

A blast from the past: Dohrn declares "war" against the United States on behalf of the Weather Underground:

Clip: Access above link

"I am looking forward to a debate with John McCain. John McCain is a good man. He's an American hero. We honor his service to this nation. But he has made some bad choices about the company he keeps."  Barack Obama

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/761hcsqi.asp

Obama's Buddy List
By Guy Benson
Sunday, April 13, 2008

"John McCain is a good man. He's an American hero. We honor his service to the nation. But he's made some bad decisions about the company he keeps." This magnanimous pronouncement from Barack Obama in February sounded noble at the time it was uttered. The country should reject Senator McCain not because of his biography, he argued, but because of his questionable associations—many of whom are wicked right-wingers like President Bush. With his remark, Obama unwittingly constructed a new standard of judgment that can, and should, be used against him mercilessly in the general election. An alarmingly large portion of the company Obama keeps seems to be a ragtag posse of unreformed leftists, race baiters, and blame-America-first polemicists. Although none of these individual associations will singlehandedly derail his candidacy, when considered in the aggregate, they will give many Americans reason to pause before pulling the lever for the unvetted freshman senator.

Read more at ...

http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/GuyBenson/2008/04/13/obamas_buddy_list

BARACK OBAMA - THE COMPANY HE KEEPS - IN HIS OWN WORDS

Dreams of my Father: “To avoid being mistaken for a racial sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy.”

Somewhat O/T but ... somewhat related.  Trinity United is not alone with further an anti-American ideology under the cover of proclaiming itself a church.

Think about it.  Less than 24 hours following the Chavez's speech at the United Nation where he referred to the elected President of the United States a "devil" ... Mount Olivet  Baptist Church in New York gave this dictator a standing ovation as he was honored as a guest speaker. In my opinion ... no matter what sentiments may exist in America concerning George Bush and his policies ... the reaction by those in attendance was worse than silence ... it was an outright betrayal of the democratic process ... the betrayal of America ... a betrayal of their own ...

Janet

+++++++++

Chavez: Bush 'devil'; U.S. 'on the way down'
POSTED: 1726 GMT (0126 HKT), September 21, 2006
 
UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez tore into his U.S. counterpart and his U.N. hosts Wednesday, likening President Bush to the devil and telling the General Assembly that its system is "worthless."

"The devil came here yesterday," Chavez said, referring to Bush, who addressed the world body during its annual meeting Tuesday. "And it smells of sulfur still today."

Chavez accused Bush of having spoken "as if he owned the world" and said a psychiatrist could be called to analyze the statement.

(Watch Hugo Chavez cross himself as he tells world leaders he can smell the devil -- 1:06)

"As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world. An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: 'The Devil's Recipe.' "

Chavez held up a book by Noam Chomsky on imperialism and said it encapsulated his arguments: "The American empire is doing all it can to consolidate its hegemonistic system of domination, and we cannot allow him to do that. We cannot allow world dictatorship to be consolidated."

'No way to save' U.N.
Chavez also blasted the United Nations, calling the General Assembly "merely a deliberative organ" that meets once a year.

"We have no power, no power to make any impact on the terrible situation in the world," he said.

Chavez called the veto power shared by the five permanent members of the Security Council "anti-democratic," and cited the U.S. veto of a resolution that would have demanded the Israelis halt their bombing of Lebanon this summer.

That move "allowed the Israelis with impunity to destroy Lebanon in front of us all as we stood there watching," Chavez said. He recommended that the world body's headquarters be moved to another country and offered Venezuela as a possible new home.

He noted that he recently returned from a summit of more than 50 heads of state from nonaligned nations in Havana, Cuba, and urged his audience to support their efforts for "a world of peace."

At a news conference after the speech, he further lambasted the United States and U.N., saying of the latter, "There is no way to save it."

The U.N. was founded in an era of two superpowers, he said. "The Soviet Union collapsed. The United States empire is on the way down and it will be finished in the near future, for the good of all mankind."

He also said the U.S. government was the "first enemy" of its people.

"Their freedoms are restricted through the Patriot Act. They are sent to die in Iraq for no reason. The people of the United States are being deceived," he said.

Nuclear Venezuela?
The day after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defiantly expressed to the General Assembly his country's determination to pursue nuclear technology, Chavez told reporters he, too, would like to explore nuclear energy.

All countries should dispose of their nuclear bombs, he said, but he would like to tap the technology for energy purposes because Venezuela's oil reserves are nonrenewable and finite. He ended the news conference by saying, "I have a meeting with the axis of evil somewhere around here, so I have to go."

Oil supplies loom large in any discussion of U.S.-Venezuela relations. Venezuela was the world's ninth-largest oil producer in 2004 and the fourth-largest supplier of oil to the United States, accounting for 11.2 percent of U.S. imports in 2005, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, dismissed the speech, saying, "I think that [Chavez's] rhetoric today shows exactly what kind of man he is."

Bolton said: "We're not going to address that sort of comic-strip approach to international affairs.

"The real issue here is he knows he can exercise freedom of speech on that podium and, as I say, he could exercise it in Central Park, too. He's not giving the same freedom to the people of Venezuela."

Chavez's tirades against Bush have become common. In May, he accused Bush of committing genocide and said the U.S. president should be imprisoned by an international criminal court. (Full story)

Chavez also alleged during the U.N. speech that the United States is planning, financing and setting in motion a coup to overthrow him. The U.S. has denied such accusations in the past.

As he was exiting the U.N. building in New York, Chavez told reporters that Bush is not a legitimate president because he "stole the elections."

"He is therefore a dictator," Chavez said. (Watch Chavez call Bush a dictator, express his love of America -- :57)

In an interview later with CNN en Español, Chavez said he had good relations with President Clinton, but of Bush he said, "With this cowboy you can't even talk ... the Texan who walks around shooting from the hip."
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/09/20/chavez.un/index.html

Video - Chavez - United Nations
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2006/09/20/sots.chavez.un.cnn


Chavez boosts heating oil program for U.S. poor; takes another swipe at Bush
Updated 9/21/2006 8:44 PM ET

NEW YORK (AP) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez visited a Harlem church Thursday and promised to double the amount of discounted heating oil his country ships to needy Americans. But he also took another swipe at President Bush.

A day after he called Bush "the devil" in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly, Chavez said of the president: "He's an alcoholic and a sick man."

Bush has acknowledged that he had a drinking problem when he was young but gave up alcohol 20 years ago.

Chavez received a round of applause from the crowd at Mount Olivet Baptist Church, which included activists and other supporters as well as actor Danny Glover.

He called Bush's policies in Iraq criminal, adding he hopes Americans will before long "awaken" and elect a better president. While he opposes Bush, Chavez said the American people "are our friends."

Some in the church laughed and applauded when Chavez compared Bush to cowboy movie icon John Wayne.

Chavez also announced that Citgo, the U.S.-based refining arm of Venezuela's state-run oil company, plans to more than double the amount of heating oil it is making available under the program to 100 million gallons this winter, up from 40 million gallons.

He said the oil will reach people in 17 states, including Indians in Alaska, some of whom were flown to New York for the ceremony and attended in traditional dress. They performed a traditional dance for Chavez and offered him a walrus figurine carved out of whale bone as a gift.

"This will go a long way for a lot of families," said Ian Erlich, a leader of the Alaska Intertribal Council who said many people struggle to afford heating oil where he lives in Kotzebue, Alaska, north of the Artic Circle.

Chavez started the heating oil program last winter, accusing Bush of neglecting the poor. Citgo says up to 1.2 million people will benefit this winter.

While the program started mainly in the Northeast, this winter it is to expand to Alaska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Virginia, Maryland, and the cities of Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh, Pa.

The United States continues to be the top buyer of Venezuelan oil, bringing the South American country billions of dollars in earnings that help fund Chavez's popular social programs.

Chavez's opponents at home accuse him of squandering the country's oil wealth through preferential oil deals overseas aimed at strengthening political alliances. But Chavez said he is giving away nothing, and that Venezuela also gains by receiving everything from cattle to medical equipment in exchange for oil shipments to Latin American countries.

"We're sharing the bread to try to live a bit better, with solidarity," said Chavez, who also defended Bolivia's right to cultivate coca for uses other than cocaine.

The Venezuelan president repeated his warning that if the U.S. government tries to oust him, his country would halt oil sales to the U.S. Chavez said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's position is the same.

"If that were to happen, the price of oil could reach $200 a barrel," Chavez said, adding that he'd like to see a U.S. president "who you could talk with."

Chavez said some people have warned him about his safety after he called Bush "the devil" in his speech Wednesday.

"They've told me since last night, because I said he was a devil ... to be careful, because they could kill me," Chavez said, without elaborating. "I'm in the hands of God. I'm not afraid."

House majority leader, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, called Chavez a "power-hungry autocrat" and said his speech was "an embarrassment and an insult to the American people."
 
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-09-21-us-chavez_x.htm

The ministry of Jeremiah Wright ... Barack Obama's pastor/ mentor/ friend for twenty years ... was founded on the ideology of Dr. James Cone.  This ideology is revealed in Cones book ... "Black Theology & Black Power". 


See http://www.tucc.org/talking_points.htm

TRINITY UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST

"The vision statement of Trinity United Church of Christ is based upon the systematized liberation theology that started in 1969 with the publication of Dr. James Cone’s book, Black Power and Black Theology."


http://www.amazon.ca/Black-Theology-Power-J-Cone/dp/1570751579

Black Theology & Black Power (Paperback)

First published in 1969, "Black Theology & Black Power" provided the first systematic presentation of black theology. Relating the militant struggle for liberation with the gospel message of salvation, James Cone laid the foundation for an original interpretation of Christianity that retains its urgency and challenge today.


"Christ is black therefore not because of some cultural or psychological need of black people, but because and only because Christ really enters into our world where the poor were despised and the black are, disclosing that he is with them enduring humiliation and pain and transforming oppressed slaves into liberating servants."  James Cone


"Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community ... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love."  James Cone


"In the New Testament, Jesus is not for all, but for the oppressed, the poor and unwanted of society, and against oppressors ... Either God is for black people in their fight for liberation and against the white oppressors, or he is not."  James Cone

Jeremiah Wright in defence of James Cone:

Hannity & Colmes
Obama's Pastor: Rev. Jeremiah Wright
Friday, March 02, 2007

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,256078,00.html

Barack Obama lied to the American people when he implied that he was unaware of the racist, anti-American ideology of his pastor, mentor and friend for the past twenty years.  Keep in mind ... this was the pastor, mentor and friend who he bestow the honor of performing his marriage ceremony and ... baptising his precious daughters.

In his own words in DREAMS OF MY FATHER ... Obama reveals that he knew exactly what Jeremiah Wright was all about.

Janet

++++++++++++++++

by Michael Gaynor
Audacity of Barack Obama and Rev. Wright
March 18, 2008 01:00 PM EST

<snipped>

In Senator Obama's first book, titled Dreams of My Father and published in 1995 (after he had been elected president of the Harvard Law Review but before he had been elected to public office), Senator Obama wrote at length about Rev. Wright and his moving "Audacity of Hope" speech.

In Dreams, Senator Obama explained how he met Rev. Wright, whom he mentioned had been "dabbling with liquor, Islam, and black nationalism in the sixties."

He acknowledged that Rev. Wright immediately had given him fair warning that he was controversial, by quoting Rev. Wright as having said: "Some of my fellow clergy don't appreciate what we're about. They feel like we're too radical. Others, we aren't radical enough. Too emotional. Not emotional enough."

He also acknowledged that Rev. Wright let him know at their first meeting that he looked unfavorably on America and expected to continue to do so, by stating, "Life's not safe for a black man in this country, Barack. Never has been. Probably never will be."

Senator Obama left with one of Rev. Wright's "Black Value System" brochures.

When Senator Barack listened to Rev. Wright's "Audacity of Hope" sermon, September 11, 2001 was years away, but, Senator Obama admitted in Dreams, Rev. Wright castigated America.

Senator Obama put it this way: "Reverend Wright spoke of Sharpsville and Hiroshima, the callousness of policy makers in the White House and in the State House. As the sermon unfolded...the stories of strife became more prosaic, the pain more immediate...."

So it's hard to believe that Senator Obama was not familiar until very recently with Rev. Wright's position on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It's even worse for Senator Obama and Rev. Wright.

In Obama: From Promise to Power, by the Chicago Tribune's David Mendell, Mr. Mendell relates (pp. 159-160) a meeting between Senator Obama and Rev. Wright when Senator Obama was deciding whether or not to run for the United States Senate:

"'My name should be out there,' Obama told his pastor. 'but Carol Moseley Braun won't say what's she's going to do, and I'm not gonna run against a black woman. If she's gonna run, then I'm out. Until she says yes or no, I can't say anything."

<snipped>

http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/31321.html

April 25, 2008
BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the JOURNAL.

Barack Obama's pastor was in the news again this week. North Carolina Republicans are preparing to run an ad tying Obama to some controversial sound bites lifted from Reverend Jeremiah Wright's sermons. And CBS and MSNBC led their broadcasts with reports about the ad.

DEAN REYNOLDS: In North Carolina the Republicans put their ad on the internet and say they're going to broadcast it as well.

KEITH OLBERMANN: Republican hit job the North Carolina GOP plans a Willie Horton style TV ad against Obama.

BILL MOYERS: Jeremiah Wright will be in Washington Monday for a news conference at the National Press Club -- his first since the controversy erupted over those incendiary sound bites. You've heard them; who hasn't heard them: Wright suggesting the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were payback for American policy; Wright repeating the canard heard often in black communities that the u.s. government spread HIV in those communities; Wright seemingly calling on God to damn America.

But just who is this man? That's the question I asked when those sound bites began popping up. I'd heard the name Jeremiah Wright -- his church in Chicago belongs to the fellowship of the United Church of Christ. I joined a UCC church on Long Island 40 years ago and attend Riverside Church in New York City, which is affiliated with American Baptists and the UCC. But I couldn't remember ever having met Reverend Wright. So I wanted to know more about the man, the ministry, and the church.

BILL MOYERS NARRATION: In 1972, Jeremiah Wright became pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. He inherited a struggling congregation of just 87 members.

REVEREND WRIGHT (FROM TAPE:) I have a friend who every time you greet him, every time you ask him how you doing, he answers, just trying to make it man, just trying to make it.

BILL MOYERS: But by the mid 1980s, when PBS' Frontline shot this film about Wright, he'd grown the congregation to several thousand.

REVEREND WRIGHT: In our homes! Help us to be your church! In our private lives, help us to be your church! In our dealings one with another, help us to be your church Though our minds wander, our souls love only you. Let the church say Amen. Say Amen again.

BILL MOYERS: Trinity Church is located in a largely black neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago - a mixture of working class people and the poor.

REVEREND WRIGHT: Unfortunately, most churches now are "status quo." And so that, to the extent that they're not trying to feed the poor, they're not trying to hook up jobs and people, they're not concerned about the lowest, the least, the left out. They're not concerned about the youth, they're concerned about "Let me come here on a Sunday, hear something that tells me I'm ok, and I'm going to back to where I've been going. Don't rock the boat…"

REVEREND WRIGHT: How about the fact that we have pledged to take what we've got as black people and put it back into the black community? That's what I want to ask you…

BILL MOYERS: He challenged his growing congregation not to lose sight of the needs of their neighbors.

YOUNG MAN: I want to be a vehicle designer.

BILL MOYERS: That meant soup kitchens, day care, drug and legal counseling, and mentoring for young people.

YOUNG MAN: I've watched TV and looked at lawyers in past years and I've basically like the feel of being a lawyer. It's like really exciting.

MENTOR: As a matter of fact, there are a couple lawyers here in the church that maybe we can just hook you up with

YOUNG MAN: I'd like to be a doctor.

REVEREND WRIGHT: You can't be whatcha ain't seen. And so many of our young boys haven't seen nothing but the gangs and the pimps and the brothers on the corner. They've never sat and talked to lawyers, they've never sat and talked to a man, a black man, with 2, 3 degrees! They've never had a chance, they've never had an option in terms of thinking I could do this? I can be this? They see a doctor when they're sick. They don't get to sit and talk-me go to med school? They don't talk to somebody who writes programs and analyzes systems and computers. A black guy? I can do this? I can-never have their horizons lifted.

BOYS: The commitment to the black community The commitment to the black family

BILL MOYERS: He spoke out about racism from segregation in America's cities to the racist apartheid regime of South Africa.

REVEREND WRIGHT: What the word says about racism comes through loud and clear! Botha is wrong! South Africa is wrong! Apartheid is wrong! Oppression is wrong! Anybody who feels white skin is superior to black skin is wrong!

BILL MOYERS: Around that time a young Barack Obama came to Chicago and went to work as a community organizer on the South Side. As he describes in his book, Obama was a religious skeptic at first, and sought out Pastor Wright for his knowledge of the neighborhood. But soon Obama began attending Sunday Services, and in 1988 was baptized there as a Christian.

Twenty years later, Trinity has built a new building for its burgeoning congregation: now over six thousand members. Its ministry has grown as well: including tutoring for kids, women's health programs, and a HIV/AIDS ministry.

Trinity has long had strong ties with the African roots of its faith. Parishoners are asked to respect what they call "the black value system:" to rededicate themselves to God, the black family and the black community. Reinforcing the motto that they are quote "Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian."

You see the connection to Africa in the stained glass windows Wright installed in the new church. They depict many of the biblical stories that took place there.

REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT: We wanted our stained-glass windows to tell the story of the centrality of Africans in the role of Christianity from its inception up until the present day. We play some interesting games educationally with the kids to help kids understand -- can you name the seven continents? As a kid, you learn that in school. All right, on what continent did everything in the Bible from Genesis to Malachi take place? And they'll give you an eighth continent: the Middle East. No, no, no, you just named seven continents. So, what continent do these things take place on in your Bible? It's that kind of biblical truth put in stain glass so kids can understand this is not something somebody made up. This is not something from black power "Oooh." This is actual biblical, historical fact that you have a central role in the Christian faith that is yours.

BILL MOYERS: Several years ago Jeremiah Wright and the church began the search for his successor, and after 36 years as pastor, he will be retiring at the end of next month.

REVEREND WRIGHT: In Genesis:2 it says God breathes into the nostrils of what God had formed from the dust. God donated some divinity to some dirt and we became living souls. That's God breath you have in you, that's God's breath that you just breathed. God is the giver of life. Let me tell you what that means. That means we have no right to take a life whether as a gang banger living the thug life, or as a President lying about leading a nation into war. We have no right to take a life! Whether through the immorality of a slave trade, or the immorality of refusing HIV/AIDS money to countries or agencies who do not tow your political line! We have no right to take a life! Turn to your neighbors and say we have no right to take a life!

BILL MOYERS: That was Jeremiah Wright three years ago, and he's with me here today.

Welcome to the JOURNAL.

REVEREND WRIGHT: Thank you for having me.

BILL MOYERS: Let's start with first things. When did you hear the call to ministry? How did it come?

REVEREND WRIGHT: I was a teenager when I heard the call to ministry. I grew up in a parsonage. I grew up a son of and grandson of a minister, which also gave me the advantage of knowing that there were more things to ministry than pastoring. I had no idea that I'd be preaching or pastoring a church at that teenage year. As a matter of fact I left Philadelphia going to Virginia Union University. And unfortunately, I was starting during the civil rights movement. And the civil rights movement showed me a side of Christianity that I had not seen in Philadelphia. I had not seen Christians who, as I saw in Richmond, Virginia, who loved the lord, who professed faith in Jesus Christ and who believed in segregation, saw nothing wrong with lynching, saw nothing wrong with Negroes staying in their places. I knew about hatred. I knew about prejudice. But I didn't know Christians participated in that, in that kind of thinking.

BILL MOYERS: So what did that do to you?

REVEREND WRIGHT: It made me question my call. It made me question whether or not I was doing the right thing. It made me pause in my educational pursuit. I stopped school in my last year, senior year, and went into the service.

BILL MOYERS: He served six years in the military: two as a marine, and four in the Navy as a cardiopulmonary technician. That's where our paths crossed for the only time.

That's Jeremiah Wright, behind the I.V. pole, monitoring President Lyndon Johnson's heart as he was recovering from gall bladder surgery at Bethesda Naval Hospital. And right behind him is a very young me. I was the President's Press Secretary.

REVEREND WRIGHT: As you know, the President had to be operated on and out of surgery by 9:00 when the stock market opened. And talking and wide awake. So, we scrubbed in, like, 3:00 in the morning.

When he awakened, unlike other patients, you did not move him to recovery. You didn't move him to ICU. They kept him right there for security reasons. Secret Service all around, there was secret service in the whole operating suite and nobody else allowed in the operating suite except Secret Service.

So, after about an hour and a half, I went to get some coffee. And as I was coming back from the lounge where the coffee was, going back to monitor, I saw the guys talkin' into their wristwatches and I was nodding, speaking to them. So, I turn to go into the room to check the pace. And secret service guys standing there grabbed me, knocked the coffee outta my hand, burned me with the hot coffee, twisted my arm up behind my neck and screams into his phone, "I got him." And I was, "Got him?" And I'm screamin' in pain. And my assistant comes running out of the booth. He sees me jacked up and he starts laughing. I said, "Joe, don't laugh. Tell him who I am." And he said, "He's been here all morning."

BILL MOYERS: Standing above the President.

REVEREND WRIGHT: Guy looked at me, pulled my mask up over face, "Oh, yeah." And that was it.

BILL MOYERS: After the military, Wright graduated from Howard University, then went to the University of Chicago Divinity School for a Masters in Religious History.

But his path took a turn back to his first calling - when he was asked by that struggling little church on the South Side of Chicago to become its pastor.

BILL MOYERS: So, when you looked out on that handful of worshippers that first Sunday morning, 87 members, I'm sure all of them weren't there--

REVEREND WRIGHT: Oh, yeah. They all knew they heard this new kid was there with a big natural. So, they came to see--

BILL MOYERS: They were there.

REVEREND WRIGHT: Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: So, what did you see and what did you think you had to do?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Well, actually a good friend of yours, I believe, and one of my professors, got me in the predicament I'm in today, Dr. Martin Marty, one of my professors at the University of Chicago--

BILL MOYERS: One of the great distinguished historians of religion in America.

REVEREND WRIGHT: He put a challenge to us in 1970, late '69, early '70, I'll never forget. He said, "You know, you come into the average church on a Sunday morning and you think you've stepped from the real world into a fantasy world. And what do I mean by that?" He said pick up the church bulletin. You leave a world, Vietnam, or today you leave a world, Iraq, over 4,000 dead, American boys and girls, 100,000, 200,000 depending on which count, Iraqi dead. Afghanistan, Darfur, rapes in the Congo, Katrina, Lower Ninth Ward, that's the world you leave. And you come in; you pick up your church bulletin. It says, there is a ladies tea on second Sunday. The children's choir will be doing. He said, "How come our bulletins, how come the faith preached in our churches does not relate to the world in which our church members leave at the benediction?" Well, it hit me. And it hit me several different ways. Number one, I know there's a church publication, the bulletin, the weekly bulletin. But what about the ministry? And what about the prophetic voice of the church that's not heard? We're talking about things that our members are wrestling with a whole bunch of other things. And the sermons and the ministries of the church don't touch those things.

So, when, I looked and said this church had said to me, in fact not just to me, the church, the congregation has said, "OK, we were started by a white denomination. We were started in this community to be an integrated church. Ten years, that hasn't happened. Are we gonna be a black church in this community? What are we doing for this community?" They put together a statement that shows all the candidates for the pulpit. I was one of the candidates. They said, "Can you lead us in this new direction? How do we minister to this community in which we sit?" Not just on Sunday, first you have to attract people to come-- or even be interested in our worship experiences on Sunday. But what do we do in ministry that speaks to the community and the world in which we sit? That's Martin Marty. That's Martin Marty.

BILL MOYERS: Marty told me that you launched a strenuous effort to help the members of that church overcome the shame, and I'm quoting him, "they had so long been conditioned to experience." What was the source of that shame?

REVEREND WRIGHT: What Carter G. Woodson calls the miseducation of the Negro. That Africa is ignorant, Africans are ignorant; there is no African history, there is no African music, there is no African culture, anything related to Africa is negative, therefore you are not African. Chinese come to the country, they're still Chinese-American. We have Chinatown. Koreans come, they're still Korean. They have Koreatown. Africans come, they're colored. They're Negro. They're anything but Africa. In fact, we don't even call them Ebbu, Ebibu, Fulani, Fanti, Ga, no, no, no -- they're all "Negro." Portuguese, "Negro" Spanish. They're all gettin' lumped into black, but we're not black, we are Negro with a capital N.

The shame of being a descendant of Africa, was a shame that had been pumped into the minds and hearts of Africans from the 1600s on, even aided and abetted by the benefit of those schools started by the missionaries, who simply carried their culture with them into the South and taught their cultures being synonymous with Christianity. So that to become a Christian, you had to let go of all vestiges of Africa and become European, become New Englanders and worship like New England, worship God properly and right. Well, that shame was a part of the shame that many Africans in the '60s and the '70s were feeling.

Dr Reuben Sheares is my predecessor -- he was the interim pastor at Trinity -- coined the phrase "unashamedly black," where blacks coming outta the '60s were no longer ashamed of being black people, nor did they have to apologize for being Christians. Because many persons in the African-American community were teasing us, Christians, of being a white man's religion. And no, we're not ashamed of Christianity. And we don't have to apologize for who we are as African-Americans. So that, I think, is what Marty was talking about.

BILL MOYERS: So, when Trinity Church says it is unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian, is it embracing a race-based theology?

REVEREND WRIGHT: No, it is not. It is embracing Christianity without giving up Africanity. A lotta the missionaries were going to other countries assuming that our culture is superior, that you have no culture. And to be a Christian, you must be like us. Right now, you can go to Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, and see Christians in 140-degree weather. They have to have on a tie. Because that's what it means to be a Christian. Well, it's that kind of assuming that our culture, "We have the only sacred music. You must sing our music. You must use a pipe organ. You cannot use your instrument." It's that kind of assumption that in the field of missions, people say, "You know what? We're doing this wrong. We need to take Christ and leave culture at home. We need to learn the culture of people into which we're moving, and preach the methods of Jesus Christ using the culture that we are a part of." Well, the same thing happened with Christians in this country when they said, "You know what? Because those same missionaries who went south, they didn't let us sing gospel music." That was not sacred--

BILL MOYERS: They were singin' the great Anglican hymns.

REVEREND WRIGHT: Correct, correct. And make sure you use correct diction. Well, the-- Africans in the late-- African-Americans in the late '60s started saying, "You know, no, no, no, no, no, no, no." Even-- I was in Virginia Union, I was soloist at Virginia Union in the college, in the concert choir. We were not allowed to sing anything but anthems and spirituals. The same thing with the Howard University concert choir. The same thing with all the historical black choirs until '68. When King got killed, black kids started saying wait a minute. We're not givin' up who we are as black people to become-- to show somebody else that we -- in fact, the music majors at Howard when I was-- teaching assistant at La Vern they said to the choir director there, "We're tired of singin' German Lieder and Italian aria to prove to you that we-- you know, we can sing foreign songs. But we have our own music tradition." Prior to '68, there was no gospel music at Howard University. Prior to '68, there was no jazz major. The white universities are giving Count Basie and Duke Ellington degrees. We don't even the jazz course. We don't have blues. We don't have any of our music on this black college campus. Because the missionaries had not allowed us to teach our own music.

And at that point in history, all across the country and all across denominational lines, the-- the college-age kids started saying, no more. No mas. Nada mas. We're gonna do our people. We're gonna do our culture. We're gonna do our history. And we're gonna embrace it and not put-- to say one is superior to the other. Because we are different. And different does not mean deficient, that we just different like snowflakes. We're different. We talk about God of diversity? God has diverse culture, God has -and we're proud of who we are because that's the statement the congregation was making, not a race-based theology.

BILL MOYERS: So, God is not, contrary to some of the rumors that have been circulated about Trinity, God is not exclusively or totally identified with just the black community?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Of course not. God-- I think Jesus said to Nicodemus, "God should love the world," not just the black community-- that we have our church is what some would call multicultural. We not only have Hispanic members, we not only have members--

BILL MOYERS: When you said, "No mas," I was gonna say that's not a spiritual. That's not out of the spirituals or the blues.

REVEREND WRIGHT: We have members from Cuba. We have members from Puerto Rico. We have members from Belize. We have members from all of the Caribbean islands. We have members from South Africa, from West Africa, and we have white members.

BILL MOYERS: What does the church service on Sunday morning mean in general to the black community?

REVEREND WRIGHT: It means many things. I think one of the things the church service means is hope. That tell me that there is hope in this life, almost like Psalm 27 when David said, "I would have fainted unless I lived to see the goodness of the right in this life." Don't tell me about heaven. What about in this life-- that there is a better way, that this is not in vain, that it is not Edward Albee or Camus' absurd, the theater of the absurd. It is not Shakespeare full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. That life has meaning and that God is still in control, and that God can, and God will, some people of goodwill working hard do something about the situation. We can change. We can do better. We can change policy. We can look back and say, "Well, 40 years ago when King was alive, we did not have right before his death, a civil rights act. We did not have a voting rights act." So, change is possible. But I'm getting my head whipped. The average member in the black church five days a week, "tell me that this is not all there is to this." So, they come looking for hope. And as we've tried to do, move a hurt. People who are marginalized, marginalized in the educational system, marginalized in the socioeconomic system -- to move them from hurt to healing, that there is really is a balm in Gilead.

BILL MOYERS: Are you saying that the members of Trinity leave the world of unemployment, leave the world of discrimination, leave the world of that daily struggle and come to church for-

REVEREND WRIGHT: For encouragement, to go back out and make a difference in their world. To go back out and change that world, to not just talk about heaven by and by, but to get equipped and to get to know that we are not alone in this struggle, and that the struggle can make a difference. Not to leave that world and pretend that we are now in some sort of fantasy land, as Martin Marty called it, but that we serve a God who comes into history on the side of the oppressed. That we serve a God who cares about the poor. That we serve a God who says that as much as you've done unto the least of these, my little ones, you've done unto me, so that we are not alone. Because that same God says I'm with you, and I'm with you in the struggle. Our United Church of Christ says courage and the struggle for justice and peace that is an ongoing struggle.

BILL MOYERS: Lots of controversy about black liberation theology. As I understand it, black liberation theology reads the bible through the experience of people who have suffered, and who then are able to say to themselves that we read the bible differently, because we have struggled, than those do who have not struggled. Is that a fair bumper sticker of liberation theology?

REVEREND WRIGHT: I think that's a fair bumper sticker. I think that the terms "liberation theology" or "black liberation theology" cause more problems and red flags for people who don't understand it.

BILL MOYERS: When I hear the word "black liberation theology" being the interpretation of scripture from the oppressed, I think well, that's the Jewish story--

REVEREND WRIGHT: Exactly, exactly. From Genesis to Revelation. These are people who wrote the word of God that we honor and love under Egyptian oppression, Syrian oppression, Babylonian oppression, Persian oppression, Greek oppression, Roman oppression. So that their understanding of what God is saying is very different from the Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians. And that's what prophetic theology of the African-American church is.

BILL MOYERS: Yeah. But talk a little bit about that. The prophets loved Israel. But they hated the waywardness of Israel. And they were calling Israel out of love back to justice, not damning--

REVEREND WRIGHT: Exactly.

BILL MOYERS: Not damning Israel. Right?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Right. They were saying that God was-- in fact, if you look at the damning, condemning, if you look at Deuteronomy, it talks about blessings and curses, how God doesn't bless everything. God does not bless gang-bangers. God does not bless dope dealers. God does not bless young thugs that hit old women upside the head and snatch their purse. God does not bless that. God does not bless the killing of babies. God does not bless the killing of enemies. And when you look at blessings and curses out of that Hebrew tradition from the book of Deuteronomy, that's what the prophets were saying, that God is not blessing this. God does not bless it- bless us. And when we're calling them, the prophets call them to repentance and to come back to God. If my people who are called by my name, God says to Solomon, will humble themselves and pray, seek my faith and turn from their wicked ways. God says that wicked ways, not Jeremiah Wright, then will I hear from heaven.

BILL MOYERS: One of the most controversial sermons that you preach is the sermon you preach that ended up being that sound bite about Goddamn America.

REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT (SERMON TAPE): Where governments lie, God does not lie. Where governments change, God does not change. And I'm through now. But let me leave you with one more thing. Governments fail. The government in this text comprised of Caesar, Cornelius, Pontius Pilate - the Roman government failed. The British government used to rule from East to West. The British government had a Union Jack. She colonized Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Hong Kong. Her navies ruled the seven seas all the way down to the tip of Argentina in the Falklands, but the British government failed. The Russian government failed. The Japanese government failed. The German government failed. And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains. The government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton fields, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into position of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing God bless America? No, no, no. Not God bless America; God damn America! That's in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating her citizen as less than human. God damn America as long as she keeps trying to act like she is God and she is supreme!

BILL MOYERS: What did you mean when you said that?

REVEREND WRIGHT: When you start confusing God and government, your allegiances to government -a particular government and not to God, that you're in serious trouble because governments fail people. And governments change. And governments lie. And those three points of the sermon. And that is the context in which I was illustrating how the governments biblically and the governments since biblical times, up to our time, changed, how they failed, and how they lie. And when we start talking about my government right or wrong, I don't think that goes. That is consistent with what the will of God says or the word of God says that governments don't say right or wrong. That governments that wanna kill innocents are not consistent with the will of God. And that you are made in the image of God, you're not made in the image of any particular government. We have the freedom here in this country to talk about that publicly, whereas some other places, you're dead if say the wrong thing about your government.

BILL MOYERS: Well, you can be almost crucified for saying what you've said here in this country.

REVEREND WRIGHT: That's true. That's true. But you can be crucified, you can be crucified publicly, you can be crucified by corporate-owned media. But I mean, what I just meant was, you can be killed in other countries by the government for saying that. Dr. King, of course, was vilified. And most of us forget that after he was assassinated, but the year before he was assassinated, April 4th, 1967 at the Riverside Church, he talked about racism, militarism and capitalism. He became vilified. He got ostracized not only by the majority of Americans in the press; he got vilified by his own community. They thought he had overstepped his bounds. He was no longer talking about civil rights and being able to sit down at lunch counters that he should not talk about things like the war in Vietnam. He preached--

BILL MOYERS: Lyndon Johnson was furious at that. As you know-

REVEREND WRIGHT: I'm sure he was.

BILL MOYERS: That's where they broke.

REVEREND WRIGHT: And that's where a lot of the African-American community broke with him, too. He was vilified by Roger Wilkins' daddy, Roy Wilkins. Jackie Robinson. He was vilified by all of the Negro leaders who felt he'd overstepped his bounds talking about an unjust war. And that part of King is not lifted up every year on January 15th. 1963, "I have a dream," was lifted up, and passages from that - sound bites if you will - from that march on Washington speech. But the King who preached the end of- "I've been to the mountaintop, I've looked over and I've seen the Promised Land, I might not get there with you,"- that part of the speech is talked about, not the fact that he was in Memphis siding with garbage collectors. Nothing about Resurrection City, nothing about the poor--

BILL MOYERS: Resurrection City was the march in Washington for the poor.

REVEREND WRIGHT: For the poor. That part of King is not talked about because we want to keep that away from the public eye, and the public memory, and it's been 40 years now.

BILL MOYERS: What is your notion of why so many Americans seem not to want to hear the full Monty - they don't want to seem to acknowledge that a nation capable of greatness is also capable of cruelty?

REVEREND WRIGHT: I think I come at that as a historian of religion. That we are miseducated as a people. Or because we're miseducated, you end up with the majority of the people not wanting to hear the truth. Because they would rather cling to what they are taught. James Washington, now a deceased church historian, says that after every revolution, the winners of that revolution write down what the revolution was about so that their children can learn it, whether it's true or not. They don't learn anything at all about the Arawak, they don't learn anything at all about the Seminole, the Cheek-Trail of Tears, the Cherokee. They don't learn anything. No, they don't learn that. What they learn is 1776, Crispus Attucks was the one black guy in there. Fight against the British, the- terrible. "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal while we're holding slaves." No, keep that part out. They learn that. And they cling to that. And when you start trying to show them you only got a piece of the story, and lemme show you the rest of the story, you run into vitriolic hatred because you're desecrating our myth. You're desecrating what we hold sacred. And when you're holding sacred is a miseducational system that has not taught you the truth. I also think people don't understand condemn, D-E-M-N, D-A-M-N. They don't understand the root, the etymology of the word in terms of God condemning the practices that are against God's people. But again, what is happening is I talk a truth. Reading the scripture or the hermeneutic of a people who have-

BILL MOYERS: Hermeneutic?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Hermeneutic is an interpretation, it's the window from which you're looking is your hermeneutic. And when you don't realize that I've been framed- this whole thing has been framed through this window, there's another world out here that I'm not looking at or taking into account, it gives you a perspective that-- that is-- that is informed by and limited by your hermeneutic. Dr. James Cone put it this way. The God of the people who riding on the decks of the slave ship is not the God of the people who are riding underneath the decks as slaves in chains. If the God you're praying to, "Bless our slavery" is not the God to whom these people are praying, saying, "God, get us out of slavery." And it's not like Notre Dame playing Michigan. You're saying flip a coin; hope God blesses the winning team, no. That the perception of God who allows slavery, who allows rape, who allows misogyny, who allows sodomy, who allows murder of a people, lynching, that's not the God of the people being lynched and sodomized and raped, and carried away into a foreign country. Same thing you find in Psalm 137. That those people who are carried away into slavery have a very different concept of what it means to be the people of God than the ones who carried them away.

BILL MOYERS: And they say, "How can we sing the song of the Lord of a foreign land?"

REVEREND WRIGHT: Correct.

BILL MOYERS: That chapter ends up with some very brutal words.

REVEREND WRIGHT: It does. And--

BILL MOYERS: You used them in one of your sermons--

REVEREND WRIGHT: Yes, I did. I was trying to show how people- how the anger- and we felt anger. I felt anger. I felt hurt. I felt pain. In fact, September 11th, I was in Newark. September 11th, I was trapped in Newark 'cause when they shut down the air system I couldn't get back to Chicago. September 11th, I looked out the window and saw the second plane hit from my hotel window. Alright, I had members who lost loved ones both at the Pentagon and at the World Trade Center. So, I know the pain. And I had to preach to them Sunday. I had to preach. They came to church wanting to know where is God in this. And so, I had to show them using that Psalm 137, how the people who were carried away into slavery were very angry, very bitter, moved and in their anger from wanting revenge against the armies that had carried them away to slavery, to the babies. That Psalm ends up sayin' "Let's kill the baby-let's bash their heads against the stone." So, now you move from revolt and revulsion as to what has happened to you, to you want revenge. You move from anger with the military to taking it out on the innocents. You wanna kill babies. That's what's going on in Psalm 137. And that's exactly where we are. We want revenge. They wanted revenge. God doesn't wanna leave you there, however. God wants redemption. God wants wholeness. And that's the context, the biblical context I used to try to get people sitting again, in that sanctuary on that Sunday following 9/11, who wanted to know where is God in this? What is God saying? What is God saying? Because I want revenge.

REVEREND WRIGHT (SERMON TAPE): The people of faith have moved from the hatred of armed enemies, these soldiers who captured the king, those soldiers who slaughtered his son and put his eyes out, the soldiers who sacked the city, burned the towns, burned the temples, burned the towers, and moved from the hatred for armed enemies to the hatred of unarmed innocents, the babies, the babies . "Blessed are they who dash your baby's brains against a rock." And that my beloved is a dangerous place to be. Yet, that is where the people of faith are in 551 BC and that is where far too many people of faith are in 2001 AD. We have moved from the hatred of armed enemies to the hatred of unarmed innocents. We want revenge. We want paybacks and we don't care who gets hurt in the process.

I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday. Did anybody else see him or hear him? He was on Fox news. This is a white man and he was upsetting the Fox news commentators to no end. He pointed out. You see him John? A white man he pointed out -an Ambassador! He pointed out that what Malcolm X said when he got silenced by Elijah Mohammad was in fact true. America's chickens are coming home to roost! We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Arawak, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism! We took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism! We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel. We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard-working fathers. We bombed Gadafi's home and killed his child. "Blessed are they who bash your children's head against a rock!" We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to payback for the attack on our embassy. Killed hundreds of hard-working people; mothers and fathers who left home to go that day, not knowing that they would never get back home. We bombed Hiroshima! We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye! Kids playing in the playground, mothers picking up children after school, civilians - not soldiers - people just trying to make it day by day. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans, and now we are indignant? Because the stuff we have done overseas has now been brought back into our own front yards! America's chickens are coming home to roost! Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred and terrorism begets terrorism. A White Ambassador said that y'all not a Black Militant. Not a Reverend who preaches about racism. An Ambassador whose eyes are wide open, and who's trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised--

BILL MOYERS: You preached that sermon on the Sunday after 9-11 -- almost 7 years ago. When people saw the sound bites from it this year, they were upset because you seemed to be blaming America. Did you somehow fail to communicate?

REVEREND WRIGHT: The persons who have heard the entire sermon understand the communication perfectly. What is not the failure to communicate is when something is taken like a sound bite for a political purpose and put constantly over and over again, looped in the face of the public. That's not a failure to communicate. Those who are doing that are communicating exactly what they wanna do, which is to paint me as some sort of fanatic or as the learned journalist from the New York Times called me, a "wack-a-doodle." It's to paint me as something. Something's wrong with me. There's nothing wrong with this country. There's -its policies. We're perfect. We-our hands are free. Our hands have no blood on them. That's not a failure to communicate. The message that is being communicated by the sound bites is exactly what those pushing those sound bites want to communicate.

BILL MOYERS: What do you think they wanted to communicate?

REVEREND WRIGHT: I think they wanted to communicate that I am- unpatriotic, that I am un-American, that I am filled with hate speech, that I have a cult at Trinity United Church of Christ. And, by the way, guess who goes to his church, hint, hint, hint? That's what they wanted to communicate. They know nothing about the church. They know nothing about our prison ministry. They know nothing about our food share ministry. They know nothing about our senior citizens home. They know nothing about all we try to do as a church and have tried to do, and still continue to do as a church that believes what Martin Marty said, that the two worlds have to be together-the world before church and the world after postlude. And that the gospel of Jesus Christ has to speak to those worlds, not only in terms of the preached message on a Sunday morning but in terms of the lived-out ministry throughout the week.

BILL MOYERS: What did you think when you began to see those very brief sound bites circulating as they did?

REVEREND WRIGHT: I felt it was unfair. I felt it was unjust. I felt it was untrue. I felt for those who were doing that, were doing it for some very devious reasons.

BILL MOYERS: Such as?

REVEREND WRIGHT: To put an element of fear and hatred and to stir up the anxiety of American who still don't know the African-American church, know nothing about the prophetic theology of the African-American experience, who know nothing about the black church, who don't even know how we got a black church.

BILL MOYERS: What can you tell me about what's happened at the church since this controversy broke?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Well, the church members are very upset. Because they know it's a lie, the things that are being broadcast. Church members have been very supportive. The church members have been upset by behavior of some of the media; picking up church bulletins to get the names and addresses and phone numbers of the sick and shut-in, calling them to try to get stories. One lady they called in hospice. My members are very upset about that, our members are very upset about that. Our members are very upset about that. Our members know that this is what the media is doing. And our members know they're only doing it because of the political campaign. What have we gotten into here? People threatening, you know, Christians, some of 'em, threatening us, quoting scripture and telling us how they're going to wipe us off the face of the earth in the name of Jesus

BILL MOYERS: There had been death threats?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Yes, there have. At, both on myself and on Pastor Moss, and bomb threats at the church.

BILL MOYERS: Did you ever imagine that you would come to personify the black anger that so many whites fear?

REVEREND WRIGHT: No. I did not. I have been preaching as I've been preaching since I was ordained 41 years ago. I pointed out to some of the persons in Chicago who find all of this, new to them that the stance I took in standing against apartheid along with our denomination back in the '70s and putting a "Free South Africa" sign in front of the church put me at odds with the government. Our denomination's defense of the Wilmington Ten and Ben Chavis put me at odds with the establishment. So, being at odds with policies is nothing new to me. The blow up and the blowing up of sermons preached ten, fifteen, seven, six years ago and now becoming a media event, not the full sermon, but the snippets from the sermon and sound bite having made me the target of hatred. Yes, that is something very new and something very, very unsettling.

BILL MOYERS: I think of how important music is to your church at times like this, that's intentional isn't it?

REVEREND WRIGHT: It is. It's been a part of our tradition. And what I tried to do again in bringing together, how do you take a people who are hurting and bring healing? How do you take a people who are suffocating with hate and give them hope? Well, a part is through the musical tradition. One of the things in our tradition that I mentioned a moment ago that's so key is blues. The Blues. We learned how to sing the blues. That's why suicide rate wasn't much higher. 'Cause we started singing the blues. Well people sittin' there every Sunday they know that tradition. Many of them, as they turn their keys off coming into church we're not listening to gospel music. They were listening to our music out of our tradition. Blues, Doo-wops, rock and roll. Anita Baker. Luther Vandross. That's our music tradition. That's a part of what helps us hold it together. So it's the same thing that helps them to hold it together out there. Helps them to hold it together in here

BILL MOYERS: What is it you said about suicide?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Blacks learn how to sing the blues rather than just giving up on life. A guy's wife walks out on him with his best friend. And he's crushed. So what does he say? Instead of going out and taking a gun and killing he sings a song. "I'm going down to the railroad to lay my poor head on the track. I'm going down to the railroad to lay my poor head on the track. "And when the locomotive comes I'm gonna pull my fool head back." I'm not giving up life over this. That life goes on beyond this. Pain is just for a moment. This whole notion about what we're going through is only a season. And this came to pass, didn't come to stay. That's what the blues do. And that's what the music tradition does. That's what the spirituals have done and that's what the gospel music has done, historically, in our church. So, yeah, trying to keep that as an integral part of worship is crucial for us.

BILL MOYERS: So what blues are you singing right now?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Don't know why they treat me so bad. I'm singing the sacred blues. The songs of our gospel tradition. That I'm so glad trouble don't last always. That, what man meant for evil, God meant for good. That what--

BILL MOYERS: What man meant for evil God meant for good.

REVEREND WRIGHT: That's a quote from Joseph, in the bible, the Book of Genesis.

BILL MOYERS: And what do you take that to mean?

REVEREND WRIGHT: That Human beings, many times, do things for nefarious purposes. And God can take that and turn something- make something good out of it. That, for instance, using that Joseph passage, when his brother sold him into slavery, and they thought, after daddy's gone, he's gonna get us. And Joseph reassured them by saying, "No, no, what you meant for evil, God has turned into something good. I'm not trying to do revenge or payback. In fact, restoration is what God is. And I restore you. As brothers, we're all brothers." That those sound bytes, those snippets were taken for nefarious purposes. That God can take that and do something very positive for it- with it. That, in Philadelphia, in response to the sound bytes, in response to the snippets, in Philadelphia Senator Obama made a very powerful speech in terms of our need as a nation to address the whole issue of race. That's something good that's already starting. That because of you guys playing these sound bytes now what's getting ready to happen as something very positive, and something very powerful that God can take what you meant to try to hurt somebody to help the nation come to grips with truth. To help a nation come to grips with miseducation. To help a nation come to grips with things we don't like to talk about. To help a nation--

BILL MOYERS: You know, you mentioned Senator Obama. In the 20 years that you've been your pastor, have you ever heard him repeat any of your controversial statements as his opinion?

REVEREND WRIGHT: No. No. No. Absolutely not. I don't talk to him about politics. And so here at a political event, he goes out as a politician and says what he has to say as a politician. I continue to be a pastor who speaks to the people of god about the things of God.

BILL MOYERS: Here is a man who came to see you 20 years ago wanting to know about the neighborhood. Barack Obama was a skeptic when it came to religion. He sought you out because he knew you knew about the community. You led him to the faith. You performed his wedding ceremony. You baptized his two children. You were, for 20 years, his spiritual counselor. He has said that. And, yet, he, in that speech at Philadelphia, had to say some hard things about you. How, how did it go down with you when you heard Barack Obama say those things?  

REVEREND WRIGHT: It went down very simply. He's a politician, I'm a pastor. We speak to two different audiences. And he says what he has to say as a politician. I say what I have to say as a pastor. Those are two different worlds. I do what I do. He does what politicians do. So that what happened in Philadelphia where he had to respond to the sound bytes, he responded as a politician. But he did not disown me because I'm a pastor.

BILL MOYERS: But even some of your admirers say it would be wrong to gloss over what Martin Marty himself called- who loves you- called your "abrasive edges." For example, you know, Louis Farrakhan lives in the south part of Chicago, doesn't he? You've had a long complicated relationship with him, right?

REVEREND WRIGHT: Yes.

BILL MOYERS: And he, you know, he's expressed racist and anti-Semitic remarks. And, yet, last year-

REVEREND WRIGHT: Twenty years ago.

BILL MOYERS: Twenty years ago, but that's indefensible.

REVEREND WRIGHT: The Nation of Islam and Mr. Farrakhan have more African-American men off of drugs. More African-American men respecting themselves. More African-American men working for a living. Not gang banging. Not trying to get by. That's not indefensible in terms of how you make a difference in the prisons? Turning people's lives around. Giving people hope. Getting people off drugs. That we don't believe the same things in terms of our specific faiths. He's Muslim, I'm Christian. We don't believe the same things he said years ago. But that has nothing to do with what he has done in terms of helping people change their lives for the better. I said direct quote was what? "Louis Farrakhan is like E.F. Hutton. When Lewis Farrakhan speaks, black America listens. They may not agree with him, but they're listening.

BILL MOYERS: What does it say to you that millions Americans, according to polls, still think Barack Obama is a Muslim?

REVEREND WRIGHT: It says to me that corporate media and miseducation or misinformation or disinformation, I think we started calling it during the Nixon years, still reigns supreme. Thirty some percent of Americans still think there are weapons of mass destruction. That you tell a lie long enough that people start believing it. What does the media do? "Barack Hussein Obama! Barack Hussein Obama! Barack Hussein. It sounds like Osama, Obama. That Arabic is a language. So that's why many people still think he's a Muslim. He went to a madrasah. What's a madrasah? I don't know, but I know it was one of those Muslim schools that teaches terrorism. The kind of I don't want to think, just tell me what to think mentality is why so many Americans still think that.

BILL MOYERS: Our denomination, the United Church of Christ has called for a sacred conversation on race in America. What are the steps that you think from all of your experience can be taken to move race relations forward?

REVEREND WRIGHT: I think there are many - to start using Bill Jones' paradigm, about how one sees God. Your theology determines one's anthropology. And how you see humans determines your sociology. To look at how we've come to see race, and in others of other races, based on our understanding of God who sees others as less than important. Less than my people. And where in our religious traditions are there passages in our sacred scriptures that are racist? They're in the Vedas, the Babylonian Talmud, they're in the Koran, they're in the Bible. How do we grapple with these passages in our sacred texts? The same way you grapple with Judges:19, where it's alright for a preacher to have a concubine and cut her up into 12 pieces. We gotta argue with our texts that are, as we've been struggling with, battling with, wrestling with, anti-Semitic. The Christian, "The Jews killed Jesus." No, we gotta come to grips with, you know, these texts were written by certain people at certain times with certain racist understandings of others who are different. That different meant deficient. That doing that with adults and starting with kids. that begins the conversation that Senator Obama talked about that we need to have. And re-writing the curriculum in our schools to tell the truth in our schools.

BILL MOYERS: Jeremiah Wright, thank you very much for this opportunity.

REVEREND WRIGHT: Well, thank you for having me Bill. Thank you sir.

BILL MOYERS: That's it for the JOURNAL. We'll see you next week and on line.

I'm Bill Moyers.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04252008/watch.html

I believe it is all an Obama campaign strategy ... a strategy to deceive the American people into thinking that Obama and Wright are parting ways ... into thinking that Obama was a naive pawn for twenty years.

I am wondering once the campaign strategy has successfully distanced Obama and Wright ... how is it going to distance Obama's own racist, anti-American words from his two books ... DREAMS OF MY FATHER and AUDICITY OF HOPE.  Also ... how is the campaign strategy going to distance Obama from the "company" he has associated with for the past twenty years ... "company" that adhere to a Marxist philosophy.

+++++++++++++
 
Rough Sketch
by Dana Milbank
Wright's Voice Could Spell Doom for Obama

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, explaining this morning why he had waited so long before breaking his silence about his incendiary sermons, offered a paraphrase from Proverbs: "It is better to be quiet and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."

Barack Obama's pastor would have been wise to continue to heed that wisdom.

Should it become necessary in the months from now to identify the moment that doomed Obama's presidential aspirations, attention is likely to focus on the hour between nine and ten this morning at the National Press Club. It was then that Wright, Obama's longtime pastor, reignited a controversy about race from which Obama had only recently recovered - and added lighter fuel.

Speaking before an audience that included Marion Barry, Cornel West, Malik Zulu Shabazz of the New Black Panther Party and Nation of Islam official Jamil Muhammad, Wright praised Louis Farrakhan, defended the view that Zionism is racism, accused the United States of terrorism, repeated his view that the government created the AIDS virus to cause the genocide of racial minorities, stood by other past remarks ("God damn America") and held himself out as a spokesman for the black church in America.

In front of 30 television cameras, Wright's audience cheered him on as the minister mocked the media and, at one point, did a little victory dance on the podium. It seemed as if Wright, jokingly offering himself as Obama's vice president, was actually trying to doom Obama; a member of the head table, American Urban Radio's April Ryan, confirmed that Wright's security was provided by bodyguards from Farrakhan's Nation of Islam.

Wright suggested that Obama was insincere in distancing himself from his pastor. "He didn't distance himself," Wright announced. "He had to distance himself, because he's a politician, from what the media was saying I had said, which was anti-American."

Explaining further, Wright said friends had written to him and said, "We both know that if Senator Obama did not say what he said, he would never get elected." The minister continued: "Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls."

Wright also argued, at least four times over the course of the hour, that he was speaking not for himself but for the black church.

"This is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright," the minister said. "It is an attack on the black church." He positioned himself as a mainstream voice of African American religious traditions. "Why am I speaking out now?" he asked. "If you think I'm going to let you talk about my mama and her religious tradition, and my daddy and his religious tradition and my grandma, you got another thing coming."

That significantly complicates Obama's job as he contemplates how to extinguish Wright's latest incendiary device. Now, he needs to do more than express disagreement with his former pastor's view; he needs to refute his former pastor's suggestion that Obama privately agrees with him.

Wright seemed aggrieved that his inflammatory quotations were out of the full "context" of his sermons -- yet he repeated many of the same accusations in the context of a half-hour Q&A session this morning.

His claim that the September 11 attacks mean "America's chickens are coming home to roost"?

Wright defended it: "Jesus said, 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you. Those are biblical principles, not Jeremiah Wright bombastic divisive principles."

His views on Farrakhan and Israel? "Louis said 20 years ago that Zionism, not Judaism, was a gutter religion. He was talking about the same thing United Nations resolutions say, the same thing now that President Carter's being vilified for and Bishop Tutu's being vilified for. And everybody wants to paint me as if I'm anti-Semitic because of what Louis Farrakhan said 20 years ago. He is one of the most important voices in the 20th and 21st century; that's what I think about him. . . . Louis Farrakhan is not my enemy. He did not put me in chains, he did not put me in slavery, and he didn't make me this color."

He denounced those who "can worship God on Sunday morning, wearing a black clergy robe, and kill others on Sunday evening, wearing a white Klan robe." He praised the communist Sandinista regime of Nicaragua. He renewed his belief that the government created AIDS as a means of genocide against people of color ("I believe our government is capable of doing anything").

And he vigorously renewed demands for an apology for slavery: "Britain has apologized to Africans. But this country's leaders have refused to apologize. So until that apology comes, I'm not going to keep stepping on your foot and asking you, does this hurt, do you forgive me for stepping on your foot, if I'm still stepping on your foot. Understand that? Capisce?"

Capisce, reverend. All too well.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/04/obamas_pastor_reignites_race_c.html

I would never 'bash' you for your opinion's whether we agree or not.  And I'm sorry to hear you've lost friends over politics,  not true friends in my mind.

Let me clarify one thing.  I know "Germans" can't be President,  I meant a German descendant who still followed Nazi'sm, which there are some out there unfortunately (just a comparison of Wright's Africancentric theology).  I am of German descent, and obviously find what happened to the jews horrendous, as I feel bad for how slaves were treated.  But both happened before my time, so why should I be held accountable for either?  For me to attend a church that condoned Hitler, I would have to agree with it.  THAT would NEVER happen!  It is just an example....

LV,  I read your email, and thank you, I'm glad!   Love Di

Janet, LOL,  I just posted that same article in the Wright thread before I came over here! ;)

 ::MonkeyHaHa::

You know what they say ... "Great minds think alike".  They also say "Fools seldom differ".  Which is it?

 ::MonkeyHaHa::

Janet

Obama and Wright have both revealed in their ownwords ... Obama is doing what he has to do and ... saying what he has to say ... to get elected.

Janet

++++++++++

Transcript: Rev. Jeremiah Wright speech to National Press Club
April 28, 2008

REV. WRIGHT: ... We both know that if Senator Obama did not say what he said, he would never get elected." Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls -- Huffington, whoever's doing the polls. Preachers say what they say because they are pastors. They have a different person to whom they're accountable.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-wrighttranscript-04282008,0,3593201.story?page=6

++++++++++++++++

A More Perfect Union
Watch Barack's speech on race in America and building a more perfect union.
Philadelphia, PA | March 18, 2008

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hisownwords


Obama: ‘I’m a Pretty Darned Good Politician’
by FOXNews.com
Wednesday, April 16, 2008

In a speech to Jewish community leaders in Philadelphia, the Democratic presidential candidate was asked whether the recent controversy over Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s retiring pastor, could lead to him being attacked by Republicans in the fall and create the possibility of turning his candidacy into one akin to failed candidates George McGovern and Michael Dukakis.

At the end of a long response, Obama said: “Let me make one last point about the comparison to McGovern and Dukakis, both excellent men, but I’m a pretty darn good politician. And I can give a pretty good speech and I can connect and inspire the American people in ways that I think will become apparent.

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/04/16/obama-im-a-pretty-darned-good-politician/

I believe it is all an Obama campaign strategy ... a strategy to deceive the American people into thinking that Obama and Wright are parting ways ... into thinking that Obama was a naive pawn for twenty years.

I am wondering once the campaign strategy has successfully distanced Obama and Wright ... how is it going to distance Obama's own racist, anti-American words from his two books ... DREAMS OF MY FATHER and AUDICITY OF HOPE.  Also ... how is the campaign strategy going to distance Obama from the "company" he has associated with for the past twenty years ... "company" that adhere to a Marxist philosophy.

++++++++++++


Obama’s Remarks on Wright
Published: April 29, 2008

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/us/politics/29text-obama.html?pagewanted=all

Obama 'Appalled' By Ex-Pastor's Comments
Wright's Comments A 'Show Of Disrespect To Me'
UPDATED: 5:24 pm EDT April 29, 2008

Calling the Rev. Jeremiah Wright "not the same person I met 20 years ago," Sen. Barack Obama said Tuesday he was "appalled" by his former pastor's comments Monday at the National Press Club.

More ...
http://www.nbc10.com/politics/16060061/detail.html

+++++++++++++

Today ... on National television ... Barack Obama lied to the American people when he implied that he was unaware of the racist, anti-American ideology of his pastor, mentor and friend for the past twenty years.  Keep in mind ... this was the pastor, mentor and friend who he bestow the honor of performing his marriage ceremony and ... baptising his beautiful daughters.

In his own words in DREAMS OF MY FATHER ... Obama reveals that he knew exactly what Jeremiah Wright was all about.
___________

by Michael Gaynor
Audacity of Barack Obama and Rev. Wright
March 18, 2008 01:00 PM EST

<snipped>

In Senator Obama's first book, titled Dreams of My Father and published in 1995 (after he had been elected president of the Harvard Law Review but before he had been elected to public office), Senator Obama wrote at length about Rev. Wright and his moving "Audacity of Hope" speech.

In Dreams, Senator Obama explained how he met Rev. Wright, whom he mentioned had been "dabbling with liquor, Islam, and black nationalism in the sixties."

He acknowledged that Rev. Wright immediately had given him fair warning that he was controversial, by quoting Rev. Wright as having said: "Some of my fellow clergy don't appreciate what we're about. They feel like we're too radical. Others, we aren't radical enough. Too emotional. Not emotional enough."

He also acknowledged that Rev. Wright let him know at their first meeting that he looked unfavorably on America and expected to continue to do so, by stating, "Life's not safe for a black man in this country, Barack. Never has been. Probably never will be."

Senator Obama left with one of Rev. Wright's "Black Value System" brochures.

When Senator Barack listened to Rev. Wright's "Audacity of Hope" sermon, September 11, 2001 was years away, but, Senator Obama admitted in Dreams, Rev. Wright castigated America.

Senator Obama put it this way: "Reverend Wright spoke of Sharpsville and Hiroshima, the callousness of policy makers in the White House and in the State House. As the sermon unfolded...the stories of strife became more prosaic, the pain more immediate...."

So it's hard to believe that Senator Obama was not familiar until very recently with Rev. Wright's position on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It's even worse for Senator Obama and Rev. Wright.

In Obama: From Promise to Power, by the Chicago Tribune's David Mendell, Mr. Mendell relates (pp. 159-160) a meeting between Senator Obama and Rev. Wright when Senator Obama was deciding whether or not to run for the United States Senate:

"'My name should be out there,' Obama told his pastor. 'but Carol Moseley Braun won't say what's she's going to do, and I'm not gonna run against a black woman. If she's gonna run, then I'm out. Until she says yes or no, I can't say anything."

<snipped>

http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/

Obama: I Am ‘Outraged’ and ‘Angered’ By Wright’s Comments
by FOXNews.com
Tuesday, April 29, 2008

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/04/29/obama-i-am-outraged-and-angered-by-wrights-comments/


Transcript: Obama Press Conference on Jeremiah Wright
by FOXNews.com
Tuesday, April 29, 2008

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/04/29/transcript-obama-press-conference-on-jeremiah-wright/

Press Club Chief Disputes Notion That Wright Appearance Was Scheduled to Hurt Obama
by FOXNews.com
Tuesday, April 29, 2008

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/04/29/press-club-chief-disputes-notion-that-wright-appearance-was-scheduled-to-hurt-obama/

Today ... on National television ... Barack Obama lied to the American people when he implied that he was unaware of the racist, anti-American ideology of his pastor, mentor and friend for the past twenty years.  Keep in mind ... this was the pastor, mentor and friend who he bestow the honor of performing his marriage ceremony and ... baptising his beautiful daughters.

In his own words in DREAMS OF MY FATHER ... Obama reveals that he knew exactly what Jeremiah Wright was all about from the getgo.

Yet ... the media, the Clinton Campaign or the McCain Campaign will not touch on the issue.  Why?
_________

Obama 'Appalled' By Ex-Pastor's Comments
Wright's Comments A 'Show Of Disrespect To Me'
April 29, 2008

Calling the Rev. Jeremiah Wright "not the same person I met 20 years ago," Sen. Barack Obama said Tuesday he was "appalled" by his former pastor's comments Monday at the National Press Club.

More ...
http://www.nbc10.com/politics/16060061/detail.html

+++++++++++++

Obama 'outraged' by Wright's remarks
April 29, 2008

McCain said again Monday that he does "not believe that Sen. Obama shares Rev. Wright's extremist statements or views."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/29/obama.wright/index.html

+++++++++++

riannon ... in Barack Obama's DREAMS OF MY FATHER ... it is clear that he was well aware of Jeremiah Wright's racist, anti-American ideology from the getgo.

The ministry of Jeremiah Wright ... Barack Obama's pastor/ mentor/ friend for twenty years ... was founded on the ideology of Dr. James Cone.  This ideology is revealed in Cones book ... "Black Theology & Black Power".
_____________

Audacity of Barack Obama and Rev. Wright
by Michael Gaynor
March 18, 2008 01:00 PM EST

In Senator Obama’s first book, titled Dreams of My Father and published in 1995 (after he had been elected president of the Harvard Law Review but before he had been elected to public office), Senator Obama wrote at length about Rev. Wright and his moving “Audacity of Hope” speech.

In Dreams, Senator Obama explained how he met Rev. Wright, whom he mentioned had been “dabbling with liquor, Islam, and black nationalism in the sixties.”

He acknowledged that Rev. Wright immediately had given him fair warning that he was controversial, by quoting Rev. Wright as having said: “Some of my fellow clergy don’t appreciate what we’re about. They feel like we’re too radical. Others, we aren’t radical enough. Too emotional. Not emotional enough.”

He also acknowledged that Rev. Wright let him know at their first meeting that he looked unfavorably on America and expected to continue to do so, by stating, “Life’s not safe for a black man in this country, Barack. Never has been. Probably never will be.”

Senator Obama left with one of Rev. Wright's "Black Value System" Brochures.

More …
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/31321.html

+++++++++++++

TRINITY UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST - WEBSITE
"The vision statement of Trinity United Church of Christ is based upon the systematized liberation theology that started in 1969 with the publication of Dr. James Cone’s book, Black Power and Black Theology."

See http://www.tucc.org/talking_points.htm

++++++++++++++

AMAZON

Black Theology & Black Power (Paperback)

First published in 1969, "Black Theology & Black Power" provided the first systematic presentation of black theology. Relating the militant struggle for liberation with the gospel message of salvation, James Cone laid the foundation for an original interpretation of Christianity that retains its urgency and challenge today.

http://www.amazon.ca/Black-Theology-Power-J-Cone/dp/1570751579


"Christ is black therefore not because of some cultural or psychological need of black people, but because and only because Christ really enters into our world where the poor were despised and the black are, disclosing that he is with them enduring humiliation and pain and transforming oppressed slaves into liberating servants."  James Cone

"Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community ... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love."  James Cone

"In the New Testament, Jesus is not for all, but for the oppressed, the poor and unwanted of society, and against oppressors ... Either God is for black people in their fight for liberation and against the white oppressors, or he is not."  James Cone.

Race IS the issue.

I realize that race is the issue of this thread and ... I do not believe I have deverted from the topic.

Louise ... I would sincerely appreciate you thought regards Barack Obama's own words ... own words that reflect the ideology of Jeremiah Wright.

Janet

+++++++++++++++

BARACK OBAMA - IN HIS OWN WORDS

Audacity of Hope: “Lolo (Obama’s step father) followed a brand of Islam ….” “I looked to Lolo for guidance”.

Dreams of my Father: “The person who made me proudest of all, though, was [half brother] Roy .. He converted to Islam.”

Dreams of my Father: “In Indonesia, I had spent two years at a Muslim school”

Dreams of my Father: “I Studied the Koran.”

Audacity of Hope: “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”

Dreams of My Father: “I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother’s race”.

Dreams of my Father: “The emotion between the races could never be pure….. the other race would always remain just that: menacing, alien, and apart.”

Dreams of my Father: “Any distinction between good and bad whites held negligible meaning.”

Dreams of My Father: “I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites”

Dreams Of My Father: “I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself..”.

Dreams of My Father: “That hate hadn’t gone away,” he wrote, blaming “white people — some cruel, some ignorant, sometimes a single face, sometimes just a faceless image of a system claiming power over our lives.”

Dreams of My Father: “There were enough of us on campus to constitute a tribe, and when it came to hanging out many of us chose to function like a tribe, staying close together, traveling in packs,” he wrote. “It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names”

Dreams of my Father: “Desperate times called for desperate measures, and for many blacks, times were chronically desperate. If nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self-respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence.”

Dreams of my Father: “To avoid being mistaken for a racial sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy.”

Dreams of my Father: “there was something about him that made me wary,” Obama wrote. “A little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.”

Dreams of my Father: “the reason black people keep to themselves is that it’s easier than spending all your time mad, or trying to guess whatever it was that white folks were thinking about you.”

Dreams of my Father: One line in Malcolm X’s autobiography “spoke” to Obama “it stayed with me,” he says. “He spoke of a wish he’d once had, the wish that the white blood that ran through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged.”

Louise ... if Armstrong Williams was presently a candidate who was  running for the office of President of the United States and ... I were American ... he would be my candidate of choice when I consider the alternate choices ... Obama ... Clinton ... McCain.

His race would be a non-issue.

Janet

++++++++++

"Armstrong Williams is a widely-syndicated columnist, CEO of the Graham Williams Group, and hosts the Armstrong Williams Show."

Sunday's Dirty Secret
By Armstrong Williams
Monday, March 17, 2008

Arriving in Washington DC during the 80's, my most difficult challenge was finding a church home. Having grown up in the Pentecostal and Methodist faith Sunday worship was a staple of my weekly routine. For almost 10 years I canvassed the nation's capitol seeking a church that would nourish my fleshly failings and remind me of what our creator expects of us as human beings. What was consistent in going from pulpit to pulpit was that ministers were more interested in political rhetoric, the endorsement of political candidates, and the denouncing of some government or community proposal, than the gospel. It was quite disheartening for many years knowing that ministers were not teaching or preaching the word of God, but that their sermons were becoming political rallies. I was stunned at the blame cast upon the White man, the racial divisive, and all the things that seemed to divide and separate us from our neighbor. Then in 1995 I attended First Baptist Church in DC where the Rev. Frank Tucker presided and my spirit finally found what it was seeking. I will never forget meeting with the Pastor prior to joining and expressing my feelings about what I was looking for in a church. I made it clear that my interest was in the word of God and not political rallies, condemnation of America, and various politicians occupying the pulpit on Sunday. He shared my concerns and promised that this wasn't the case at his church. Since being a member of Pastor Tucker's church for about 13 years, he's never disappointed my spiritual yearning. Throughout the years I've taken Whites, Muslims, Jews, and people of all walks of life to worship with me and they all have left feeling that they could join the pastor's congregation.

There are still pockets of so called black churches and mosque today that can identify with the Rev. Wright‘s lace-filled, anti-American, hypocritical sermons. During the 50's, 60's and 70's the black church was a place where blacks could gather and unite away from the harshness and brutality of racism and vicious hatred. It was a place where ministers could help their congregation express their anger, frustration, and America’s ungodliness towards their brethren. Many ministers during those tumultuous times were considered heroes and pillars of the community for they were preaching against an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. People like Jeremiah Wright are still preaching as though we’re in the 50’s or 60’s and are locked in this time warp. They refuse to elevate and celebrate the progress of America and how Presidential candidate Barack Obama’s campaign is evidence of that amazing paradigm shift.

It is impossible for Senator Barack Obama and his wife to have patterned Rev. Wright's church and not have embraced his teachings and vision of America. My minister does and has always had a profound impact on my outlook about life and strengthening my spirit to forgive the transgressions of this world and not to induce more hate and separation. I find it difficult to believe Senator Obama when he tells us that he was unaware of his Pastor's vicious message from the pulpit and that had he known there would have been condemnation. Many black intellectuals are still angry for what they perceive as the continuous crippling effect of racism and slavery in America on their careers. The irony is that many of their children have embraced this country, finding success and prosperity, while their parents continue to allow their wounds to be nurtured in this hopeless mindset preached from the pulpit. Michelle Obama’s expression of how for the first time she was proud of America was indicative of the influence of her Pastor.

Senator Obama should admit to the fact that since campaigning he’s seen a different America. He must show that he rejects and repudiates this school of thinking.  Furthermore that no one should be a member of congregations and mosque that preach this hatred and conspiratorial thinking, which continuously emphasize the worst in our country and not the phenomenal progress made.  This past week was not an exemplary moment for the man who prided himself on integrity and honesty throughout this campaign.  The fact is the Senator has no plausible excuse for why he remained a member of Rev. Jeremiah's church. He and his family should have immediately left his congregation for the embrace of a church that teaches the bible rather than the alienation, lunacy, and outright mockery of Christian teachings.

It was impossible for my spirit to endure these churches, as can be evidenced by my negative descriptions of them. It makes no sense for someone in search of America’s promise and potential to worship in a place where a doctrine of hatred is the central theme. I was taught that church was a place of escape and rest, but I didn’t want someone who is supposed to be a religious leader feeding me poisonous information. My reason for going to church has always been for a spiritual recharge, not more of the same; I deal with politics 24/6, and one day a week I get a chance to take a break from all that. I believe this to be healthy, and think it sad that I had to try so hard for so long to find a church that was able to provide the rest or Sabbath, mentioned in the Bible. The day must come when churches (Black or otherwise that preach this hate speech) will return to the Word.  No one should ever be forced to search for such a lengthy duration or give up and settle in a church that is unacceptable and pay the price that will eventually implode Senator Obama’s to date well run campaign.

http://krla870.townhall.com/columnists/ArmstrongWilliams/2008/03/17/sundays_dirty_secret

Link to the above commentary.

http://krla870.townhall.com/columnists/ArmstrongWilliams/2008/03/17/sundays_dirty_secret

I predict that the following transcript will become Barack Obama's downfall.  He outright lied to the American people.  Jeremiah Wright's racist, anti-American ideology has been consistent since the getgo and has not changed one iota.

However ... it gets even worse.  Barack Obama's books DREAMS OF MY FATHER and THE AUDICITY OF HOPE ... confirm ... in his own words ... that Obama embraced Wright's ideology twenty years ago.

Also ... Barack Obama's long time radical associates adhere to a Marxist, anti-American philosophy.

In yesterday's interview ... Obama should have come clean to the American people ... confessed to deceiving the American people regarding his true agenda ... an agenda to further his ideology from the highest position in the the land ... the President of the United States of America

Janet


Transcript
Obama’s Remarks on Wright
Published: April 29, 2008

The following is a transcript of a press conference held by Senator Barack Obama in response to recent statements by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., as provided by Mr. Obama’s presidential campaign and Federal News Service.

SENATOR BARACK OBAMA: Before I start taking questions I want to open it up with a couple of comments about what we saw and heard yesterday. I have spent my entire adult life trying to bridge the gap between different kinds of people. That's in my DNA, trying to promote mutual understanding to insist that we all share common hopes and common dreams as Americans and as human beings. That's who I am. That's what I believe. That's what this campaign has been about.  

Yesterday, we saw a very different vision of America. I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened over the spectacle that we saw yesterday.

You know, I have been a member of Trinity United Church of Christ since 1992. I have known Reverend Wright for almost 20 years. The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago. His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church.  

They certainly don't portray accurately my values and beliefs. And if Reverend Wright thinks that that's political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn't know me very well. And based on his remarks yesterday, well, I may not know him as well as I thought, either.

Now, I've already denounced the comments that had appeared in these previous sermons. As I said, I had not heard them before. And I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia, explaining that he has done enormous good in the church. He's built a wonderful congregation. The people of Trinity are wonderful people. And what attracted me has always been their ministry's reach beyond the church walls.

But when he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS, when he suggests that Minister Farrakhan somehow represents one of the greatest voices of the 20th and 21st century, when he equates the United States wartime efforts with terrorism, then there are no excuses. They offend me. They rightly offend all Americans. And they should be denounced. And that's what I'm doing very clearly and unequivocally here today.

Let me just close by saying this: I -- we started this campaign with the idea that the problems that we face as a country are too great to continue to be divided, that, in fact, all across America people are hungry to get out of the old divisive politics of the past.

I have spoken and written about the need for us to all recognize each other as Americans, regardless of race or religion or region of the country; that the only way we can deal with critical issues, like energy and health care and education and the war on terrorism, is if we are joined together. And the reason our campaign has been so successful is because we had moved beyond these old arguments.

What we saw yesterday out of Reverend Wright was a resurfacing and, I believe, an exploitation of those old divisions. Whatever his intentions, that was the result. It is antithetical to our campaign. It is antithetical to what I am about. It is not what I think American stands for.

And I want to be very clear that moving forward, Reverend Wright does not speak for me. He does not speak for our campaign. I cannot prevent him from continuing to make these outrageous remarks.

But what I do want him to be very clear about, as well as all of you and the American people, is that when I say I find these comments appalling, I mean it. It contradicts everything that I'm about and who I am.

And anybody who has worked with me, who knows my life, who has read my books, who has seen what this campaign's about, I think, will understand that it is completely opposed to what I stand for and where I want to take this country.

Last point: I'm particularly distressed that this has caused such a distraction from what this campaign should be about, which is the American people. Their situation is getting worse. And this campaign has never been about me. It's never been about Senator Clinton or John McCain. It's not about Reverend Wright.

People want some help in stabilizing their lives and securing a better future for themselves and their children. And that's what we should be talking about. And the fact that Reverend Wright would think that somehow it was appropriate to command the stage, for three or four consecutive days, in the midst of this major debate, is something that not only makes me angry but also saddens me.

So with that, let me take some questions.

Q: What are you going to do --

Q: Senator --

Q: Senator --

SEN. OBAMA: Yeah, go ahead.

Q: Why the change of tone from yesterday? When you spoke to us on the tarmac yesterday, you didn't have this sense of anger, outrage --

SEN. OBAMA: Yeah. I'll be honest with you: because I hadn't seen it yet.

Q: And that was the difference you --

SEN. OBAMA: Yes.

Q: Had you heard the reports about the AIDS comment?

SEN. OBAMA: I had not. I had not seen the transcript. What I had heard was that he had given a performance. And I thought at the time that it would be sufficient simply to reiterate what I had said in Philadelphia. Upon watching it, what became clear to me was that it was more than just a -- it was more than just him defending himself. What became clear to me was that he was presenting a world view that -- that -- that contradicts who I am and what I stand for. And what I think particularly angered me was his suggestion somehow that my previous denunciation of his remarks were somehow political posturing. Anybody who knows me and anybody who knows what I'm about knows that -- that I am about trying to bridge gaps and that I see the -- the commonality in all people.

And so when I start hearing comments about conspiracy theories and AIDS and suggestions that somehow Minister Farrakhan has -- has been a great voice in the 20th century, then that goes directly at who I am and what I believe this country needs.

Jeff?

Q: Senator, what do you expect or what do you plan to do about this right now to further distance yourself, if you think you're going to do that? And does this say about your judgment to superdelegates, who are right trying to decide which Democratic nominee is better? Because your candidacy has been based on judgment, what does this say about it?

SEN. OBAMA: Well, look, as I said before, the person I saw yesterday was not the person that I had come to know over 20 years. I understand that -- I think he was pained and angered from what had happened previously, during the first stage of this controversy. I think he felt vilified and attacked, and I understand that he wanted to defend himself.

I understand that, you know, he's gone through difficult times of late, and that he's leaving his ministry after many years. And so, you know, that may account for the change.

But the insensitivity and the outrageousness, of his statements and his performance in the question-and-answer period yesterday, I think, shocked me. It surprised me. As I said before, this is an individual who has built a very fine church and a church that is well- respected throughout Chicago.

During the course of me attending that church, I had not heard those kinds of statements being made or those kinds of views being promoted. And I did not vet my pastor before I decided to run for the presidency. I was a member of the church.

So you know, I think what it says is that, you know, I have not, you know, I did not run through -- run my pastor through the paces or review every one of the sermons that he had made over the last 30 years. But I don't think that anybody could attribute those ideas to me.

Q: What effect do you think this is going to have on your campaign?

SEN. OBAMA: You know, that's something that you guys will have to figure out. And you know, obviously we've got elections in four or five days. So we'll find out, you know, what impact it has.

But ultimately I think that the American people know that we have to do better than we're doing right now. I think that they believe in the ideas of this campaign.

I think they are convinced that special interest have dominated Washington too long. I think they are convinced that we've got to get beyond some of the same political games that we've been playing. I think they believe that we need to speak honestly and truthfully about how we're going to solve issues like energy or health care.

And I believe that this campaign has inspired a lot of people. And that's part of what, you know, going back to what you asked, Mike, about why I feel so strongly about this today.

You know, after seeing Reverend Wright's performance, I felt as if there was a complete disregard, for what the American people are going through and the need for them to rally together to solve these problems.

You know, now is the time for us not to get distracted. Now is the time for us to pull together.

And that's what we've been doing in this campaign. And, you know, there was a sense that that did not matter to Reverend Wright. What mattered was him commanding center stage.

Q: Have you had a conversation with Reverend Wright and --

SEN. OBAMA: No.

Q: What's going to happen if these distractions continue?

SEN. OBAMA: Well, the -- I want to use this press conference to make people absolutely clear that obviously whatever relationship I had with Reverend Wright has changed as a consequence of this. I don't think that he showed much concern for me. I don't -- more importantly, I don't think he showed much concern for what we are trying to do in this campaign and what we're trying to do for the American people and with the American people.

And obviously, he's free to speak out on issues that are of concern to him and he can do it in any ways that he wants. But I feel very strongly that -- well, I want to make absolutely clear that I do not subscribe to the views that he expressed. I believe they are wrong. I think they are destructive. And to the extent that he continues to speak out, I do not expect those views to be attributed to me.

Q: I remember after the story -- when the story immediately broke, Trinity Church -- the current pastor kind of defended Reverend Wright. I'm wondering -- I don't know how they reacted to the latest, but I'm wondering if you continue planning on attending Trinity.

SEN. OBAMA: Well, you know, the new pastor -- the young pastor, Reverend Otis Moss, is a wonderful young pastor. And as I said, I still very much value the Trinity community. This -- I'll be honest, this obviously has put strains on that relationship, not because of the members or because of Reverend Moss but because this has become such a spectacle.

And, you know, when I go to church it's not for spectacle. It's to pray and to find -- to find a stronger sense of faith. It's not to posture politically. It's not -- you know, it's not to hear things that violate my core beliefs. And so -- you know, and I certainly don't want to provide a distraction for those who are worshipping at Trinity.

So as of this point, I'm a member of Trinity. I haven't had a discussion with Reverend Moss about it, so I can't tell you how he's reacting and how he's responding.

Okay? Katherine (sp)?

Q: Senator, I'm wondering -- to sort of follow on Jeff's question about you, know, why it's a little different now, have you heard from some of your supporters -- you know, you have some -- (off mike) -- supporters who expressed any alarm about what this might be doing to the campaign?

SEN. OBAMA: Well, look, the -- I mean, I don't think that it's that hard to figure out from -- if it was just a purely political perspective. You know, my reaction has more to do with what I want this campaign to be about and who I am. And I want to make certain that people understand who I am.

In some ways, what Reverend Wright said yesterday directly contradicts everything that I've done during my life. It contradicts how I was raised and the setting in which I was raised. It contradicts my decisions to pursue a career of public service. It contradicts the issues that I've worked on politically. It contradicts what I've said in my books. It's contradicts what I said my convention speech in 2004. It contradicts my announcement. It contradicts everything that I've been saying on this campaign trail.

And what I tried to do in Philadelphia was to provide a context and to lift up some of the contradictions and complexities of race in America -- of which, you know, Reverend Wright is a part and we're all a part -- and try to make something constructive out of it. But there wasn't anything constructive out of yesterday. All it was, was a bunch of rants that -- that aren't grounded in truth, and you know, I can't construct something positive out of that. I can understand it. I, you know, the -- you know, people do all sorts of things.

And as I said before, I continue to believe that Reverend Wright has been a -- a -- a leader in the South Side. I think that the church he built is outstanding. I think that he has preached in the past some wonderful sermons. He provided, you know, valuable contributions to my family.

But at a certain point, if what somebody says contradicts what you believe so fundamentally, and then he questions whether or not you believe it in front of the National Press Club, then that's enough. That's -- that's a show of disrespect to me. It's a -- it is also, I think, an insult to what we've been trying to do in this campaign.

Q: Senator, did you discuss with your wife, after having seen Reverend Wright -- (off mike) -- and what was her --

SEN. OBAMA: Yeah. No, she was similarly -- anger.

Joe?

Q: Reverend Wright said that it was not an attack on him but an attack on the black church. First of all, do you agree with that?

And second of all, the strain of theology that he preached, black liberation theology, you explained something about the anger, that feeds some of the sentiments in the church, in Philadelphia.

How important a strain is liberation theology in the black church? And why did you choose to attend a church that preached that?

SEN. OBAMA: Well, first of all, in terms of liberation theology, I'm not a theologian. So I think to some theologians, there might be some well-worked-out theory of what constitutes liberation theology versus non-liberation-theology.

I went to church and listened to sermons. And in the sermons that I heard, and this is true, I do think, across the board in many black churches, there is an emphasis on the importance of social struggle, the importance of striving for equality and justice and fairness -- a social gospel.

So I think a lot of people would rather, rather than using a fancy word like that, simply talk about preaching the social gospel. And that -- there's nothing particularly odd about that. Dr. King obviously was the most prominent example of that kind of preaching.

But you know, what I do think can happen, and I didn't see this as a member of the church but I saw it yesterday, is when you start focusing so much on the plight of the historically oppressed, that you lose sight of what we have in common; that it overrides everything else; that we're not concerned about the struggles of others because we're looking at things only through a particular lens. Then it doesn't describe properly what I believe, in the power of faith, to overcome but also to bring people together.

Now, you had a first question, Joe, that I don't remember.

Q: Do you think --

SEN. OBAMA: Do I think --

Q: (Off mike.)

SEN. OBAMA: You know, the -- I did not view the initial round of soundbites, that triggered this controversy, as an attack on the black church. I viewed it as a simplification of who he was, a caricature of who he was and, you know, more than anything, something that piqued a lot of political interest.

I didn't see it as an attack on the black church. I mean, probably the only -- the only aspect of it that probably had to do with specifically the black church is the fact that some people were surprised when he was shouting. I mean, that is just a black church tradition. And so I think some people interpreted that somehow as -- wow, he's really -- he's hollering and black preachers holler and whoop and -- so that, I think, showed sort of a cultural gap in America.

You know, the sad thing is that although the sound bites I've -- as I stated, I think created a caricature of him. And when he was in that Moyers interview, even though there were some things that, you know, continued to be offensive, at least there was some sense of rounding out the edges. Yesterday I think he caricatured himself, and that was a -- as I said, that made me angry but also made me sad.

STAFF: Last question.

SEN. OBAMA: Richard.

Q: You talked about giving the benefit of the doubt before -- mostly, I guess, in the Philadelphia speech, trying to create something positive about that. Did you consult with him before the speech or talk to him after the speech in Philadelphia to get his reaction -- (off mike) --

SEN. OBAMA: You know, I tried to talk to him before the speech in Philadelphia. Wasn't able to reach him because he was on a -- he was on a cruise. He had just stepped down from the pulpit. When he got back, I did speak to him. And I -- you know, I prefer not to share sort of private conversations between me and him. I will talk to him perhaps some day in the future. But what I can say is that I was very clear that what he had said in those particular snippets, I found objectionable and offensive and that the intention of the speech was to provide context for them but not excuse them, because I found them inexcusable.

So -- yeah, go ahead.

Q: The other day, on Sunday, you were asked whether -- to respond to -- (off mike) -- is this -- you said you didn't believe in irreparable damage. Is this relationship with you and Wright irreparably damaged, do you think?

SEN. OBAMA: There's been great damage. You know, I -- it may have been unintentional on his part, but, you know, I do not see that relationship being the same after this. Now, to some degree, you know -- I know that one thing that he said was true, was that he wasn't -- you know, he was never my, quote-unquote, "spiritual adviser."

He was never my "spiritual mentor." He was -- he was my pastor. And so to some extent, how, you know, the -- the press characterized in the past that relationship, I think, wasn't accurate.

But he was somebody who was my pastor, and married Michelle and I, and baptized my children, and prayed with us at -- when we announced this race. And so, you know -- so I'm disappointed.

STAFF: Thank you.

SEN. OBAMA: All right. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/us/politics/29text-obama.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

America needs Jeremiah Wrights
By Rev. Barbara Reynolds, NNPA Columnist
March 25, 2008

For 20 years, Rev. Wright has been a "friend, mentor and pastor." This is how Sen. Obama described him in a letter dated February 5, 2007.

In that letter, the senator wrote "I constantly remember Rev. Wright as the shepherd who guided me to my commitment to Christ one Sunday morning at Trinity. I often consider, as I work in the Senate how he lives his life-a life of service to Trinity, Chicago and the nation; his activism on behalf of causes that few would champion and his dogged commitment to the first principles of love for God and fellow man. And in my personal walk, I seek daily to imitate his faith."  

http://www.louisianaweekly.com/weekly/news/articlegate.pl?20080324g

This may be a little off topic here, but all I can say right now, is Janet, YOU amaze me with your research skills and providing all the documentation here and on Natalee's thread.  You are truly talented in research on ANY topic!   I appreciate it so very much for bringing us the "FACTS"!

Thank you Di.  You made my day.

Hugs

Janet

Hillary Clinton Sits Down With Bill O'Reilly
Thursday, May 01, 2008

O'REILLY: Can you believe this Reverend Wright guy? Can you believe this guy?

CLINTON: Well, you know...

O'REILLY: What do you think?

CLINTON: Well, I'm going to leave it up to voters to decide, you know.

O'REILLY: No, but what do you think as an American? You're an American.

CLINTON: Well, what I said when I was asked directly is that I would not have stayed in that church.

O'REILLY: No, no, no, no. But you're an American citizen. I'm an American citizen. He's an American citizen, Reverend Wright. What do you think when you hear a fellow American citizen say that stuff about America? What do you think?

CLINTON: Well, I take offense at it. I think it's offensive and outrageous. And, you know, I'm going to express my opinion. Others can express theirs. But, you know, it is part of, you know, just an atmosphere that we're in today where all kinds of things are being said. And people have to, you know, decide what they believe. And I sure don't believe the United States government was behind AIDS.

O'REILLY: Now, when I see people jumping up and applauding when he says that, and other things — we're the moral equivalent of Al Qaeda — when I see my fellow citizens, I don't care what color they are, jump up and applaud that, that disturbs me.

CLINTON: Well, Bill, this is part of the mosaic and diversity of America. And obviously, on opinions like that...

O'REILLY: That's hateful.

CLINTON: Well, you know, I happen to think that is just totally off base. It's, you know, so far out it's hard to even understand and take seriously. But what people are talking to me about is not that, I've got to tell you. What I hear is what's happening in their lives. I mean...

O'REILLY: No, I know that.

CLINTON: ...let somebody else worry about, you know, taking on whatever someone said.

O'REILLY: But trust me on this.

CLINTON: But you know...

O'REILLY: ...television ratings for Reverend Wright, through the roof.

CLINTON: Really?

O'REILLY: Folks are engaged here.

CLINTON: Well, I think though they're making up their minds. They're weighing it.

O'REILLY: Yes.

CLINTON: They're trying to figure it out. But I think for the presidential campaign, they want to know more about what I'm going to do about gas prices, to be blunt. You know…

O'REILLY: But look, I feel sorry for Barack Obama on this one, all right? I feel sorry for him. His whole campaign has been derailed by some loony guy. Isn't that amazing?

CLINTON: Well, he spoke out forcefully yesterday. And...

O'REILLY: Do you feel sorry for Obama?

CLINTON: Well, I think that he made his views clear finally that he disagrees. And I think that's what he had to do.


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,353759,00.html

Barack and Michelle Obama
Wednesday, April 30 NBC Nightly News

BRIAN WILLIAMS: We turn now to the presidential campaign. Barack and Michelle Obama sat down with Meredith Vieira from Today on NBC as they try to put the drama over their former pastor behind them. At the same time, Senator Hillary Clinton, in an unusual setting, repeated some of her criticism of the whole situation. Our report on politics tonight from NBC's Andrea Mitchell.

ANDREA MITCHELL: Barack and Michelle Obama today campaigning together in Indiana.

BARACK OBAMA AT CAMPAIGN EVENT: The situation with Reverend Wright is difficult. I won't lie to you.

MITCHELL: Before sitting down for an exclusive joint interview with Meredith Vieira for the Today show tomorrow.

BARACK OBAMA, IN TODAY INTERVIEW: This is somebody who married Michelle and I.

MITCHELL: Clearly trying to move past the controversy over the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, but when pressed, explaining why he didn't denounce his former pastor sooner.

BARACK OBAMA: If I wanted to be politically expedient, I would have distanced myself and denounced him right away. Right? That would have been the easy thing to do, that would be the standard stock political advice. I don't think anybody who watched me yesterday thought I was being calculating because it obviously wasn't an easy thing to do.

MICHELLE OBAMA: You know what I think, Meredith? We got to move forward. You know, this conversation doesn't help my kids, you know. It doesn't help kids out there who are looking for us to make decisions and choices about how we're going to better fund education.

MITCHELL: Also in Indiana today, Hillary Clinton, who was campaigning again skyrocketing gas prices, but criticized Obama for not quitting his church sooner when pushed during an interview with Bill O'Reilly on Fox.

HILLARY CLINTON ON FNC: I'm going to leave it up to voters to decide.

BILL O'REILLY: But what do you think as an American. You're an American.

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, what I said when I asked directly is that I would not have stayed in that church. I think it's offensive and outrageous and, you know, I'm going to express my opinion. Others can express theirs.

MITCHELL: Clinton is courting O'Reilly's viewers, even though he has been one of her harshest critics....

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2008/04/30/nbc-highlights-michelle-obamas-spin-talking-about-wright-doesnt-help-ki

   Is Race the Issue????  It depends from where you are coming!   I don't have the time,energy or knowledge to go into one of my old, long lost tirades, but.... Is Race the Issue?  If you are Obama, I believe it is inargueably YES!!  He is a racist, has been a flamboyant one, but now that it is to his determent, he is a "closet" racist!!

     Am I a racist, absolutely NOT!!  My dream for America is for the absolutly most qualified person to be our next President.  Unfortunately, he does not care to throw his General's hat in the ring...Colin Powell!!!! A responsible, centered, experienced, true Patriot!!!

        Would I vote for a woman?  Only if she too, possessed the above qualifications of Colin Powell, and golly gee,....the ONLY woman I can think of is...you got it, Condoleeza Rice.

       So I guess there are some who have "issues" with Race, the racists......and the only people I can see who "fit that bill", are Obama and his supporters.

      It's becoming more and more apparent that many (not ALL) of the Black race would vote for an African-American "Jack-the Ripper" if he was running, or more realistically, the Very Reverand Al Sharpton!!!  Who once again, instead of putting his time to constructive deeds, to help his race, like publicizing the many missing African-American women and children, or working in the MANY underprivilidged neighborhoods, their unsuccessful schools, abused children, he is hell bent on jumping at every opportunity to undermine the NYPD.....who, by the way are working the hardest in the Black neighborhoods to keep the law-abiding citizens, trying to live and work in peace, SAFE.......just go into one (I work in one), and ask the people, (not the dealers and hookers) the decent, God-fearing, law abiding ones, they'll tell you.  Their only help IS the PD and they know and respect them!!!

Here is a very different point of view offered by Peggy Noonan in today's Wall Street Journal.  Interesting also because she is a prominent Republican, having been an assistant to Reagan and a speechwriter for George Bush.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120966911007860195.html?mod=hps_us_inside_today

DECLARATIONS
By PEGGY NOONAN   

   
Loyal to the Bitterness
May 2, 2008

I am out of step. There is something that is upsetting others whom I care about and whose thoughts are often not unlike my own. And it's not hitting me the same way.

I am referring to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. I disagree with and disapprove of the things he says. The U.S. government did not spread AIDS among the black community, 9/11 was not the chickens coming home to roost, etc. He seems like a bright man, warm, humorous and compelling, but also needful and demanding of the spotlight, a showman prone to crackpottery, and I have to wonder how much respect he has for his congregation. He shows a lot of fury and does a lot of yelling for a leader of the followers of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

 
AP 
When he is discussed on news shows, pundits are asked what they think Mr. Wright's political impact will be, which is another way of saying: What will people think of this?

I always wish they'd say what they themselves think. I think what Mr. Wright has been saying is extreme and radical, and people don't like extreme and radical when they're pondering who their next leader will be, and as Mr. Wright has been Barack Obama's friend and mentor for 20 years, this will hurt Mr. Obama. This is borne out in the week's polls. From the New York Times: 48% of Democrats say he can best beat McCain, down eight points since April. The proportion of Democrats who say Mr. Obama is their choice for the nomination is now 46%, down six.

I also think that if Hillary Clinton wins because of the Wright scandal, it will leave a sad taste in the mouths of many. Mr. Obama reveals many things in his books, speeches and interviews but polarity and a tropism toward the extreme are not among them. What happened with Mr. Wright should not determine the race. Mr. Obama's stands, his ability to convince us he can make good change, his ability to be "one of us," that great challenge for a national politician in a varied nation, should determine the race.

But I am finding it hard to feel truly upset about what Mr. Wright has said. This is the out-of-stepness I referred to. So here I will talk not about how people will respond to him but how I do.

* * *

I do not feel a sense of honest anger or violation at his remarks, in part because I don't think his views carry deep implications for our country. I have been watching America up close for many years – if you count a bright childhood, for half a century. I have seen, heard and respected the pain of a people who were forced to come here when they did not want to and made to live in a way that no one would want to. Who could deny them their grief or anger? I have seen radicalism and extremism, too. I have seen Stokely Carmichael, the Black Panthers, the Black National Anthem, Malcolm X, James Baldwin, Louis Farrakhan. I came to see their radicalism as, putting the morality of policy based on rage aside, essentially unhelpful and impractical. It wouldn't work as an American movement, not long-term. Hatred plays itself out, has power in the short-term but is nonsustaining in the long. America, and this is one of its glories, has a conscience to which an appeal can be made. It may take a long time, it may take centuries, but in the end we try hard to do the right thing, and everyone knows it. Hatred is a form of energy that does not fuel this machine and cannot make it run.

And all the time I was watching the old days of rage, blacks in America were rising, joining the professions, becoming middle class, assuming authority, becoming professors and doctors. No one is surprised anymore to meet a powerful man or woman who devises systems by which others should live – that would be a politician – who is black.

I came to think all the talk of radicalism and extremism amounted to little, and was in the end rejected by the very people it was meant to rouse. They didn't buy it.

This week I talked to a young man, an Irish-American to whom I said, "Am I wrong not to feel anger about Wright?" He more or less saw it as I do, but for a different reason, or from different experience.

He said he figures Mr. Wright's followers delight in him the same way he delights in the Wolfe Tones, the Irish folk group named for the 18th-century leader condemned to death by the British occupying forces, as they say on their Web site. They sing songs about the Brits and how they subjugated the Irish and we'll rise up and trounce the bastards.

My 20-year-old friend has lived a good life in America and is well aware that he is not an abused farmer in the fields holding secret Mass in defiance of the prohibitions of the English ruling class. His life has not been like that. Yet he enjoys the bitterness. He likes going to Wolfe Tones concerts raising his fist, thinking "Up the Rebels." It is good to feel that old ethnic religious solidarity, and that in part is what he is in search of, solidarity. And it's not so bad to take a little free-floating anger, apply it to politics, and express it in applause.

He knows the dark days are over. He just enjoys remembering them even if he didn't experience them. His people did.

I know exactly what he feels, for I felt the same when I was his age. And so what? It's just a way of saying, "I'm still loyal to our bitterness." Which is another way of saying, "I'm still loyal." I have a nice life, I'm American, I live far away, an Englishman has never hurt me, and yet I am still Irish. I can prove it. I can summon the old anger.

Is this terrible? I don't think so. It's human and messy and warm-blooded, as a human would be.

The thing is to not let your affiliation with bitterness govern you, so that you leave the Wolfe Tones concert and punch an Englishman in the nose. In this connection it can be noted there is no apparent record of people leaving a Wright sermon and punching anyone in the nose. Maybe they're in search of solidarity too. Maybe they're showing loyalty too.

* * *

Few voters will be more inclined to vote for Barack Obama because his friend, mentor and pastor is extreme. They will think it makes Mr. Obama less attractive. They will not think Mr. Obama handled the challenge with force, dispatch and the kind of instinct that turns dilemma into gain.

And yet . . . it doesn't get my blood up. It doesn't hurt my heart. It doesn't make me feel I need to defend my country. Because I don't see it as attacked, only criticized in a way that is not persuasive.

Mr. Wright seems to me to be part of the great "barbaric yawp," as Walt Whitman called the American people fighting, discussing, making things and living. I like the barbaric yawp. I don't enjoy it when it makes me wince, but at least when I am wincing, I know the yawp is working.

 

Peggy Noonan
Wall Street Journal
Loyal to the Bitterness
May 2, 2008

I also think that if Hillary Clinton wins because of the Wright scandal, it will leave a sad taste in the mouths of many. Mr. Obama reveals many things in his books, speeches and interviews but polarity and a tropism toward the extreme are not among them. What happened with Mr. Wright should not determine the race. Mr. Obama's stands, his ability to convince us he can make good change, his ability to be "one of us," that great challenge for a national politician in a varied nation, should determine the race.
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120966911007860195.html

+++++++++++++

Barack Obama did not distance himself from Jeremiah Wright until forced to do so in the middle of his campaign for leader of the Democratic Party and ... this only occurred when he was challenged regarding his twenty year relationship with Wright who embraces a racist, anti-American ideology.  At that point in time ... Jeremiah Wright had been on Obama's campaign payroll as "Religious Advisor" ... a position he no longer holds.
 
Also ... Barack Obama has never refuted his racist, anti-American words in his books AUDACITY OF HOPE and DREAMS OF MY FATHER.  The first edition DREAMS OF MY FATHER was published in 1995 and ... the last edition was released in 2007.

Janet

+++++++++++

BARAK OBAMA - IN HIS OWN WORDS

Audacity of Hope: “Lolo (Obama’s step father) followed a brand of Islam ….” “I looked to Lolo for guidance”.

Dreams of my Father: “The person who made me proudest of all, though, was [half brother] Roy .. He converted to Islam.”

Dreams of my Father: “In Indonesia, I had spent two years at a Muslim school”

Dreams of my Father: “I Studied the Koran.”

Audacity of Hope: “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”

Dreams of My Father: “I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother’s race”.

Dreams of my Father: “The emotion between the races could never be pure….. the other race would always remain just that: menacing, alien, and apart.”

Dreams of my Father: “Any distinction between good and bad whites held negligible meaning.”

Dreams of My Father: “I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites”

Dreams Of My Father: “I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself..”.

Dreams of My Father: “That hate hadn’t gone away,” he wrote, blaming “white people — some cruel, some ignorant, sometimes a single face, sometimes just a faceless image of a system claiming power over our lives.”

Dreams of My Father: “There were enough of us on campus to constitute a tribe, and when it came to hanging out many of us chose to function like a tribe, staying close together, traveling in packs,” he wrote. “It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names”

Dreams of my Father: “Desperate times called for desperate measures, and for many blacks, times were chronically desperate. If nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self-respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence.”

Dreams of my Father: “To avoid being mistaken for a racial sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy.”

Dreams of my Father: “there was something about him that made me wary,” Obama wrote. “A little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.”

Dreams of my Father: “the reason black people keep to themselves is that it’s easier than spending all your time mad, or trying to guess whatever it was that white folks were thinking about you.”

Dreams of my Father: One line in Malcolm X’s autobiography “spoke” to Obama “it stayed with me,” he says. “He spoke of a wish he’d once had, the wish that the white blood that ran through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged.”

Peggy Noonan
Wall Street Journal
Loyal to the Bitterness
May 2, 2008

I also think that if Hillary Clinton wins because of the Wright scandal, it will leave a sad taste in the mouths of many. Mr. Obama reveals many things in his books, speeches and interviews but polarity and a tropism toward the extreme are not among them. What happened with Mr. Wright should not determine the race. Mr. Obama's stands, his ability to convince us he can make good change, his ability to be "one of us," that great challenge for a national politician in a varied nation, should determine the race.

http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120966911007860195

+++++++++++++++

I disagree.  It is imperative that the American people determine if Barack Obamas words, actions and the company he keeps  throughout the campaign reflect his words, actions and the company he keeps prior to the campaign.  In other words ... it is important there is not deception ... it is important that votes are not cast for a "wolf in sheep's clothing".

Listen to Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech and ... read the above quotes from his books.

It is apparent ... SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT!

Janet

++++++++++

Obama: ‘I’m a Pretty Darned Good Politician’
by FOXNews.com
Wednesday, April 16, 2008

In a speech to Jewish community leaders in Philadelphia, the Democratic presidential candidate was asked whether the recent controversy over Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s retiring pastor, could lead to him being attacked by Republicans in the fall and create the possibility of turning his candidacy into one akin to failed candidates George McGovern and Michael Dukakis.

At the end of a long response, Obama said: “Let me make one last point about the comparison to McGovern and Dukakis, both excellent men, but I’m a pretty darn good politician. And I can give a pretty good speech and I can connect and inspire the American people in ways that I think will become apparent.

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/04/16/obama-im-a-pretty-darned-good-politician/


A More Perfect Union
Watch Barack's speech on race in America and building a more perfect union.
http://my.barackobama.com/hisownwords

BARACK OBAMA'S VERY CONTROVERSIAL PASTOR
By Sharon Hughes
February 3, 2008
NewsWithViews.com

http://www.newswithviews.com/Hughes/sharon53.htm

++++++++++++++++

A Message from our Pastor
Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Senior Pastor
Maybe I Missed Something

http://www.cmaucc.org/EMRJeremiahWright2.pdf

++++++++++++++

Obama's Minister Honored Farrakhan
Monday, January 14, 2008 7:49 PM
 
http://www.newsmax.com/kessler/obama_wright_farrakhan/2008/01/14/64332.html

+++++++++++

Obama’s mentor and pastor honors Louis Farrakhan
January 15, 2008

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/01/15/obamas-mentor-and-pastor-honors-louis-farrakhan/

+++++++++++++

Obama's Farrakhan Test
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, January 15, 2008

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/14/AR2008011402083.html

+++++++++++++

As 'Millions More' March Approaches, ADL Exposes Farrakhan's and Shabazz's Racism and Anti-Semitism
New York, NY, October 6, 2005

http://www.adl.org/PresRele/NatIsl_81/4804_72.htm

++++++++++++

Farrakhan: Racist or righteous?
July 12, 2001

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/07/12/farrakhan.case/index.html

++++++++++++

Obama distances himself from Farrakhan
January 15, 2008 08:06 PM

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/01/obama_distances.html

++++++++++++

Trinity United Church of Christ - Website

http://www.tucc.org/about.htm
http://www.tucc.org/talking_points.htm

++++++++++++

A Candidate, His Minister and the Search for Faith
Published: April 30, 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/us/politics/30obama.html?pagewanted=1

+++++++++++

Disinvitation by Obama Is Criticized
By JODI KANTOR
Published: March 6, 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/06/us/politics/06obama.html

+++++++++++++

Within Islamic tradition, the concept of Taqiyya (التقية - 'fear, guard against')[1] refers to a controversial dispensation allowing believers to conceal their faith when under threat, persecution or compulsion.[2]

The word "al-Taqiyya" literally means: "Concealing or disguising one's beliefs, convictions, ideas, feelings, opinions, and/or strategies at a time of imminent danger, whether now or later in time, to save oneself from physical and/or mental injury." A one-word translation would be "Dissimulation."http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Taqqiyah


Dissimulation  is a form of deception in which one conceals the truth. It differs from simulation, in which one exhibits false information. Dissimulation commonly takes the form of concealing one's ability in order to gain the element of surprise over an opponent.
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Dissimulation

++++++++++++

Louis Farrakhan backs Obama for president at Nation of Islam convention in Chicago
February 25, 2008

Speaking to thousands of members of the Nation of Islam at their annual convention Sunday in Chicago, Minister Louis Farrakhan praised presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama as the only hope for healing the nation's racial divisions.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-farrakhan25feb25,0,6391391.story


Farrakhan Praises Obama as ‘Hope of Entire World’
by Associated Press
Monday, February 25, 2008

CHICAGO — In his first major public address since a cancer crisis, Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan said that presidential candidate Barack Obama is the “hope of the entire world” that the U.S. will change for the better. The 74-year-old Farrakhan, former leader of the black Muslim group, never endorsed Obama outright, but spent much of his nearly two-hour speech Sunday to an estimated crowd of 20,000 people praising the Illinois senator.

“This young man is the hope of the entire world that America will change and be made better,” he said. “This young man is capturing audiences of black and brown and red and yellow. If you look at Barack Obama’s audiences and look at the effect of his words, those people are being transformed.”

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/02/25/farrakhan-praises-obama-as-hope-of-entire-world/


Wright's words raise doubts on Obama, not black church
May 1, 2008

WASHINGTON — Here's where the Rev. Jeremiah Wright went wrong.
Barack Obama's former pastor said in a raucous news conference at the National Press Club this week that the tempest surrounding a few of his more contentious sound bites was an attack on the black church.

<snipped>

Wright can no longer complain he has been taken out of context. He provided his own context, such as when he declared Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan one of the most important voices of the 20th and 21st centuries. But Farrakhan has espoused too many racist, anti-Semitic views over the years to be considered important in the healing and reconciling Obama says he wants.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/columnist/raasch/2008-05-01-newpolitics_N.htm


Obama Dropped Flag Pin in War Statement
Obama Stops Wearing Flag Pin, Says He'll Show Patriotism Through Ideas
By DAVID WRIGHT and SUNLEN MILLER
Oct. 4, 2007

An eagle-eyed reporter for the ABC affiliate in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, noticed something missing from Democratic presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama's, D-Ill., lapels.

Obama will no longer wear US flag pin, but will show patriotism through ideas."You don't have the American flag pin on. Is that a fashion statement?" the reporter asked, at the end of a brief interview with Obama on Wednesday. "Those have been on politicians since Sept. 12, 2001."

The standard political reply to that question might well have been, "My patriotism speaks for itself."

But Obama didn't say that.

Instead the Illinois senator answered the question at length, explaining that he no longer wears such a pin, at least in part, because of the Iraq War.

"You know, the truth is that right after 9/11, I had a pin," Obama said. "Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq War, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest.

"Instead," he said, "I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism."

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Story?id=3690000

Did Jeremiah Wright do a little more than just "dabble" with Islam?

Janet

++++++++++

Audacity of Barack Obama and Rev. Wright
by Michael Gaynor
March 18, 2008 01:00 PM EST

In Senator Obama’s first book, titled Dreams of My Father and published in 1995 (after he had been elected president of the Harvard Law Review but before he had been elected to public office), Senator Obama wrote at length about Rev. Wright and his moving “Audacity of Hope” speech.

In Dreams, Senator Obama explained how he met Rev. Wright, whom he mentioned had been “dabbling with liquor, Islam, and black nationalism in the sixties.”

He acknowledged that Rev. Wright immediately had given him fair warning that he was controversial, by quoting Rev. Wright as having said: “Some of my fellow clergy don’t appreciate what we’re about. They feel like we’re too radical. Others, we aren’t radical enough. Too emotional. Not emotional enough.”

He also acknowledged that Rev. Wright let him know at their first meeting that he looked unfavorably on America and expected to continue to do so, by stating, “Life’s not safe for a black man in this country, Barack. Never has been. Probably never will be.”

Senator Obama left with one of Rev. Wright’s “Black Value System” brochures.

When Senator Barack listened to Rev. Wright’s “Audacity of Hope” sermon, September 11, 2001 was years away, but, Senator Obama admitted in Dreams, Rev. Wright castigated America.

More …
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/31321.html

Jeremiah Wright was  protected by Nation of Islam bodyguards by Nation of Islam bodyguards at the National Press Club appearance.

Janet

++++++++++++++++++++

THE NATION OF ISLAM ACCOMPANY WRIGHT TO HIS TALKS (NAACP DETRIOT/NATIONAL PRESS CLUB)
Apr 28, 2008 11:15 AM

I just heard on FOX News that the Nation of Islam Body Guards provide security for Wright when he makes public appearances. Evidently he receives numerous death threats on a daily basis, for his hateful, anti-white rhetoric. This image as Obama's minister is both alarming and damaging and Obama needs to severely distance himself from this man if he wished to serve as a politician in this great country.

http://www.oprah.com/community/thread/58345


Could Rev. Spell Doom for Obama?
April 28, 2008

Should it become necessary in the months from now to identify the moment that doomed Obama's presidential aspirations, attention is likely to focus on the hour between nine and ten this morning at the National Press Club. It was then that Wright, Obama's longtime pastor, reignited a controversy about race from which Obama had only recently recovered - and added lighter fuel.

Speaking before an audience that included Marion Barry, Cornel West, Malik Zulu Shabazz of the New Black Panther Party and Nation of Islam official Jamil Muhammad, Wright praised Louis Farrakhan, defended the view that Zionism is racism, accused the United States of terrorism, repeated his view that the government created the AIDS virus to cause the genocide of racial minorities, stood by other past remarks ("God damn America") and held himself out as a spokesman for the black church in America.

In front of 30 television cameras, Wright's audience cheered him on as the minister mocked the media and, at one point, did a little victory dance on the podium. It seemed as if Wright, jokingly offering himself as Obama's vice president, was actually trying to doom Obama; a member of the head table, American Urban Radio's April Ryan, confirmed that Wright's security was provided by bodyguards from Farrakhan's Nation of Islam.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/roughsketch/2008/04/obamas_pastor_reignites_race_c.html

Barack Obama got it wrong when attempting to justify Nation of Islam's leader Louis Farrakhan's "Lifetime Achievement" honor bestowed by Jeremiah Wright.  The award had nothing to do  with "Farrakhan efforts to rehabilitate ex-offenders".

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
Obama distances himself from Farrakhan
Posted by Scott Helman, Political Reporter
 January 15, 2008 08:06 PM

"I decry racism and anti-Semitism in every form and strongly condemn the anti-Semitic statements made by Minister Farrakhan," Obama said in a statement released by his aides. "I assume that Trumpet Magazine made its own decision to honor Farrakhan based on his efforts to rehabilitate ex-offenders, but it is not a decision with which I agree."
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/01/obama_distances.html


January 27, 2008
Obama's pastor disses Natalee Holloway
'White girl goes off and gives it up' in Aruba, preacher pal

On Nov. 2, 2007, Wright presented Farrakhan with a "lifetime achievement" award during a Trumpet gala held at the Hyatt Regency Chicago. The tribute included a three-and-a-half minute video lionizing "the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan."

"For his commitment to truth, education and leadership, we honor Minister Louis Farrakhan with the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award," the video announces.

Last week, Obama distanced himself from Farrakhan, but did not distance himself from Wright or disavow his praise for Farrakhan.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59887


Barack Obama's church gave a lifetime achievement award to Louis Farrakhan.
Friday, January 18th, 2008
 
Trumpet Newsmagazine was founded by the church's senior pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., as a church newsletter. Now it's a nationally distributed lifestyle magazine aimed at socially conscious African-Americans. The magazine gave Farrakhan its Lifetime Achievement “Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. Trumpeter” Award for those who work to “save the lives of Africans on the continent and in the Diaspora.”

The magazine interviewed Farrakhan and quoted Wright in the introduction. Here is the entirety of Wright's remarks on Farrakhan:

“When Minister Farrakhan speaks, Black America listens,” Wright said. “Everybody may not agree with him, but they listen…His depth on analysis when it comes to the racial ills of this nation is astounding and eye opening. He brings a perspective that is helpful and honest.

“Minister Farrakhan will be remembered as one of the 20th and 21st century giants of the African- American religious experience,” Wright said. “His integrity and honesty have secured him a place in history as one of the nation’s most powerful critics. His love for Africa and African-American people has made him an unforgettable force, a catalyst for change and a religious leader who is sincere about his faith and his purpose.”
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/296/

This whole topic shows that race is the most popular topic on our board.

Race IS the issue.

Topic Question: Re: "Is Race the Issue?"

Topic Answer:  I do not believe that Obama's race is the issue.

Louise ... I have worked very hard researching this topic and ... I believe that in every post I have submitted has been a sincere attempt to backup my answer to your topic question.

In summary ... I believe those who oppose Obama race to the White House ... have been made aware of his racist anti-American ideology revealed in DREAMS OF MY FATHER and AUDICITY OF HOPE ... the same  ideology embrace by Jeremiah Wright and those he has associated with for the past twenty years.  Louise, this is the where the distrust lies ... not Obama's race.

Barack Obama did not attempt to disassociated himself with Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn as well as Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan until well into his capaign for the leader of the Democratic Party ... not until his relationships were exposed and challenged.  Up until that period in time ... Jeremiah Wright was a member of Obama's campaign.

Janet

+++++++++++++


Jeremiah Wright Steps Down From Obama Campaign
By Eric Kleefeld - March 14, 2008, 9:58PM

In the response to the controversies surrounding recently-aired videos of his sermons, Barack Obama's former pastor Jeremiah Wright has resigned his from honorary membership on the campaign's African American Religious Leadership Committee.  NBC News says it's unclear whether Wright left of his own initiative, or if he was asked to leave.

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/jeremiah_wright_steps_down_fro.php

Race became an issue as soon as Obama exposed himself and his beliefs in his books and the media exposed Wright for being the 'racist' that HE is.  I am not apposed to a black President in the slightest, as I can think of several wonderful, intelligent black men, who are more than capable of running this country.   One of them being Colin Powell, a man of integrity.  He is one I would vote for in a heartbeat!

So YES Race is AN issue NOW, when it shouldn't be, but it only began by a racist candidate and his racist Pastor/Mentor/Friend/Uncle...... of 20 yrs......   It's truly a shame....

Glenn Beck: Obama's odd timing on Wright
By Glenn Beck
CNN
May 5, 2008

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama is moving away from the Rev. Jeremiah Wright so fast he may claim to be an atheist by next weekend. The ongoing sprint from such a polarizing figure is far from a surprise, it's just the timing of it that is so odd.

A New York Times editorial described the recent developments like this:

"In the last few days, in a series of shocking appearances, he [Wright] embraced the Rev. Louis Farrakhan's anti-Semitism. He said the government manufactured the AIDS virus to kill blacks. He suggested that America was guilty of "terrorism" and so had brought the 9/11 attacks on itself."

Shocking? Every one of these opinions of Wright has been part of the public record for months. It's no more shocking than Angelina Jolie coming out in favor of adoption.

Even in the schizophrenic world of politics, it's unclear how to accomplish the mental gymnastics required to make sense of all of this. The media's love affair with Obama makes them ask us to believe that Obama was courageous for defending Wright in his Philadelphia speech on race and also courageous for throwing him under the bus six weeks later for the exact same opinions.

The only plausible realities are that either the speech was naïve and the press conference realistic, or the speech was pandering and the press conference politically expedient. Neither paints a pretty picture of a politician who is supposed to change Washington ...

More ...
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/05/05/beck.obamawright/index.html

Oprah Winfrey was uncomfortable with Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons, Newsweek says
Talk-show host left church, didn't want to offend her audience, associates say
By Mike Dorning | Tribune reporter
May 5, 2008

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-obama-wright-05-_may05,0,3836879.story


CAMPAIGN 2008
Something Wasn’t Wright
Why Oprah Winfrey left Rev. Jeremiah Wright's church.
By Allison Samuels | NEWSWEEK
May 12, 2008 Issue

http://www.newsweek.com/id/135392


May 4th, 2008
Fiery sermons at Obama’s church unnerved Oprah

http://blogs.reuters.com/trail08/2008/05/04/fiery-sermons-at-obamas-church-unnerved-oprah/

He only needs a hundred and something more delegate votes.

Maybe RACE is NOT the real issue.

 ::MonkeyNoNo::

Maybe ... just maybe Barack Obama's own words in DREAMS OF MY FATHER and AUDICITY OF HOME will become an issue in the Presidential election.

It is crucial that the American people are informed of Obama's racist anti-American ideology ... the racist anti-American ideology of the company he has kept for the past twenty years ... the racist anti-American ideology revealed is the words he personally authored!!!

GOD BLESS AMERICA

++++++++++++

BARAK OBAMA - IN HIS OWN WORDS

Audacity of Hope: “Lolo (Obama’s step father) followed a brand of Islam ….” “I looked to Lolo for guidance”.

Dreams of my Father: “The person who made me proudest of all, though, was [half brother] Roy .. He converted to Islam.”

Dreams of my Father: “In Indonesia, I had spent two years at a Muslim school”

Dreams of my Father: “I Studied the Koran.”

Audacity of Hope: “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”

Dreams of My Father: “I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother’s race”.

Dreams of my Father: “The emotion between the races could never be pure….. the other race would always remain just that: menacing, alien, and apart.”

Dreams of my Father: “Any distinction between good and bad whites held negligible meaning.”

Dreams of My Father: “I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites”

Dreams Of My Father: “I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself..”.

Dreams of My Father: “That hate hadn’t gone away,” he wrote, blaming “white people — some cruel, some ignorant, sometimes a single face, sometimes just a faceless image of a system claiming power over our lives.”

Dreams of My Father: “There were enough of us on campus to constitute a tribe, and when it came to hanging out many of us chose to function like a tribe, staying close together, traveling in packs,” he wrote. “It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names”

Dreams of my Father: “Desperate times called for desperate measures, and for many blacks, times were chronically desperate. If nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self-respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence.”

Dreams of my Father: “To avoid being mistaken for a racial sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy.”

Dreams of my Father: “there was something about him that made me wary,” Obama wrote. “A little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.”

Dreams of my Father: “the reason black people keep to themselves is that it’s easier than spending all your time mad, or trying to guess whatever it was that white folks were thinking about you.”

Dreams of my Father: One line in Malcolm X’s autobiography “spoke” to Obama “it stayed with me,” he says. “He spoke of a wish he’d once had, the wish that the white blood that ran through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged.”

THE STRATEGY

May 7, 2008
Rush Limbaugh says he backs Obama

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- He has publicly urged Republicans to vote for Sen. Hillary Clinton to keep the divisive Democratic nomination fight alive, but talk radio host Rush Limbaugh said Wednesday he really wants Sen. Barack Obama to be the party's nominee.

Rush Limbaugh urged listeners in states with open primaries to cross party lines and support Hillary Clinton.

"I now believe he would be the weakest of the Democrat nominees," Limbaugh, among the most powerful voices in conservative radio, said on his program. "I now urge the Democrat superdelegates to make your mind up and publicly go for Obama."

More:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/07/limbaugh.obama/?iref=hpmostpop

  Good post Dihannah1 do you know what I believe would be almost an unbeatable ticket  Collen Powell and Condoleeza Rice
 or maybe Rice as Atty General she's a very smart Lady.

Congress joins the Obama fan club

Geoff Elliott, Washington correspondent | May 10, 2008

OBAMANIA has swept the US Congress after Barack Obama wandered through to find politicians from both sides of the aisle congratulating him on his almost-certain presidential nomination for the Democratic Party.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23672180-2703,00.html

US elections: Obama plans to declare victory
By Alex Spillius in Washington
Last Updated: 4:57PM BST 09/05/2008
Barack Obama plans to declare victory in his marathon battle with Hillary Clinton shortly after polls close in Kentucky and Oregon on May 20, it has been revealed, in an attempt to force his rival towards the exit door.
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/00669/obama-win-404_669729c.jpg)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/1941844/US-elections-Barack-Obama-plans-to-declare-victory.html

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51E9EP622ML._SL500_BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)

READ this book - before you judge who a person is.

This is not a race issue.  Give Barack Obama a pass ... any candidate running for President of one of the greatest nations on the face of the Earth could make the same mistake.

 ::MonkeyNoNo::

Janet

++++++++++++


Barack Obama wants to be president of these 57 United States

"It is wonderful to be back in Oregon," Obama said. "Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it."
 
The Times' conscientious Robin Abcarian thought she heard something different there. She checked her tape recorder ...

(UPDATE: At a later stop Obama was talking with reporters and expressed concern he'd also mis-stated the number of potential cyclone victims in Burma. He said, ""I hope I said 100,000 people the first time instead of 100 million. I understand I said there were 57 states today. It's a sign that my numeracy is getting a little, uh." At that point, an aide cut him off and ushered journalists out. Before he could mis-speak again?)

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/05/barack-obama-wa.html


Talk about a Senior Moment: Barack Obama Wants to be President of All 57 States

http://scaredmonkeys.com/2008/05/10/talk-about-a-senior-moment-barack-obama-wants-to-be-president-of-all-57-states/

Thank you Red

Of course race is an issue in the election; however, it was not made an issue by any Republicans.

It was Bill Clinton in SC who basically called Obama, the great black hope.

It was then the voters thereafter who have voted along black and white lines for Obama and Hillary in the Democratic primaries.

However, before all that happened ... it was Barack Obama who attended an all black, unabashed black church and got his head filled with racial white hate from Rev. Wright. Does anyone think that one can attend a Klan meeting for 20 years and compartmentalize the issues and say that you are for and represent all people? The answer would be no. The Democratic primaries have shown that WHITE WORKING DEMOCRATS, not REPUBLICANS will not vote for Obama because they know he does not represent them.

RACE ... It is not about the color of one's skin, but about the content of one's character. That is what it should be about. So what in Obama's past in dealing with The Weather Underground American terrorists, Rev. Wright, Rezco and the message out of Trinity Church tell me that he has any character?

With Obama, its not about his race ... it is about his character and judgment. However, if anyone dare say a thing about him, the Left calls you a racist.

Red ... I agree.  There is such a politically correct double standard that the democracies of the free world has embraced.

Race should never be an issue ... ideology is where it is at and ... Obama's ideology which he reveals in DREAMS OF MY FATHER and AUDICITY OF HOPE implies that he is one with the company he has kept in the past twenty years.

Janet

++++++


AYERS AND BERNADINE DOHRN

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/04/020358.php
April 22, 2008
The Friends of Barack Obama, Part 1

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/04/020362.php
April 23, 2008
The Friends of Barack Obama, Part 2


Obama's Buddy List
By Guy Benson
Sunday, April 13, 2008

"John McCain is a good man. He's an American hero. We honor his service to the nation. But he's made some bad decisions about the company he keeps." This magnanimous pronouncement from Barack Obama in February sounded noble at the time it was uttered. The country should reject Senator McCain not because of his biography, he argued, but because of his questionable associations—many of whom are wicked right-wingers like President Bush. With his remark, Obama unwittingly constructed a new standard of judgment that can, and should, be used against him mercilessly in the general election. An alarmingly large portion of the company Obama keeps seems to be a ragtag posse of unreformed leftists, race baiters, and blame-America-first polemicists. Although none of these individual associations will singlehandedly derail his candidacy, when considered in the aggregate, they will give many Americans reason to pause before pulling the lever for the unvetted freshman senator.

http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/GuyBenson/2008/04/13/obamas_buddy_list


BARAK OBAMA - IN HIS OWN WORDS

Audacity of Hope: “Lolo (Obama’s step father) followed a brand of Islam ….” “I looked to Lolo for guidance”.

Dreams of my Father: “The person who made me proudest of all, though, was [half brother] Roy .. He converted to Islam.”

Dreams of my Father: “In Indonesia, I had spent two years at a Muslim school”

Dreams of my Father: “I Studied the Koran.”

Audacity of Hope: “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”

Dreams of My Father: “I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother’s race”.

Dreams of my Father: “The emotion between the races could never be pure….. the other race would always remain just that: menacing, alien, and apart.”

Dreams of my Father: “Any distinction between good and bad whites held negligible meaning.”

Dreams of My Father: “I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites”

Dreams Of My Father: “I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself..”.

Dreams of My Father: “That hate hadn’t gone away,” he wrote, blaming “white people — some cruel, some ignorant, sometimes a single face, sometimes just a faceless image of a system claiming power over our lives.”

Dreams of My Father: “There were enough of us on campus to constitute a tribe, and when it came to hanging out many of us chose to function like a tribe, staying close together, traveling in packs,” he wrote. “It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names”

Dreams of my Father: “Desperate times called for desperate measures, and for many blacks, times were chronically desperate. If nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self-respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence.”

Dreams of my Father: “To avoid being mistaken for a racial sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy.”

Dreams of my Father: “there was something about him that made me wary,” Obama wrote. “A little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.”

Dreams of my Father: “the reason black people keep to themselves is that it’s easier than spending all your time mad, or trying to guess whatever it was that white folks were thinking about you.”

Dreams of my Father: One line in Malcolm X’s autobiography “spoke” to Obama “it stayed with me,” he says. “He spoke of a wish he’d once had, the wish that the white blood that ran through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged.”

The American people must discern … “Does Obama not only “talk the talk”. Does he “walk the walk”. The future political direction of the United States of America demands it.

GOD BLESS AMERICA!!  

+++++++++++++

Obama: ‘I’m a Pretty Darned Good Politician’
by FOXNews.com
Wednesday, April 16, 2008

In a speech to Jewish community leaders in Philadelphia, the Democratic presidential candidate was asked whether the recent controversy over Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s retiring pastor, could lead to him being attacked by Republicans in the fall and create the possibility of turning his candidacy into one akin to failed candidates George McGovern and Michael Dukakis.

At the end of a long response, Obama said: “Let me make one last point about the comparison to McGovern and Dukakis, both excellent men, but I’m a pretty darn good politician. And I can give a pretty good speech and I can connect and inspire the American people in ways that I think will become apparent.

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/04/16/obama-im-a-pretty-darned-good-politician/

.
Sermons We See
Edgar Guest

I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day;
I’d rather one should walk with me than merely tell the way.

The eye’s a better pupil and more willing than the ear,
Fine counsel is confusing, but example’s always clear;

And the best of all the preachers are the men who live their creeds,
For to see good put in action is what everybody needs.

I soon can learn to do it if you’ll let me see it done;
I can watch your hands in action, but your tongue too fast may run.

And the lecture you deliver may be very wise and true,
But I’d rather get my lessons by observing what you do;

For I might misunderstand you and the high advise you give,
But there’s no misunderstanding how you act and how you live.

When I see a deed of kindness, I am eager to be kind.
When a weaker brother stumbles and a strong man stays behind

Just to see if he can help him, then the wish grows strong in me
To become as big and thoughtful as I know that friend to be.

And all travelers can witness that the best of guides today
Is not the one who tells them, but the one who shows the way.

One good man teaches many, men believe what they behold;
One deed of kindness noticed is worth forty that are told.

Who stands with men of honor learns to hold his honor dear,
For right living speaks a language which to every one is clear.

Though an able speaker charms me with his eloquence, I say,
I’d rather see a sermon than to hear one, any day.

      DO I HAVE THIS STRAIGHT?
>
> HIS FATHER WAS A KENYAN, MOSLEM, BLACK-
> WE HAVE SEEN PICTURES OF HIS AFRICAN "FAMILY.
>
> HIS MOTHER IS A KANSAN, ATHEIST, WHITE-
> WHERE ARE THE PICTURES OF HIS KANSAN, WHITE MOTHER AND HIS WHITE
> GRANDPARENTS WHO RAISED HIM?
>
> HIS FATHER DESERTED HIS MOTHER AND HIM WHEN HE WAS VERY YOUNG AND WENT BACK
> TO HIS FAMILY IN KENYA.
>
> HIS MOTHER MARRIED AN INDONESIAN MOSLEM AND TOOK HIM TO JAKARTA WHERE HE WAS
> SCHOOLED IN A MOSLEM SCHOOL.
>
> HIS MOTHER RETURNED TO HAWAII AND HE WAS RAISED BY HIS WHITE KANSAN
> GRANDPARENTS.
>
> HE LATER WENT TO THE BEST HIGH DOLLAR SCHOOLS, HOW?
>
> HE LIVES IN A $1.4 MILLION DOLLAR HOUSE THAT HE ACQUIRED THROUGH A DEAL WITH
> A WEALTHY FUND RAISER.
> HOW?
>
> HE "WORKED" AS A CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST IN CHICAGO- HAS NEVER HELD A
> PRODUCTIVE JOB, NEVER RECEIVED A PAYCHECK FROM A BUSINESS WHICH WAS NOT
> GOVERNMENT FUNDED AND/OR TAXPAYER SUPPORTED. (THE PRESIDENCY IS NOT A CIVIL
> RIGHTS POST NOR IS IT SUBJECT TO AFFIRMATIVE ACTION SET ASIDES. ON-THE-JOB
> TRAINING WON'T CUT IT. )
>
> HE ENTERED POLITICS AT THE STATE LEVEL AND THEN THE NATIONAL LEVEL WHERE HE
> HAS MINIMAL EXPERIENCE.
>
> HE IS PROUD OF HIS "AFRICAN HERITAGE" BUT IT SEEMS THAT HIS ONLY AFRICAN
> CONNECTION WAS THAT HIS AFRICAN FATHER GOT A WHITE GIRL PREGNANT AND
> DESERTED HER. I DIDN'T KNOW THAT SPERM CARRIED A "CULTURAL" GENE. WHERE IS
> THE PRIDE IN HIS WHITE CULTURE?
>
> HE GOES TO AN "AFROCENTRIC" CHURCH THAT HATES WHITES, HATES JEWS, AND BLAMES
> AMERICA FOR ALL THE WORLD'S PERCEIVED FAULTS, INCLUDING "CREATING" AIDS TO
> INFLICT ON AFRICANS. HE THEN REPEATEDLY WHITEWASHES THE PASTOR, HIS CHURCH,
> AND THE
> MEMBERS WHO CHEERED AFTER HEARING THE PASTOR'S VITRIOLIC PULPIT TIRADES.
>
> HE COULD NOT CONFRONT HIS PASTOR BUT HE WANTS US TO BELIEVE THAT HE CAN
> CONFRONT NORTH KOREA AND IRAN--RIGHT!!!
>
> IN HIS BRIEF TIME IN THE SENATE HE HAS MANAGED TO AMASS THE NUMBER ONE
> ULTRA-LIBERAL VOTING RECORD
> OF THE HUNDRED MEMBERS, VOTING CONSISTENTLY FOR BIGGER GOVERNMENT, HIGHER
> TAXES, BIG ENTITLEMENTS AND LEGISLATION WHICH WOULD SEVERELY CURTAIL
> AMERICA'S ABILITY TO FIGHT TERRORISM, PROTECT OUR BORDERS AND OUR NATIONAL
> INTERESTS AROUND THE WORLD.
>
> BUT HE IS A GOOD ORATOR. (SO WAS HITLER)
>
> YEAH, I THINK I SEE HOW WELL HE COULD BE A UNITER AND BRING US TOGETHER. I
> THINK THE HOPE IS THAT HE HOPES NO ONE WILL PUT THE PIECES TOGETHER.
>
> LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, LET ME INTRODUCE OUR NEW CHIEF PILOT. HE'S NEVER FLOWN
> AN AIRPLANE. <http://airplane.in/> IN FACT HE'S NEVER EVEN SAT IN A
> COCKPIT, BUT HE'S RIDDEN ON THEM. WE'RE SURE HE WILL GUIDE US SAFELY THROUGH
> THE STORMS WE ARE ABOUT TO ENCOUNTER ON THIS FLIGHT.
>
>  

Incorrect information posted above.

Read: Who's Afraid of a Large Black Man by Charles Barkley. This book was written years ago, before
Obama had any plans of running for President. Gives insight into his up-bringing and sets the record straight about many of the mis-information that is put out. I encourage anyone who wants to vote in the election to
get to the truth of who the candidate is.


Kennedy's backed him - Caroline compared him to her dad!
John Edwards back him

  Oh, let's take the word of an alcoholic murderer, his dumb blonde neice and a man who sought his own fame and prestige over the well-being of his cancer ridden wife!!!!

    Not I, my friend... I'll go with the Patriotic American who remained in a North Vietnamese POW camp before he would turn his ass and run out on his men.!!!!!!

   Please correct "the false" information and I'll stand corrected, but not by a racist, of any color!!!

Who are the people you are referring to ... alcoholic murderer, his dumb blonde neice and a man who sought his own fame and prestige over the well-being of his cancer ridden wife.

1. Ted Kennedy
2. Caroline Kennedy
3. John Edwards

pretty offensive and low i think to describe them like that.
i could describe McCain and most of his supporters easily in a simular way but i won't.

(http://elections.foxnews.com/files/2008/05/obama.jpg)

Obama Draws Record 80,000 to Oregon Rally, Attacks McCain
by Associated Press
Monday, May 19, 2008
 
 
 GRESHAM, Ore. — Hours before being greeted by the biggest crowd of his campaign, Democrat Barack Obama quietly told a small group of seniors Sunday that Republican John McCain would threaten the Social Security they depend on because he supports privatizing the program.

Fire officials estimated 65,000 packed into a riverside park for a spectacular afternoon rally at a sun-splashed scene on the banks of the Willamette River in Portland. They said an additional 15,000 were left outside and dozens of boaters could be seen floating in the river.

“Wow, wow, wow,” Obama said as he surveyed the audience. “We have had a lot of rallies. This is the most spectacular setting, the most spectacular crowd we have had this entire campaign.”

While more subdued, his appearance early in the day before about 130 people at an assisted living facility to talk Social Security was a significant attempt to tie the GOP’s presidential nominee-in-waiting to an unpopular President Bush on a pocket book issue that motivates seniors — and also concerns younger generations worried about their own future retirement.

“Let me be clear, privatizing Social Security was a bad idea when George W. Bush proposed it, it’s a bad idea today,” Obama said. “That’s why I stood up against this plan in the Senate and that’s why I won’t stand for it as president.”

Bush proposed a Social Security plan in 2005 that focused on creating private accounts for younger workers, but it never came up for a vote in Congress. Democrats strongly opposed the idea and few Republicans embraced it.

Obama said McCain would push to raise the retirement age for collecting Social Security benefits or trim annual cost-of-living increases. Obama has rejected both ideas as solutions to the funding crisis projected for Social Security in favor of making higher-income workers pay more into the system.

“We have to protect Social Security for future generations without pushing the burden onto seniors who have earned the right to retire in dignity,” he said.

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds accused Obama of making “misinformed partisan attacks.”

“John McCain has been clear about his belief that we must fix Social Security for future generations and keep our promises to today’s retirees, but raising taxes should not be the answer to every problem,” Bound said.

It was a day of coastal campaigning for the two Democrats still competing for the party’s presidential nomination.

Obama was in Oregon, where he is favored to win the state’s presidential primary on Tuesday. Hillary Rodham Clinton spent a second straight day in Kentucky, where she is favored to win when its voters head to the polls the same day.

She attended worship services at a Methodist church in Bowling Green, and happily sang hymns and joined in Bible readings. But her smile faded when the pastor launched into a sermon about adultery, asking his congregants whether the devil had ever whispered over their shoulders in their marriages.

Her mood appeared to brighten by the time she arrived for a rally at Western Kentucky University.

“Now, my opponent said the other day he wasn’t coming back, so I’ve got the whole state to myself,” Clinton said, sounding happy not to be sharing the Kentucky spotlight. “What a treat.”

Later Sunday, the Clinton campaign collected about $150,000 at a backyard fundraiser in Fort Mitchell, a northern Kentucky suburb of Cincinnati. Nathan Smith, the event’s host, is vice chairman of the Kentucky Democratic Party and a superdelegate — but he still has not committed to supporting Clinton.

Obama, the front-runner for the nomination, has begun casting himself as the inevitable nominee and using his time to distinguish himself from McCain as he pivots toward the fall campaign. He has scheduled appearances later this week in Iowa and Florida, two key swing states.

He underscored that speaking with reporters in the Portland suburb of Milwaukee, saying he’ll use the Iowa visit as another way to focus on November.

“We thought it was a terrific way to kind of bring things full circle,” said Obama. “We still have some contests left but if Kentucky and Oregon go as we hope, then we think we will have a majority of pledged delegates at that point and that’s a pretty significant mark, that means that after contests in every state, or almost every state and the territories, that we have received a majority of the delegates that are assigned by voters.”

He declined to declare victory.

“It doesn’t mean we’ve declared victory because I won’t be the nominee until we have a combination of both pledged delegates and super delegates to hit the mark,” said Obama. “What it does mean is the voters have given us a majority of delegates. Obviously that’s what this primary and caucus process is all about.”

During the meeting with seniors, Obama was asked why McCain seems to have avoided the enormous press scrutiny the Democrats have gotten.

Obama said McCain has benefited from a Republican nomination process that ended early while the Democratic race continues. He said the attention both candidates receive will grow more intense as the race settles into an Obama-McCain contest.

“It’s very understandable that the press has focused on myself and Senator Clinton because it’s been a pretty exciting race,” Obama said. “The fact is that the press will submit him to the same scrutiny they are giving to me.”

“People will lift the hood and kick the tires with John McCain, just like they do with me,” he said, who traveled Sunday with his wife, Michelle.

TRUTH: 1. Barack Obama IS BIRACIAL: his father is African from Kenya, his mother who is white and from Kansas.

"My mother was a white woman who just loved black people, loved the civil rights movement. She'd tell me how Harry Belafonte was the best-looking man on the planet. So I had all these positive images. My father was a Harvard-educated man. He was Kofi Annan, except taller. So the whole notion that blacks
were inferior never came up at the dinner talbe." (p.23 Barkley)

Baracks mother and father divorced and his mother remarried. Until he was 6 years old he lived in Hawaii then they moved to Indonesia


Baracks mother worked in the embassy in Jakarta. The head of the embassy there was a black guy.



Barack states: "My father was a Harvard-educated man."

His mother and father divorced and she remarried & they lived in Hawaii, then moved to Indonesia.
If the divorced father moved to Kenya where he is from, it makes sense to me. I don't see how that is
a negative, the way you listed it.

Barack got a scholarship to attend a prep school
   Barack Obama graduated from Harvard Law School - magna cum laude
   He was the FIRST BLack President of the Harvard Law Review.
   He taught at the University of Chicago
   He served in the Illinois Satte Senate


Klassend lives next door to a million dollar home. Why is this bad?


 Barack started a civil rights practice
*reformed the death penalty
* expanded health care systems for children
* put more money into education (p.30 Barkley)




 "There is a whole bunch of stuff I've been missing, so let me really buckle down. So I started studying a lot, focusing on a lot of social issues and economics. I became interested in how you bring about change. I became much more of a student of the civil rights movement.

Barack worked in Harlem


Barack got 150,000 people registered in Illinois to help Bill Clinton get elected & Carol Moseley-Braun (p.29 Barkley)

If America is going to maintain itself in wars with the Middle East, (which John McCain is a WAR hero, you
need to consider his background and why the war may be something he would endorse, unlike Obama, who is maybe because of his racial mixed background, be more use to nonthreatening ways to be approached and also being able to negotiate).

 Barack campagined for John Kerry



First, his mother and father divorced.
Second, read the way in which he as a biracial child grew up. With a mother who loved him, loved black people,
doesn't sound like she was a racists and taught him values that he carries with him.

IS RACE AN IMPEDIMENT TO SUCCESS? THE QUESTION OF THIS THREAD - if I read your answer correctly above, your clearly stating race is an issue for you.




YES this is very true. And what should happen is that Pastor should be removed.

Now, consider this, what if kermmie tells you I've been to different churches, listened to different pastors/preachers/priests. Does that make kermmie one of them for their mis-guided beliefs that they teach?
NO is the answer.

So we need to use a little more common sense when we see a crazy man which is what that Pastor is teaching crazy stuff and realize this IS going on in many churches, not just this church. The anger should be at getting rid of the pastor, not placing blame on the congregation, no matter who they are.


My memory is that he did give a press conference that he distanced himself with the Pastor's belief's.
Maybe the fact that he was loyal is not important to you, it is to me. So I saw it for what it was.


Hitler was a murderer.

HOWEVER

Obama has been compared to Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy.

Barack Obama gave the most moving Democratic speech at the 2004 Convention.

when asked about what it was like as a biracial child: "largely because of growing up in Hawaii, there wasn't that sense of sharp divisions. Now, by the time I was negotiating environments where therew were those kinds of sharp divisions, I was already confident enough to make my own decisions." (p.25 Barkley)



(one might consider Barack's ability to negotiate and compare that to the other candidates: Hillary covered up what she did at the Rose Law Firm by changing the law in Arkansas for non disclosure. She ran interference when Bill was caught with the White House intern, she made sure papers were shredded in the Travel Gate Scandal, etc. John McCain was a war hero and his ability to survive is very telling, however, would he negotiate with the Middle East or continue the Bush war? Something a voter needs to consider, in my humble opinion.)

Do not misconstrue my posts about Obama to mean I am voting for him.
I am a merely posting information so voters can make whatever choice their wise decision tells them to do.
That is what I intend to do and therefore, I want to base my choice on TRUTH, nothing else.

So I consider this a healthy debate to flesh out truthfulness with facts - nothing more.

respectfully,

ribbit

 ::MonkeyShocked::

Scarey!!

This Canadian cannot comprehend why Barack Obama's own words in AUDACITY OF HOPE AND DREAMS OF MY FATHER have not been used as a tool to warn Americans that the next president of the United States of America is a "wolf in sheep's clothing" ... is a racist who embraces a Marxist philosophy.

The Clinton and McCain campaigns are so politically correct that the enemies within are conquering using the rights and freedoms afforded by the democractic system as their weapons.

GOD BLESS AMERICA!
_________________
 

BARACK OBAMA - IN HIS OWN WORDS

Audacity of Hope: “Lolo (Obama’s step father) followed a brand of Islam ….” “I looked to Lolo for guidance”.
 
Dreams of my Father: “The person who made me proudest of all, though, was [half brother] Roy .. He converted to Islam.”
 
Dreams of my Father: “In Indonesia, I had spent two years at a Muslim school”
 
Dreams of my Father: “I Studied the Koran.”
 
Audacity of Hope: “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”
 
Dreams of My Father: “I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother’s race”.
 
Dreams of my Father: “The emotion between the races could never be pure….. the other race would always remain just that: menacing, alien, and apart.”
 
Dreams of my Father: “Any distinction between good and bad whites held negligible meaning.”
 
Dreams of My Father: “I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites”
 
Dreams Of My Father: “I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself..”.
 
Dreams of My Father: “That hate hadn’t gone away,” he wrote, blaming “white people — some cruel, some ignorant, sometimes a single face, sometimes just a faceless image of a system claiming power over our lives.”
 
Dreams of My Father: “There were enough of us on campus to constitute a tribe, and when it came to hanging out many of us chose to function like a tribe, staying close together, traveling in packs,” he wrote. “It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names”
 
Dreams of my Father: “Desperate times called for desperate measures, and for many blacks, times were chronically desperate. If nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self-respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence.”
 
Dreams of my Father: “To avoid being mistaken for a racial sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy.”
 
Dreams of my Father: “there was something about him that made me wary,” Obama wrote. “A little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.”
 
Dreams of my Father: “the reason black people keep to themselves is that it’s easier than spending all your time mad, or trying to guess whatever it was that white folks were thinking about you.”
 
Dreams of my Father: One line in Malcolm X’s autobiography “spoke” to Obama “it stayed with me,” he says. “He spoke of a wish he’d once had, the wish that the white blood that ran through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged.

On April 29, 2008 ... on National television ... Barack Obama lied to the American people and was not challenged by the media. He was not challenged by the McCain or Clinton campaign. Why?

Obama stated that he was unaware of the racist, anti-American ideology of his pastor, mentor and friend for the past twenty years. However ... in his own words in DREAMS OF MY FATHER ... Obama reveals that he knew exactly what Jeremiah Wright was all about from the getgo.
____________
 
Obama 'Appalled' By Ex-Pastor's Comments
Wright's Comments A 'Show Of Disrespect To Me'
UPDATED: 5:24 pm EDT April 29, 2008
 
Calling the Rev. Jeremiah Wright "not the same person I met 20 years ago," Sen. Barack Obama said Tuesday he was "appalled" by his former pastor's comments Monday at the National Press Club.
http://www.nbc10.com/politics/16060061/detail.html
 
 
Audacity of Barack Obama and Rev. Wright
March 18, 2008 01:00 PM EST
 
In Senator Obama's first book, titled Dreams of My Father and published in 1995 (after he had been elected president of the Harvard Law Review but before he had been elected to public office), Senator Obama wrote at length about Rev. Wright and his moving "Audacity of Hope" speech.
 
In Dreams, Senator Obama explained how he met Rev. Wright, whom he mentioned had been "dabbling with liquor, Islam, and black nationalism in the sixties."
 
He acknowledged that Rev. Wright immediately had given him fair warning that he was controversial, by quoting Rev. Wright as having said: "Some of my fellow clergy don't appreciate what we're about. They feel like we're too radical. Others, we aren't radical enough. Too emotional. Not emotional enough."
 
He also acknowledged that Rev. Wright let him know at their first meeting that he looked unfavorably on America and expected to continue to do so, by stating, "Life's not safe for a black man in this country, Barack. Never has been. Probably never will be."
 
Senator Obama left with one of Rev. Wright's "Black Value System" brochures.
 
When Senator Barack listened to Rev. Wright's "Audacity of Hope" sermon, September 11, 2001 was years away, but, Senator Obama admitted in Dreams, Rev. Wright castigated America.
 
Senator Obama put it this way: "Reverend Wright spoke of Sharpsville and Hiroshima, the callousness of policy makers in the White House and in the State House. As the sermon unfolded...the stories of strife became more prosaic, the pain more immediate...."
So it's hard to believe that Senator Obama was not familiar until very recently with Rev. Wright's position on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
 
It's even worse for Senator Obama and Rev. Wright.
In Obama: From Promise to Power, by the Chicago Tribune's David Mendell, Mr. Mendell relates (pp. 159-160) a meeting between Senator Obama and Rev. Wright when Senator Obama was deciding whether or not to run for the United States Senate:
 
"'My name should be out there,' Obama told his pastor. 'but Carol Moseley Braun won't say what's she's going to do, and I'm not gonna run against a black woman. If she's gonna run, then I'm out. Until she says yes or no, I can't say anything."
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/

Jeremiah Wright exposed Barack Obama for what he really is ... A WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING.
______________
 
Transcript: Rev. Jeremiah Wright speech to National Press Club
April 28, 2008
 
REV. WRIGHT: ... We both know that if Senator Obama did not say what he said, he would never get elected. Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls -- Huffington, whoever's doing the polls. Preachers say what they say because they are pastors. They have a different person to whom they're accountable.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-wrighttranscript-04282008,0,3593201.story?page=6
 
 
Obama: ‘I’m a Pretty Darned Good Politician’
by FOXNews.com
Wednesday, April 16, 2008

... I’m a pretty darn good politician. And I can give a pretty good speech and I can connect and inspire the American people in ways that I think will become apparent.
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/04/16/obama-im-a-pretty-darned-good-politician/
 
 
A More Perfect Union
Watch Barack's speech on race in America and building a more perfect union.
http://my.barackobama.com/hisownwords

Barack Obama may "talk the talk" to win the hearts and minds of the American people but ... he does not "walk the walk".
_____________
 
Sermons We See
Edgar Guest
 
I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day;
I’d rather one should walk with me than merely tell the way.
 
The eye’s a better pupil and more willing than the ear,
Fine counsel is confusing, but example’s always clear;
 
And the best of all the preachers are the men who live their creeds,
For to see good put in action is what everybody needs.
 
I soon can learn to do it if you’ll let me see it done;
I can watch your hands in action, but your tongue too fast may run.
 
And the lecture you deliver may be very wise and true,
But I’d rather get my lessons by observing what you do;
 
For I might misunderstand you and the high advise you give,
But there’s no misunderstanding how you act and how you live.
 
When I see a deed of kindness, I am eager to be kind.
When a weaker brother stumbles and a strong man stays behind
 
Just to see if he can help him, then the wish grows strong in me
To become as big and thoughtful as I know that friend to be.
 
And all travelers can witness that the best of guides today
Is not the one who tells them, but the one who shows the way.
 
One good man teaches many, men believe what they behold;
One deed of kindness noticed is worth forty that are told.
 
Who stands with men of honor learns to hold his honor dear,
For right living speaks a language which to every one is clear.
 
Though an able speaker charms me with his eloquence, I say,
I’d rather see a sermon than to hear one, any day.

Barack Obama may "talk the talk" to win the hearts and minds of the American people but ... he does not "walk the walk".
 
It is truly a frightening thought that a large segment of the American population just do not get it.
 
However ... it is a MORE frightening thought that a large segment of the American population DO GET IT! Think about it. When the message from the pulpit of many Black American churches is considered ... the message which embraces the ideology of James Cone ... the message that is embraced and applauded every Sunday morning by countless Americans ...
_____________
 
TRINITY UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST
 
"The vision statement of Trinity United Church of Christ is based upon the systematized liberation theology that started in 1969 with the publication of Dr. James Cone’s book, Black Power and Black Theology."
http://www.tucc.org/talking_points.htm
 
 
Black Theology & Black Power (Paperback)
 
First published in 1969, "Black Theology & Black Power" provided the first systematic presentation of black theology. Relating the militant struggle for liberation with the gospel message of salvation, James Cone laid the foundation for an original interpretation of Christianity that retains its urgency and challenge today.
http://www.amazon.ca/Black-Theology-Power-J-Cone/dp/1570751579
 

"Christ is black therefore not because of some cultural or psychological need of black people, but because and only because Christ really enters into our world where the poor were despised and the black are, disclosing that he is with them enduring humiliation and pain and transforming oppressed slaves into liberating servants." James Cone
 
"Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community ... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love." James Cone
 
"In the New Testament, Jesus is not for all, but for the oppressed, the poor and unwanted of society, and against oppressors ... Either God is for black people in their fight for liberation and against the white oppressors, or he is not." James Cone

Why is the GOP and the Clinton campaign strategists not exposing in the "company" that Obama keeps but ... the "company" that McCain keeps is fair game as a platform for Obama.

American voters must comprehend that the freedoms fought for by the founding Fathers is hanging in the balance.  Casting a ballot for Barack Obama is akin to conceding to a Maxist philosophy.  The implication ... the ememies from within are conquering by deceiving the uninformed and ... the enemies are not being challenged.
_________
 
THE RIGHT WING, FLAG WAVING "COMPANY" THAT MCCAIN KEEPS ...

Obama's Buddy List
By Guy Benson
Sunday, April 13, 2008
 
"John McCain is a good man. He's an American hero. We honor his service to the nation. But he's made some bad decisions about the company he keeps."  Barack Obama
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/GuyBenson/2008/04/13/obamas_buddy_list
 

THE MARXIST, ANTI-AMERICAN "COMPANY" THAT OBAMA KEEPS ...

BILL AYERS AND BERNADINE DOHRN
The Friends of Barack Obama, Part 1
April 22, 2008
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/04/020358.php
 
BILL AYERS AND BERNADINE DOHRN
The Friends of Barack Obama, Part 2
April 23, 2008
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/04/020362.php


THE RACIST, ANTI-AMERICAN "COMPANY" THAT OBAMA KEEPS ...

TRINITY UNTIED CHURCH OF CHRIST
"The vision statement of Trinity United Church of Christ is based upon the systematized liberation theology that started in 1969 with the publication of Dr. James Cone’s book, Black Power and Black Theology."
http://www.tucc.org/talking_points.htm

I believe that Barack Obama's words distancing Jeremiah Wright is all a campaign strategy ... a campaign strategy to deceive the American people into thinking that Obama and Wright are parting ways ... into thinking that Obama was a naive pawn for twenty years.
 
Why are the McCain and Clinton campaign strategists not exposing the deception?
 
Why are McCain and Clinton campaign strategists not exposing the other "company" Obama has kept for the past twenty years ... the "company" which adheres to an anti-American Marxist philosophy?

Why are these campaign strategists not exposing Barack Obama's racist, anti-American philosophy which he reveals in his own words within AUDICITY OF HOPE and DREAMS OF MY FATHER?
 
The politically correct silence gives this Canadian nightmares.

GOD BLESS AMERICA!
__________________
 
1. THE MARXIST ANTI-AMERICAN COMPANY HE KEEPS ...

BILL AYERS AND BERNADINE DOHRN
The Friends of Barack Obama, Part 1
April 22, 2008
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/04/020358.php
 
BILL AYERS AND BERNADINE DOHRN
The Friends of Barack Obama, Part 2
April 23, 2008
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/04/020362.php
 
 
2. THE RACIST PHILOSOPHY HE EMBRACES ...
 
Audacity of Hope: “Lolo (Obama’s step father) followed a brand of Islam ….” “I looked to Lolo for guidance”.
 
Dreams of my Father: “The person who made me proudest of all, though, was [half brother] Roy .. He converted to Islam.”
 
Dreams of my Father: “In Indonesia, I had spent two years at a Muslim school”
 
Dreams of my Father: “I Studied the Koran.”
 
Audacity of Hope: “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”

Dreams of My Father: “I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother’s race”.
 
Dreams of my Father: “The emotion between the races could never be pure….. the other race would always remain just that: menacing, alien, and apart.”
 
Dreams of my Father: “Any distinction between good and bad whites held negligible meaning.”
 
Dreams of My Father: “I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites”
 
Dreams Of My Father: “I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself..”
 
Dreams of My Father: “That hate hadn’t gone away,” he wrote, blaming “white people — some cruel, some ignorant, sometimes a single face, sometimes just a faceless image of a system claiming power over our lives.”

Dreams of My Father: “There were enough of us on campus to constitute a tribe, and when it came to hanging out many of us chose to function like a tribe, staying close together, traveling in packs,” he wrote. “It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names”
 
Dreams of my Father: “Desperate times called for desperate measures, and for many blacks, times were chronically desperate. If nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self-respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence.”


Dreams of my Father: “To avoid being mistaken for a racial sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy.”
 
Dreams of my Father: “there was something about him that made me wary,” Obama wrote. “A little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.”
 
Dreams of my Father: “the reason black people keep to themselves is that it’s easier than spending all your time mad, or trying to guess whatever it was that white folks were thinking about you.”
 
Dreams of my Father: One line in Malcolm X’s autobiography “spoke” to Obama “it stayed with me,” he says. “He spoke of a wish he’d once had, the wish that the white blood that ran through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged.”

AP

Yes, Race IS the issue. That's why all this fuss is being made over Obama.

Yes Louise ... race is the issue.  Barack Obama's racist ideology ... his racist ideology that is revealed in his own words in AUDACITY OF HOPE and DREAMS OF MY FATHER ... his racist ideology that is revealed in mission statement of the church is has attended for the past twenty years ... a mission statement based on the racist, anti-American philosophy of James Cone.

Janet

ABOLISH RELIGION AND DISARM THE PEOPLE -THE STATE IS SUPREME

KARL MARX

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people.
 
Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right
German economist & Communist political philosopher (1818 - 1883)


ADOLF HITLER

"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so. Indeed I would go so far as to say that the underdog is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty. So let's not have any native militia or police. German troops alone will bear the sole responsibility for the maintenance of law and order.

Adolf Hitler, April 11, 1942. (Source: "Hitler's Table-Talk at the Fuehrer's Headquarters 1941-1942", Dr. Henry Picker, ed. (Athenaeum Verlag, Bonn, 1951).)


BARACK OBAMA

Obama Draws Fire for Comments on Small-Town America
by FOXNews.com
Friday, April 11, 2008

“Our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives,” he said. “You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate and they have not.

“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/04/11/obama-draws-fire-for-comments-on-small-town-america/

the fact that obama is in comparison much more grilled about non-important distractions like decorational flag pins to name one says enough i think.
add to that every second blog on this site about him with occasionally the N-word appearing in the moderated comments - later removed most of the time - confirms it for me.

caesu ... I have never used the N word in my entire 61 years of life.

Race is not the issue with me ... it is Obama's racist ideology which he reveals in his own words in AUDACITY OF HOPE and DREAMS OF MY FATHER that concerns me.  It is Obama's longtime relationships with those who embrace a racist, Maxist philosophy and ... who launched Obama's political career that concerns me.

The color of a man/woman's skin is not the issue ... ideology and character is where it is at.

caesu ... I have been in an interracial marriage for almost 43 years ... my three beautiful children are mixed race.  All three take pride in both heritages they have been blessed with.  They embrace and are embraced by two extended families.  However ... above all they are proud Canadians who contribute to society as a whole. 

caesu ... if one of my grown children ever denounced one of their heritages as Barack Obama despicably did in his own words ... my hubby and I would be heartbroken.

If one of my grown children was a member of a church with a mission statement based on the racist ideology that reflected James Cone's philosophy ... my love would be a given but ... I could never uphold him/her in the company he/she were keeping and ... then the indoctrination of my grandchildren in a racist ideology ... it is too much to consider.

Janet

++++++++++++


BARACK OBAMA - IN HIS OWN WORDS

Audacity of Hope: “Lolo (Obama’s step father) followed a brand of Islam ….” “I looked to Lolo for guidance”.
 
Dreams of my Father: “The person who made me proudest of all, though, was [half brother] Roy .. He converted to Islam.”
 
Dreams of my Father: “In Indonesia, I had spent two years at a Muslim school”
 
Dreams of my Father: “I Studied the Koran.”
 
Audacity of Hope: “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”
 
Dreams of My Father: “I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother’s race”.
 
Dreams of my Father: “The emotion between the races could never be pure….. the other race would always remain just that: menacing, alien, and apart.”
 
Dreams of my Father: “Any distinction between good and bad whites held negligible meaning.”
 
Dreams of My Father: “I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites”
 
Dreams Of My Father: “I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself..”.
 
Dreams of My Father: “That hate hadn’t gone away,” he wrote, blaming “white people — some cruel, some ignorant, sometimes a single face, sometimes just a faceless image of a system claiming power over our lives.”
 
Dreams of My Father: “There were enough of us on campus to constitute a tribe, and when it came to hanging out many of us chose to function like a tribe, staying close together, traveling in packs,” he wrote. “It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names”
 
Dreams of my Father: “Desperate times called for desperate measures, and for many blacks, times were chronically desperate. If nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self-respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence.”
 
Dreams of my Father: “To avoid being mistaken for a racial sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy.”
 
Dreams of my Father: “there was something about him that made me wary,” Obama wrote. “A little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.”
 
Dreams of my Father: “the reason black people keep to themselves is that it’s easier than spending all your time mad, or trying to guess whatever it was that white folks were thinking about you.”
 
Dreams of my Father: One line in Malcolm X’s autobiography “spoke” to Obama “it stayed with me,” he says. “He spoke of a wish he’d once had, the wish that the white blood that ran through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged.

Thank you for posting this.

Amazing.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/portlandrallyvideo
75,000 people who joined Barack and his family for a rally in Portland, Oregon.

Barack Obama
On My Faith and My Church
March 14, 2008

BARACK: "Let me say at the outset that I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy. I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies. I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Rev. Wright that are at issue."

<snip>
The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation.

<snip>
because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community, where I married my wife and where my daughters were baptized, I did not think it appropriate to leave the church.

<snip>
I believe that Americans will judge me not on the basis of what someone else said, but on the basis of who I am and what I believe in; on my values, judgment and experience to be President of the United States.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barack-obama/on-my-faith-and-my-church_b_91623.html

(http://www.huffingtonpost.com//gadgets/slideshows/167/webpix//slide_167_2.jpeg)


(http://www.huffingtonpost.com//gadgets/slideshows/167/webpix//slide_167_4.jpeg)

It is important for the American people to decern whether the words spoken by the Barack Obama while compaigning for the highest office in the lands reflects the words and actions of the Barack Obama of the past twenty years.

Until Jeremiah Wright's racist, anti-American ideology was exposed in January, 2008 ... this man who Barack Obama referred to as a pastor/mentor/friend held a postion within the Obama campaign as a spiritual advisor.

Only then did Obama distance himself from Jeremiah Wright.

Janet

+++++++++++++

Transcript: Rev. Jeremiah Wright speech to National Press Club
April 28, 2008
 
REV. WRIGHT: ... We both know that if Senator Obama did not say what he said, he would never get elected.  Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls -- Huffington, whoever's doing the polls. Preachers say what they say because they are pastors. They have a different person to whom they're accountable.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-wrighttranscript-04282008,0,3593201.story?page=6
 
 
Obama: ‘I’m a Pretty Darned Good Politician’
by FOXNews.com
Wednesday, April 16, 2008

... I’m a pretty darn good politician. And I can give a pretty good speech and I can connect and inspire the American people in ways that I think will become apparent.
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/04/16/obama-im-a-pretty-darned-good-politician/

 ::MonkeyConfused::

In one statement Barack Obama claims he was in the dark for the past twenty years regarding Jeremiah Wrights racist, anti-American ideology and ... the other statement implies that he was aware but had his own person reasons for remaining in the church.

Janet

On April 29, 2008 ... on National television ... Barack Obama lied to the American people.

Obama stated that he was unaware of the racist, anti-American ideology of his pastor, mentor and friend for the past twenty years. However ... in his own words in DREAMS OF MY FATHER ... Obama reveals that he knew exactly what Jeremiah Wright was all about from the getgo.
____________
 
Obama 'Appalled' By Ex-Pastor's Comments
Wright's Comments A 'Show Of Disrespect To Me'
UPDATED: 5:24 pm EDT April 29, 2008
 
Calling the Rev. Jeremiah Wright "not the same person I met 20 years ago," Sen. Barack Obama said Tuesday he was "appalled" by his former pastor's comments Monday at the National Press Club.
http://www.nbc10.com/politics/16060061/detail.html


IN HIS OWN WORDS - DREAMS OF MY FATHER

Audacity of Barack Obama and Rev. Wright
March 18, 2008 01:00 PM EST
 
In Senator Obama's first book, titled Dreams of My Father and published in 1995 (after he had been elected president of the Harvard Law Review but before he had been elected to public office), Senator Obama wrote at length about Rev. Wright and his moving "Audacity of Hope" speech.
 
In Dreams, Senator Obama explained how he met Rev. Wright[, whom he mentioned had been "dabbling with liquor, Islam, and black nationalism in the sixties."
 
He acknowledged that Rev. Wright immediately had given him fair warning that he was controversial, by quoting Rev. Wright as having said: "Some of my fellow clergy don't appreciate what we're about. They feel like we're too radical. Others, we aren't radical enough. Too emotional. Not emotional enough."
 
He also acknowledged that Rev. Wright let him know at their first meeting that he looked unfavorably on America and expected to continue to do so, by stating, "Life's not safe for a black man in this country, Barack. Never has been. Probably never will be."
 
Senator Obama left with one of Rev. Wright's "Black Value System" brochures.

When Senator Barack listened to Rev. Wright's "Audacity of Hope" sermon, September 11, 2001 was years away, but, Senator Obama admitted in Dreams, Rev. Wright castigated America.
 
Senator Obama put it this way: "Reverend Wright spoke of Sharpsville and Hiroshima, the callousness of policy makers in the White House and in the State House. As the sermon unfolded...the stories of strife became more prosaic, the pain more immediate...."
So it's hard to believe that Senator Obama was not familiar until very recently with Rev. Wright's position on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
 
It's even worse for Senator Obama and Rev. Wright.
In Obama: From Promise to Power, by the Chicago Tribune's David Mendell, Mr. Mendell relates (pp. 159-160) a meeting between Senator Obama and Rev. Wright when Senator Obama was deciding whether or not to run for the United States Senate:
 
"'My name should be out there,' Obama told his pastor. 'but Carol Moseley Braun won't say what's she's going to do, and I'm not gonna run against a black woman. If she's gonna run, then I'm out. Until she says yes or no, I can't say anything."
http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/

Yes Louise ... sadly ... race is the issue. 

According to Michelle Obama in her own words ... American is not the issue ... Black and White is the issue.
 
Janet

++++++++++


Michelle Obama thesis was on racial divide
By JEFFREY RESSNER | 2/22/08 4:20 PM EST Updated: 2/23/08 9:51 AM EST
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8642.html
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8642_Page2.html


Thesis:
PRINCETON - EDUCATED BLACKS AND THE BLACK COMMUNITY

Part 1:
http://www.politico.com/pdf/080222_MOPrincetonThesis_1-251.pdf

Part 2:
http://www.politico.com/pdf/080222_MOPrincetonThesis_26-501.pdf

Part 3:
http://www.politico.com/pdf/080222_MOPrincetonThesis_51-751.pdf

Part 4:
http://dyn.politico.com/pdf/080222_MOPrincetonThesis_76-981.pdf

Thesis:
PRINCETON - EDUCATED BLACKS AND THE BLACK COMMUNITY
Michelle LaVaughn Robinson (Obama)

“There was no doubt in my mind that as a member of the black community, I am obligated to this community and will utilize all of my present and future resources to benefit the black community first and foremost.”[/i]

I did not know that Mrs. Obama was such an altruistic young woman.  How many with her education went on to have fancy Wall Street or corporate jobs, yet she was determined to work with the underpriviledged.  Bless her, we need more like this.  Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Sorry . . . that should read "underprivileged"

The underprivilege include AMERICANS of all colors.  All H--- would break loose if the spouse of either McCain or Clinton would to state:

“There was no doubt in my mind that as a member of the WHITE   community, I am obligated to this community and will utilize all of my present and future resources to benefit the WHITE community first and foremost.

So she focused on a particular group.  So do those who work with Native American, or AIDS patients. Some might say that working with any needy group helps society as a whole. She chose to use her gifts to help those less privileged.  That's a ministry  ::MonkeyDance::  Sounds to me like someone whose heart is in the right place.  And what is the point of dragging Mrs. Obama's college thesis into the presidential election debate?

I am positive that the college thesis written by Clinton or McCain spouse would be dragged into the presidential election if it contain the following words.

Janet

++++++++++++++

“There was no doubt in my mind that as a member of the WHITE   community, I am obligated to this community and will utilize all of my present and future resources to benefit the WHITE community FIRST AND FOREMOST."

... and then when Michelle's own words are considered along with he husband's own words in DREAMS OF MY FATHER and AUDICITY OF HOPE ....

Believe me ... if the words were reversed Clinton or McCain candidacy for the highest postion in the land would be history.  The AMERICAN people would not tolerate it.  Tamikosmom included.

The politically correct double standard is nothing short of racism.

Janet 

+++++++++

BARACK OBAMA - IN HIS OWN WORDS

Audacity of Hope: “Lolo (Obama’s step father) followed a brand of Islam ….” “I looked to Lolo for guidance”.
 
Dreams of my Father: “The person who made me proudest of all, though, was [half brother] Roy .. He converted to Islam.”
 
Dreams of my Father: “In Indonesia, I had spent two years at a Muslim school”
 
Dreams of my Father: “I Studied the Koran.”
 
Audacity of Hope: “I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”
 
Dreams of My Father: “I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother’s race”.
 
Dreams of my Father: “The emotion between the races could never be pure….. the other race would always remain just that: menacing, alien, and apart.”
 
Dreams of my Father: “Any distinction between good and bad whites held negligible meaning.”
 
Dreams of My Father: “I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites”
 
Dreams Of My Father: “I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself..”.
 
Dreams of My Father: “That hate hadn’t gone away,” he wrote, blaming “white people — some cruel, some ignorant, sometimes a single face, sometimes just a faceless image of a system claiming power over our lives.”
 
Dreams of My Father: “There were enough of us on campus to constitute a tribe, and when it came to hanging out many of us chose to function like a tribe, staying close together, traveling in packs,” he wrote. “It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names”
 
Dreams of my Father: “Desperate times called for desperate measures, and for many blacks, times were chronically desperate. If nationalism could create a strong and effective insularity, deliver on its promise of self-respect, then the hurt it might cause well-meaning whites, or the inner turmoil it caused people like me, would be of little consequence.”
 
Dreams of my Father: “To avoid being mistaken for a racial sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy.”
 
Dreams of my Father: “there was something about him that made me wary,” Obama wrote. “A little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.”
 
Dreams of my Father: “the reason black people keep to themselves is that it’s easier than spending all your time mad, or trying to guess whatever it was that white folks were thinking about you.”
 
Dreams of my Father: One line in Malcolm X’s autobiography “spoke” to Obama “it stayed with me,” he says. “He spoke of a wish he’d once had, the wish that the white blood that ran through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged.

And I would ask the same thing, why is the spouse's thesis being dragged into this?  What is the purpose of education?  Indoctrination, or exploration?  College students read widely and are exposed to many ideas that are not mainstream or conservative. In my opinion only, we should all be reading that widely.

As far as working for or promoting the black communnity, God knows, this is a community in crisis.  So I applaud those who are not overwhelmed by the problems but idealistic enough to try to help.  Those who get in there and try to keep kids in school, families together, and turn kids away from drugs, gangs and violence are heroes in my book.  You may call it racism, but I call it something else.

Anyone who works for the benefit of an underpriviliged group works for the benefit of all society, Tamiko's, not just the benefit of that particular group or white society. 

This morning on CNN ... a political stategist has determined that a McCain win in the presidential election is a given if Barack Obama wins the Democractic leadership.

A random poll indicated that the majority of Clinton supporters would cast their ballot for McCain.

However ... if Clinton were to win the nomination ... the majority of Obama supporters would cast their default ballot for Clinton in the presidential election.

So ... based on the above logic ... this right-wing Canadian ******* believes that an Obama victory over Clinton is a very good thing.

I cannot believe I just said that!

 ::MonkeyShocked::

Janet

A's Fever

I respectfully ask if you read Barack Obama's own words from DREAMS OF MY FATHER and AUDICITY OF HOPE which I posted above.  I mean REALLY read them.

Personally ... I found them very troubling when I consider that the author of these words is running for the president of what is perceived by many as the greatest democracy on the face of the earth.

Janet

About that 75,000 strong Obama rally …

Everything does not always seem as it appears, especially when politics are involved. Politicians would give away a free toaster if they thought it would attrack people to an event to make it look impressive. The same thing was done with the Global warming concerts. People were not their for the propaganda, they were there for the music.

Granted Obama can draw a crowd, its too bad the media cannot be honest about it. After all, Obama drew a supposed 75K and we are supposed to believe they all voted for Obama, or were voting age ... yet somehow Hillary Clinton beat Obama by 250,000 votes in KY. Where were the pics of her big crowds?

Oh those crazy bias medis folk.

http://sistertoldjah.com/archives/2008/05/21/about-that-75000-strong-obama-rally/

The buzz of the week earlier this week was the mainstream media’s news reports of how Barack Obama had a rally in Oregon that drew 75,000 people. It was an impressive story, but left out of most reports was the following information from Oregon Live about what else was going on at Portland’s Waterfront Park this past Sunday:

Obama was the biggest star at Sunday’s gathering — though a popular Portland band, The Decemberists, provided the warmup act. With blue skies and temperatures in the 80s, many in the crowd said Waterfront Park was simply the place to be.
Can The Decemberists draw large crowds? Jim Geraghty provides the answer:

Looks like the Decemberists can pack them in for free concerts. In a show in Millennium Park in Chicago, one review said 10,000; a diary by one of the band members speculates 20,000. Again, Obama has shown time and again that he can pack crowds into arenas, and he can take pride in the 75,000+ that showed up Sunday. But a free concert by local stars helps…

Red ... do your think that maybe ... just maybe ... this Canadian granny has the stuff that could contribute to the cause of drawing the crowds to the next Republican rally.

GOD BLESS AMERICA!

Janet

++++++++++


(http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j120/Bearlyhere/dancinggrandma.gif)

                     God help us if he gets elected...
>
>
>
> Obama: Stealth Socialist?
>
>
> By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, May 16, 2008 4:30 PM PT
>
> Election 2008: After his blowout win in North Carolina, Barack Obama crowed
> that it's time "to perfect this nation." What does that mean? He won't say -
> perhaps for good reason.
>
> _____
>
> _____
>
> As this long primary season drags on, the presumed Democratic nominee for
> president still won't bring his vision for "change" into focus. He continues
> to speak in glittering generalities, providing few details.
>
> The reticence, combined with Obama's radical ties, begs the question: Is he
> hiding an un-American agenda?
>
> We know his longtime mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, detests America and
> its capitalist system, viewing it as unjust, oppressive and enslaving to
> minorities. He and his fellow travelers think they have in Obama the perfect
> candidate to remake America into a self-loathing dispenser of apologetic
> largesse to victim groups at home and Marxist regimes abroad.
>
> Key among these is reverend-turned-professor James Cone, who believes
> merging Marxism with the Gospel will liberate African-Americans from the
> supposed economic slavery of "white" capitalism. "Together," he says, "black
> religion and Marxist philosophy may show us the way to build a completely
> new society."
>
> Cone is the mentor of Obama's mentor, Wright. Wright adopted Cone's "black
> liberation theology" as his church's core doctrine. According to Cone, the
> reverend "is really the one who took it from my books and brought it to the
> church."
>
> Cone's books are required reading at Chicago's Trinity United Church of
> Christ, where Obama has worshiped for the past 20 years. Trinity instituted
> the theology and its attendant "black value system" a full decade before
> Obama formally pledged membership in 1991.
>
> Cone describes black liberation theology as "a faith that does justice," a
> concept embraced by Obama, who's even argued that "racial justice" cannot be
> achieved without "economic justice."
>
> According to the theology, divine justice will come when black Jesus
> (Obama's church believes Christ was black) grants African-Americans the
> power to permanently destroy "white greed" and white institutions and
> replace them with their own "black value system."
>
> Cone writes that "black theology will accept only the love of God which
> participates in the destruction of the white enemy" and all its
> institutions.
>
> Trinity demands its members pledge allegiance instead to "black
> institutions" and "black leadership," and patronize black-only businesses.
> Obama himself has said America's institutions are "broken" and need to be
> "fixed."
>
> Obama has recently tried to distance himself from his crackpot pastor, but
> he hasn't disavowed any part of the Marxist pseudo faith that embodies
> everything Wright has preached. He refuses to respond to even written
> questions about Cone and black liberation theology.
>
> His campaign last year confirmed the doctrine is included in new-member
> packets provided by the church, and is taught in new-member classes. Both
> Obama and his wife have attended these classes, so it stands to reason they
> have been indoctrinated into the radical theology.
>
> And Obama in his first book defended black liberation theology as sensible,
> and has even called his tutelage under Wright "the best education I ever
> had."
>
> These days Obama has another term for his Afrocentric theology: the "social
> gospel." "Rev. Wright's sermons spoke directly to the social gospel," he has
> said, "and I found that very attractive."
>
> Wright says his sermons are inspired by Cone's books, the contents of which
> should repulse every patriotic American, white or black. "To be black is to
> be committed to destroying everything this country loves and adores," Cone
> writes.
>
> That Marxist commitment to revolution doesn't stop at the water's edge.
> Obama's church in the 1980s rallied to the cause of communist regimes in
> America's backyard - from Cuba to Grenada to Nicaragua - while downplaying
> the threat posed by the Soviet Union.
>
> >From his pulpit, Wright whitewashed the brutality of the Sandinista junta
> and condemned the U.S. for backing the contra freedom fighters.
>
> "Our congregation stood in solidarity with the peasants in El Salvador and
> Nicaragua while our government was supporting the contras, who were killing
> peasants in those two countries," Wright recently thundered.
>
> The black liberation theology adopted by his church is "very similar,"
> Wright says, to the "liberation theology" espoused by the Marxist
> revolutionaries whom the contras fought in Nicaragua.
>
> Wright also condemned as "terrorism" the U.S. invasion of Grenada to oust a
> budding militant Marxist regime. "We bombed Grenada and killed innocent
> civilians, babies," Wright claimed.
>
> Does Obama intend to carry on that tradition of appeasing socialist despots
> in our hemisphere, starting with Raul Castro and Hugo Chavez? Nicaraguan
> leader Daniel Ortega will no doubt also find support. The Marxist thug has
> already endorsed Obama's campaign as "revolutionary."
>
> While Obama has refused to wear a flag pin or stand with respect during the
> national anthem, he certainly doesn't look or speak the part of an angry
> anti-American race revolutionist. But appearances may be deceiving. His
> positions often align with black liberation theology.
>
> "I don't see anything in (Obama's) books or in the (Philadelphia race)
> speech that contradicts black liberation theology," Cone recently remarked.
> Obama has just sanded over the "radical edge to it," he said.
>
> Does Obama speak in a code recognizable to fellow travelers but not to most
> voters, who would be frightened off by a radical agenda? "If you're black,
> it's hard to say what you truly think and not upset white people," Cone
> said.
>
> Obama has learned a trick, however, to put them at ease: "smile" and act
> "well mannered." And don't "seem angry" or make any "sudden moves," as he
> shared in his first book, "Dreams From My Father."
>
> Also, talk about "hope" without saying what exactly it is you're hoping for.
> Tellingly, Cone writes a good deal about "hope theology" - which "places the
> Marxist emphasis on action and change in the Christian context (and) is
> compatible with black theology's concerns."
>
> Likewise, Obama has suggested he'd use his faith as "an active, palpable
> agent in the world," and a source of "hope" in overcoming "economic
> injustice."
>
> "I still believe in the power of the African-American religious tradition to
> spur social change," Obama said in a 2006 speech to the Washington-based
> socialist group, Call to Renewal.
>
> Speaking of black revolution, Cone in his memoir said, "Hope is the
> expectation of that which is not. It is the belief that the impossible is
> possible, the 'not yet' is coming in history."
>
> Here's Obama in his 2004 DNC convention speech: "Hope in the face of
> difficulty, hope in the face of uncertainty, the audacity of hope! In the
> end, a belief in things not seen, a belief that there are better days
> ahead."
>
> In his 1969 book, "Black Theology and Black Power," which Trinity uses as a
> second bible, Cone said: "When we look at what whiteness has done to the
> minds of men in this country, we can see clearly what the New Testament
> meant when it spoke of the principalities and powers."
>
> Here's Obama, in his 2006 "Call to Renewal" speech: "The black church
> understands in an intimate way the biblical call to feed the hungry and
> clothe the naked, and challenge powers and principalities."
>
> Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam, says Obama has been "very
> careful" to avoid the path of failed presidential hopefuls Jesse Jackson and
> Al Sharpton, who openly militated for black causes. "He has been groomed,
> wisely so, to be seen as a unifier, rather than one who speaks only for the
> hurt of black people," Farrakhan said.
>
> When Obama marched on Washington with Farrakhan last decade, he said blacks
> turn to "black nationalism whenever we have a sense, as we do now, that
> white Americans couldn't care less about the profound problems
> African-Americans are facing."
>
> He added they have to be smart about how they protest and go about reforming
> the system. "Cursing out white folks is not going to get the job done," he
> said. "We've got some hard nuts-and-bolts organizing and planning to do."
>
> His mild-mannered style has thrown off even some angry black radicals, who
> want him to speak out more forcefully about the legacy of U.S. racism and
> economic inequality.
>
> One is Princeton professor Cornel West, a militant black and self-described
> socialist. Reportedly, West was reluctant to join the refined Obama's
> presidential campaign until Obama took him aside and explained to him that
> he had to walk a rhetorical tightrope to reassure whites. West is now
> solidly on board his campaign as an adviser.
>
> West, along with Wright and Cone, has argued for reparations for blacks.
> Obama seemed to sow the grounds for such a case in his Philadelphia speech.
>
> "So many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community
> today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier
> generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow,"
> he said. "We still haven't fixed them."
>
> He added, "That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between
> black and white."
>
> Trinity's mission statement calls for "economic parity." Such
> anti-capitalist views are reflected in Obama's rhetoric and proposals.
>
> Rated the most liberal member in the Senate, Obama wants to soak the most
> productive members of society and subsidize those who are not. He wants to
> hit small businesses and big corporations alike with major tax hikes -
> singling out for special rebuke oil producers and "Wall Street predators"
> who have "tricked" blacks out of their homes. At the same time, he plans to
> expand the welfare state with massive increases in domestic spending.
>
> "We have more work to do," he told black graduates at Howard University last
> September. "It's time to seek a new dawn of justice in America. . . . We can
> right wrongs we see in America."
>
> Cone says he wants to see a "new system" in America "in which people have
> the distribution of wealth." He adds, "I don't know how quite to do that
> institutionally."
>
> Enter a Harvard-educated lawyer and Southside Chicago-trained community
> organizer who has a real shot at institutional power. As Obama promised
> black graduates at Hampton University last June, "We're going to usher in a
> new America."
>
> Sounds like a Trojan horse. Will traditional America let it in?
>
>
>
>
>
>
 
   

all out of context, or fake/mis quoted.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/thormadsen/gGBfQV

don't assume to have read a book by only taking some quotes out of context.

Viral e-mails attack Obama’s life story
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10546.html

i actually think hillary is doing obama a great service in a way by letting the primaries go on for so long.

now most of mud slinging is already done and over with by the time the GE campaign begins.
and then the GOP doesn't have much more mud to sling.

of course same old misinformation like abovementioned out of context or fake book-quotes will pop up again but then the campaign only has to remind that it is a recycled attack and already debunked.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/thormadsen/gGBfQV

I challenge Thor to use Barack Obama's original 1996 edition of DREAMS OF MY FATHER for comparison ... not revised editions since entering politics ... the latest being 2007.

Janet

revised or not. quotes / one-liners like that are out of context i think.

if you can post surrounding text of the quote were you think changes are made.
so i can compare with my book here.

caesu

It must realized that when the original 1995 printing of his book DREAMS OF MY FATHER was published ... Barack Obama had already been associated with Jeremiah Wright for many years.

In DREAMS OF MY FATHER ... Obama acknowledges that he knew from the getgo that Jeremiah Wright was controversial in regards to his anti-American position.

In DREAMS OF MY FATHER ... Obama acknowledges that he was informed at the getgo of James Cone's "Black Theology" which formed the foundation of the ministry at Trinity United.

Nevertheless ... Obama joined the congregation at Trinity United and stayed for twenty years.  Jeremiah Wright was afforded the honor of officiating at Obama's marriage as well as the baptism of his beautiful daughters.  Obama afforded Wright a position in his campaign as spiritual advisor.  He claims it was Wright's speech AUDICITY OF HOPE that was inspire his book by the same name. 

I realize that people's hearts change in regards to ideology but there must be evidence in the life of a presidential candidate through words and deed prior to his campaign that a change had indeed taken place.

caesu ... it was not until January, 2008 during his campaign that Obama distanced himself from Wright and Trinity United.  Only when the media exposed the rantings of Wright did Obama distance himself from a twenty year association and ... then lied to the American people when he claimed that he did was unaware of the "real" Jeremiah Wright.

I want to make it clear ... it is deception that I hate.  If Barack Obama ran as a candidate who adheres to a Marxist philosophy ... so be it.  However ... a "wolf in sheep's clothing" implies that many Americans will be casting an uninformed vote regarding their candidate of chose.

Janet

++++++++++++++++

The Audacity of Barack Obama and Rev. Wright
By Michael J. Gaynor
MichNews.com
Mar 17, 2008

<snipped>

In Senator Obama's first book, titled Dreams of My Father and published in 1995 (after he had been elected president of the Harvard Law Review but before he had been elected to public office), Senator Obama wrote at length about Rev. Wright and his moving "Audacity of Hope" speech.

In Dreams, Senator Obama explained how he met Rev. Wright, whom he mentioned had been "dabbling with liquor, Islam, and black nationalism in the sixties."

He acknowledged that Rev. Wright immediately had given him fair warning that he was controversial, by quoting Rev. Wright as having said: "Some of my fellow clergy don't appreciate what we're about. They feel like we're too radical. Others, we aren't radical enough. Too emotional. Not emotional enough."

He also acknowledged that Rev. Wright let him know at their first meeting that he looked unfavorably on America and expected to continue to do so, by stating, "Life's not safe for a black man in this country, Barack. Never has been. Probably never will be."

Senator Obama left with one of Rev. Wright's "Black Value System" brochures.  
When Senator Barack listened to Rev. Wright's "Audacity of Hope" sermon, September 11, 2001 was years away, but, Senator Obama admitted in Dreams, Rev. Wright castigated America.

Senator Obama put it this way: "Reverend Wright spoke of Sharpsville and Hiroshima, the callousness of policy makers in the White House and in the State House. As the sermon unfolded...the stories of strife became more prosaic, the pain more immediate...."

So it's hard to believe that Senator Obama was not familiar until very recently with Rev. Wright's position on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

<snipped>

More:

http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_19713.shtml

caesu

Are you aware what theology the foundation of the ministry of Jeremiah Wright at Trinity United is based on.  The ministry adheres to the "Black Theology" writings of James Cone who embraces a racist Marxist theology.

Barack Obama joined this congregation ... a congregation who applauds the anti-American racist messages of Jeremiah Wright every Sunday.  According to his own words in DREAMS OF MY FATHER (1995) ... Obama shares that from his first meeting with Jeremiah Wright he was warned about the controversial issues which Wright stood for and ... he was introduced to the writings of James Cone.  Nevertheless ... Obama chose Trinity United as his church ... remained faithful for twenty years and ... financially supported this institution in 2007 to the tune of $27,000.

Then there is the Maxist company he has kept for the past twenty years and ... then there is the endorsement from the leader of the Nation of Islam.

caesu ... are you not concerned?  My youngest son's Dutch American inlaws certainly are.

Janet

________________

TRINITY UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST
 
"The vision statement of Trinity United Church of Christ is based upon the systematized liberation theology that started in 1969 with the publication of Dr. James Cone’s book, Black Power and Black Theology."  
http://www.tucc.org/talking_points.htm
 
 
Black Theology & Black Power (Paperback)
 
First published in 1969, "Black Theology & Black Power" provided the first systematic presentation of black theology. Relating the militant struggle for liberation with the gospel message of salvation, James Cone laid the foundation for an original interpretation of Christianity that retains its urgency and challenge today.

http://www.amazon.ca/Black-Theology-Power-J-Cone/dp/1570751579
 

"Christ is black therefore not because of some cultural or psychological need of black people, but because and only because Christ really enters into our world where the poor were despised and the black are, disclosing that he is with them enduring humiliation and pain and transforming oppressed slaves into liberating servants." James Cone
 
"Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community ... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love." James Cone
 
"In the New Testament, Jesus is not for all, but for the oppressed, the poor and unwanted of society, and against oppressors ... Either God is for black people in their fight for liberation and against the white oppressors, or he is not." James Cone

those who are quick to attack black theology, reverend wright and prof. cone have little ability to understand challenges endured in the past by black americans.
this theology is about bringing oppressed people out of misery they have had to endure and to tell the truth about their former oppressors.
to understand this requires empathy.
and that takes effort and some understanding and some compassion.

by the way mccain just rejected reverend hagee endorsement which he actively sought.

it's good that both mccain and obama have dumped these reverends.
keep theology including black theology in the church not in politics.

endorsements by reverends or other religious leaders should be not accepted by default in my opinion.

The difference ...

HAGEE

McCain never had a relationship with Hagee.  He merely accepted the endorsement from a Christian leader.  When confronted with a controversial message from 1990 by Hagee ... McCain declined the endorsement.


WRIGHT

Obama attended Wright's church for over twenty years.  Obama referred to Wright as a pastor/mentor/friend. Obama shared in DREAMS OF MY FATHER that he was aware from his first meeting with Wright the he held controversial views regarding America and race.  Obama shares in DREAMS OF MY FATHER that at that first meeting with Wright he obtain literature on the racism Marxist ideology of James Cone ... author of "Black Theology" ... author whose writing formed the foundation of the ministry at Trinity United.

Janet

caesu ... there is no justification ... this not the past.  The fact that Barack Obama is running for President of one of the greatest democracies on the face of the earth is proof.

Anyways ... I do believe that James Cone's "Black Theology" goes way beyond equal opportunity for Blacks ... it advocates the destruction of the White race.

For twenty years ... Obama sat in the pews of a church where James Cone's racist marxist "Black Theology" was preached by Wright and applauded by the congregation.

It is too much to comprehend ... this "wolf in sheep's clothing" could very well be the next President of the United States of America.

GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!

Janet

++++++++++++


TRINITY UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST
 
"The vision statement of Trinity United Church of Christ is based upon the systematized liberation theology that started in 1969 with the publication of Dr. James Cone’s book, Black Power and Black Theology."

http://www.tucc.org/talking_points.htm

 
Black Theology & Black Power (Paperback)
 
First published in 1969, "Black Theology & Black Power" provided the first systematic presentation of black theology. Relating the militant struggle for liberation with the gospel message of salvation, James Cone laid the foundation for an original interpretation of Christianity that retains its urgency and challenge today.

http://www.amazon.ca/Black-Theology-Power-J-Cone/dp/1570751579

 
"Christ is black therefore not because of some cultural or psychological need of black people, but because and only because Christ really enters into our world where the poor were despised and the black are, disclosing that he is with them enduring humiliation and pain and transforming oppressed slaves into liberating servants." James Cone
 
"Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community ... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love." James Cone

"In the New Testament, Jesus is not for all, but for the oppressed, the poor and unwanted of society, and against oppressors ... Either God is for black people in their fight for liberation and against the white oppressors, or he is not." James Cone

When I look at the young faces in my family, I see a rainbow.  The rainbow is there when I go to work every day, and when I go to services on the weekend.

Are any of the colors in the rainbow ever separate from the rest?

What is the future of any community? 

A rainbow.

 ::MonkeyCool::

Thank you Whiskeygirl.

Janet

Kermit

The polls are closed in Kentucky and votes are being counted in Oregon, and it's clear that tonight we have reached a major milestone on this journey.

We have won an absolute majority of all the delegates chosen by the people in this Democratic primary process.

From the beginning, this journey wasn't about me or the other candidates. It was about a simple choice -- will we continue down the same road with the same leadership that has failed us for so long, or will we take a different path?

Too many of us have been disappointed by politics and politicians more times than you can count. We've seen promises broken and good ideas drowned in a sea of influence, point-scoring, and petty bickering that has consumed Washington.

Yet, in spite of all the doubt and disappointment -- or perhaps because of it -- people have stood for change.

Unfortunately, our opponents in the other party continue to embrace yesterday's policies and they will continue to employ yesterday's tactics -- they will try to change the subject, and they will play on fears and divisions to distract us from what matters to you and your future.

But those tactics will not work in this election.

They won't work because you won't let them.

Not this time. Not this year.

We still have work to do to in the remaining states, where we will compete for every delegate available.

But tonight, I want to thank you for everything you have done to take us this far -- farther than anyone predicted, expected, or even believed possible.

And I want to remind you that you will make all the difference in the epic challenge ahead.

Thank you,

Barack Obama

of course there is a big difference. anyone can see that.
but mccain actively sought hagee's endorsement.
he should have known hagee is an "agent of intolerance" before he said that he "is proud to get his endorsement".
hagee's anti-semitic/gay/catholic opinions are well known.

so bad judgement from mccain to seek that endorsement.

and mccain just dumped another pastor's endorsement, rod parsley.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080523/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_pastor

i think this is a good thing.
it's only a distraction those endorsing reverends.

i think this should be seen in the right context and more importantly in the right timeframe.
for the majority of the time the US exists there was a lot of oppression against one race.
finally in the 60s the civil right acts in brought an end to that.
of course people will try to organise and fight if they are being oppressed.
that's also what happened in the war of independence.

but now that's not much of an issue anymore.
if there was oppression, obama wouldn't have been the presumptive nominee (imo he is, hillary is just in denial  ::MonkeyCool:: )

I agree with you about endorsements from any leader with a following.  Each member of any organization or group should make his/her own personal choice regarding the candidate who is running for office.

However ... I believe it is crucial that each voter check out the character/ lifestyle/ beliefs/ positions of his/her candidate of choice prior to casting that ballot.  The voter must not be taken in by a "wolf in sheep's clothing" who uses deception in order to assure a victory at the polls.  The candidate's words and actions throughout the campaign must reflect the words and actions of the candidate prior to the campaign.

In this endeavor ... the organizations that the candidate is affiliated with and the ... company that he associates with are excellent indicators.  Then ... a little reading of books he/she has authored as well as articles, commentaries and speech transcripts can also provide insight into the candidate's genuine belief system.

In other words ... the voter must be informed prior to casting that ballot which is instrumental in what direction the "change" the candidate promises will take the country.

Janet

++++++++++++


Transcript: Rev. Jeremiah Wright speech to National Press Club
April 28, 2008
 
REV. WRIGHT: ... We both know that if Senator Obama did not say what he said, he would never get elected.  Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls -- Huffington, whoever's doing the polls. Preachers say what they say because they are pastors. They have a different person to whom they're accountable.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-wrighttranscript-04282008,0,3593201.story?page=6
 
 
Obama: ‘I’m a Pretty Darned Good Politician’
by FOXNews.com
Wednesday, April 16, 2008

... I’m a pretty darn good politician. And I can give a pretty good speech and I can connect and inspire the American people in ways that I think will become apparent.

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/04/16/obama-im-a-pretty-darned-good-politician/

Good Night caesu.

 ::MonkeyCool::

Janet

Dear Abby:
    My husband is a liar and a cheat. He has cheated on me from the beginning, and, when I confront him, he denies everything. What's worse, everyone knows that he cheats on me. It is so humiliating. Also, since he lost his job six years ago, he hasn't even looked for a new one. All he does all day is smoke cigars, cruise around and bullshit with his buddies while I have to work to pay the bills. Since our daughter went away to college he doesn't even pretend to like me and hints that I may be a lesbian. What should I do?
    Signed: Clueless


    Dear Clueless:
    Grow up and dump him. Good grief, woman. You don't need him anymore! You're a United States Senator from New York running for President of the United States. Act like one.

https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/newgeneration?source=20080130_EMK_ND1_X_PS_G
Video
Caroline Kennedy endorses Obama

(http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/5287/tedkennedyendorsesobamauq2.jpg)
Senator Ted Kennedy endorses Barack Obama

*** Christ is black therefore not because of some cultural or psychological need of black people, but because and only because Christ really enters into our world where the poor were despised and the black are, disclosing that he is with them enduring humiliation and pain and transforming oppressed slaves into liberating servants." James Cone
 
"Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community ... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love." James Cone

"In the New Testament, Jesus is not for all, but for the oppressed, the poor and unwanted of society, and against oppressors ... Either God is for black people in their fight for liberation and against the white oppressors, or he is not." James Cone


  *** Christ, is not the name of the Messiah, Jesus nor the surname of Jesus of Nazareth of the House of David.....   It is a Greek word, given to Jesus, several centuries after his death...it's meaning, as far as I can comprehend, is something akin to Saviour, Messiah!!    So, let us speak correctly of Jesus, the Lord, the Saviour, the Messiah, the one and only Son of God and God Himself!!

      Who knows what Race, Religion or Sex Jesus is, was or will return as, it matters not.....Jesus, the Lord, the Redeemer of all who follow Goodness, comes NOT for one group or another....Jesus my Lord, my God, my Redeemer, made us ALL and comes for us All!!!!

[/color][/b]

Barack Obama does not get it or ... he does.

Rush Limbaugh and Lou Dobbs (CNN) speak out against "illegal" immigration and ... Obama makes it a race issue.  Rather than undermining Limbaugh and Dobbs ... Obama should be upholding these talk show hosts in their contention that "ALL" immgrants should be entering the United States through the proper channels.  Homeland Security demands it.  Fairness demands it.

My husband's cousin's son in Japan had been waiting four years to get that coveted stamp on his papers for entry into the United States of America to join extended family members in Virginia.  Yet Barack Obama dares to imply that Limbaugh and Dobbs are racists because they speak out against those who enter the country by the "back door".

GMAB

Janet

++++++++++++


Obama collects another $500,000, slams Limbaugh
By Michael C. Bender | Friday, May 23, 2008, 07:15 AM

More than 800 donors packed into a Westin Diplomat Hotel ballroom Thursday night to pad Barack Obama’s war chest by another $500,000, according to this pool report of the evening.

In a speech to the crowd, Obama sharpened his rhetoric against some of the most vocal voices against immigrant workers and migrant worker programs.

“A certain segment has basically been feeding a kind of xenophobia. There’s a reason why hate crimes against Hispanic people doubled last year,” Obama said. “If you have people like Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh ginning things up, it’s not surprising that would happen.”

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/palmbeach/floridapolitics/entries/2008/05/23/obama_collects_another_500000.html

What is racism?  Why would race matter?

from the wiki- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism

Legal definition

According to the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination,

the term "racial discrimination" shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life. '[1]

What does the ruling class do with the people that do not fit neatly into one category?

Is it possible to cut away the white pieces?  Is it possible to cut away the pieces that make someone offensive to others? 

I know people who were discriminated against because they were Italian immigrants - people would not rent to them or give them jobs.

"Irish Need Not Apply"  "LDS Only"  "No Jews" "XXX only"

The list goes on and on and is not limited to a few groups. 

I believe that "race" is made ugly by people.  The ugliness is not limited to any group, nation, or continent of people. 

I believe the challenge is to welcome everyone to apply.  Give everyone the opportunity to apply, and treat them fairly/the same/equally as possible when they do. 

Give everyone the opportunity to try, fail, and to keep trying.

jmho

WhiskeyGirl ... I do not have a clue.  The Scriptures tell us God created each of us in His own image. 

Race or nationality of a politician has NEVER been an issue in Tamikosmom's world.  However ... the character and ... the political ideology which a politician embraces ... are issues.

In DREAMS OF MY FATHER ... Obama acknowledges that he knew from the getgo that Jeremiah Wright was controversial in regards to his anti-American racist position.

In DREAMS OF MY FATHER ... Obama acknowledges that he was informed at the getgo of James Cone's racist Marxist "Black Theology" which formed the foundation of the ministry at Trinity United.

Nevertheless ... Obama joined the congregation at Trinity United and stayed for twenty years.  Jeremiah Wright was afforded the honor of officiating at Obama's marriage as well as the baptism of his beautiful daughters.  Obama afforded Wright a position in his campaign as spiritual advisor.  He claims it was Wright's speech AUDICITY OF HOPE that was inspire his book by the same name. 

I realize that people's hearts change in regards to ideology but there must be evidence in the life of a presidential candidate through words and deed prior to his campaign that a change had indeed taken place.

It was not until January, 2008 during his campaign that Obama distanced himself from Wright and Trinity United.  Only when the media exposed the rantings of Wright did Obama distance himself from a twenty year association and ... then lied to the American people when he claimed that he did was unaware of the "real" Jeremiah Wright.

WhiskeyGirl ... I want to make it clear ... it is deception that I hate.  If Barack Obama ran as a candidate who adheres to a Marxist philosophy ... so be it.  However ... a "wolf in sheep's clothing" implies that many Americans will be casting an uninformed vote regarding the "change" in political direction that Obama is really alluding to.

Janet

James Cone's racist anti-American philosophy formed the foundation of the church which Barack Obama associated himself with for twenty years.  Only in January, 2008 when the media exposed the messages which were being preached from of this church and ... applauded by the thousands in the congretation ... did Barack Obama distance himself from Trinity United and its controversial pastor.

Janet

+++++++++++


TRINITY UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST
 
"The vision statement of Trinity United Church of Christ is based upon the systematized liberation theology that started in 1969 with the publication of Dr. James Cone’s book, Black Power and Black Theology."

http://www.tucc.org/talking_points.htm

 
Black Theology & Black Power (Paperback)
 
First published in 1969, "Black Theology & Black Power" provided the first systematic presentation of black theology. Relating the militant struggle for liberation with the gospel message of salvation, James Cone laid the foundation for an original interpretation of Christianity that retains its urgency and challenge today.

http://www.amazon.ca/Black-Theology-Power-J-Cone/dp/1570751579

 
"Christ is black therefore not because of some cultural or psychological need of black people, but because and only because Christ really enters into our world where the poor were despised and the black are, disclosing that he is with them enduring humiliation and pain and transforming oppressed slaves into liberating servants." James Cone
 
"Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community ... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love." James Cone

"In the New Testament, Jesus is not for all, but for the oppressed, the poor and unwanted of society, and against oppressors ... Either God is for black people in their fight for liberation and against the white oppressors, or he is not." James Cone

FOOD FOR THOUGHT


Transcript: Rev. Jeremiah Wright speech to National Press Club
April 28, 2008
 
REV. WRIGHT: ... We both know that if Senator Obama did not say what he said, he would never get elected. Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls -- Huffington, whoever's doing the polls. Preachers say what they say because they are pastors. They have a different person to whom they're accountable.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-wrighttranscript-04282008,0,3593201.story?page=6
 
 
Obama: ‘I’m a Pretty Darned Good Politician’
by FOXNews.com
Wednesday, April 16, 2008

... I’m a pretty darn good politician. And I can give a pretty good speech and I can connect and inspire the American people in ways that I think will become apparent.http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/04/16/obama-im-a-pretty-darned-good-politician/
 
 
A More Perfect Union
Watch Barack's speech on race in America and building a more perfect union.
http://my.barackobama.com/hisownwords

    "Black Theology", hmmm, that really doesn't make a grain of sense to this Christian.  Isn't that an oxymoron (sp. incorrect, I'm sure)

    Nobody  knows what color God is, or if he is any color at all.  An African-American grandmother's answer to her grandchild when asked this question, was...."God is the color of water..." How simple, yet profound!!!

   All this racial talk is just divisive and solves nothing!!!

    Will the anti-Christ be American? Jewish?  
Does anyone here truly believe they can answer such inane questions?  

   One thing I believe, for sure, God is Love, Goodness, the embodiment of all that we mortals have been put here on Earth to Strive to be...we cannot be, we are Human,....but we must never stop trying.  Trying to spread His words of love and kindness...to do our best to right the wrongs that we see,...to forgive each other as He told us to.....just live according to the Laws of God and Nature and respect, love and help our fellow man!!!  See the color of water, in real terms do not see color at all, see people, for who they are not what they are,  God's creations and see Jesus or goodness or whatever religion we follow in the eyes of our fellow man.  For He truly dwells within us all!!!!  And the way we treat each other is the way we are treating Him.!!!

[color=red]“A certain segment has basically been feeding a kind of xenophobia. There’s a reason why hate crimes against Hispanic people doubled last year,” Obama said. “If you have people like Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh ginning things up, it’s not surprising that would happen.”[/color]

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/palmbeach/floridapolitics/entries/2008/05/23/obama_collects_another_500000.html
[/quote]


      In true Obama fashion, Barak comes out with such a wide accusation, but does not back it up with any stats.  Like, Duh, who are the "attackers" of these Hispanic people???  Is it  Limbaugh, Dobbs, Bush????   It is the re-action that occurs when there are a pleuthura of ill-legal aliens subjected (by their own choice) into an overcrowded, drug-infested world of poverty.  I am sure the stats would show that the Hispanics mentioned by Obama have been attacked by other Hispanics.

Is race an issue Louise.  Michelle Obama believes it is.

I am attempting to comprehend why she had to say "as a black man".  Was it necessary to play the race card?

JFK was White and ... he was assinated.  This is the reason Security for ALL the candidates running for the highest office in the land should be implemented.

Janet

++++++++++

Obama Under Secret Service Protection
Protection Is Earliest Ever For A Presidential Candidate; Reason Is Unknown
WASHINGTON, May 3, 2007

In a February interview with 60 Minutes' Steve Kroft, Obama's wife, Michelle, addressed the possibility that her husband could be the target of an assassination attempt. "I don't lose sleep over it because the realities are that, you know, as a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station, you know," she said. "So you can't make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen. We just weren't raised that way."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/03/politics/main2758784.shtml

Sources to the above quote:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/03/politics/main2758784.shtml

Source to the above quote:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/03/politics/main2758784.shtml

Could the answer to mystery regarding the flag pin issue be revealed in the anti-American company that Barack Obama keeps?

Janet

+++++++++++++


1.  BARACK OBAMA - AMERICAN FLAG PIN

Barack Obama Stops Wearing American Flag Lapel Pin
Thursday, October 04, 2007

WATERLOO, Iowa  —  Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says he doesn't wear an American flag lapel pin because it has become a substitute for "true patriotism" since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks ...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,299439,00.html


2.  BILL AYERS - DISRESPECTS THE AMERICAN FLAG

Obama's Radical Friend
May 5th 2008 10:40PM

... This is a picture of William Ayers stepping on the American flag in a deliberate display of disrespect to the flag and the nation for which it stands.

Photo:
http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2008/05/05/obamas-radical-friends/


3.  BARACK OBAMA/BILL ARYES ASSOCIATION

April 16, 2008
The Pennsylvania Democratic Debate

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: ... I want to give Senator Clinton a chance to respond, but first a follow-up on this issue, the general theme of patriotism in your relationships. A gentleman named William Ayers, he was part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s. They bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol and other buildings. He's never apologized for that. And in fact, on 9/11 he was quoted in The New York Times saying, "I don't regret setting bombs; I feel we didn't do enough."

An early organizing meeting for your state senate campaign was held at his house, and your campaign has said you are friendly. Can you explain that relationship for the voters, and explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem?

SEN. OBAMA: ... This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago, who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He's not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.

<snipped>

SEN. CLINTON: Well, I think that is a fair general statement, but I also believe that Senator Obama served on a board with Mr. Ayers for a period of time, the Woods Foundation, which was a paid directorship position.

And if I'm not mistaken, that relationship with Mr. Ayers on this board continued after 9/11 and after his reported comments, which were deeply hurtful to people in New York, and I would hope to every American, because they were published on 9/11 and he said that he was just sorry they hadn't done more. And what they did was set bombs and in some instances people died.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/04/the_pennsylvania_democratic_de.html


Why is Obama Hiding the Truth About William Ayers? Follow the Money
April 26, 2008 at 6:33 PM

In 1995, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge was created to raise funds to help reform the Chicago public schools. One of the architects of the Challenge was none other than Professor Bill Ayers. Ayers co-wrote the initial grant proposal and proudly lists himself on his own website as the co-founder of the Challenge.

Barack Obama was the first Chairman of the Board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. This appointment came at a crucial time in Barack’s life. He was on the verge of challenging longtime state Senator Alice Palmer for her job. When Barack decided to run, it is no surprise that he turned to William Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn for help in organizing the campaign and in hosting his first fundraiser in the district.

Obama served on the board for eight years until the Challenge ended in 2003. Bill Ayers was intimately involved in the Challenge over this same time period.

http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/04/26/why-is-obama-hiding-the-truth-about-william-ayers-follow-the-money/

Will the reall Barack Obama please step forward!

Janet

++++++++++++

1.  BARACK OBAMA - "I "WON'T" WEAR THAT PIN."

Barack Obama Stops Wearing American Flag Lapel Pin
Thursday, October 04, 2007

Asked about it Wednesday in an interview with KCRG-TV in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the Illinois senator said he stopped wearing the pin shortly after the attacks and instead hoped to show his patriotism by explaining his ideas to citizens.

"I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest," he said in the interview. "Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testament to my patriotism."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,299439,00.html


2.  BARACK OBAMA - "I NEVER SAID I DON'T WEAR A FLAG PIN."

April 16, 2008
The Pennsylvania Democratic Debate

And let me just make one last point on this issue of the flag pin. As you noted, I wore one yesterday when a veteran handed it to me, who himself was disabled and works on behalf of disabled veterans. I have never said that I don't wear flag pins  or refuse to wear flag pins. This is the kind of manufactured issue that our politics has become obsessed with and, once again, distracts us from what should be my job when I'm commander in chief, which is going to be figuring out how we get our troops out of Iraq and how we actually make our economy better for the American people.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/04/the_pennsylvania_democratic_de.html


3.  BARACK OBAMA - "SOMETIMES I WEAR IT AND SOMETIMES I DON'T."

Obama's Flag Pin Flip-Flop?
Wednesday, May. 14, 2008

This week, after eschewing the patriotic symbol for quite some time, Obama started wearing the pin to selected events. On Tuesday, he was sans pin on the Senate floor, but then later donned it while speaking to working-class voters in Missouri during the evening. "I haven't been making such a big deal about it. Others have. Sometimes I wear it, sometimes I don't," Obama said. "We were talking with a group of veterans yesterday. Over the last several weeks people have been handing me flag pins. I thought it was appropriate."


4.  JEREMIAH WRIGHT - OBAMA'S WORDS AND ACTIONS ARE ALL ABOUT GETTING ELECTED.

Transcript: Rev. Jeremiah Wright speech to National Press Club
April 28, 2008
 
REV. WRIGHT: ... We both know that if Senator Obama did not say what he said, he would never get elected.  Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls -- Huffington, whoever's doing the polls. Preachers say what they say because they are pastors. They have a different person to whom they're accountable.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-wrighttranscript-04282008,0,3593201.story?page=6

Just a bit off topic on a sideline to these excellent posts:

I've always loved that Jesus was a Jew because in the days He walked among us and from the area He was born, we can surmise that His skin color and features were typical: not black, not white, not asian, not Indian, but a wonderful amalgamation of all skin colors. The only ones that can claim Him as one of their own, at least racially, are the Jews. Through His grace, requiring only our faith, we have been grafted in; all of us!

this weathermen thing is just a guild by association attempt and ridiculous in my view.
but maybe the mccain campaign will start bringing this up, this could be a problem.
in my opinion mccain has much bigger guild by association problem for being close to bush.

and about this flag pin: wearing one or not doesn't say much about patriotism.
it is just decoration. with or without one someone can be patriotic.
if he decides to wear one and the next day not wear one - no big deal.

and the comments by michelle obama on 60 minutes are not very thoughtful.
but she is not on the ballot.
that sentiment is not entirely unfounded though.
we know what happened to sean bell and amadou diallo.

i put these under distractions together with the rev. wright story.

Thank you cbb

ALL those who accept the gift of Salvation are one in Christ ... no exceptions.

Janet

+++++++++++

THE SCRIPTURES

Ephesians 2:8-10
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.


Romans 10:12
For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him ...


JAMES CONE'S BLACK POWER/BLACK THEOLOGY

TRINITY UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST
 
"The vision statement of Trinity United Church of Christ is based upon the systematized liberation theology that started in 1969 with the publication of Dr. James Cone’s book, Black Power and Black Theology."

http://www.tucc.org/talking_points.htm

 
Black Theology & Black Power (Paperback)
 
First published in 1969, "Black Theology & Black Power" provided the first systematic presentation of black theology. Relating the militant struggle for liberation with the gospel message of salvation, James Cone laid the foundation for an original interpretation of Christianity that retains its urgency and challenge today.

http://www.amazon.ca/Black-Theology-Power-J-Cone/dp/1570751579

 
"Christ is black therefore not because of some cultural or psychological need of black people, but because and only because Christ really enters into our world where the poor were despised and the black are, disclosing that he is with them enduring humiliation and pain and transforming oppressed slaves into liberating servants." James Cone
 
"Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community ... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love." James Cone

"In the New Testament, Jesus is not for all, but for the oppressed, the poor and unwanted of society, and against oppressors ... Either God is for black people in their fight for liberation and against the white oppressors, or he is not." James Cone

       I agree with you CBB, that having been born in the Middle East, actually, very close to the continent of Africa, Jesus was sort of an Amalgam, Asian Continent, yet not considered Oriental or Asian...he most likely was of darker skin, perhaps curly hair.....but is Jewish a race, or a Religion.

       Sometimes I hear that their are 3 races, Caucasoid, Negroid and Mongoloid......sometimes the races are referred to by color, Red, Yellow, Black and White.  Are our Native Americans part of the Mongoloid race, having come over from Asia by the Bering Strait?

      Does any of this have any importance??  Did we all begin as one race...the Human Race, and evolve over time due to climate? 

       What is an Arab?  He is from the continent of Africa, short miles from Jordan, Israel, what we refer to as the Middle East.  My son-in-law is from Iran  (but puleeze, call him Persian).  His skin is on the dark side, but his hair is straight and his eyes are not the shape of Orientals but of Europeans,...but he is from Asia, technically,...but also very close to Africa......is there another race?  Are there 3,4, or more???? 

        I don't care, it makes no difference in who he is, how he was educated ( not in segregated schools, as Obama implies)  In his speech he states "Segregation was and still is the Law of the Land in America",......but yet he brags he received the best education, went to the "Best" schools,  paid for by his sacrificing White grandmother, even tho he has "often had to cringe when she made racial epithets"........ 

         This man says whatever his present audience wants to hear, ...and if he was converted to Christianity by Jerimiah Wright, that is not the Christianity I know.  It was and is based on racism, distortions of history, and addressed to only one shade of people......inciting them with vehement declarations about the "Social injustices vented upon those of color by the white segment of our society,....keeping them uneducated, poor, irresponsible (esp. the fathers for their children).

         Barak, raised by a white, midwestern grandmother, how did you EVER get where you are?????

    Well, the great American General and former Secretary of State, Colin Powell once said,"Ya know, I come from Jamaican Immigrants, was raised in the South Bronx ( one of the worst Amer. slums, for any who don't know), went to City College and barely graduated with C's and D's and look at me, Secretary of State!!  What a GREAT COUNTRY"!!!!  Yes, Mr. Powell, a great country and you are one great man!!!!! (I wish you would've taken a chance and become our Nation's first "truly" Black, African-American President!!! 

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/29729_Michelle_Obamas_Name_Removed_from_Terrorist_Fundraisers_Web_Page

Michelle Obama's Name Removed from Terrorist Fundraiser's Web Page - Update: Terror Fundraiser's Page Disappears!
Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 6:52:41 am PST

PASTORS WHO BACK MCCAIN


(http://www.whudat.com/news/images/rod-parsley-john-mccain.jpg)
Rod Parsley endorses McCain

Rod Parsley Pastor called "Islam is an anti-Christ religion" and " the Prophet Muhammad "the mouthpiece of a conspiracy of spiritual evil."




Pastor John Hagee endorses McCain:
(http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2008/02/27/PH2008022702958.jpg)
John Hagee has been criticized as anti-Catholic, but McCain rejected his endorsement only after a Web site unearthed a sermon Hagee gave portraying Hitler as a tool God used to deliver Jews to the promised land.

(http://a.abcnews.com/images/Politics/ap_mccain_romney_070521_ms.jpg)
Mitt Romney might be vp for McCain

(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/mccain_bush-hug-713122-1.jpg)
GEORGE W. BUSH endorses McCain


McCain said in 2003:

“I think we can set up a program where amnesty is extended to a certain number of people who are eligible. And at the same time make sure that we have some control over people who come in and out of” the  “country.  Amnesty has to be an important part because there are people who have lived in this country for 20, 30 or 40 years, who have raised children here,” paid ““taxes here and are not citizens. That has to be a component of it.”

Rush Limbaugh urges vote for Obama
Rush Limbaugh said Wednesday he really wants Sen. Barack Obama to be the party's nominee.

(http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2008/POLITICS/05/07/limbaugh.obama/art.rushobama.gi.jpg)

Edwards Backs Obama for Democratic Nomination

(http://www.edwards4obama.com/edwardsandobama.jpg)

  ENDORSEMENTS FOR OBAMA

  * Oprah Winfrey, television host, actress
    * Edward Kennedy, Massachusetts senator
    * Caroline Kennedy, daughter of John F. Kennedy
    * Deval Patrick, governor of Massachusetts
    * Federico Peña, Secretary of Energy under Bill Clinton
    * Theodore Sorensen, advisor to John F. Kennedy
    * Kathleen Turner, actress
    * Gary Hirshberg, CEO of Stonyfield Farm Yogurt
    * Bill Bradley, former senator from New Jersey, and player for the New York Knicks
    * John Kerry four-term junior senator from Massachusetts
    * Janet Napolitano, Governor of Arizona
    * Newspaper Las Vegas Review-Journal
    * Patrick Leahy, Senator from Vermont, chairman of the Judiciary Committee
    * Toni Morrison, author
    * Robert DeNiro, actor
    * Maria Shriver, wife of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
    * George Clooney, actor
    * David Wilhelm manager of Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign
    * Service Employees International Union
    * United Food and Commercial Workers International Union
    * Sheila Crump Johnson, entrepreneur
    * Teamsters Union
    * Hulk Hogan, wrestler and TV host
    * Chris Dodd, Ohio senator
    * John D. Rockefeller IV, senator from West Virginia
    * Russell Simmons, rap and clothing mogul
    * Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam (Obama rejected the endorsement)
    * Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico
    * Douglas Kmiec, Republican lawyer
    * Bruce Springsteen, musician
    * Robert Reich, former Clinton staffer

Ethel Kennedy
Ted Turner

JOHN KERRY

Bill Bradley
Ted Sorensen, a top adviser to President Kennedy.

(http://www.nytimes.com/images/blogs/laughlines/obama.jpg)


(http://i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2008/POLITICS/05/05/hanks.obama.ap/art.hanks.gi.jpg)
TOM HANKS BACKS OBAMA BECAUSE OF THE SENATOR'S "CHARACTER AND VISION"

 
Hmmmm, is that what you REALLY believe Rush is saying????

Now that's a bunch of unPatriotic Liberals eager to sell out our country!!!!!! ::MonkeyNoNo::