Rev Jeremiah Wright - or WRONG? - Page 2 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

aceventura3 · 03-15-2008, 12:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467

I think it's the responses by his followers, the implications of racism, the flat out calls of racism, etc.

It is an issue tho.

Venting is one thing, going to Libya in the 80's with Farrakhan is something entirely different. And you should know that.

The "Chickens coming home to roost..." line is not racist. Many people have the view that American militarism is the reason why our enemies dislike us.

Referring to the US in terms of our society being racist in the past is not racist, it seems to me to be a statement of fact.

Having theories about why Black males are disproportionately incarcerated is a persons theory. If he thinks it is due to racism, we should prove him wrong not dismiss his position.

The US government has used drugs and other sting operations in the Black community to discredit people.

Given American history, he has a prima facia case for his arguments, I think people who disagree, have an obligation to prove him wrong, not just call him a racist. And then on top of that, falsly connect his views to Obama. Obama has enough legit reasons for him not to be President. This is a waste of time for the Presidential race.

mixedmedia · 03-15-2008, 12:23 PM

I would be suspicious of (and maybe even a little disappointed with) any conscientious, politically-minded black man running for the democratic presidency in this country if he didn't have some involvement with black radicalism in his past.

What are the implications here? Really? Are you afraid that Barack is going to reveal his super-duper, double-secret black supremacy plan upon settling in at the White House?

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

The "Chickens coming home to roost..." line is not racist. Many people have the view that American militarism is the reason why our enemies dislike us.

Referring to the US in terms of our society being racist in the past is not racist, it seems to me to be a statement of fact.

Having theories about why Black males are disproportionately incarcerated is a persons theory. If he thinks it is due to racism, we should prove him wrong not dismiss his position.

The US government has used drugs and other sting operations in the Black community to discredit people.

Given American history, he has a prima facia case for his arguments, I think people who disagree, have an obligation to prove him wrong, not just call him a racist. And then on top of that, falsly connect his views to Obama. Obama has enough legit reasons for him not to be President. This is a waste of time for the Presidential race.

Even though I rarely agree with you, I've always found your levity to be admirable.

Ustwo · 03-15-2008, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mixedmedia

I would be suspicious of (and maybe even a little disappointed with) any conscientious, politically-minded black man running for the democratic presidency in this country if he didn't have some involvement with black radicalism in his past.

What are the implications here? Really? Are you afraid that Barack is going to reveal his super-duper, double-secret black supremacy plan upon settling in at the White House?

The only interesting issue to me are the apologists hypocrisy.

If a Republican hung out with a white supremacist of the same flavor he wouldn't stand a chance of surviving politically. If it were to happen after an election, the same people saying its not a big deal in Obama's case would be calling for his resignation, loudly.

Willravel · 03-15-2008, 12:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

If it were to happen after an election, the same people saying its not a big deal in Obama's case would be calling for his resignation, loudly.

That's nothing more than a guess.

mixedmedia · 03-15-2008, 12:38 PM

I don't see any evidence that the man is a black supremacist. That's the thing.

Largely, I find the white response to black advocacy to be reactionary.

highthief · 03-15-2008, 12:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

The "Chickens coming home to roost..." line is not racist. Many people have the view that American militarism is the reason why our enemies dislike us.

Referring to the US in terms of our society being racist in the past is not racist, it seems to me to be a statement of fact.

Having theories about why Black males are disproportionately incarcerated is a persons theory. If he thinks it is due to racism, we should prove him wrong not dismiss his position.

The US government has used drugs and other sting operations in the Black community to discredit people.

Given American history, he has a prima facia case for his arguments, I think people who disagree, have an obligation to prove him wrong, not just call him a racist. And then on top of that, falsly connect his views to Obama. Obama has enough legit reasons for him not to be President. This is a waste of time for the Presidential race.

Yeah, I'm sort of on board with this. I have not heard everything the man has said and I reserve the right to change my mind if I hear that he thinks other ethnicities are lesser people than blacks or something similar - but criticism of US policies past and present and mentioning that blacks have been hard done by is not overtly racist.

sprocket · 03-15-2008, 01:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

The only interesting issue to me are the apologists hypocrisy.

If a Republican hung out with a white supremacist of the same flavor he wouldn't stand a chance of surviving politically. If it were to happen after an election, the same people saying its not a big deal in Obama's case would be calling for his resignation, loudly.

GWB hung out with Ted Haggard and Falwell regularly and took council from them. Falwell... the same guy who blamed 9/11 on abortion..

Flip side, same coin. In my book, they are/were just as crazy as Obama's nutcase pastor.

Not that I think Obama should be given a free pass on this, but lets take Bush to task too.

host · 03-15-2008, 01:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

The only interesting issue to me are the apologists hypocrisy.

If a Republican hung out with a white supremacist of the same flavor he wouldn't stand a chance of surviving politically. If it were to happen after an election, the same people saying its not a big deal in Obama's case would be calling for his resignation, loudly.

Pssst....Ustwo, I've got plenty of support for my opinion that the republican party is the party of white supremacists.....in this era....non-stop since Saint Ronald was our national leader.....and according to the late Lee Atwater, back into the 1950's:

Quote:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/17532.html
Was campaigning against voter fraud a Republican ploy?
By Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers

* Posted on Sunday, July 1, 2007

........Rogers, a former general counsel to the New Mexico Republican Party and a candidate to replace Iglesias, is among a number of well-connected GOP partisans whose work with the legislative fund and a sister group played a significant role in the party's effort to retain control of Congress in the 2006 election.

That strategy, which presidential adviser Karl Rove alluded to in an April 2006 speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association, sought to scrutinize voter registration records, win passage of tougher ID laws and challenge the legitimacy of voters considered likely to vote Democratic.

McClatchy Newspapers has found that this election strategy was active on at least three fronts:

* Tax-exempt groups such as the American Center and
the Lawyers Association
were deployed in battleground states to press for restrictive ID laws and oversee balloting.

<h3>* The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division turned traditional voting rights enforcement upside down with legal policies that narrowed rather than protected the rights of minorities.</h3>

* The White House and the Justice Department encouraged selected U.S. attorneys to bring voter fraud prosecutions, despite studies showing that election fraud isn't a widespread problem.

Nowhere was the breadth of these actions more obvious than at the American Center for Voting Rights and its legislative fund.

Public records show that the two nonprofits were active in at least nine states. They hired high-priced lawyers to write court briefs, issued news releases declaring key cities "hot spots" for voter fraud and hired lobbyists in Missouri and Pennsylvania to win support for photo ID laws. In each of those states, the center released polls that it claimed found that minorities prefer tougher ID laws.

Armed with $1.5 million in combined funding, the two nonprofits attracted some powerful volunteers and a cadre of high-priced lawyers.

Of the 15 individuals affiliated with the two groups, at least seven are members of
the Republican National Lawyers Association
, and half a dozen have worked for either one Bush election campaign or for
the Republican National Committee.

Alex Vogel, a former RNC lawyer whose consulting firm was paid $75,000 for several months' service as the center’s executive director, said the funding came from private donors, not from the Republican Party.

One target of the American Center was the liberal-leaning voter registration group called Project Vote, a GOP nemesis that registered 1.5 million voters in 2004 and 2006. The center trumpeted allegations that Project Vote's main contractor, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), submitted phony registration forms to boost Democratic voting.

In a controversial move, the interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City announced indictments against four ACORN workers five days before the 2006 election, despite the fact that Justice Department policy discourages such action close to an election. Acorn officials had notified the federal officials when they noticed the doctored forms.

"Their job was to confuse the public about voter fraud and offer bogus solutions to the problem," said Michael Slater
, the deputy director of Project Vote, "And like the Tobacco Institute, they relied on deception and faulty research to advance the interests of their clients."

<h3>Mark "Thor" Hearne, a St. Louis lawyer and former national counsel for President Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, is widely considered the driving force behind the organizations.</h3> Vogel described him as "clearly the one in charge."

Hearne, who also was a vice president and director of election operations for the Republican Lawyers Association
, said he couldn't discuss the organizations because they're former clients.....

Quote:

http://newsroom.bankofamerica.com/in...eches&item=138
Remarks at the Governor's Emerging Issues Forum

Hugh L. McColl, Jr., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Bank of America

Remarks at the Governor's Emerging Issues Forum
Hugh L. McColl, Jr., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Bank of America
“What Is, and What We Hope For”
February 24, 2000
Raleigh, North Carolina

...Finally, I'd like to say a few words about why diversity matters ... and how racial discord continues to haunt our children's educational experience.

I believe public school desegregation was the single most important step we've taken in this century to help our children. Almost immediately after we integrated our schools, the Southern economy took off like a wildfire in the wind. I believe integration made the difference. Integration -- and the diversity it began to nourish -- became a source of economic, cultural and community strength.

That said, our experience with desegregation has not been entirely without struggles, missteps and bad feelings......

....In Charlotte, we recently reopened these wounds in our court case on busing. In that case, some argued that the benefits of neighborhood schools now outweigh the benefits of racially diverse classrooms. Others argued that de facto "separate but equal" schools are inherently unjust, and that busing should continue. No one argues that neighborhood schools are inherently bad. Nor does anyone argue that diversity is inherently bad. But we seem resigned to the idea that we can't have both.

This is what I want to know: if diversity is such a great thing, why do we put the burden on our children to achieve it? Why should a seven-year-old sit on a bus for 45 minutes to go to school in the name of diversity when the adults in her life won't buy a home in a racially or economically diverse neighborhood? Is diversity more important for children than for adults?

These are questions we must ask ourselves, and, frankly, I don't think the economic excuse holds water. Sure, our neighbors at the very bottom of the ladder have limited choices about where to live. <h3>But the rest of us segregate ourselves at every income level.</h3>

My own judgment is that diversity is vitally important, and that <h3>we should continue busing as long as it is the only way to achieve diverse schools.</h3> But I also believe that when adults choose to self-segregate based on race, our rhetoric rings hollow, and we reveal ourselves to be less enlightened than we think.....

Back in 1984, here was "Ron the uniter", declaring the exact opposite of what BofA CEO McColl said, above:

Quote:

http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archive...84/100884a.htm
Remarks at a Reagan-Bush Rally in Charlotte, North Carolina

October 8, 1984
The President. Thank you all very much.

Audience. Reagan! Reagan! Reagan! ......

....They favor busing that takes innocent children out of the neighborhood school and makes them pawns in a social experiment that

nobody wants. We've found out it failed. I don't call that compassion....

Quote:

http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu...-20-CBS-7.html
CBS Evening News for Monday, Apr 20, 1981
Headline: Charlotte / Busing
Abstract: (Studio) Report introduced
REPORTER: Dan Rather

(Charlotte, North Carolina) Success of busing for school desegregation here examined. <h3>[November 11, 1980, Ronald REAGAN - calls

busing a failure.]</h3> Beginning of busing concept for United States recalled occurring here; details given. [1971 school board member

Jane SCOTT - thinks city was committed to making it work.] [Civil rights attorney Julius CHAMBERS - praises leaders] Current

situation outlined; carryover of busing into integration of neighborhoods noted. [William POE - thinks city has adjusted well.]

Poe's opposition to busing 10 years ago recalled. [POE - praises program.] Continued hope of antibusing proponents discussed.

[Senator Jesse HELMS - calls busing a folly.] [Dr. Carlton WATKINS - responds.]
REPORTER: Ed Rabel (WBTV file film)

Quote:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...57C0A964958260
Busing Is Abandoned Even in Charlotte

By PETER APPLEBOME,
Published: April 15, 1992

...Charlotte, or the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, as the city-county district is known, holds a distinctive place in American public education. During two decades when court-ordered busing was fiercely opposed in many places, this was a community that took enormous pride in the racial harmony and integrated schools that its busing produced.

Dead Silence for Reagan

"I remember when Ronald Reagan made a speech here and described busing as a social experiment that has not worked, and he was met with dead silence," said Jay M. Robinson, the school superintendent from 1976-86. "What happened in Charlotte became a matter of community pride." ...

Quote:

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,951327,00.html
Monday, Oct. 22, 1984
Charms and Maledictions
By LANCE MORROW

After Louisville, a national pageant takes on new possibilities

Searching for a street-level reading of the nation 's political mood, and the nuances of its shifts, Senior Writer Lance Morrow traveled with the Reagan and Mondale campaigns for 2½ weeks, before and after the presidential debate. His report:

...It was not merely that Mondale was something of a lusterless and dispiriting alternative to a personally popular sitting President in a period of peace and economic recovery. A more mysterious and complex process was occurring in the American psyche. Americans considered Mondale with a merciless objectivity. But many of them came to absorb Ronald Reagan in an entirely different and subjective manner. They internalized him. In recent months, Reagan found his way onto a different plane of the American mind, a mythic plane. He became not just a politician, not just a President, but very nearly an American apotheosis. The Gipper as Sun King.

A dispassionate witness may say that it was all done with mirrors and manipulation, with artfully patriotic rhetoric and Olympic imagery, the Wizard of Oz working the illusion machine. But that does not entirely do credit to the phenomenon. In an extraordinary way, Reagan came in some subconscious realms to be not just the leader of America but the embodiment of it. "America is back," he announced with a bright, triumphant eye. Back from where? Back from Viet Nam, perhaps, and Watergate and the sexual revolution and all the other tarnishing historical uncleannesses that deprived America of her virtue and innocence.

Partly by accident of timing, partly by a kind of simple genius of his being, Reagan managed to return to Americans something extremely precious to them: a sense of their own virtue. Reagan-completely American, uncomplicated, forward-looking, honest, self-deprecating- became American innocence in a 73-year-old body. (The American sense of innocence and virtue does not always strike the world as a shining and benign quality, of course.)

Whatever the reasons, the campaign of 1984 did not stack up exactly as an equitable contest. Until last week, Reagan's aura purchased him surprising immunities. The polls showed a majority of Americans disagreeing with him on specific issues but planning to vote for him anyway.

Not long ago, Reagan went to Bowling Green State University for a political appearance that looked and sounded like every Big Ten pep rally of the past 20 years compacted into an instant. Reagan's helicopter, deus ex machina again, fluttered down onto the grass outside, visible to the waiting crowd through a great window, and the students erupted in an ear-splitting roar, waving their Greek fraternity letters on placards. REBUILDING AN AMERICA THAT ONCE WAS, said one sign. <h3>The young these days seem prone to a kind of aching nostalgia for some American prehistory that they cannot quite define, but sense in Reagan. The chant of "We Want Ron!" elided into the Olympic chant, "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" To some extent, they were merely exuberant kids making noise, but their identification with, their passion for, a 73-year-old President was startling.</h3> And so was their equation of the man with the nation he leads. Who would have thought that an aged movie actor would be, for so many of the young, the man for the '80s? ....

The day after the Louisville debate, the White House "spinners" were hard at work on the press plane, on the buses. The President was heading to Charlotte, N.C., for an appearance with Senator Jesse Helms and then to Baltimore. The spinners, a patrol of top White House staff members, have the task of chatting with the press and trying to get a favorable spin on stories. They were working that day at damage control.

The debate was a sudden deflation. One could hear the air rushing into the vacuum. Now Reagan seemed flat and disconcerted and, weirdly, somehow a stranger to himself. <h3>In Charlotte, a city that takes pride in having made its busing program a model for the rest of the country, Reagan denounced the practice of busing and was greeted with silence.</h3> The Baltimore event was curiously disheveled. Reagan was there to unveil a statue of Christopher Columbus at the Inner Harbor. The crowd was dotted with protesters ("No More Years! No More Years!") and anti-Reagan signs (DEAD MARINES FOR REAGAN.) Back on the press bus, Donaldson bellowed to his constituency: "Big Mo ain't here today!" ...

...and just to be sure he had his way, ole Ron appointed to the federal bench, a lawyer named Robert Potter, on record as a critic of busing. Potter, at no one's request, took the law into his own hands:

Quote:

http://groups.google.com/group/soc.c...95bc5ee207d189
Case key to magnet schools' future

By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY
April 20, 1999

...Presiding over the trial will be Senior U.S. District Judge Robert Potter, a Reagan appointee.

A public opponent of busing before his appointment to the bench, Potter unsettled black parents
during a court hearing last month. He said, on his own initiative, that he would consider releasing
the school system from all court supervision if he found that the lingering effects of segregation
are gone. His announcement was unusual because none of the parties had requested such action. ....

Quote:

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8479694.html
The Boston Globe
Date:
April 14, 1998
Author:
Michael Grunwald, Globe Staff
More results for:
"charlotte reopens book" on court ordered busing

See more articles from The Boston Globe

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- This is not just the city where court-ordered busing began. Charlotte is also known as the city that made court-ordered busing work.

When Boston's busing wars were raging, students from Charlotte came north to spread the word that peaceful integration was possible. In a federal study of the nation's 125 largest school systems, Charlotte-Mecklenberg was rated the most integrated. When President Reagan attacked busing during a campaign speech in Charlotte, his own supporters responded with stony silence. The next day, the Charlotte Observer replied with an editorial titled "You Were Wrong, Mr. President," calling school desegregation the city's "proudest achievement."

But history may be turning in its tracks. Last month, a federal judge here reopened Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenberg Board of Education, the landmark desegregation case that launched the nation's busing experiment. Now the city where race-based busing was ruled the law of the land may become the city where race-based busing is ruled illegal, even though the mixing of black and white schoolchildren has evolved into a point of civic pride here, as knitted into Charlotte's fabric as banking or auto racing.

"It's an extraordinary situation," said Harvard education professor Gary Orfield, the author of "Dismantling Desegregation." "The Charlotte schools became a national model for desegregation after the courts forced them to do it. Now the courts might come in and say they can't do it anymore."

The danger, critics like Orfield say, is that the end of busing and other race-based assignment policies may mean a return to segregated schools. But in the new legal landscape, as the Supreme Court tilts toward color-blindness and away from race-conscious policies on issues like affirmative action and congressional redistricting, many school boards are finally being released from strict federal desegregation orders. The Charlotte-Mecklenberg school board does not even want to be released from the Swann order, but it might not have a choice.

The lawsuit that could stop the buses was filed by Bill Capacchione, a white parent and neighborhood school activist who asserts that his daughter Cristina was denied admission to a Charlotte magnet school because of unconstitutional race-based assignment policies. Similar cases are under way in Boston, over Boston Latin School, and in several other cities, but specialists say Charlotte may be the national test once again. Role reversal

One reason is that the case has landed before Judge Robert Potter, a conservative Reagan appointee and former anti-busing activist who drew up a petition protesting the Swann ruling nearly 30 years ago. (The petition attracted more than 10,000 signatures in two days.) At a preliminary hearing last month, Potter stunned the schools' attorneys by reopening the Swann case even though no one had asked him to do so. And he quickly put the onus on the school board to come up with a compelling reason why it still needs a court order to run a discrimination-free system.

For a case brimming with ironies, none is more telling than this role reversal: In the legal and racial climate of the '90s, it is now the longtime desegregationists in Charlotte who clamor for local control of schools and grumble about activist judges. And it is their opponents who simply point to the law, to the Constitution, to the direction set by the Supreme Court....

[quote]
http://books.google.com/books?id=FF4...cR04#PPA331,M1

Quote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Southern_strategy

...In American politics, the Southern strategy refers to the focus of the Republican party on winning U.S. Presidential elections by securing the electoral votes of the U.S. Southern states.

The phrase Southern strategy was coined by Nixon strategist Kevin Phillips.[1] In an interview included in a 1970 New York Times article, he touched on its essence:

From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner <b>the Negrophobe</b> whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats."[2]....

In this opinion piece:

Quote:

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstra...A90994DD404482
Impossible, Ridiculous, Repugnant

*Please Note: Archive articles do not include photos, charts or graphics. More information.
October 6, 2005, Thursday
By BOB HERBERT (NYT); Editorial Desk...

Bob Herbert expounded on what was contained in this book:

http://books.google.com/books?id=eqf...fFTWc#PPA61,M1 (lower page 61 to upper page 62:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...04&btnG=Search

Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry Dent and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [the new Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan] doesn’t have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he’s campaigned on since 1964 . . . and that’s fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster . . .

Questioner: But the fact is, isn’t it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps . . . ?

Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' - that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.

And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me - because obviously sitting around saying, 'We want to cut this,' is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'Nigger, nigger.'....

Ustwo · 03-15-2008, 02:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sprocket

GWB hung out with Ted Haggard and Falwell regularly and took council from them. Falwell... the same guy who blamed 9/11 on abortion..

Flip side, same coin. In my book, they are/were just as crazy as Obama's nutcase pastor.

Not that I think Obama should be given a free pass on this, but lets take Bush to task too.

I'm not saying we shouldn't, I'm just enjoying the damage control teams

mixedmedia · 03-15-2008, 02:30 PM

I don't see that any damage has been done. Not in my estimation. But then again, I'm not one of these people who expects a black man running for president to be Colin Powell or some reasonable facsimile.

loquitur · 03-15-2008, 05:52 PM

Matt Yglesias thinks Obama probably got involved in Wright's church because he needed local credibility. He wanted to run for office, his skin was dark but he had no black "experience" - i.e. the normal American history for a black person (remember, he grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia; his father was African, not American; and he was raised by a white mother) - so to signal the locals that he was one of them he joined one of their institutions. In other words, going to that church was political opportunism when it started, and he probably had to keep up his local appearance afterwards.

To my ears that sounds about right, because nothing I have heard about Obama personally indicates he actually believes the sort of crap that Wright has been spewing. Of course this does present a problem for Obama. As others have pointed out, this puts him in a bind - if Yglesias is right about why he went to that church, and I suspect he probably is. But it does come back to what I have talked about before, which is that people are trying to make Obama into something he isn't - he's a very talented, very charismatic, very smart politician - but he's a politician, and a pretty conventional urban Democrat at that (albeit more charismatic and clever than most). He's not the messiah. You may or may not like urban Democrats, and that's OK. But take him for who he is, and don't persuade yourself otherwise. People who invest their hopes and dreams in him are gong to be very disappointed when he turns out to have to get down in the dirt with other politicians to get anything done.

dc_dux · 03-15-2008, 07:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by loquitur

....But take him for who he is, and don't persuade yourself otherwise. People who invest their hopes and dreams in him are gong to be very disappointed when he turns out to have to get down in the dirt with other politicians to get anything done.

loquitor...what you are really suggesting is that Obama supporters take him for what you say he is.

Thanks, but I'll pass. I think that I, and most TFP supporters, are as well informed as you and can make our own judgment.

roachboy · 03-15-2008, 07:45 PM

loquitor has been doing battle with one of these

about "people's perceptions" of obama for a few weeks now.
i dont get it.

SecretMethod70 · 03-15-2008, 09:56 PM

This says all I think needs to be said:

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/15/7702/

Quote:

Published on Saturday, March 15, 2008 by TPM Café

Truth Time: Wright Is Right
by DF

Okay, folks. It’s truth time.

Barack Obama has now weighed in on the Jeremiah Wright nontroversy in exactly the manner that I expected him to, I’ve got something to say about about the whole thing: Jeremiah Wright is right.

This country was founded by landowning (read: affluent) men of European descent for landowning men of European descent. I love Thomas Jefferson. He was a brilliant political philosopher. But when he wrote “All men are created equal” he didn’t mean it the way I take it. He wasn’t talking about the rights of all men. He certainly wasn’t talking about the rights of women. The man owned slaves.

This country was built on the backs of African slaves on land that was robbed in the slaughter of Native Americans. I’m sorry if this offends your bourgeois sensibilities as it isn’t the totally awesome, God-fearing, flag-waving, USA #1!!!1 narrative that we teach to school kids, but it is historical fact.

America is a work in progress. It took people like Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglas to read deeper into the philosophies that birthed this nation. They realized that the rich, white men so many of us proudly call our Founding Fathers had only scratched the surface. And so they joined what would become a larger tradition: the fine American tradition of dissent. One hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation this country was still segregated. Restaurants, buses, schools, drinking fountains and bathrooms. Again, it took leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. to see that “separate, but equal” was a ruse and that it represented a reading of these ideas that sold them short entirely. And some of these people were told they were too bombastic, too loud and too angry. It took leaders like Bobby Kennedy to see that their anger was well justified and long overdue.

We’ve come a long way since 1776. In many ways, America still represents some of the best hopes of this dream of human liberty. But we are not perfect. We have not yet arrived at our destination. And this country is still largely controlled by rich, white men. You can say, if you wish, that Jeremiah Wright is too loud and too angry, but you cannot say that he is wrong. I’ve been astounded by all of the people on this so-called progressive forum that seem to be held aghast at these ideas. I thought that progressives knew that the Iraq War was predicated on lies. I thought that progressives knew that unilateral support for Israeli policies with respect for Palestine was a source of difficulties in our nation’s relationships in the Middle East at large. I thought that progressives knew that 9/11 didn’t happen because they hate us for our freedom, but because of a complex history of these relationships that go back at least 50 years if not back through the better part of the 20th century. I thought progressives knew that entering the halls of power isn’t easy if you’re not a white man.

Let me be clear on this: This is only a problem for Barack Obama in that there are still a lot of pinheads around that don’t understand that dissent is the highest form of patriotism. And he’ll distance himself from it because he has to and because Wright’s style isn’t his. It’s not how Obama rolls. But there’s nothing untrue about Wright’s statements in and of themselves.

This is a picture that I like to look at every so often to remind myself of these realities. It’s a picture of nine white men beaming over Bush as he signs the “partial birth abortion” ban. It’s ten white men presiding over the rights of women. There isn’t one woman present here. This is the reality of power in America today. You can squawk all you want about how everything is fair, but that isn’t the way it shakes out, now is it?

If America wants to insist on maintaining the status quo so that we can make sure that rich, white men can keep taking advantage, then I say damn America, too. If America wants to insist that no wrong can be done underneath Old Glory, then I say damn America. If America wants to insist that nothing our nation does in the world community will ever come back on us, then I say damn America, but I don’t have to because she’s already damned herself. The power of the ideas that founded this country was not in the men who codified them. The power lies in the way that they ring to true to all who encounter them, encouraging them to be spread ever wider, ever deeper. It is the touchstone of human nature that we desire to be free. It is this spark that becomes a fire when we realize that we are all locked into this struggle together.

The struggle is not over and maybe it never will be, but don’t get confused about Jeremiah Wright. His only crime is being abrasive, but the people who find him most abrasive are the people who have are invented in denying the truth that he speaks.

Copyright 2008 TPM Media LLC

loquitur · 03-15-2008, 10:19 PM

no, dc. I'm just telling you what I think he is. If you want to think otherwise, go right ahead. I still think you're setting yourself up for disappointment.

dc_dux · 03-15-2008, 10:24 PM

loquitor...I know the realities of politics and never set my hopes or expectations too high.

I just go with the man or woman who best represents my views and who I believe provides the best chance of moving the country forward...despite the enormous obstacles left by the Bush/Cheney legacy.

mixedmedia · 03-16-2008, 04:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_dux

loquitor...I know the realities of politics and never set my hopes or expectations too high.

I just go with the man or woman who best represents my views and who I believe provides the best chance of moving the country forward...despite the enormous obstacles left by the Bush/Cheney legacy.

QFT. This is all we can do.

And for the record, I agree with every word of the editorial submitted by Secret Method.

matthew330 · 03-16-2008, 04:39 AM

That article is desperate and fringe. Read it, then go back and watch the video and think to yourself "i'm agreeing with the suggestion that not only is this guy highly patriotic, but the rest of the world are pinheads for not thinking so"

If the democrats loose this election, you can chalk it up to not necessarily this instance, but this childish denial/elitist attitude that infects that party.

dc_dux · 03-16-2008, 04:54 AM

I dont think the "rest of the world" are pinheads.....just the ones in the US who are trying so hard to portray Obama as guilty by association.

The fringe pinheads.

ratbastid · 03-16-2008, 04:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by loquitur

no, dc. I'm just telling you what I think he is.

You're also telling us that that you're right and we're wrong. Not the most persuasive rhetorical strategy.

matthew330 · 03-16-2008, 05:22 AM

thats a perversion of the phrase "guilty by association". He was preached to by this guy for 2 decades. it's not pinheaded to question him on this. He's not guilty of anything - he might be the president.

Even on your worst ideological day, would you trust the guy in this video to run this country? I'll assume no. If I'm wrong, I'll concede....something, but I'll stop. If you wouldn't, why are you so comfortable having a loyal member/contributer of his "faith", assume that role without having to answer this beyond "yeah, he always talked about love and stuff when I heard him"

The other factor that scares me is his wife saying that she's never been proud of this country in her adult life until now. This to me sounds like they heard everything this guy has been saying.

dc_dux · 03-16-2008, 05:28 AM

Call it what you want to satisfy your own agenda. IMO its guilt by association. The pastor and wife are not running for president.

And its still a specious argument.

mixedmedia · 03-16-2008, 05:33 AM

And I've yet to see anything that he might be 'guilty' of.

It's funny how it's just assumed that we should be threatened by this issue.

dc_dux · 03-16-2008, 05:34 AM

Obama picked up nine more pledged delegates from Edwards supporters in Iowa last night.

Quote:

Democrat Barack Obama expanded his fragile lead in delegates over rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday, picking up nine delegates as Iowa activists took the next step in picking delegates to the national convention.

More than half the 14 delegates allocated to John Edwards on the basis of caucus night projections switched Saturday to Obama.

http://apnews.myway.com//article/200...D8VEE9600.html

I guess they havent seen the news about the pastor or the wife....or perhaps they have a "childish denial/elitist attitude" when selecting their candidate for president.

ottopilot · 03-16-2008, 06:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dc_dux

... they have a "childish denial/elitist attitude" when selecting their candidate for president.

It's been a long standing trend.

roachboy · 03-16-2008, 07:02 AM

if you think about it, the curious aspect of this affair is really that obama reacted. if conservativeland is once again a fringe affair and its inhabitants pissy because they cannot adjust to their new and richly deserved fringe status, it would follow that most of their ideological claims and strategies would also be fringe affairs--so the conservative "understanding" of racism as a type of sentence unhinged from any reference to material or historical reality--that is fringe stuff, and you would think that the days of its traction would be over. so it's a little surprising obama reacted, and that mostly because it gave the inhabitants of conservativeland a chance to pretend that theirs is not in fact a marginal, fringe area of the ideological world.

conservatives increasingly talk only to themselves.

Seaver · 03-16-2008, 07:53 AM

Quote:

That article is desperate and fringe. Read it, then go back and watch the video and think to yourself "i'm agreeing with the suggestion that not only is this guy highly patriotic, but the rest of the world are pinheads for not thinking so"

If the democrats loose this election, you can chalk it up to not necessarily this instance, but this childish denial/elitist attitude that infects that party.

Quoted for Truth.

I love how the left fringe has convinced itself that constantly talking bad about America is somehow going to make themselves popular.

mixedmedia · 03-16-2008, 08:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

Quoted for Truth.

I love how the left fringe has convinced itself that constantly talking bad about America is somehow going to make themselves popular.

I love how the right can only come up with junior high school-level observations to explain why some people don't think like them.

matthew330 · 03-16-2008, 08:30 AM

in fairness, it is generally a younger crowd that doesn't

roachboy · 03-16-2008, 08:47 AM

i think this entire tempest in a teapot has unfolded on basically disengenuous grounds. in the ny times article yesterday which outlined the trajectory of this little affair--how it happened, when it happened, why now, that sort of thing--it is obvious how this took shape: pre-packaged from limbaugh, relayed through faux news and the reactionary blog-world....

there are two kinds of political power: the kind that you see reflected in the number of votes you can muster, and another which lay in the ability to shape the terms within which debate unfolds. i think the right is in for a very rude awalening in the coming elections on the former. i am a bit bewildered as to how they hang on to vestiges of the latter.

but in this amurica, land where money can buy you repetition can buy you legitimacy no matter how fatuous the content, the right maintains a degree of ideological power. this is a little flex, a testing of the waters (to impute a bit of tactical intent to this).

personally, i would like it to become as obvious as possible how this temepst in a teapot happened, who set the terms, how those terms were picked up and repeated, and in whose interests they operate, because it provides a little outline of the continued reach of the pestilence that is the conservative ideological apparatus.

and we wont be rid of it until their ability to shape debates is broken.

matthew330 · 03-16-2008, 08:49 AM

when all else fails, talk like that ^^^^

Seaver · 03-16-2008, 08:55 AM

Honestly Roach, I have always respected you.

However, you keep trying to pin this as a strawman argument. This isn't a strawman, would you honestly take this approach if the situation was the reverse? Everyone on this thread has ignored my posts, in part because I honestly believe they have no answer to it.

It were strawman if you would not care if it were a conservative in my example. As it's clearly not the case it's not one.

roachboy · 03-16-2008, 09:04 AM

i dont think your analogy holds any water, seaver.

and i dont think this thread worth the effort of explaining it, because i dont think the tempest at its center is worth the bother---the premise is ridiculous--the editorial that smeth posted above summarizes a bunch of reasons for it--i have others as well---but this issue is not one that i feel should be accorded the respect required to use it to construct arguments against the conservative style of not-really-dealing-at-all with racism in america.
it just isnt.

so if you want to have a discussion, start another thread.

flstf · 03-16-2008, 09:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aceventura3

Unless a person has lived through "Jim Crow" the way many Black Americans in the Reverend's generation has, you should give the Reverend an opportunity to vent.

This is a non-issue. I understand the mental midget, Sean Hannity from Fox making an issue of this, but I am surprised by others who are.

I agree. There are many things about Obama's policy positions that I disagree with but I don't think we should judge him by his old reverend's remarks. This whole racism/sexism rift in the Democratic party is getting ridiculous.

The candidates over zealous supporters are looking for anything to denigrate the other side and the news outlets looking for ratings on slow news days are fueling the fire. I find it amazing that a black man has lasted this long especially one named Barack Hussein Obama. It would be a shame if he was brought down by his old reverand's remarks instead of his personal beliefs and policy positions.

This man has an extreme uphill climb getting past those who are inclined to not vote for a black man and/or those who associate his middle name with some sort of connection to terrorism.

dc_dux · 03-16-2008, 09:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

However, you keep trying to pin this as a strawman argument. This isn't a strawman, would you honestly take this approach if the situation was the reverse? Everyone on this thread has ignored my posts, in part because I honestly believe they have no answer to it.

It were strawman if you would not care if it were a conservative in my example. As it's clearly not the case it's not one.

It is absolutely a strawman argument promulgated and perpetuated by the right wing who would prefer to see Clinton as the Dem nominee; someone they believe would be easier to defeat in the general election.

The only persons perpetuating it here are those who would not likely be Obama voters under any circumstances. And even among some conservatives/libertarians here who are not Obama supporters, there are suggestions that the church/pastor are non-issues for judging Obama's fitness to serve.

I agree with Roachboy that it is probably not worth explaining, because I dont think you are likely to listen objectively...but I will try anyway.

The race/church/preacher issue is not resonating with most of those (Dem and Independent) voting in the Dem primaries/caucuses.

One only need to look at the demographics of the Obama voters. Among white voters, he is winning the young vote, the women vote, the Independent vote, the college educated vote, and the upper middle/upper income vote.

He is winning primaries and caucuses in states with very small black populations - Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Nebraska, North Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Wyoming.

This doesnt suggest he will win the hard core red states where he won the primary...but those demographics put several red states in play.

The only demographics he is not winning are seniors and blue collar white males...and these groups, if I could generalize, are more likely to have a hidden issue with race.

Quote:

Originally Posted by flstf

This man has an extreme uphill climb getting past those who are inclined to not vote for a black man and/or those who associate his middle name with some sort of connection to terrorism.

The exit polls suggest that he does not have an uphill climb with the demographic groups I noted for the general election, particularly among swing Independent voters - young, women, upper middle/upper income, college educated are more likely to vote Obama than McCain.

He may have an uphill climb with seniors..but offset by the fact that this group is also very much opposed to the continued occupation in Iraq which is at the core of McCain's campaign.

The blue color white males (Reagan democrats) will be the toughest for Obama, but can be convinced on pocketbook issues, where McCain has little to offer (extending tax cuts for the wealthy. no real plan to deal with rising health care costs. his history of anti-union votes, etc ).

powerclown · 03-16-2008, 10:05 AM

The Death of Hope?

It's too awful to even contemplate.

host · 03-16-2008, 11:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by matthew330

thats a perversion of the phrase "guilty by association". He was preached to by this guy for 2 decades. it's not pinheaded to question him on this. He's not guilty of anything - he might be the president.

Even on your worst ideological day, would you trust the guy in this video to run this country? I'll assume no. If I'm wrong, I'll concede....something, but I'll stop. If you wouldn't, why are you so comfortable having a loyal member/contributer of his "faith", assume that role without having to answer this beyond "yeah, he always talked about love and stuff when I heard him"

<h3>The other factor that scares me is his wife saying that she's never been proud of this country in her adult life until now.</h3> This to me sounds like they heard everything this guy has been saying.

What "scares" me is that the right wing "talking points", drummed relentlessly into the deluded "volk" who still so enthusiastically support this economic, military, and foreign policy "train wreck" of an administration, still believe that "their vote" will be enough to move the november election to or away from any presidential candidate.

Stu Epperson and Edward Atsinger III, prominent CNP officers, put together this nifty "noise network" of Salem News Radio's 1600 radio stations, AND townhall.com to champion and distribute, over and over and OVER, the "word" of Jesus/Bush, and the extreme conservative billionaire old christian white men message....

matthew330 posts the very talking points Epperson and Atsinger's "media properties" have rehashed, for weeks now...to the point matthew330 is concerned enough about them, to "share them" with us:

Quote:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&s...om&btnG=Search

<h3>Results 1 - 10 of about 41,800 for "michelle obama" townhall.com</h3>

Townhall.com::Michelle Obama's America -- and Mine::By Michelle MalkinFeb 20, 2008 ... Like Michelle Obama, I am a "woman of color." Like Michelle Obama, I am a working mother of two young children. Like Michelle Obama, I am a ...
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Townhall.com Audio Player02150801A Hugh opens the show by playing a stunning stump speech a couple of weeks ago by First Lady hopeful, Michelle Obama. ...
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Townhall.com::BlogMichelle Obama's Vision Of America. Posted by: Duane R. Patterson at 7:38 PM ... Guest: Christopher Hitchens. The Latest on TownHall.com ...
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YouTube - Michelle Obama: Be not afraid
312 clicks from http://www.townhall.com/blog/g/cf892a4d-7e95 ...

Watch video - 7 min -

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqCYFpUAJ2Q

Townhall.com::BlogThe same year Michelle Obama finally found a reason to be proud of America .... The mortgage companies were grilled by Congress. The Latest on TownHall.com ...
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Quote:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=Google+Search

Results 1 - 10 of about 163 for "hate minister" prager. (0.18 seconds)

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matthew330 and intense1.... you're "fed" this shit....and then you post it on here, and you want us to respect your "opinions". The problem, is that these are not your opinions. You did no independent research, and your opinions are not "shaped"....they're DRUMMED into you.

Was this information drummed into you, five years ago?

Quote:

46 U.S. Religious Leaders, Uneasy About the Proposed War on Iraq,
"With Utmost Urgency" Ask President Bush for Face-to-Face Meeting

Leaders of 11 Denominations and 4 Organizations;
Signers Include 20 United Methodist Bishops

January 30, 2003, NEW YORK CITY - Citing the "utmost urgency" of their request, 46 U.S. religious leaders who have been working "to slow the rush to war" with Iraq today petitioned President Bush for a face-to-face meeting.

War is not only a military matter, write the leaders - from 11 denominations and four organizations, including 20 United Methodist bishops. "It is a moral and ethical matter of the highest order, one that we have made a priority for many months as the possibility of war has loomed on our national horizon."

The 46 leaders of tens of millions of Protestant and Orthodox Christians across the United States note that they are in communication with their clergy, lay leaders and church members across the nation and with their counterparts in Europe and elsewhere around the globe on this issue. ...

The bishop overseeing president Bush's pastor, Luis Leon of St. Johns Episcopal Chruch in DC was one of the 46 signatories:

The Rt. Rev. Dr. John Chane
Bishop of Washington, DC, Episcopal Church
Episcopal Church House
Mt. St. Alban/ National Cathedral
Washington, DC, 20016

Here is the response to the request from the 46 religious leaders for an "urgent meeting" with the president:

White House Response Received. Full Text Follows:
THE WHITE HOUSE
March 5, 2003

Dear Dr. Edgar:

President Bush asked me to thank you for your letter inviting him to discuss the war on Iraq with members of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA.

The schedule for the next few months has necessitated some difficult decisions. Unfortunately, I must decline the invitation and do not forsee an opportunity to add this event to the calendar.. I know this reponse is disappointing but want to assure you that your letter received every consideration.

The President appreciates the support your invitation represents and always welcomes your comments and suggestions.

Sincerely,
Bradley A. Blakeman
Deputy Assistant to the President
and Director of Appointments and Scheduling

The subject of this thread is about a "non-issue" promulgated and spread by conservative christian zealots financed by the CNP leadership. The volks indignant about Jeremiah Wright have no intention of voting for Obama. They have a track record of supporting and voting for candidates with the most disasterous, racist policies imaginable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seaver

Quoted for Truth.

I love how <h3>the left fringe has convinced itself that constantly talking bad about America</h3> is somehow going to make themselves popular.

Why do you believe and repeat the crap sponsored by the talking heads hired and promoted by CNP's Stu Epperson and Ed Atsinger III and their townhall.com Salem Communications, media properties?

Why, IYO and in the opinion of these conservative propagandists. criticism of and challenging the leadership by those who are in disagreement, characterized as "constantly talking bad about Amerika"?

Why is "the message" about "the left talking bad", "Jeremiah Wright", and "Michele Obama" coming so intensely from such a small corner of the internet, air, and print media, if these "ideas" are a spontaneous, "common sense" reaction arrived at independently by reasonable people from all walks of American life and community?

Quote:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=Google+Search

Townhall.com::<h3>The World Doesn't Hate America, the Left Does:</h3>:By ...
The World Doesn't Hate America, the Left Does By Dennis Prager Tuesday, November 27, 2007. One of the most widely held beliefs in the contemporary world ...
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matthew330 · 03-16-2008, 02:15 PM

Funny, I've never heard of Eperson or Asssinger. I'll make you a deal Host...when I come up with something I feel certain no one else on this planet has ever said anything close to, I'll post it on the TFP. In the meantime, I'll consider myself properly fed.

Are you cool with me posting thoughtless and tedious direct quotes from at least 30 of my favorite chefs that say the same thing over and ove on every single thread, even though the thread itself may be completely unrelated?

Let me know what you think before I say something else that may waste another TFP readers time.

I

sprocket · 03-16-2008, 02:18 PM

One thing I can tell you, Host, is that here in Charlotte, NC, there is no such consensus or approval of the public school bussing program, despite what reporters for "The Boston Globe" say.

In fact, I think most would tell you, with a few exceptions, Charlotte-Mecklenburg public schools are shining examples of how not to run educational institutions. Part of the problem is they keep worrying about where to bus this person and that person instead of.. you know.. teaching.

mixedmedia · 03-16-2008, 02:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by matthew330

Funny, I've never heard of Eperson or Asssinger. I'll make you a deal Host...when I come up with something I feel certain no one else on this planet has ever said anything close to, I'll post it on the TFP. In the meantime, I'll consider myself properly fed.

Are you cool with me posting thoughtless and tedious direct quotes from at least 30 of my favorite chefs that say the same thing over and ove on every single thread, even though the thread itself may be completely unrelated?

Let me know what you think before I say something else that may waste another TFP readers time.

I

Oh, you mean like making wisecracks about my age or roachboy's posts?

By the way, I'm 42. Hardly part of the 'younger crowd.'

03-15-2008, 12:38 PM	#45 (permalink)
mixedmedia has all her shots. Location: Florida	I don't see any evidence that the man is a black supremacist. That's the thing. Largely, I find the white response to black advocacy to be reactionary. __________________ Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

03-15-2008, 02:30 PM	#50 (permalink)
mixedmedia has all her shots. Location: Florida	I don't see that any damage has been done. Not in my estimation. But then again, I'm not one of these people who expects a black man running for president to be Colin Powell or some reasonable facsimile. __________________ Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

03-15-2008, 07:45 PM	#53 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	loquitor has been doing battle with one of these about "people's perceptions" of obama for a few weeks now. i dont get it. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

03-15-2008, 10:24 PM	#56 (permalink)
dc_dux Location: Washington DC	loquitor...I know the realities of politics and never set my hopes or expectations too high. I just go with the man or woman who best represents my views and who I believe provides the best chance of moving the country forward...despite the enormous obstacles left by the Bush/Cheney legacy. __________________ "The perfect is the enemy of the good." ~ Voltaire

03-16-2008, 04:39 AM	#58 (permalink)
matthew330 Banned	That article is desperate and fringe. Read it, then go back and watch the video and think to yourself "i'm agreeing with the suggestion that not only is this guy highly patriotic, but the rest of the world are pinheads for not thinking so" If the democrats loose this election, you can chalk it up to not necessarily this instance, but this childish denial/elitist attitude that infects that party. Last edited by matthew330; 03-16-2008 at 04:41 AM..

03-15-2008, 05:52 PM	#51 (permalink)
loquitur Junkie Location: NYC	Matt Yglesias thinks Obama probably got involved in Wright's church because he needed local credibility. He wanted to run for office, his skin was dark but he had no black "experience" - i.e. the normal American history for a black person (remember, he grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia; his father was African, not American; and he was raised by a white mother) - so to signal the locals that he was one of them he joined one of their institutions. In other words, going to that church was political opportunism when it started, and he probably had to keep up his local appearance afterwards. To my ears that sounds about right, because nothing I have heard about Obama personally indicates he actually believes the sort of crap that Wright has been spewing. Of course this does present a problem for Obama. As others have pointed out, this puts him in a bind - if Yglesias is right about why he went to that church, and I suspect he probably is. But it does come back to what I have talked about before, which is that people are trying to make Obama into something he isn't - he's a very talented, very charismatic, very smart politician - but he's a politician, and a pretty conventional urban Democrat at that (albeit more charismatic and clever than most). He's not the messiah. You may or may not like urban Democrats, and that's OK. But take him for who he is, and don't persuade yourself otherwise. People who invest their hopes and dreams in him are gong to be very disappointed when he turns out to have to get down in the dirt with other politicians to get anything done.

03-15-2008, 10:19 PM	#55 (permalink)
loquitur Junkie Location: NYC	no, dc. I'm just telling you what I think he is. If you want to think otherwise, go right ahead. I still think you're setting yourself up for disappointment.

03-16-2008, 04:54 AM	#59 (permalink)
dc_dux Location: Washington DC	I dont think the "rest of the world" are pinheads.....just the ones in the US who are trying so hard to portray Obama as guilty by association. The fringe pinheads. __________________ "The perfect is the enemy of the good." ~ Voltaire

03-16-2008, 05:22 AM	#61 (permalink)
matthew330 Banned	thats a perversion of the phrase "guilty by association". He was preached to by this guy for 2 decades. it's not pinheaded to question him on this. He's not guilty of anything - he might be the president. Even on your worst ideological day, would you trust the guy in this video to run this country? I'll assume no. If I'm wrong, I'll concede....something, but I'll stop. If you wouldn't, why are you so comfortable having a loyal member/contributer of his "faith", assume that role without having to answer this beyond "yeah, he always talked about love and stuff when I heard him" The other factor that scares me is his wife saying that she's never been proud of this country in her adult life until now. This to me sounds like they heard everything this guy has been saying.

03-16-2008, 05:28 AM	#62 (permalink)
dc_dux Location: Washington DC	Call it what you want to satisfy your own agenda. IMO its guilt by association. The pastor and wife are not running for president. And its still a specious argument. __________________ "The perfect is the enemy of the good." ~ Voltaire

03-16-2008, 05:33 AM	#63 (permalink)
mixedmedia has all her shots. Location: Florida	And I've yet to see anything that he might be 'guilty' of. It's funny how it's just assumed that we should be threatened by this issue. __________________ Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

03-16-2008, 07:02 AM	#66 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	if you think about it, the curious aspect of this affair is really that obama reacted. if conservativeland is once again a fringe affair and its inhabitants pissy because they cannot adjust to their new and richly deserved fringe status, it would follow that most of their ideological claims and strategies would also be fringe affairs--so the conservative "understanding" of racism as a type of sentence unhinged from any reference to material or historical reality--that is fringe stuff, and you would think that the days of its traction would be over. so it's a little surprising obama reacted, and that mostly because it gave the inhabitants of conservativeland a chance to pretend that theirs is not in fact a marginal, fringe area of the ideological world. conservatives increasingly talk only to themselves. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

03-16-2008, 08:30 AM	#69 (permalink)
matthew330 Banned	in fairness, it is generally a younger crowd that doesn't

03-16-2008, 08:47 AM	#70 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i think this entire tempest in a teapot has unfolded on basically disengenuous grounds. in the ny times article yesterday which outlined the trajectory of this little affair--how it happened, when it happened, why now, that sort of thing--it is obvious how this took shape: pre-packaged from limbaugh, relayed through faux news and the reactionary blog-world.... there are two kinds of political power: the kind that you see reflected in the number of votes you can muster, and another which lay in the ability to shape the terms within which debate unfolds. i think the right is in for a very rude awalening in the coming elections on the former. i am a bit bewildered as to how they hang on to vestiges of the latter. but in this amurica, land where money can buy you repetition can buy you legitimacy no matter how fatuous the content, the right maintains a degree of ideological power. this is a little flex, a testing of the waters (to impute a bit of tactical intent to this). personally, i would like it to become as obvious as possible how this temepst in a teapot happened, who set the terms, how those terms were picked up and repeated, and in whose interests they operate, because it provides a little outline of the continued reach of the pestilence that is the conservative ideological apparatus. and we wont be rid of it until their ability to shape debates is broken. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

03-16-2008, 08:49 AM	#71 (permalink)
matthew330 Banned	when all else fails, talk like that ^^^^

03-16-2008, 08:55 AM	#72 (permalink)
Seaver Junkie Location: Fort Worth, TX	Honestly Roach, I have always respected you. However, you keep trying to pin this as a strawman argument. This isn't a strawman, would you honestly take this approach if the situation was the reverse? Everyone on this thread has ignored my posts, in part because I honestly believe they have no answer to it. It were strawman if you would not care if it were a conservative in my example. As it's clearly not the case it's not one. __________________ "Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

03-16-2008, 09:04 AM	#73 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i dont think your analogy holds any water, seaver. and i dont think this thread worth the effort of explaining it, because i dont think the tempest at its center is worth the bother---the premise is ridiculous--the editorial that smeth posted above summarizes a bunch of reasons for it--i have others as well---but this issue is not one that i feel should be accorded the respect required to use it to construct arguments against the conservative style of not-really-dealing-at-all with racism in america. it just isnt. so if you want to have a discussion, start another thread. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

03-16-2008, 10:05 AM	#76 (permalink)
powerclown Junkie Location: Detroit, MI	The Death of Hope? It's too awful to even contemplate.

03-16-2008, 02:15 PM	#78 (permalink)
matthew330 Banned	Funny, I've never heard of Eperson or Asssinger. I'll make you a deal Host...when I come up with something I feel certain no one else on this planet has ever said anything close to, I'll post it on the TFP. In the meantime, I'll consider myself properly fed. Are you cool with me posting thoughtless and tedious direct quotes from at least 30 of my favorite chefs that say the same thing over and ove on every single thread, even though the thread itself may be completely unrelated? Let me know what you think before I say something else that may waste another TFP readers time. I

03-16-2008, 02:18 PM	#79 (permalink)
sprocket Psycho Location: In transit	One thing I can tell you, Host, is that here in Charlotte, NC, there is no such consensus or approval of the public school bussing program, despite what reporters for "The Boston Globe" say. In fact, I think most would tell you, with a few exceptions, Charlotte-Mecklenburg public schools are shining examples of how not to run educational institutions. Part of the problem is they keep worrying about where to bus this person and that person instead of.. you know.. teaching. __________________ Remember, wherever you go... there you are. Last edited by sprocket; 03-16-2008 at 02:21 PM..