The Urban Revolution

OPERATION RECLAIM THE PRESS

2009-10-20T13:57:00.000-07:00

UPDATED 1/18/2010

The first Amendment of the Constitution of the United States reads:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

I believe that the founding fathers included the press in the Constitution because they expected the press to be a watch dog of the government for the people. The Constitution was written by men who were trying to avoid an autocratic governmental system like the systems found in Europe at the time.
During the time the Constitution was being drafted, “the press” was not these mega corporations, controlling 35 or 65% and often as much as 75% of a given market, it was in most cases a one man shows. And often some guy with a printing press in his barn. It was the existence of these independent journalists that helped keep the larger papers honest. The same was true with the invention of radio, television and now the internet. It was the independent stations that could be counted on to have the least amount of tendentiousness and it is often blogs that call out the mainstream media outlets.

By the 1990s, with the help of the FCC’s lack of scruples, the industry was deregulated and large corporations were allowed to own the majority of media outlets in any given market. With the power of deep pockets behind them; the large conglomerates swallowed the independents. This can be seen in all areas, from theatrical distribution companies to radio to newspapers. However, what is most concerning and what threatens the health of this nation is not only that some markets only have one journalistic voice but also the redefining of what is considered journalism and news.

There was a time when news organizations were so concerned about their integrity that they had a separate Board of Directors from their sister entertainment arms. Today, it is hard to tell what is considered news and what is supposed to be entertainment. However, the Society of Professional Journalists have established a code of ethics to act as a guide. They read:

Journalists should:

Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error. Deliberate distortion is never permissible.

Diligently seek out subjects of news stories to give them the opportunity to respond to allegations of wrongdoing.

Identify sources whenever feasible. The public is entitled to as much information as possible on sources' reliability.Always question sources’ motives before promising anonymity. Clarify conditions attached to any promise made in exchange for information. Keep promises.

Make certain that headlines, news teases and promotional material, photos, video, audio, graphics, sound bites and quotations do not misrepresent. They should not oversimplify or highlight incidents out of context.

Never distort the content of news photos or video. Image enhancement for technical clarity is always permissible. Label montages and photo illustrations.

Avoid misleading re-enactments or staged news events. If re-enactment is necessary to tell a story, label it.

Avoid undercover or other surreptitious methods of gathering information except when traditional open methods will not yield information vital to the public. Use of such methods should be explained as part of the story

Never plagiarize.

Tell the story of the diversity and magnitude of the human experience boldly, even when it is unpopular to do so.

Examine their own cultural values and avoid imposing those values on others.

Avoid stereotyping by race, gender, age, religion, ethnicity, geography, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance or social status.

Support the open exchange of views, even views they find repugnant.

Give voice to the voiceless; official and unofficial sources of information can be equally valid.

Distinguish between advocacy and news reporting. Analysis and commentary should be labeled and not misrepresent fact or context.

Distinguish news from advertising and shun hybrids that blur the lines between the two.

Recognize a special obligation to ensure that the public's business is conducted in the open and that government records are open to inspection.

These are the guidelines that journalists have placed on themselves. With these rules in mind let’s evaluate some of the organizations that call themselves “news”.

In the last 10 days the White House finally spoke up about the dishonest media outlet called Fox News. Several of the Administration’s spokespersons, including president Obama himself, have admonished that Fox News is not truly news and should not be treated as such by real news agencies. FINALLY, someone says what we have known for a long time. Not surprisingly other news agencies jumped to Fox’s defense explaining that their nighttime commentary is very different from their daytime news reporting. This discussion with Jake Tapper of ABC and White House Press Secretary is telling:

Tapper: It's escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations "not a news organization" and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization. Can you explain why it's appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one -

(Crosstalk)

Gibbs: Jake, we render, we render an opinion based on some of their coverage and the fairness that, the fairness of that coverage.

Tapper: But that's a pretty sweeping declaration that they are "not a news organization." How are they any different from, say -

Gibbs: ABC -

Tapper: ABC. MSNBC. Univision. I mean how are they any different?

Gibbs: You and I should watch sometime around 9 o'clock tonight. Or 5 o'clock this afternoon.

Tapper: I'm not talking about their opinion programming or issues you have with certain reports. I'm talking about saying thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a "news organization" -- why is that appropriate for the White House to say?

Gibbs: That's our opinion.

(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/20/jake-tapper-challenges-wh_n_327820.html)

Shame on Gibbs for not having the facts to back up “their opinion”. So, Press Secretary Gibbs, others have done your homework for you:
Fox News: A 24/7 Political Operation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRx5ethd8JU

The first ethics rule:
“Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error. Deliberate distortion is never permissible.

Statutory Rape – INACCURATE (a lie)

Veteran Death Panels - INACCURATE (a lie)

Sotomayor is a reversed racist, DISTORITION (a lie)

9/12 Tea Parties - DISTORITION (a lie)
- actually organized by Fox News and then staged with applause signs and the works

Czar mania - DISTORITION (a lie)

The litmus test for accuracy at Fox News must be akin to the test to see who will play short stop in a 1st grade kickball game...nonexistent. On Sunday, November 1st Fox reported that Dede Scozzafava, GOP candidate for NY's 23d District, endorsed the teabaggers choice Matt Hoffman, once she suspended her campaign. The truth is, as everyone knows, she endorsed the Democratic candidate Bill Owens, who went on to win the Congressional seat for that district. The fact of the matter is that their ‘news shows’ often echo their commentary shows with distortions, mistruths, and outright lies. What’s worse is that CNN and to a lesser degree MSNBC, NBC, ABC and CBS continue the misinformation distribution. This is not my opinion this is fact and thank God for youtube and organizations like: Media Matters, Brave New Films, Fox Watch and others.
FOX Attacks! Obama - Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjvNSpsPu1k

And because the true art and nature of journalism seems to be a dying art form the rest of the mainstream media has once again picked up the latest Fox News talking point – “the White House has declared war on Fox News”.
Fox News' War on the White House

October 29, 2009: For Fox Sake! – Jon Stewart

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-october-29-2009/for-fox-sake-

It is interesting that the right-wing of America has decided that they’re no longer interested in the freedom of the press nor a government for and by the people. Their actions say they are only interested in power. They realize to retain power you have to control the message and the only way to control the message is to control the media. Lessening the amount of media outlets enhances their ability to control the press; hence deregulation. I’m not sure when this began but I noticed the signs during the Reagan administration; the mantra during those times was “the liberal media”. As a progressive, the media has NEVER been liberal. It might have been center to center-right as opposed to far right; but NEVER liberal. With this campaign, to paint the right-wing as the victims, came the founding of FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting). One quick perusal of their website and it is obvious that they are not at all about advocating fairness and accuracy in journalism; they’re interested in forwarding the right-wing agenda. However, I never hear the press calling them an “extreme right-wing group” as they often refer to Media Matters and the Daily Kos as an “extreme left-wing or extreme liberal group”. This rhetoric from the likes of Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and the rest of the spokesman for the right-wing, is almost laughable except too many Americans get all of their news from these men whose commentary fuels racism, anti-patriotism and to a few…violence.

Net neutrality is now under attack. For those who don’t know what net neutrality is, here is an excerpt from Wikipedia;

Network neutrality (also net neutrality, Internet neutrality) is a principle proposed for residential broadband networks and potentially for all networks. A neutral broadband network is one that is free of restrictions on content, sites, or platforms, on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and on the modes of communication allowed, as well as one where communication is not unreasonably degraded by other communication streams.[1][2][3]
The principle states that if a given user pays for a certain level of internet access, and another user pays for a given level of access, that the two users should be able to connect to each other at that given rate of access

Basically, what this means is that corporations cannot pay the people who control the pipelines (Comcast, Cox, Time Warner et al) to give them preferential treatment. Corporate greed and the need for some groups to control the media lets us know that left to their own devices, corporations would pay the pipeline controllers to allow their content to be accessed faster and more easily than other content. So Joe Blogger would not be able to have his content accessed as easily as say, Fox News. This is part of the fight, this is what we must stop.
Mac vs PC: McOld Prefers his abacus

John, “I’m computer illiterate” McCain has introduced a new bill:

"Today I'm pleased to introduce the Internet Freedom Act of 2009 that will keep the Internet free from government control and regulation," McCain said. "It will allow for continued innovation that will in turn create more high-paying jobs for the millions of Americans who are out of work or seeking new employment. Keeping businesses free from oppressive regulations is the best stimulus for the current economy."

Don’t you love how congress chooses the names for bills that are the opposite of what the bill is meant to do/be? The Internet Freedom Act allows as much freedom as the Patriot Act. For a guy who is quoted as saying:
When asked if he went online himself, the Arizona senator responded: "They go on for me. I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/johnmccain/2403704/John-McCain-technology-illiterate-doesnt-email-or-use-internet.html
It seems to me that anything that he introduces regarding the internet should be laughed off the Senate floor. However, knowing how our congress works, unless we intercede this might actually become law.

I believe that we need to start another revolution! A take back the media revolution, we need to urge our congress to re-enact the rules and regulations surrounding news organizations, anti-monopoly laws for media outlets, and of course keeping net neutrality. We can fight indefinitely for health care reform, regulation of the financial industry, prosecuting those who allowed torture, etc. But unless we have a news industry that is, dedicated to the tenants of the Professional Society of Journalists, with a strong and healthy independent media industry we will find ourselves in this position again. We need the media to help us shed light on the racketeering that has infected “Wall Street” and is now threatening our system of governance.

Write your representatives and let them know it’s time to Reclaim the Press

* About Statement read on NYC Radio Station re: black people OR WHO ARE WE AND WHO DECIDES?

2009-10-14T14:08:00.000-07:00

I was just forwarded another email. Firstly, I looked online to check the veracity of it, I get so many forwarded emails that are part of hoaxes that have been traveling the Ethernet for more than a decade. This one has been traveling for over 6 years; though I cannot find any proof that it is real or false. I did find this statement on www.deelee.net in a 10 second search. This is the same Dee Lee pictured below…

————————————————————————

“If you are looking for the author of the “Blacks Don’t Read” article, you have reached the wrong Dee Lee. I did not author or nor did I read the article in question on air.

My life time work has been to educate people regarding money and helping them be good stewards of their resources.

This article has been circulating on the internet for over six years and over the years many things have been added to the gossip chain, my picture is one of them.

Dee Lee is a common name, continue your Goggle search.”

“A lie can make it halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on.” —Mark Twain

I believe this email is a hoax. However, what’s more important is that a brother sent this to me and thought it was worth my time; so I must respond

————————————————————————————–

Subject: Statement read on NYC Radio Station regarding black people

BLACK PEOPLE, PLEASE, READ & HEED. POIGNANT!!!

The sad thing about this article is that the essence of it is true. The
truth hurts. I just hope this sets more Black people in motion towards
making real progress. Chris Rock , a Black comedian, even joked that
Blacks don’t read.

Help prove them wrong! Read and pass on.

Please Note:

For those of you who heard it, this is the article Dee Lee was reading
this morning on a New York radio station. For those of you who didn’t
hear it, this is very deep. This is a heavy piece and a Caucasian wrote it.

Dee Lee, CFP
Harvard Financial Educators
(her picture did not copy over; but it is the same one that is shown at the website listed above)

Dee Lee

THEY ARE STILL OUR SLAVES We can continue to reap profits from the
Blacks without the effort of physical slavery. Look at the current
methods of containment that they use on themselves: IGNORANCE, GREED,
and SELFISHNESS.

IGNORANCE: Perhaps they are speaking of the poor white folks off the Appalachian Mountains or their brothers south of the Mason Dixie line. Maybe there speaking about the idiot who sits in the cube next to you arguing that our President is not a US citizen and that he’s a fascist trying to move this country in to a socialist state? Maybe they’re talking about the idiots we see on the news spouting, “take your government hands off of my Medicare”. All of these people are the epitome of ignorance.

GREED: Hmmm, they must be talking about the investment bankers that have been playing a game of high stakes poker with our mortgage money and tax money. The same folks who asked for our tax money with one hand and gave $1,000,0000s in bonuses with the other hand. The same folks who purposely put naïve borrowers in good credit standing into mortgage loans with balloon payments or outrageous adjustable loans with extortionist’s penalties for paying off early

SELFISHNESS: Got to be talking about the GOP the ReTHUGlican Party – you know the party made up of 99% white men in suits. The one’s that love their health care THAT WE PAY FOR but will be damned before they let anyone else have such a luxury – you know… those folks.

Their IGNORANCE is the primary weapon of containment.

This is a true statement. Just look at all the poor dumb white folks who vote time and time again against their own interests as long as they can keep those same benefits from benefiting black folks (oh there’s that selfishness again)

A great man once
said, ‘The best way to hide something from Black people is to put it in
a book.’

What great man?

We now live in the Information Age . They have gained the
opportunity to read any book on any subject through the efforts of their
fight for freedom , yet they refuse to read. There are numerous books
readily available at Borders, Barnes &Noble , and Amazon.com , not to
mention their own Black Bookstores that provide solid blueprints to
reach economic equality (which should have been their fight all along),
but few read consistently, if at all.

20 years ago the Baldwin Hills Mall was revamped. The potential vendors made a lot of assertions on what would and would not be successful in a mall with a predominantly African American clientele. One assertion was that we don’t read. Well, the Baldwin Hills Chamber and other concerned folks got together and convinced Walden Books to put a bookstore in that mall. The last time I checked it was one of the HIGHEST GROSSING BOOKSTORES IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY!

GREED is another powerful weapon of containment. Blacks, since the
abolition of slavery, have had large amounts of money at their disposal.
Last year they spent 10 billion dollars during Christmas , out of their
450 billion dollars in total yearly income (2.22%).

Any of us can use them as our target market, for any business venture
we care to dream up, no matter how outlandish, they will buy into it.
Being primarily a consumer people, they function totally by greed. They
continually want more, with little thought for saving or investing.

They would rather buy some new sneaker than invest in starting a
business. Some even neglect their children to have the latest Tommy or FUBU, And
they still think that having a Mercedes, and a big house gives them
‘Status’ or that they have achieved their Dream.

This is not greed; this is a product of Cultural Incest… a byproduct of 400 years of protracted abject oppression. For more information on this, go to www.culturalincest.com. Moreover, this is an American problem – which is why we have not had a real GDP boost since the early 70s. It’s interesting to me that no one has mentioned the fact that our whole economy – the growth of America – was based on FREE LABOR. They received free labor some say until the late 1960s when forced labor camps (institutionalized slavery) were finally abolished.

Interestingly, shortly thereafter major corporations started exporting their labor needs overseas; in essence creating slave labor in developing nations. Once these nations got used to the income and started demanding more – the corporation would pick up and leave – moving on to another nation to exploit.

But all of the so-called intelligent white people didn’t say a word because it only affected non-skilled laborers. But because of THEIR GREED, what started as transference of slave labor morphed into transference of labor. And the silly majority watched as union semi-skilled and skilled-labor jobs started being shipped overseas.

They are fools! But we’re the fools?Mmaybe but certainly not the only fools. The vast majority of their people are still in poverty
because their greed holds them back from collectively making better
communities.

The vast majority of African Americans are not in poverty. The vast majority are working and middle class.

With the help of BET, and the rest of their black media that often
broadcasts destructive images into their own homes, we will continue to
see huge profits like those of Tommy and Nike. ( Tommy Hilfiger has even jeered them, saying he doesn’t want their money, and look at how the fools spend more with him than ever before!). They’ll continue to show off to each other while we build solid communities with the profits from our businesses that we market to them.

Who writes this stuff? White people don’t know about the Tommy Hilfiger lie that his been circulating since God knows when. BET didn’t perpetuate the negative AA images (no love loss for the sell-out Johnsons) the mainstream media did! WE DID ALLOW IT

SELFISHNESS, ingrained in their minds through slavery, is one of the
major ways we can continue to contain them. One of their own, Dub ois
said that there was an innate division in their culture. A ‘Talented
Tenth’ he called it. He was correct in his deduction that there are
segments of their culture that has achieved some ‘form’ of success..
However, that segment missed the fullness of his work. They didn’t read
that the ‘Talented Tenth’ was then responsible to aid The Non-Talented
Ninety Percent in achieving a better life. Instead, that segment has
created another class, a Buppie class that looks down on their people
or aids them in a condescending manner.

This is the only part I agree with. But the reference to DuBois and Buppie leads me to believe a black Judas goat wrote this. And this is not selfishness this is a typical crab in the barrel mentality that affects every oppressed people from white women to brown men.

They will never achieve what we have.. Their selfishness does not allow them to be able to work together
on any project or endeavor of substance. When they do get together,
their selfishness lets their egos get in the way of their goal Their
so-called help organizations seem to only want to promote their name
without making any real change in their community.

I will comment on the prior paragraph at the end
They are content to sit in conferences and conventions in our hotels,
and talk about what they will do, while they award plaques to the best
speakers, not to the best doers. Is there no end to their selfishness?
They steadfastly refuse to see that TOGETHER EACH ACHIEVES MORE (TEAM)

They do not understand that they are no better than each other because of what they own, as a matter of fact, most of those Buppies are but one or two pay checks away from poverty. All of which is under the control of our pens in our offices and our rooms.

Blah, blah, blah … okay you get the point. Go to the end for my comments and let this get passed around for 6 years like the previous!!!
Yes, we will continue to contain them as long as they refuse to read,
continue to buy anything they want, and keep thinking they are ‘helping’
their communities by paying dues to organizations which do little other
than hold lavish conventions in our hotels. By the way, don’t worry
about any of them reading this letter, remember, ‘THEY DON’T READ!!!!

(Prove them wrong. Please pass this on! After Reading it.)
“We must be the change we wish to see in the world.” Mahatma Gandhi

————————————————————————————————

It is time for African Americans everywhere to stop looking at themselves through the eyes of white people. It is WAY PASSED time for US TO DEFINE WHO WE ARE. It’s time for us to stop ardently seeking their approval and start seeking the approval of God and each other. I believe that the reason this shallow dribble was passed on for 6 years is because it said a Caucasian wrote it. “Oh you know the white guy said it so it must be true…” (By the way, the original definition of Caucasian is: Of or being a human racial classification distinguished especially by very light to brown skin pigmentation and straight to wavy or curly hair, and including peoples indigenous to Europe, northern Africa, western Asia, and India. But I guess I shouldn’t know that since we don’t read.)

Though there is a bit of truth in this piece, the majority of it is either hyperbolic or straight out false. (The devil came to taunt Jesus with a bit of truth wrapped in lies) At best it is a surface scrapping of the opportunities that we still have before us as people at worst it’s not even worth the time that I’ve put into it so far.

To believe that you can reduce the repercussions of 400 years of protracted abject oppression down to: greed, selfishness, and ignorance shows that the author has the intellectual depth of an elementary school student.

Though I’ll be the first to say that we have work to do, that there are still great opportunities for growth as a people; I WILL NOT BE DEFINIED BY A WHITE MAN. And you shouldn’t either. I couldn’t care less what a white person thinks of me, unless they are signing my pay check. And then they will think what I want them to think of me. Those white folks whom I call friend do not think the way this author thinks (who I keep saying is probably black and just shows the depth of our sickness).

From this point forward let’s dedicate ourselves to self-definition and to community-empowerment. Love you – not because a white person says you’re okay but because you say you’re okay, because God says you’re okay.

Peace,

The Rabble Rouser

P.S. IF YOU SEND ME NONSENSE I WILL RESPOND WITH LOGICAL, RESEARCHED, TRUTH

Regarding Rev. Jeremiah Wright

2008-04-10T17:21:00.001-07:00

Responding to Wright controvery, Thomas asks, 'What kind of prophet?'

Written by staff reports
March 17, 2008

The Rev. John H. Thomas, UCC general minister and president, released the following statement on March 17 on the rhetoric of preaching, in light of recent news coverage of Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., and Chicago's Trinity UCC.

What Kind of Prophet?
Reflections on the Rhetoric of Preaching
in Light of Recent News Coverage of Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.
and Trinity United Church of Christ

The Rev. John H. Thomas
General Minister and President
United Church of Christ

Over the weekend members of our church and others have been subjected to the relentless airing of two or three brief video clips of sermons by the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ for thirty-six years and, for over half of those years, pastor of Senator Barack Obama and his family. These video clips, and news stories about them, have been served up with frenzied and heated commentary by media personalities expressing shock that such language and sentiments could be uttered from the pulpit.

One is tempted to ask whether these commentators ever listen to the overcharged rhetoric of their own opinion shows. Even more to the point is to wonder whether they have a working knowledge of the history of preaching in the United States from the unrelentingly grim language of New England election day sermons to the fiery rhetoric of the Black church prophetic tradition. Maybe they prefer the false prophets with their happy homilies in Jeremiah who say to the people: "You shall not see the sword, nor shall you have famine, but I will give you true peace in this place." To which God responds, "The prophets are prophesying lies in my name; I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds. . . . By sword and famine those prophets shall be consumed," (Jeremiah 14.14-15). The Biblical Jeremiah was coarse and provocative. Faithfulness, not respectability was the order of the day then. And now?

What's really going on here? First, it may state the obvious to point out that these television and radio shows have very little interest in Trinity Church or Jeremiah Wright. Those who sifted through hours of sermons searching for a few lurid phrases and those who have aired them repeatedly have only one intention. It is to wound a presidential candidate. In the process a congregation that does exceptional ministry and a pastor who has given his life to shape those ministries is caricatured and demonized. You don't have to be an Obama supporter to be alarmed at this. Will Clinton's United Methodist Church be next? Or McCain's Episcopal Church? Wouldn't we have been just as alarmed had it been Huckabee's Southern Baptist Church, or Romney's Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints?

Many of us would prefer to avoid the stark and startling language Pastor Wright used in these clips. But what was his real crime? He is condemned for using a mild "obscenity" in reference to the United States. This week we mark the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq, a war conceived in deception and prosecuted in foolish arrogance. Nearly four thousand cherished Americans have been killed, countless more wounded, and tens of thousands of Iraqis slaughtered. Where is the real obscenity here? True patriotism requires a degree of self-criticism, even self-judgment that may not always be easy or genteel. Pastor Wright's judgment may be starker and more sweeping than many of us are prepared to accept. But is the soul of our nation served any better by the polite prayers and gentle admonitions that have gone without a real hearing for these five years while the dying and destruction continues?

We might like to think that racism is a thing of the past, that Martin Luther King's harmonious multi-racial vision, articulated in his speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 and then struck down by an assassin's bullet in Memphis in 1968, has somehow been resurrected and now reigns throughout the land. Significant progress has been made. A black man is a legitimate candidate for President of the United States. A black woman serves as Secretary of State. The accomplishments are profound. But on the gritty streets of Chicago's south side where Trinity has planted itself, race continues to play favorites in failing urban school systems, unresponsive health care systems, crumbling infrastructure, and meager economic development. Are we to pretend all is well because much is, in fact, better than it used to be? Is it racist to name the racial divides that continue to afflict our nation, and to do so loudly? How ironic that a pastor and congregation which, for forty-five years, has cast its lot with a predominantly white denomination, participating fully in its wider church life and contributing generously to it, would be accused of racial exclusion and a failure to reach for racial reconciliation.

The gospel narrative of Palm Sunday's entrance into Jerusalem concludes with the overturning of the money changers' tables in the Temple courtyard. Here wealth and power and greed were challenged for the way the poor were oppressed to the point of exclusion from a share in the religious practices of the Temple. Today we watch as the gap between the obscenely wealthy and the obscenely poor widens. More and more of our neighbors are relegated to minimal health care or to no health care at all. Foreclosures destroy families while unscrupulous lenders seek bailouts from regulators who turned a blind eye to the impending crisis. Should the preacher today respond to this with only a whisper and a sigh?

Is Pastor Wright to be ridiculed and condemned for refusing to play the court prophet, blessing land and sovereign while pledging allegiance to our preoccupation with wealth and our fascination with weapons? In the United Church of Christ we honor diversity. For nearly four centuries we have respected dissent and have struggled to maintain the freedom of the pulpit. Not every pastor in the United Church of Christ will want to share Pastor Wright's rhetoric or his politics. Not every member will rise to shout "Amen!" But I trust we will all struggle in our own way to resist the lure of respectable religion that seeks to displace evangelical faith. For what this nation needs is not so much polite piety as the rough and radical word of the prophet calling us to repentance. And, as we struggle with that ancient calling, I pray we will be shrewd enough to name the hypocrisy of those who decry the mixing of religion and politics in order to serve their own political ends.

Will Clinton ever STOP LYING?

2008-04-09T15:31:00.000-07:00

"...Obama has been credited with foreseeing a troublesome war in Iraq primarily due to a speech he gave in 2002 while he was a state senator, where he spoke out against the war. Clinton said, “I started criticizing the war in Iraq before he did. So, I’m well aware that his entire campaign is premised on a speech he gave in 2002 and I give him credit for making that speech. But that was not a decision.”

McCain & O'Reilly: The White, Christian, male power structure

2008-04-07T19:56:00.000-07:00

Racism is so rampant in our culture today - I'd venture to say even more than it was 30 years ago. Racists are so arrogant that on the MAIN STREAM MEDIA Bill O'Reilly and John McCain can sit there on TV and admit and defend the white christian male power structure.

Of National Lies and Racial Amnesia:

2008-03-25T22:39:00.000-07:00

Of National Lies and Racial Amnesia:
Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama, and the Audacity of Truth

By Tim Wise

March 18, 2008

For most white folks, indignation just doesn't wear well. Once affected or conjured up, it reminds one of a pudgy man, wearing a tie that may well have fit him when he was fifty pounds lighter, but which now cuts off somewhere above his navel and makes him look like an idiot.

Indignation doesn't work for most whites, because having remained sanguine about, silent during, indeed often supportive of so much injustice over the years in this country--the theft of native land and genocide of indigenous persons, and the enslavement of Africans being only two of the best examples--we are just a bit late to get into the game of moral rectitude. And once we enter it, our efforts at righteousness tend to fail the test of sincerity.

But here we are, in 2008, fuming at the words of Pastor Jeremiah Wright, of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago--occasionally Barack Obama's pastor, and the man whom Obama credits with having brought him to Christianity--for merely reminding us of those evils about which we have remained so quiet, so dismissive, so unconcerned. It is not the crime that bothers us, but the remembrance of it, the unwillingness to let it go--these last words being the first ones uttered by most whites it seems whenever anyone, least of all an "angry black man" like Jeremiah Wright, foists upon us the bill of particulars for several centuries of white supremacy.

But our collective indignation, no matter how loudly we announce it, cannot drown out the truth. And as much as white America may not be able to hear it (and as much as politics may require Obama to condemn it) let us be clear, Jeremiah Wright fundamentally told the truth.

Oh I know that for some such a comment will seem shocking. After all, didn't he say that America "got what it deserved" on 9/11? And didn't he say that black people should be singing "God Damn America" because of its treatment of the African American community throughout the years?

Well actually, no he didn't.

Wright said not that the attacks of September 11th were justified, but that they were, in effect, predictable. Deploying the imagery of chickens coming home to roost is not to give thanks for the return of the poultry or to endorse such feathered homecoming as a positive good; rather, it is merely to note two things: first, that what goes around, indeed, comes around--a notion with longstanding theological grounding--and secondly, that the U.S. has indeed engaged in more than enough violence against innocent people to make it just a tad bit hypocritical for us to then evince shock and outrage about an attack on ourselves, as if the latter were unprecedented.

He noted that we killed far more people, far more innocent civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki than were killed on 9/11 and "never batted an eye." That this statement is true is inarguable, at least amongst sane people. He is correct on the math, he is correct on the innocence of the dead (neither city was a military target), and he is most definitely correct on the lack of remorse or even self-doubt about the act: sixty-plus years later most Americans still believe those attacks were justified, that they were needed to end the war and "save American lives."

But not only does such a calculus suggest that American lives are inherently worth more than the lives of Japanese civilians (or, one supposes, Vietnamese, Iraqi or Afghan civilians too), but it also ignores the long-declassified documents, and President Truman's own war diaries, all of which indicate clearly that Japan had already signaled its desire to end the war, and that we knew they were going to surrender, even without the dropping of atomic weapons. The conclusion to which these truths then attest is simple, both in its basic veracity and it monstrousness: namely, that in those places we committed premeditated and deliberate mass murder, with no justification whatsoever; and yet for saying that I will receive more hate mail, more hostility, more dismissive and contemptuous responses than will those who suggest that no body count is too high when we're the ones doing the killing. Jeremiah Wright becomes a pariah, because, you see, we much prefer the logic of George Bush the First, who once said that as President he would "never apologize for the United States of America. I don't care what the facts are."

And Wright didn't say blacks should be singing "God Damn America." He was suggesting that blacks owe little moral allegiance to a nation that has treated so many of them for so long as animals, as persons undeserving of dignity and respect, and which even now locks up hundreds of thousands of non-violent offenders (especially for drug possession), even while whites who do the same crimes (and according to the data, when it comes to drugs, more often in fact), are walking around free. His reference to God in that sermon was more about what God will do to such a nation, than it was about what should or shouldn't happen. It was a comment derived from, and fully in keeping with, the black prophetic tradition, and although one can surely disagree with the theology (I do, actually, and don't believe that any God either blesses or condemns nation states for their actions), the statement itself was no call for blacks to turn on America. If anything, it was a demand that America earn the respect of black people, something the evidence and history suggests it has yet to do.

Finally, although one can certainly disagree with Wright about his suggestion that the government created AIDS to get rid of black folks--and I do, for instance--it is worth pointing out that Wright isn't the only one who has said this. In fact, none other than Bill Cosby (oh yes, that Bill Cosby, the one white folks love because of his recent moral crusade against the black poor) proffered his belief in the very same thing back in the early '90s in an interview on CNN, when he said that AIDS may well have been created to get rid of people whom the government deemed "undesirable" including gays and racial minorities.

So that's the truth of the matter: Wright made one comment that is highly arguable, but which has also been voiced by white America's favorite black man, another that was horribly misinterpreted and stripped of all context, and then another that was demonstrably accurate. And for this, he is pilloried and made into a virtual enemy of the state; for this, Barack Obama may lose the support of just enough white folks to cost him the Democratic nomination, and/or the Presidency; all of it, because Jeremiah Wright, unlike most preachers opted for truth. If he had been one of those "prosperity ministers" who says Jesus wants nothing so much as for you to be rich, like Joel Osteen, that would have been fine. Had he been a retread bigot like Falwell was, or Pat Robertson is, he might have been criticized, but he would have remained in good standing and surely not have damaged a Presidential candidate in this way. But unlike Osteen, and Falwell, and Robertson, Jeremiah Wright refused to feed his parishioners lies.

What Jeremiah Wright knows, and told his flock--though make no mistake, they already knew it--is that 9/11 was neither the first, nor worst act of terrorism on American soil. The history of this nation for folks of color, was for generations, nothing less than an intergenerational hate crime, one in which 9/11s were woven into the fabric of everyday life: hundreds of thousands of the enslaved who died from the conditions of their bondage; thousands more who were lynched (as many as 10,000 in the first few years after the Civil War, according to testimony in the Congressional Record at the time); millions of indigenous persons wiped off the face of the Earth. No, to some, the horror of 9/11 was not new. To some it was not on that day that "everything changed." To some, everything changed four hundred years ago, when that first ship landed at what would become Jamestown. To some, everything changed when their ancestors were forced into the hulls of slave ships at Goree Island and brought to a strange land as chattel. To some, everything changed when they were run out of Northern Mexico, only to watch it become the Southwest United States, thanks to a war of annihilation initiated by the U.S. government. To some, being on the receiving end of terrorism has been a way of life. Until recently it was absolutely normal in fact.

But white folks have a hard time hearing these simple truths. We find it almost impossible to listen to an alternative version of reality. Indeed, what seems to bother white people more than anything, whether in the recent episode, or at any other time, is being confronted with the recognition that black people do not, by and large, see the world like we do; that black people, by and large, do not view America as white people view it. We are, in fact, shocked that this should be so, having come to believe, apparently, that the falsehoods to which we cling like a kidney patient clings to a dialysis machine, are equally shared by our darker-skinned compatriots.

This is what James Baldwin was talking about in his classic 1972 work, No Name in the Street, wherein he noted:

White children, in the main, and whether they are rich or poor, grow up with a grasp of reality so feeble that they can very accurately be described as deluded--about themselves and the world they live in. White people have managed to get through their entire lifetimes in this euphoric state, but black people have not been so lucky: a black man who sees the world the way John Wayne, for example, sees it would not be an eccentric patriot, but a raving maniac.

And so we were shocked in 1987, when Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall declined to celebrate the bicentennial of the Constitution, because, as he noted, most of that history had been one of overt racism and injustice, and to his way of thinking, the only history worth celebrating had been that of the past three or four decades.

We were shocked to learn that black people actually believed that a white cop who was a documented racist might frame a black man; and we're shocked to learn that lots of black folks still perceive the U.S. as a racist nation--we're literally stunned that people who say they experience discrimination regularly (and who have the social science research to back them up) actually think that those experiences and that data might actually say something about the nation in which they reside. Imagine.

Whites are easily shocked by what we see and hear from Pastor Wright and Trinity Church, because what we see and hear so thoroughly challenges our understanding of who we are as a nation. But black people have never, for the most part, believed in the imagery of the "shining city on a hill," for they have never had the option of looking at their nation and ignoring the mountain-sized warts still dotting its face when it comes to race. Black people do not, in the main, get misty eyed at the sight of the flag the way white people do--and this is true even for millions of black veterans--for they understand that the nation for whom that flag waves is still not fully committed to their own equality. They have a harder time singing those tunes that white people seem so eager to belt out, like "God Bless America," for they know that whites sang those words loudly and proudly even as they were enforcing Jim Crow segregation, rioting against blacks who dared move into previously white neighborhoods, throwing rocks at Dr. King and then cheering, as so many did, when they heard the news that he had been assassinated.

Whites refuse to remember (or perhaps have never learned) that which black folks cannot afford to forget. I've seen white people stunned to the point of paralysis when they learn the truth about lynchings in this country--when they discover that such events were not just a couple of good old boys with a truck and a rope hauling some black guy out to the tree, hanging him, and letting him swing there. They were never told the truth: that lynchings were often community events, advertised in papers as "Negro Barbecues," involving hundreds or even thousands of whites, who would join in the fun, eat chicken salad and drink sweet tea, all while the black victims of their depravity were being hung, then shot, then burned, and then having their body parts cut off, to be handed out to onlookers. They are stunned to learn that postcards of the events were traded as souvenirs, and that very few whites, including members of their own families did or said anything to stop it.

Rather than knowing about and confronting the ugliness of our past, whites take steps to excise the less flattering aspects of our history so that we need not be bothered with them. So, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for example, site of an orgy of violence against the black community in 1921, city officials literally went into the town library and removed all reference to the mass killings in the Greenwood district from the papers with a razor blade--an excising of truth and an assault on memory that would remain unchanged for over seventy years.

At the risk of violating some copyright laws you will have to go to original pub. to read the rest.

to read the rest go here: http://www.lipmagazine.org/~timwise/NationalLies.html

Hillary Clinton relates her foreign policy experience

2008-03-23T19:19:00.000-07:00

Please view this and let me know what you think of her vast experience with foreign policy.

Jeremiah Wright God damn America IN CONTEXT

2008-03-23T08:54:00.000-07:00

John 8:32 - "...And you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free..."

Former Secy of National Security backs Obama

2008-03-20T16:02:00.000-07:00

Fox News combs through user-generated pages on myBarackObama.com

2008-03-19T21:06:00.000-07:00

Apparently, today was a slow news day.

So Fox News evidently decided to pore through our millions of user-created pages on My.BarackObama.com and put a screenshot of inflammatory content on the front page of FoxNews.com.

You see, more than 700,000 people have created accounts on the system. You can create one right now if you choose, in about a minute -- anyone can.

Now, from time to time people get up to no good -- creating fake profiles (like one for Sean Hannity created today), or posting profane or inappropriate content. When they do, the community reports the offending content and if it violates our terms of service it is removed (as the Sean Hannity profile was).

My.BarackObama.com has been at the core of our bottom-up organizing strategy. The tools available have been put to work by a community of supporters that is bigger and more powerful than anything presidential politics has ever seen.

Evidently, Fox News didn't think it was a big deal that hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans are participating in the democratic process creating groups and local events in communities all across the country.

But they did think it was a big deal that one random person on the Internet, without the knowledge of the Obama campaign, posted a profile in the system with the image of the New Black Panther Party on it.

When we were alerted of the existence of this page, we pulled it down. Yet even after we pulled the page, Fox News continues to disingenuously and prominently feature this "story" on their homepage.

_____________________________________________________

MY RESPONSE

Dear FoxNews and every other so-called news agency:

I truly believe that we have come to a point in our history where we must make a decision about who we are as a nation. Are we a nation that’s only objective is to continue with the dumbing down of America? Or are we going to restart the nurturing of thoughtful and provocative analysis? Will we continue to sensationalize hyperboles, distortions, and histrionics or will we start taking a critical view of what it is really going to take to create the America that our Founding Fathers dreamed of?

The definition of patriotism is: devoted love, support, and defense of one's country; national loyalty.

True love for one’s country is exhibited by actions, not words. True love is illustrated by what one is willing to risk in order to help another grow and become greater. Some call it tough love. I call it nurturing. In order to nurture effectively you have to be willing to take the blinders off, recognize the character defects, and help them towards growth. The key phrase here is RECOGNIZE THE CHARACTER DEFECTS. Yesterday, Senator Obama potentially risked his presidential nomination for the good of this country. THAT IS PATRIOTISM. What has NewsCorp risked for the good of our country?

Now I understand that NewsCorp is a business and that the purpose of the business is to increase shareholder value. However, one has to question an entity that has portrayed itself as a source of true journalism yet has to answer not to the community in which it is supposed to serve; but to shareholders and the corporations that give it money to advertise. So in truth, NewsCorp’s true customer is not us, the consumer; but the mega corporations that advertise on its airwaves, etc. And that would be fine, if NewsCorp were honest about its true reason for being.

Unfortunately, the American public still views journalists as one of the checks and balances of our society. NewsCorp has absolutely failed in this regard. Not only have you compared one of the most courageous presidential candidates in recent history to Adolph Hitler, you are now scouring mybarackobama.com for rogue blogs. Your tactics do not alleviate my suspicion that FoxNews itself could be the perpetrator of these rogue pages. If Bill O’Reilly would compare our candidate to Adolph Hitler; if FoxNews will continuously give voice to verbal terrorists like Ann Coulter and portray it as news or true journalism; if FoxNews continues to report lies (as it did with the madrassa stories) pandering to fear and the lowest common denominator while only offering small insignificant retractions; then FoxNews has set itself up to be the object of suspicion when it starts to report on trivial matters as these.

You are on notice FoxNews and every other so-called news agency. This time is different. This time we will not follow blindly like lemmings. This time we will rise up and say, “That just won’t do”. This time we will rise up and say, “NOT THIS TIME”. We want truth, we want justice and we’re sick and tired of FoxNews lying to the American public and calling itself a voice of the people.

A Pastor of the UCC church speaks out about Jeremiah Wright

2008-03-16T19:47:00.000-07:00

Brothers and sisters (in honor of Jeremiah Wright),

by pastordan [Subscribe]

Sun Mar 16, 2008 at 04:50:08 PM PDT

It's been a painful couple of days.

pastordan's diary :: ::

As many if not all of you already know, I am an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. If the UCC were a ship, I'd own a plank: my family's roots go back to the Reformation in Westphalia. My grandfather was ordained in the Evangelical and Reformed church, a predecessor to the UCC, and served a church in suburban Detroit for nearly forty years. My father was in one of the earliest classes of ordinands in the new denomination, and pastored ably in Ohio, Missouri and Wisconsin. I told God to look elsewhere for the fourth generation, which of course just about guarantees that one of our kids will grow up to become a pastor.

Scratch me and I bleed United Church of Christ. I was born in a UCC-affiliated hospital, grew up in a UCC congregation, found myself in another, and owe my sanity and career to the service to which I have been called.

You dis the UCC, and you dis mi familia, ese.

Honestly, I don't know what's been worse: the ignorant slurs against Jeremiah Wright or the well-intentioned inaccuracies. Some of the latter are understandable. As the national denomination says, Trinity UCC in Chicago is our "flagship congregation," yet it is also an anomaly: a black evangelical megachurch in a denomination that is overwhelmingly white, traditional and mostly small.

And while we have a long tradition of social activism, we're not even as liberal as some folks would have you believe. Like most mainline denominations, we're only modestly more Democratic than Republican, and only recently so. (Which makes us moderates, not conservatives, but drifting to the left.)

In any event, we're not all radical fire-breathers like Jeremiah Wright, but we do take a familial protectiveness toward him. Even when we can't live up to the preaching of the prophets, we pride ourselves in being goaded by the best.

And we are certainly not a gang of haters. Nor is Jeremiah Wright. To mention one example I'm familiar with, the Conference Minister of the very white Wisconsin Conference went to Wright to ask for his help in establishing a black congregation in Milwaukee. The Conference Minister thought he was going to get some advice and perhaps a commitment to help in the future. Instead, after a one hour meeting, Wright declared that one of his associates would plant the church, with one year's full financial support from Trinity, since extended to two or three. Does that sound like the actions of a hater to you? It doesn't to me.

I am likewise proud of Jeremiah Wright (and yes, Barack Obama), even if I can't always go where he does in his Afrocentrism. I have enjoyed the company of more than one black congregation, and know how vibrant their faith is, how deeply held it is and how deeply connected to the plight of their people. And make no mistake: they are still in plight. Perhaps the very richest African-Americans no longer know poor folks or the sting of continued discrimination. I've never met any who didn't.

In that, for all their other faults, black Christians live close to the gospel, where white folks should be but seldom can push themselves. It stings to see a political ally dragged through the mud, but it hurts, deep, to watch as someone who actually tries to live the message of redemption and liberation in Jesus Christ is pilloried as a hater, a racist, and a purveyor of violent rhetoric.

This one is for you, Rev. Wright:

The United Church of Christ Statement of Faith in the form of a doxology

We believe in you, O God, Eternal Spirit, God of our Savior Jesus Christ and our God, and to your deeds we testify:

You call the worlds into being, create persons in your own image,and set before each one the ways of life and death.

You seek in holy love to save all people from aimlessness and sin.

You judge people and nations by your righteous will declared through prophets and apostles.

In Jesus Christ, the man of Nazareth, our crucified and risen Savior, you have come to us and shared our common lot, conquering sin and death and reconciling the world to yourself.

You bestow upon us your Holy Spirit, creating and renewing the church of Jesus Christ, binding in covenant faithful people of all ages, tongues, and races.

You call us into your church to accept the cost and joy of discipleship, to be your servants in the service of others, to proclaim the gospel to all the world and resist the powers of evil,to share in Christ's baptism and eat at his table, to join him in his passion and victory.

You promise to all who trust you forgiveness of sins and fullness of grace, courage in the struggle for justice and peace, your presence in trial and rejoicing, and eternal life in your realm which has no end.

Blessing and honor, glory and power be unto you.

Amen.

Obama's Minister Committed "Treason" but When my Father Said the Same Thing He Was a Republican Hero

2008-03-16T17:13:00.000-07:00

When Senator Obama's preacher thundered about racism and injustice Obama suffered smear-by-association. But when my late father -- Religious Right leader Francis Schaeffer -- denounced America and even called for the violent overthrow of the US government, he was invited to lunch with presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, Sr.

Every Sunday thousands of right wing white preachers (following in my father's footsteps) rail against America's sins from tens of thousands of pulpits. They tell us that America is complicit in the "murder of the unborn," has become "Sodom" by coddling gays, and that our public schools are sinful places full of evolutionists and sex educators hell-bent on corrupting children. They say, as my dad often did, that we are, "under the judgment of God." They call America evil and warn of immanent destruction. By comparison Obama's minister's shouted "controversial" comments were mild. All he said was that God should damn America for our racism and violence and that no one had ever used the N-word about Hillary Clinton.

Dad and I were amongst the founders of the Religious right. In the 1970s and 1980s, while Dad and I crisscrossed America denouncing our nation's sins instead of getting in trouble we became darlings of the Republican Party. (This was while I was my father's sidekick before I dropped out of the evangelical movement altogether.) We were rewarded for our "stand" by people such as Congressman Jack Kemp, the Fords, Reagan and the Bush family. The top Republican leadership depended on preachers and agitators like us to energize their rank and file. No one called us un-American.

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Consider a few passages from my father's immensely influential America-bashing book A Christian Manifesto. It sailed under the radar of the major media who, back when it was published in 1980, were not paying particular attention to best-selling religious books. Nevertheless it sold more than a million copies.

Here's Dad writing in his chapter on civil disobedience:

If there is a legitimate reason for the use of force [against the US government]... then at a certain point force is justifiable.

And this:

In the United States the materialistic, humanistic world view is being taught exclusively in most state schools... There is an obvious parallel between this and the situation in Russia [the USSR]. And we really must not be blind to the fact that indeed in the public schools in the United States all religious influence is as forcibly forbidden as in the Soviet Union....

Then this:

There does come a time when force, even physical force, is appropriate... A true Christian in Hitler's Germany and in the occupied countries should have defied the false and counterfeit state. This brings us to a current issue that is crucial for the future of the church in the United States, the issue of abortion... It is time we consciously realize that when any office commands what is contrary to God's law it abrogates it's authority. And our loyalty to the God who gave this law then requires that we make the appropriate response in that situation...

Was any conservative political leader associated with Dad running for cover? Far from it. Dad was a frequent guest of the Kemps, had lunch with the Fords, stayed in the White House as their guest, he met with Reagan, helped Dr. C. Everett Koop become Surgeon General. (I went on the 700 Club several times to generate support for Koop).

Dad became a hero to the evangelical community and a leading political instigator. When Dad died in 1984 everyone from Reagan to Kemp to Billy Graham lamented his passing publicly as the loss of a great American. Not one Republican leader was ever asked to denounce my dad or distanced himself from Dad's statements.

Take Dad's words and put them in the mouth of Obama's preacher (or in the mouth of any black American preacher) and people would be accusing that preacher of treason. Yet when we of the white Religious Right denounced America white conservative Americans and top political leaders, called our words "godly" and "prophetic" and a "call to repentance."

We Republican agitators of the mid 1970s to the late 1980s were genuinely anti-American in the same spirit that later Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson (both followers of my father) were anti-American when they said God had removed his blessing from America on 9/11, because America accepted gays. Falwell and Robertson recanted but we never did.

My dad's books denouncing America and comparing the USA to Hitler are still best sellers in the "respectable" evangelical community and he's still hailed as a prophet by many Republican leaders. When Mike Huckabee was recently asked by Katie Couric to name one book he'd take with him to a desert island, besides the Bible, he named Dad's Whatever Happened to the Human Race? a book where Dad also compared America to Hitler's Germany.

The hypocrisy of the right denouncing Obama, because of his minister's words, is staggering. They are the same people who argue for the right to "bear arms" as "insurance" to limit government power. They are the same people that (in the early 1980s roared and cheered when I called down damnation on America as "fallen away from God" at their national meetings where I was keynote speaker, including the annual meeting of the ultraconservative Southern Baptist convention, and the religious broadcasters that I addressed.

Today we have a marriage of convenience between the right wing fundamentalists who hate Obama, and the "progressive" Clintons who are playing the race card through their own smear machine. As Jane Smiley writes in the Huffington Post "[The Clinton's] are, indeed, now part of the 'vast right wing conspiracy.' http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-smiley/im-already-against-the-n_b_90628.html

Both the far right Republicans and the stop-at-nothing Clintons are using the "scandal" of Obama's preacher to undermine the first black American candidate with a serious shot at the presidency. Funny thing is, the racist Clinton/Far Right smear machine proves that Obama's minister had a valid point. There is plenty to yell about these days.

Jeremiah Wright, Obama, and Hitler - what do they have in common?

2008-03-15T18:23:00.000-07:00

Obama being compared to Hitler?!?
Obama has to take responsibility for a few of the 2000+ sermons his pastor has given!
Obama's patriotism being questioned!

The definition of patriotism is: devoted love, support, and defense of one's country; national loyalty.

True love and support is exhibited by our actions not our words. True love and support of our friends and families is illustrated by our willingness to jeopardize our relationship with that family member in order to help them grow. Some call it tough love. I call it nurturing. In order to nurture effectively you have to be willing to take the blinders off, recognize the character defects, and love them towards growth. The key phrase here is RECOGNIZE THE CHARACTER DEFECTS.

Pastor Jeremiah Wright recognizes this country's character defects. Senator Barack Hussein Obama recognizes this country's character defects and so do I. If America were our friend what would we say to him? What would we say as he strutted around, chest poked out, claiming intellectual and moral superiority?

Let's take it a step further. Say our friend, we'll call him Joe. Say Joe was the victim of slander at his job. It wasn't enough to get him fired but it was enough to slow down or stop a promotion. What would we advise him to do? What if Joe found out who started the rumors and decided that he would retaliate. Perhaps the perpetrator (let's call him Tim) had been padding his expense report and Joe knew about it. So Joe let's everyone know that Tim has been padding his expense reports - the news gets Tim fired. But it also gets his two supervisors fired because they should've caught it. And it gets Tim's secretary fired because maybe she conspired with him. What would we tell Joe? Should we say anything if he asks for our advice? Does he have a right to still feel morally superior? In his fury and lust for revenge and so called justice, he not only "killed his foe" but also "killed 3 innocents". Was this justified?

When asked, would we advise Joe that what he did was fine but his method was wrong (ala Clinton)? Would we tell him that he is the father figure and therefore the moral authority so if he says it's right then it's right? (ala John McCain). Or would we advise him that what he did was wrong because his thought process was wrong, because his motivations were wrong and so the outcome was wrong? Would we say that we have to get at the root cause of A. why did Tim disrespect him enough to smear him in the first place and B. What could he have done differently, without becoming a doormat or flunky, so as to create an ally out of Tim as opposed to an enemy. (ala Obama)

True love is rooted in the notion that one has an obligation to respect and nurture the objects of that love. So I question the patriotism of, the Rush Limbaughs, GW Bushes, and Bill O'Reillys of the world. Do they truly love this country? Are they truly patriotic? Or are they that sick, self-indulgent parent who can't be bothered to nurture their child; who can't be bothered to correct that child because it gets in the way of what they want to do.

I feel confident in saying it is the latter. Now watch as Fox News continues the mind manipulation and smears the hope of this nation - Senator Barack Obama

If you like this video, you might want to donate to the filmmakers so that they can continue with the truth;

PENTAGON REPORT - Iraq had no previous link to al Qaida

2008-03-10T22:06:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON — An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network.
The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam's regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East, U.S. officials told McClatchy. However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime.
The new study of the Iraqi regime's archives found no documents indicating a "direct operational link" between Hussein's Iraq and al Qaida before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report.
TO READ MORE:

Barack supporter makes us look GOOD

2008-03-09T21:18:00.000-07:00

This interviewer thought he was going to railroad this beautiful black man. He got tricked. He was so taken aback by the knowledge in this young man that he ended up agreeing with him. HAH!

Clinton, the Prime Minister, and NAFTA

2008-03-09T08:51:00.000-07:00

Why do you suppose this story is not bigger than it is? Why have most of the media outlets chosen to ignore the fact that while Clinton was accusing Barack Obama of double talk - it was HER CAMP, doing the political two-step?

The Clinton camp denies the allegations, and so did Obama's team. So why is her denial more believable than Obama's?

Why does the media LIE?

2008-03-07T17:13:00.000-08:00

Here we go again, CNN is saying that Obama is an amateur because a member of his team, said that he will re look at the best way to withdraw from Iraq in 2009. Is that the rational thing to do? Does that mean he will turn into John McCain? And why wasn't the Clinton campaign called amateurs when a member of her team spoke out of turn? hmmmm....

The truth is that Obama's economic adviser did not talk our of turn, his words were twisted - purposely. Here is the apology that is on the Canadian consulate's website.

http://geo.international.gc.ca/can-am/chicago/menu-en.asp

Statement by the Consulate General of Canada in Chicago

Chicago, IL, March 3, 2008 — The Canadian Embassy and our Consulates General regularly contact those involved in all of the Presidential campaigns and, periodically, report on these contacts to interested officials. In the recent report produced by the Consulate General in Chicago, there was no intention to convey, in any way, that Senator Obama and his campaign team were taking a different position in public from views expressed in private, including about NAFTA. We deeply regret any inference that may have been drawn to that effect.

The people of the United States are in the process of choosing a new President and are fortunate to have strong and impressive candidates from both political parties. Canada will not interfere in this electoral process. We look forward, however, to working with the choice of the American people in further building an unparalleled relationship with a close friend and partner.

NAFTA, CANADA Hillary and the Minister

2008-03-05T20:14:00.000-08:00

Why are the members of the Canadian Parliament so upset at the supposed "wink wink nod nod" agreement that Obama's people made with Canada? BECAUSE IT IS A LIE! That's why. Here is actual footage from the Canadian Parliament's last session.

The other thing that I find very odd after looking at the interactive maps on CNN politics is that in some counties not one single Republican vote was cast...this on the heels of Limbaugh urging the GOP to vote for Clinton. Needless to say that in these counties Clinton won. hmmmm.... Is this how America chooses a President?!?

Hillary Clinton's foreign policy experience

2008-03-03T22:34:00.000-08:00

Well folks, here it is. All of her famed experience can be summed up in this media conference call with Clinton's campaign advisers.

Click below to listen to the actual phone call

http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2008/02/pregnant_pause.html

Clinton continues the Muslim Smear

2008-03-03T21:07:00.001-08:00

“You don't believe that Senator Obama's a Muslim?” Kroft asked Sen. Clinton.

“Of course not. I mean, that, you know, there is no basis for that. I take him on the basis of what he says. And, you know, there isn't any reason to doubt that,” she replied.

“You said you'd take Senator Obama at his word that he's not…a Muslim. You don't believe that he's…,” Kroft said.

“No. No, there is nothing to base that on. As far as I know,” she said.

“It's just scurrilous…?” Kroft inquired.

“Look, I have been the target of so many ridiculous rumors, that I have a great deal of sympathy for anybody who gets, you know, smeared with the kind of rumors that go on all the time,” Clinton said.

So I ask the question again, at what point is an apology no longer acceptable? Is this the America that we want; where politicians will get on national TV and lie to get votes? We must not let this happen - for our children's sake!

McCain and Clinton's record listed as EXTREMELY POOR

2008-03-02T21:03:00.000-08:00

In fairness Obama's success rate is listed as poor the other two extremely poor. So what is all of this experience that they're talking about?

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/person.xpd?id=300071

Barack Obama has sponsored 129 bills since Jan 4, 2005, of which 120 haven't made it out of committee (Poor) and 1 were successfully enacted (Average, relative to peers). Obama has co-sponsored 551 bills during the same time period (Average, relative to peers).
S. 2030: A bill to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to require reporting relating to bundled contributions made by persons other than registered lobbyists.
S. 2111: Positive Behavior for Effective Schools Act
S. 2066: Back to School: Improving Standards for Nutrition and Physical Education in Schools Act of 2007
S.Con.Res. 46: A concurrent resolution supporting the goals and ideals of Sickle Cell Disease Awareness Month.
S. 2044: Independent Contractor Proper Classification Act of 2007 (to help workers not get exploited by employers by labeling them indie contractors)

Hillary Clinton has sponsored 354 bills since Jan 22, 2001, of which 307 haven't made it out of committee (Extremely Poor) and 2 were successfully enacted (Average, relative to peers). Clinton has co-sponsored 1728 bills during the same time period (Average, relative to peers).
S. 2114: American Home Ownership Preservation Act of 2007 (no co sponsors)
S. 2082: A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act to establish a Coordinated Environmental Public Health Network, and for other purposes. ( no explanation of goals)
S. 2059: Airline Flight Crew Technical Corrections Act (family and med leave amendment)
S. 1148: Hudson-Fulton-Champlain Quadricentennial Commemoration Commission Act of 2007 (PR bill let’s commemorate some one)
S. 2054: Neighborhood Reclamation and Revitalization Program Act of 2007 (self explanatory – want’s to give grants to realestate developers)

John McCain has sponsored 403 bills since Jan 21, 1997, of which 263 haven't made it out of committee (Extremely Poor) and 12 were successfully enacted (Extremely Good, relative to peers). McCain has co-sponsored 876 bills during the same time period (Average, relative to peers).
Some of McCain's most recently sponsored bills include... (View All)
S. 722: Walnut Canyon Study Act of 2007 (land study – goals not mentioned)
S. 2172: Saffron Revolution Support Act of 2007 (a bill to stop import of gems and hardwood from Burma?!?!)
S. 1304: Arizona National Scenic Trail Act
S. 32: Defense Acquisition Reform Act of 2007 (how they acquire stuff)
S. 1255: Indian Arts and Crafts Amendments Act of 2007

TAKEAWAYS
So, McCain get's extremely good for the amount finally enacted. However, let's look at the last 5 bills sponsored. They seem really safe! I've added explanations when the titles of the bills weren't self-explanatory. I'm not going to go back to the 1990s to look but I did at least look at 2007 and McCain’s only sponsored one bill dealing with foreign policy and ZERO dealing with the troops. Obama has sponsored 4 regarding foreign policy and Clinton 1.5 (one is so vague and has no explanation) Both Obama and Clinton have sponsored a handful of bills dealing with the troops, but Obama has sponsored more. Remember now, the Republicans claim to have the patent on patriotism. Forget a lapel pin how about trying to help our troops!!! The media doesn't bring up these things. I wonder why not...

Now let's see what they value based on these last 5 bills: Obama: schools, public health, worker's rights, and ethics
Clinton: public health, worker's rights, housing, revitalization (though I question this last one there's not enough info)
McCain: protecting Native American arts and craft, studying the land, stopping Burma from exporting, and adding bureaucracy to the military acquisitions process

Hmmmm, now who cares more about America? Obama and Clinton win this hands down, but again the Republican's think they own the patent on patriotism. Forget the lapel pin bring our troops home!

So, we've blown experience out of the water, and values, now let's look at character.

Do I need to even comment on Sen. Clinton - naahhh
McCain was demonized by Karl Rove in the 2000 election calling his adopted daughter an illegitimate black child of his - now he embraces Rove. Hmmmm (this is a fact mentioned on numerous news programs- including CNN just last night)
Regarding Obama's church; Barack Obama attends a historically black church. This church’s pastor has some daughters who run a magazine. That magazine published by the daughters of the pastor of the church that Sen. Obama attends gives out awards to those who have helped the downtrodden — historically black communities across the country and black peoples around the world. Last year, one of those awards was given to Louis Farrakhan because of his and his organizations’ dedication to rehabilitating and improving the plight of ex-convicts. (for those of you who don't know The Nation of Islam has had a phenomenal success rate for eliminating recidivism among ex-cons. I don't agree with Farrakhan - but I cannot dispute a fact)
Regarding its African-centric views: "This is no different than the hundreds of UCC churches from the German Evangelical and Reformed stream that continue to own and celebrate their German heritage, insisting on annual sausage and sauerkraut dinners and singing Stille Nacht on Christmas Eve. Recognizing and celebrating our distinctive racial-ethnic heritages, cultures, languages and customs are what make us unique as a united and uniting denomination.' While Trinity UCC is predominately African American, it does include and welcome non-Black members. The Rev. Jane Fisler-Hoffman, Illinois Conference Minister, who is white, has been a member of the congregation for years."

It's 3am and your children are safe and asleep... What CRISIS DECISION has Clinton ever been forced to make?

2008-03-02T16:29:00.001-08:00

RHETORIC: Clinton claims she is better qualified to answer the phone at the White House

FACT: Clinton failed her key foreign policy test with her support for Iraq. Also, Clinton and her campaign can still not answer the question of what in her experience makes her more qualified than Obama to handle tough foreign policy decisions

On CNN today:
Q: Senator, can you talk about one specific time when you've had to make that kind of 3 A.M., split-second decision based on foreign policy?

Clinton: Well, I was involved in a lot of the decisions that were made. But again, you're looking at it from the wrong perspective. I'm presenting – you know, no one who hasn't been president has ever done that. So, that's not the right question. The question is, what have you done over the course of a lifetime to equip you for that moment. Now, I think you'll be able to imagine many things Senator McCain will be able to say. He's never been the president, but he will put forth his lifetime of experience. I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Senator Obama will put forth the speech he made in 2002. And that's why national security is a critical issue for Democrats as we go into this primary; because everyone knows that John McCain will make this election about national security, that is a given. And it will be imperative that we have a nominee who is able to stand on that stage with Senator McCain, and I believe I am the person best able to do that. [CNN, 3/1/08]

From her campaign's conference call yesterday:
It was, in this reporter's opinion, the most interesting moment in today's Clinton campaign phoner with reporters. Responding to the release of HRC's new TX TV ad, which asserts in no subtle terms that only she has the experience to deal with a major world crisis, and, relatedly, to keep your children safe, Slate's John Dickerson asked the obvious question: "What foreign policy moment would you point to in Hillary's career where she's been tested by crisis?" he said. Silence on the call. You could've knit a sweater in the time it took the usually verbose team of Mark Penn, Howard Wolfson and Lee Feinstein, Clinton's national security director, to find a cogent answer. And what they came up with was weak -- that she's been endorsed by many high ranking members of the uniformed military. Take a listen... [Hotline, 2/29/08]

CLINTON ENDORSES BARACK OBAMA

2008-02-29T23:21:00.001-08:00

Clinton in 2004 campaigning for John Kerry

WE ARE THE ONES - new song by will.i.am

2008-02-29T17:58:00.000-08:00

"...The larger question going forward is: do specifics really matter? To quote Mike Tyson: the best fight plan in the world only lasts until you take the first punch in the face. Similarly, the best political ideas only last until you get them before a divided and ineffectual Congress.

Perhaps, more than specifics, we need a leader who can inspire people to pressure their reps to bend to the will of the new. What is rhetoric if not a call to action?

Perhaps that's a question someone would care to ask of Barack Obama..." (excerpts from a Huffington Post article written by writer of Three Kings, John Ridley)

Barack HUSSEIN Obama - what's in a name?

2008-02-28T22:18:00.000-08:00

At what point has an apology lost its meaning? At what point should we start looking at the aggressor as an intentional foe as opposed to a friend with a lapse in judgment? Should we assume that those in control of the airwaves or large organizations are not as intelligent as they’d like us to perceive them to be? They claim to be worthy of our trust in their abilities to lead, yet they continuously act in a manner that demands an apology.

So, I find myself in a quandary. There is a disconnect. Three of Clinton’s staff members acted in a manner that demanded not only an apology but in at least one case a dismissal. McCain’s staff thought it was wise to solicit the services of Mr. Cunningham as a surrogate for Senator McCain. And the staff of the Tennessee GOP thought it was prudent to distort the truth with hyperbolic allegations of anti-Semitic intent on the part of Barack Hussein Obama. In all three of these cases, staff was reprimanded, denounced, rejected and dismissed.

Were the leaders of the organizations sincere in their pronouncements? I have no idea because God did not grant me the gift of psychic abilities. However, the actions and non actions do have further implications that do not take a psychic to dissect.

Either the leaders of these organization SANCTIONED the racist remarks or
The “leaders” of these organizations ARE NOT LEADERS and are therefore not worthy of our trust.

It’s either one or the other and there is no middle ground. If these organizations were for-profit companies, these travesties would never have happened. Could you imagine Bill Gates alleging that Steve Jobs is a socialist? Or that he has anti – Semitic sentiments?!? It would never happen! Yet somehow in politics its allowed – even expected. And maybe that’s the part that makes me madder than ever. That America has sunk to the level where slander is a part of the daily lives of our leaders – that this is accepted behavior. And we follow along like the lemmings willfully stepping off of the cliff – without a safety net.

This is indeed the Washington that Barack wants to change. And so I ask, is this the America that I should be so proud of? Never mind the Rovian disgraces leveled against not just Dems but Repubs too; is this somehow okay?

It is time that we stop being so conservative and accepting of the status quo, afraid that change might be uncomfortable. Of course it will be uncomfortable. As a friend of mine used to say, “all growth is preceded by pain”. We can only hope that the same is true for America and that there is indeed growth after the pain.

A Letter to the Republican Party and any other anarchists

2008-02-28T07:06:00.000-08:00

You still to do not realize that this time is different? That this time we're not going to accept business as usual? This time we're paying attention and we don't like what we see! We will not tolerate inflammatory, divisive rhetoric.

It is amazing to me that the party that claims to be a part of the 'moral majority' are acting so contrary to that. You coddle and idolize people like Karl Rove who even against his own fellow Repubs., will race-bait. As he did by passing around pictures of McCain's adopted child and calling her McCain's illegitimate black child.

So, is this the change that we can expect from the Republican party? Is this the change that McCain, who now embraces Rove, speaks of? Or better question, is this really who America is?

Are we an America that decides if one of our own disagrees with us then they are fair game to demonize? If so, then how are we any better than common criminals or better yet, how are we any better than the Taliban or other terrorist groups? Oh what, because we don't physically kill people? Well contrary to what Clinton believes, words are powerful and you can kill with them.

I believe we're better than that. WE HAVE YET to live up to the words of our founding fathers - AS LONG AS A GROUP IN AMERICA IS OPPRESSED - we are FAILING.

Be a part of the solution, not the problem.

Barack Obama does the work of the average person

2008-02-27T19:34:00.000-08:00

Barack decided to spend a day doing the work of a home care provider -- so that he would have first hand knowledge of what America's average laborer's day is like. Please watch this, then ask yourself if you believe Hillary Clinton or John McCain would EVER do something like this.

Farrakhan and Obama

2008-02-27T11:45:00.000-08:00

Senator Barack Obama is a Christian.

Christians are taught to DENOUNCE the SIN not the sinner.

For Sen. Clinton or MSNBC to demand that he do otherwise is reprehensible.

This is the Change that the Republican's offer

2008-02-27T07:18:00.000-08:00

You know for a party that supposedly represents the MORAL MAJORITY, they seem to be seriously lacking in the morals department and polls show they definitely aren't in the majority.

However, John McCain and his republican cohorts offer that they are the voice and face of change - that they are what America needs:

Well I offer you this clip as evidence of the change that they offer. Whether it is Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulture calling people pinheads or Hannidy race baiting. The Republicans offer politics, fear, and racism as usual. They have not yet realized that America is TIRED OF BEING DIVIDED. That Anglos are tired of feeling like they have to apologize for the stupidity of the Bill Cunninghams of the world.

On Racism

2008-02-24T20:53:00.001-08:00

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller

Healthcare in American - Bush/McCain style

2008-02-24T13:16:00.000-08:00

I for one am VERY proud to be an American

2008-02-22T22:39:00.000-08:00

Well I for one am very proud to be an American, gosh I don't know what's wrong with that tacky Michelle Obama.
I was proud when my nephew went to Afganistan and my sister in law had to buy him a kevlar (sp?) vest out of her own money
I was proud when our president said that we have WMD's then papers came out proving he was planning to go to Iraq at the first opportunity
I was proud when Rumsfeld told the soldiers who were digging up scrap metal to protect their unarmored Humvees that "you go to war with the army you have not the army you want"
I was proud when our president was reading a book (upside down) to kids at the elementary school while terrorist ran OUR airplanes into the WTC
I was proud when our President was impeached and disbarred for lying because he had some woman sucking his #$*(*#&
I was proud when Bush sent our men over to Afghanistan and they came back with weird cancers (my brother did!!!)
I was proud when Reagan started to dismantle the middle class with his trickle down theory voodoo economics
I was proud when jimmy carter allowed our people to become hostages in Iran
I was proud when nixon was ALSO GOT CAUGHT LYING and was impeached
I was proud as we threw sticks at the poor service men coming home from Vietnam
I was proud when they shot MLK
I was proud when they shot Bobby Kennedy
I was proud when they shot JFK
I was proud when then shot my brothers and sister who marched through the streets of the south for freedom
I was proud for 100 years that we've spent in servitude in the south while our young men were lynched and hung from trees
I was extremely proud when we nuked Nagasaki and Hiroshima instead of Germany
I was proud for the 300+ years prior to that that my people were enslaved -- that means FREE LABOR that was stolen which made this country able to become so wealthy
I was proud when they separated the children from their parents and severed families
I was proud when they ended slavery and took a people that had no sense of community and dumped by the side of the road and said go figure it out (and still we stand)
I was proud when the ships came into the harbor carrying my brothers and sister in shackles
and I'm still proud when I go in to urban america and see how schools that have children of color have less resources than suburban schools
and I'm proud that my family gets to choose where to live based on how the police treat black people
and I'm proud when members of my VERY WELL EDUCATED family get thrown on the ground and handcuffed because they "look like some one who..."

FORGIVE ME IF I SOUND A LITTLE ANGRY I'm actually very happy and proud to be an AMERICAN!!!!

I Refuse to Buy into the Obama Hype (now a supporter)

2008-02-22T09:55:00.000-08:00

(this has been "reprinted" with the universal permission from grassroots mom)

by Grassroots Mom

Wed Feb 20, 2008 at 05:13:32 PM PST

The next President is going to have some MAJOR challenges.
I refuse to buy into the hype, on either side, but especially on that of Obama. However the "empty rhetoric" v. "history of accomplishments" arguments have prompted me to check it out on my own, not relying on any candidate's website, book, or worst of all supporters' diaries, like this one.

I went to the Library of Congress Website. The FACTS of what each did in the Senate last year sure surprised me. I'm sure they will surprise you, too. Whether you love or hate Hillary, you will be surprised. Whether you think Obama is the second coming of JFK or an inexperienced lightweight, you will surprised. Go check out the Library of Congress Website. After spending some time there, it will be clear that there is really only one candidate would is ready to be the next president, even better than Gore. If you don't want to spend an hour or two doing research, then I'll tell you what I discovered on the jump.

Grassroots Mom's diary :: ::

I looked up Obama and looked up Clinton. I looked at the bills that they both authored and introduced. Anyone who has been around politics, and is honest, realizes that there are a lot of reasons why a Senator votes one way or another on bills or misses votes. However an examination of the bills that each of these Senators cared enough about to author and introduce revealed much to me: what they care about, what their priorities are, how they tackle problems. And the list of co-sponsors showed something about how they lead, inspire and work with others. Finally, looking at which bills actually passed is pretty indicative of how effective each would be at getting things done.

Before I get into the nitty gritty, let's all be honest here. It is damn hard to get anything through Congress these days. And Obama and Clinton care about the same issues and have obviously worked together on a lot of legislation, whatever Sen. Clinton's campaign may imply. She is a frequent co-sponsor on his bills, and he on hers. They are both completely competent senators.

I started with Sen. Clinton.

I'm not a Hillary Hater, but I certainly didn't like her much either. I didn't like her DLC history; her votes on Iraq, Iran or the bankruptcy bill; her characterization of the years she spent as First Lady as "executive experience." Hillary Clinton is no Eleanor Roosevelt. Perhaps more like Lady Bird Johnson. Hillary claims to have brought us SCHIP (with a little help from Ted Kennedy). Lady Bird brought us Head Start as well as cleaner, nicer highways. Anyone 40 or older probably remembers when the nation's highways were basically disgusting garbage dumps lined with billboards. But no one thinks Lady Bird should have been president. Might as well argue for Barbara Bush because of her efforts on family literacy, or Nancy Reagan and the War on Drugs.

Hillary Clinton does have a solid record in the Senate, however.

I came away from my research really knowing a lot more about what is important to Hillary in her heart: kids and their well being. My research changed my feeling about her significantly. About 40% of her bills dealt with health care and/or kids. As a mom with small kids, I like her passion for children's issues. But curiously, her big bill to deliver health care to every child, the one she lauds on her website, S.895 : "A bill to amend titles XIX and XXI of the Social Security Act to ensure that every child in the United States has access to affordable, quality health insurance coverage, and for other purposes" had not a single co-sponsor. Not one, according to the Library of Congress. Why is that? Is it a bad bill? Or is she not able to recruit support for her signature issue? Or did she just submit it simply to put in the hopper, so to speak, so she could claim she was working on it. I honestly don't know the answer, but I find it curious and suspicious that not even Ted Kennedy co-sponsored it. Its sister bill in the house, H.R. 1535, introduced by John Dingell has 42 co-sponsors. It's just weird. I honestly don't know what to make of it.

S.895 was major. But most of her other bills are much smaller in scale and scope — more targeted and more careful.

For example, she introduced one bill that offered tax credits for building owners who clean up lead paint. Which is a very good thing. And Obama is a co-sponsor. "S.1793 : A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide a tax credit for property owners who remove lead-based paint hazards."

Obama's anti-lead bill (S. 1306) directed the Consumer Product Safety Commission to classify certain children's products containing lead as banned hazardous substances. He had another bill prohibitting the interstate transport of children's products containing lead. (S.2132) And Hillary co-sponsored each of these.

In other words, they both care about protecting children from lead.

The difference is in the scope and the approach.

Obama's bill shows how he thinks big: do everything we can to make sure that lead-painted Thomas the Tank Engine toys don't get into the hands and mouths of millions of toddlers in this country.

Or Hillary: encourage people by offering tax credits to clean up lead paint in old buildings. People have been talking about lead paint in old buildings hurting kids in living in inner cities, since, well when I was a kid — for decades. If it is still a big problem, is offering tax credits for clean up, i.e. scrape down the walls and repaint, the best way to protect kids from lead?

How many of you parents have lead paint problems? How many have (or had) toxic Thomas the Tank Engine Toys? They are everywhere. The local bookstore and kid's shoe store and the doctor's office and the preschool and the toystore all have train tables. There is nowhere you can go anymore with toddlers that doesn't have a Thomas the Tank Engine train table covered with toxic toys. But that's just my feeling.

Obama's bills risk pissing off the toy industry and the Chinese. Hillary's risks nothing.

A lot of Clinton's health bills focus on children. Or women. She introduced a billl for research in the causes of gestational diabetes, for more pediatric research (S.895) and a rural agriculture bill to get farm-fresh veggies into schools (S.1031).

Her bill dealing with the crisis in foreclosure is actually S.2114 : "A bill to amend the Truth in Lending Act, to provide for enhanced disclosures to consumers and enhanced regulation of mortgage brokers, and for other purposes." Again, no co-sponsors. Obama also introduced a bill in the face of the mortgage foreclosure crisis: S.1222 : "A bill to stop mortgage transactions which operate to promote fraud, risk, abuse, and under-development, and for other purposes." Sponsor: Sen Obama, Barack [IL] (introduced 4/25/2007), co-sponsored by Dick Durbin.

In her ads and speeches, Clinton claims that she's fighting to stop foreclosure while implying that Obama is empty rhetoric. Actually, Clinton is calling for "enhanced disclosures to consumers and enhanced regulation", while Obama's bill will "stop mortgage transactions which operate to promote fraud, risk, abuse, and under-development." After looking at the two bills, Obama's appears to be tougher, more directly addressing the problem.

Speaking of Obama, here's a list of some of his proposed legislation.

Four bills on energy including
• S.1151 : A bill to provide incentives to the auto industry to accelerate efforts to develop more energy-efficient vehicles to lessen dependence on oil;
•S.115 : A bill to suspend royalty relief, to repeal certain provisions of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to repeal certain tax incentives for the oil and gas industry; and •S.133 : A bill to promote the national security and stability of the economy of the United States by reducing the dependence of the United States on oil through the use of alternative fuels and new technology, and for other purposes.

Clinton had only one bill that I could find that addressed the same issue, S.701 : A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to impose a temporary oil profit fee and to use the proceeds of the fee collected to provide a Strategic Energy Fund and expand certain energy tax incentives, and for other purposes.

Obama wants to "repeal certain tax incentives for the oil and gas industry". Clinton sees the answer in a "temporary oil profit fee" and to "expand certain energy tax incentives" for alternative energy. Obama's alternative energy bill (S.133) was co-sponsored by Harkin, Lugar and Salazar. Clinton's bill again had no co-sponsors.

On health care he introduced ten bills/amendments, including one amendment that passed: S.AMDT.1041 to S.1082 To improve the safety and efficacy of genetic tests. Other issues addressed in his proposed health care legislation were AIDS research (S.823 ), hospital report cards (S.692 — the V.A., and S.1824 — Medicare), better emergency care (S.1873), and drug price controls (S.2347).

Clinton's health care bills, for the most part, didn't impress me much, although she introduced many more bills in this area than Obama did:

S.CON.RES.63 : A concurrent resolution expressing the sense of the Congress regarding the need for additional research into the chronic neurological condition hydrocephalus, and for other purposes.
S.RES.176 : A resolution recognizing April 30, 2007, as "National Healthy Schools Day".
S.RES.222 : A resolution supporting the goals and ideals of Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month.
S.201 : A bill to establish a grant program for individuals still suffering health effects as a result of the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York City and at the Pentagon.
S.907 : A bill to establish an Advisory Committee on Gestational Diabetes, to provide grants to better understand and reduce gestational diabetes, and for other purposes.
S.993 : A bill to improve pediatric research.
S.982 : A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for integration of mental health services and mental health treatment outreach teams, and for other purposes.
S.1065 : A bill to improve the diagnosis and treatment of traumatic brain injury in members and former members of the Armed Forces, to review and expand telehealth and telemental health programs of the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs, and for other purposes.
S.1075 : A bill to amend title XIX of the Social Security Act to expand access to contraceptive services for women and men under the Medicaid program, help low income women and couples prevent unintended pregnancies and reduce abortion, and for other purposes.
S.1343 : A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act with respect to prevention and treatment of diabetes, and for other purposes.
S.1712 : A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act to improve newborn screening activities, and for other purposes.

and on and on. Plenty of these have plenty of co-sponsors. Obviously, Hillary Clinton really knows her stuff on the issues of health care. None of them passed, however. On Obama's side, one of his health care initiatives passed in the Senate, the aforementioned amendment to Kennedy's S.1082, the FDA Revitalization Act.

Truth be told, it was very depressing doing this research to see all these great ideas and how little actually gets done. Looking at the legislative history of Kennedy's bill is a good example. It finally passed but its sister bill in the House, H.R.2900, was the one that was finally enacted, and with it, Obama's amendment for safe and effective genetic testing. Clinton submitted two amendments to this bill, one of would have eliminated the sunsetting of pediatric data collection; the other would have begin the process to approve generic versions of complex and expensive drugs called biologics or biotech drugs. Neither were adopted.

Now let's look more closely at Obama.

I was blown away as I started going through his record. I've already mentioned his bills on health care and energy. In addition he had introduced bills on Iran, voting, veterans, global warming, campaign finance and lobbyists, Blackwater, global poverty, nuclear proliferation, and education.
On Iran: S.J.RES.23 : A joint resolution clarifying that the use of force against Iran is not authorized by the Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq, any resolution previously adopted, or any other provision of law.

On votingPassed out of Committee and now on the Senate Calendar for Feb. 22, 2008
S.453 : A bill to prohibit deceptive practices in Federal elections Please check this out! This is a great bill. We need this. I can't believe that this time voter intimidation is not already illegal.

On veterans and military personnel: S.1084 : A bill to provide housing assistance for very low-income veterans;

On global warmingS.1324 : A bill to amend the Clean Air Act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation fuel sold in the United States;S.1389 : A bill to authorize the National Science Foundation to establish a Climate Change Education Program; S.AMDT.599 to S.CON.RES.21 To add $200 million for Function 270 (Energy) for the demonstration and monitoring of carbon capture and sequestration technology by the Department of Energy. (This last one passed both the House and the Senate as part of the budget bill.)

On campaign finance and lobbyists S.2030 : A bill to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to require reporting relating to bundled contributions made by persons other than registered lobbyists; and S.AMDT.41 to S.1 To require lobbyists to disclose the candidates, leadership PACs, or political parties for whom they collect or arrange contributions, and the aggregate amount of the contributions collected or arranged.

On Blackwater S.2044 : A bill to provide procedures for the proper classification of employees and independent contractors, and for other purposes, and S.2147 : A bill to require accountability for contractors and contract personnel under Federal contracts, and for other purposes.

On global poverty S.2433 : A bill to require the President to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day.

On global nuclear proliferation S.1977 : A bill to provide for sustained United States leadership in a cooperative global effort to prevent nuclear terrorism, reduce global nuclear arsenals, stop the spread of nuclear weapons and related material and technology, and support the responsible and peaceful use of nuclear technology.

I counted nine education bills, but it's getting late and I've got to get my kids ready for bed.

As I mentioned earlier, Clinton is a frequent co-sponsor on many of Obama's bills. So is Ted Kennedy. So are a number of Republicans.

Finally, Obama appears to have a better record last year in the Senate on getting his bills and amendments passed than does Clinton. I've listed everything that passed the Senate for each them at the end in boxes. But check out Thomas.loc.gov for yourself. I may have missed something.

In my eyes Obama is the superior choice in every way. He cares about more of the issues that matter to me. Kids and health care are important but so is the issue of global warming, on which Clinton introduced not a single bill last year.

Obama is a leader. With bigger majorities in Congress, much of his agenda should sail through. He can inspire this country to change course on so many things, from health care to global warming, where attitudes have to be changed first. I remember Bill Clinton's endless laundry lists of small, focus group approved initiatives. For those who say Hillary will not govern like Bill did, I respond that the people who were doing the market testing of his proposed policies were Dick Morris, of course, and Mark Penn, who is now running Hillary's campaign.

It's Obama for me! I just sent him $100. My first donation this election.

Yes, We Can!

Clinton's Successes:
S.694 : A bill to direct the Secretary of Transportation to issue regulations to reduce the incidence of child injury and death occurring inside or outside of light motor vehicles, and for other purposes. (This is currently in conference committee to reconcile difference with the House bill)
Passed in the Senate:
S.CON.RES.27 : A concurrent resolution supporting the goals and ideals of "National Purple Heart Recognition Day".
S.RES.21 : A resolution recognizing the uncommon valor of Wesley Autrey of New York, New York
S.RES.92 : A resolution calling for the immediate and unconditional release of soldiers of Israel held captive by Hamas and Hezbollah.
S.RES.141 : A resolution urging all member countries of the International Commission of the International Tracing Service who have yet to ratify the May 2006 amendments to the 1955 Bonn Accords to expedite the ratification process to allow for open access to the Holocaust archives located at Bad Arolsen, Germany.
S.RES.222 : A resolution supporting the goals and ideals of Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month.
S.AMDT.666 to H.R.1591 To link award fees under Department of Homeland Security contracts to successful acquisition outcomes under such contracts.
S.AMDT.2047 to H.R.1585 To specify additional individuals eligible to transportation for survivors of deceased members of the Armed Forces to attend their burial ceremonies.
S.AMDT.2108 to H.R.1585 To require a report on the planning and implementation of the policy of the United States toward Darfur.
S.AMDT.2390 to H.R.2638 To require that all contracts of the Department of Homeland Security that provide award fees link such fees to successful acquisition outcomes.
S.AMDT.2474 to H.R.2638 To ensure that the Federal Protective Service has adequate personnel.
S.AMDT.2823 to H.R.3074 To require a report on plans to alleviate congestion and flight delays in the New York/New Jersey/Philadelphia Airspace.
S.AMDT.2917 to H.R.1585 To extend and enhance the authority for temporary lodging expenses for members of the Armed Forces in areas subject to a major disaster declaration or for installations experiencing a sudden increase in personnel levels.

Obama's Success:
S.AMDT.1041 to S.1082 To improve the safety and efficacy of genetic tests.
S.AMDT.3073 to H.R.1585 To provide for transparency and accountability in military and security contracting.
S.AMDT.3078 to H.R.1585 Relating to administrative separations of members of the Armed Forces for personality disorder.
S.AMDT.41 to S.1 To require lobbyists to disclose the candidates, leadership PACs, or political parties for whom they collect or arrange contributions, and the aggregate amount of the contributions collected or arranged.
S.AMDT.524 to S.CON.RES.21 To provide $100 million for the Summer Term Education Program supporting summer learning opportunities for low-income students in the early grades to lessen summer learning losses that contribute to the achievement gaps separating low-income students from their middle-class peers.
S.AMDT.599 to S.CON.RES.21 To add $200 million for Function 270 (Energy) for the demonstration and monitoring of carbon capture and sequestration technology by the Department of Energy.
S.AMDT.905 to S.761 To require the Director of Mathematics, Science, and Engineering Education to establish a program to recruit and provide mentors for women and underrepresented minorities who are interested in careers in mathematics, science, and engineering.
S.AMDT.923 to S.761 To expand the pipeline of individuals entering the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields to support United States innovation and competitiveness.
S.AMDT.924 to S.761 To establish summer term education programs.
S.AMDT.2519 to H.R.2638 To provide that one of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to enter into a contract in an amount greater than $5 million or to award a grant in excess of such amount unless the prospective contractor or grantee certifies in writing to the agency awarding the contract or grant that the contractor or grantee owes no past due Federal tax liability.
S.AMDT.2588 to H.R.976 To provide certain employment protections for family members who are caring for members of the Armed Forces recovering from illnesses and injuries incurred on active duty.
S.AMDT.2658 to H.R.2642 To provide that none of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to enter into a contract in an amount greater than $5,000,000 or to award a grant in excess of such amount unless the prospective contractor or grantee makes certain certifications regarding Federal tax liability.
S.AMDT.2692 to H.R.2764 To require a comprehensive nuclear threat reduction and security plan.
S.AMDT.2799 to H.R.3074 To provide that none of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to enter into a contract in an amount greater than $5,000,000 or to award a grant in excess of such amount unless the prospective contractor or grantee makes certain certifications regarding Federal tax liability.
S.AMDT.3137 to H.R.3222 To provide that none of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to enter into a contract in an amount greater than $5,000,000 or to award a grant in excess of such amount unless the prospective contractor or grantee makes certain certifications regarding Federal tax liability.
S.AMDT.3234 to H.R.3093 To provide that none of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to enter into a contract in an amount greater than $5,000,000 or to award a grant in excess of such amount unless the prospective contractor or grantee makes certain certifications regarding Federal tax liability.
S.AMDT.3331 to H.R.3043 To provide that none of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used to enter into a contract in an amount greater than $5,000,000 or to award a grant in excess of such amount unless the prospective contractor or grantee makes certain certifications regarding Federal tax liability.
Senate Resolutions Passed:
S.RES.133 : A resolution celebrating the life of Bishop Gilbert Earl Patterson.
S.RES.268 : A resolution designating July 12, 2007, as "National Summer Learning Day".

Michelle Obama - is finally REALLY proud of her country

2008-02-19T05:55:00.000-08:00

Rhetoric: "...for the first time in my adult life I am really proud of my country..." - Michelle Obama

I've been reading other's blogs, and it sounds like the unpatriotic witch hunts that happened earlier this century. Those would have been started by GW Bush -- anyone who was against the war was unpatriotic. I know at least a few talk show hosts that lost their jobs because of their stance. And now here we are 5 years later and most would agree that the war was a mistake. All but John McCain and Hillary Clinton.

We know what Mrs. Obama's intent was. For me, I've always been proud of my son, but the day he graduates I will REALLY be proud of my son. She's been proud of her country but these days when it appears that we've gotten past racial divides she is REALLY proud of her country.
You know the media focuses on such petty stuff. Is this more important than Clinton not releasing her tax documents or intentions for earmarks?!? Is this more important than the fact that McCain says no new taxes, voted against Bush's tax reductions twice and now has decided he won't repeal those tax reductions? is this more important than being at war for 100 years, or singing BOMB BOMB BOMB BOMB BOMB IRAN?!?!?!

If Hillary had said it I'd be saying the same thing. I don't care about such trivialities, show me your tax returns!!!

Come on people, wake up. Mrs. Obama has already said that she is the personification of the American Dream - poor girl goes to Princeton and Harvard. That statement implies pride in her country.

I bet the same people who are "outraged" are the same people who said that folks who spoke out against the war are unpatriotic. Let's stick to the issues.

Please tell me how would this statement make your life better or worse if Sen. Obama were elected? Seems to me that if in fact she meant what some of the bloggers are saying then she would work really hard to make this a country that everyone could be proud of. And that would make everyone's life better.

Straight Talk, & Distortions revealed

2008-02-17T11:04:00.000-08:00

This is funny -- Obama's tongue and cheek criticism of opponents dishonesty

The war in Iraq - Obama vs. Clinton

2008-02-17T09:21:00.000-08:00

Sound decision-making skills are not necessarily subject-matter specific. It transcends. Think about this as you make your decision on whom to vote for. Do you want a person who claims to have so much experience but still cannot make a sound decision? (that would be Clinton and McCain) Or do you want someone who's intelligence out weighs their so-called experience?

I offer solutions while he offers talk (or rhetoric)

2008-02-16T08:50:00.001-08:00

I challenge readers to go to each of the candidates websites, including McCain. Click the tab called issues and read how they plan to deal with various concerns.

Just to give you an example: on Education Barack Obama has summarized his plan in 18 pages, with details on what he will do. Hillary's plan is 1 page which is 1/2 bullet points (they take up more room when you're trying to fill space) McCain's plan is about a page. Both plans are missing a lot of the "hows".

Hillary has said nothing about how she will attract better talent to the teaching field
McCain is still trying to push "no child left behind" which marginalizes our students and compels teachers to simply teach to the test
Finally McCain will be pushing the voucher system which will leave the working poor without the ability to choose private over public schools, and will also leave less money to bring inner-city schools up to par with suburban schools.

Once again the media has failed us. They're only reporting what the candidate's political strategist tell them to report. Most people will not take the time to dig up the truth. I must - this is my country and I refuse to be bamboozled or hoodwinked.

We still need folks to do some phone banking, you can do it from your home. I've committed to making 5 calls per night. (which is a sacrifice for me since I'm a full time student, and working mom)

Bill Clinton attacks Obama for not honoring his legacy?!?!?

2008-02-16T08:48:00.000-08:00

As far as honoring Former President Clinton's achievements: I think the scandals outweigh the good. Remember that while Hillary was fighting for healthcare, the president was talking it away with welfare reform. While they we're talking about working for the working class, the president was drafting the NAFTA agreement, and finally though Clinton ran his campaign on change and hope, what he offered was more of the same corruption that led to his impeachment and 100s of scandals.

Obama's healthcare plan leaves 15 million uninsured

2008-02-16T08:47:00.000-08:00

Here we are again with Clinton's distortion of the truth -- and shame on the media for not doing further investigation, but just printing what they say as gospel.

"Clinton Uses A Dubious Statistic When She Claims Obama's Plan Would Leave Out 15 Million Of The Uninsured." FactCheck.org reported, "Clinton uses a dubious statistic when she claims Obama's plan would leave out 15 million of the uninsured…Clinton based her claim on a column by The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn, who loosely estimated Obama's plan would leave 15 million uninsured…Cohn makes it clear here that he is offering an estimate based on the best information available, not a hard and fast calculation. And the best available information doesn't always agree." [FactCheck.org, 11/16/07]

Clinton Cited "Hardly An Authoritative Source" For The 15 Million Claim. "So where did Clinton get her figure of 15 million uninsured under the Obama plan? Her website cites an article in the New Republic, hardly an authoritative source." [Washington Post, 11/15/07]

The Meaning of Barack

2008-02-15T18:15:00.000-08:00

This was posted by an Obama supporter and I thought I'd share it.

Arabic and Hebrew languages both share the same the semitic roots. Over time, as with English, alphabet letters, meanings, pronunciations and spellings have changed. Of all the times “blessing” is intended the word generally used is “barak”, “yivrechu” “yevarech” or some other variant of “barak.” and the hebrew translation for his first name: BARACH (Bar Rach) - To kneel, to bless, to adore with bended knee. When used by man in reference to God, it means to endure with power for success, prosperity and long life. In Psalm 34:2, barach is translated as BLESS and in Psalm 103:1-2, barach is translated to mean WORSHIP.

Exelon, Barack, Clinton and Penn

2008-02-14T19:17:00.000-08:00

Even as Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign was blasting Sen. Barack Obama for his ties to the Exelon Corporation, the firm of Mark Penn, Clinton's chief strategist, was earning hundreds of thousands of dollars from the very same nuclear energy giant. (click the title for full article)

_____________________________________________________________________________

Interestingly, what Sen. Clinton does not tell the media is the very bill that she is accusing Sen. Obama of watering down and making "back room deals" is the bill that SHE CO-SPONSORED. hmmmmm....

Desperation manifests itself in many different forms. It is my belief that a persons character is most amplified and revealed when under pressure. This example was given to me by a professor in my past. "On my way to work one day I see a school bus and it has had an accident, plus it's on fire. I'm late for work. What choices do I make? Do I stop? Do I just call 911 on my cell? Let's say I choose to stop. At that point I'm putting the lives of the people on that bus ahead of my own. Do I actually go on the bus or do I call from the outside asking if they need help? Let's say I choose to go on the bus which is in flames. Do I just rescue a few children near the front or do I rescue them all? Do I step over other kids to reach the African American kids first? Every choice that I make says something about my character.

Senator Clinton has had choices to make. Though the pundits say that she is not behind in the national poles, the voters have said otherwise. She and her camp believed that they would have the nomination locked after February 5th's "super Tuesday". However, the voters said otherwise. Now Barack has won the last 8 primaries and caucuses. Clinton is under pressure, what has she chosen to do? Instead of highlighting all of the great things she has done for America, or touting what she will do, or perhaps even contrasting her methods vs. Obama's; she has chosen to distort, exaggerate, or neglect the truth.

This says something about her character...If she had so much to offer the American people, we would recognize it. This is not the Kennedy/Nixon match-up where Nixon's homely looks could not compare to the movie star appeal of JFK. Hillary is a nice looking lady, yet something is missing. People are not connecting. Most of the folks that I've spoken with and who are voting for her are not doing so because they are excited about what she will be able to do. They simply don't think Barack has enough experience yet - they're doing the lesser of the evils voting method.

Well I've already spoken on the experience issue and will not revisit it here. However, it's a sad testimony. I don't know about you but I'm tired of just having a choice of the lesser of the evils. I think we deserve better than that. I think we deserve a President we can respect and Hillary is not that person.

I'm not voting for Barack because "he's at least better than Hillary". I'm voting for Barack because he's who our nation needs today.

Check out the facts about the lies told against my candidate here:

Bill Clinton on the importance of Experience

2008-02-10T19:43:00.000-08:00

He's a Liar and a Hypocrite. He lied under oath and was disbarred, now he's lying on the campaign trail and calling it advocating his wife...

WATCH THIS

Michelle and Barack - The look of Victory

2008-02-08T14:01:00.000-08:00

I am Overwhelmed by the possibility of Barack Obama

2008-02-02T16:11:00.000-08:00

Check out this new independent video featuring top music and film stars including will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, Jesse Dylan, John Legend, Scarlett Johansson, and many others... Take a look at the video everyone is talking about --
I'm old enough to have voted for Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton and GW Bush. And never before within my memory have I seen so many people passionate about the political process; passionate about a candidate; passionate about the future of our country. I reckon that some folks are looking around astounded by the tidal wave that they see moving forward. I mean, who would've guessed that this man, Barack Obama, would inspire millions to come out, to change parties, to get involved.

Some had the foresight -- I've met them. I am ashamed to say that I was not one of them. The interesting thing that I've found is that Obama supporters are so much more passionate than any others. I can't read people's mind, but I can read their actions - and by this I make my claim. The other thing that I've noticed is that people who are against Barack tend to be vicious with their attacks - committing character assasination with of course, lies. Obama supporters by in large don't do that. Interesting...

When I think about the possibility that Barack Hussein Obama could be President of the United States I am overwhelmed. I get tears in my eyes, because I never thought I would live to see the day when in African American could be president of the United States. When I look at my community and I see how far we have to go to eliminate the pain, and heal from 400+ years of slavery -- 400+ years of protracted abject oppression - I forget that there are those of us who have moved on.

The other thing that I find interesting is that it took an African American not raised by an African American to do it. Why is this significant, why does it make a difference? Because most African Americans suffer from what is referred to as Cultural Incest; which is a culture that feeds on and proliferates from the worst that that culture has to offer. Some of us suffer from it to lesser degree than others. But I have yet to meet a black person raised by a black person, that does not suffer from it. It is the result of slavery -- the type of slavery that only we have endured. The type of slavery (unlike the Jews) that strips a people from everything that makes them unique -- their culture, language, traditions, etc. Then dumps them 400 years later without an iota of a sense of community or an idea on how to be self sufficient. Barack is not saddled with this baggage. Oh sure, he has probably been called all the names we've been called, and from time to time treated the way we've been treated; but he has not had the poisons of oppression passed down to him from those who were supposed to protect and nurture him. He has not had those generational curses passed on to him.

I believe that by Barack becoming President, it will help us as a community heal from some of that poison. We may begin to hope again. There will be those that will fight it. There will be those of us who are afraid and will say that he's not ready or they'll look for one mistake he may make and say "see, I knew he couldn't do it." These are the symptoms of Cultural Incest. These are the poisons passed down from generation to generation that does not say "YES WE CAN", but "No we can't" and "I won't let you either".

Don't let those nay-sayers get in the way of truth. Don't let those nay-sayers prevent healing within the community. We have to stop looking for a white person to heal us, to help us. Hillary Clinton cannot and will not do it. Barack Obama, with God of course, can do it and will do it. WE ARE NOT CRABS IN A BARRELL. We are part of the greatest civilization on the planet and it's time that we step up and take our rightful place in this world.

DON'T BE BAMBOOZLED or hoodwinked by the power machine. They want us to remain subservient and to depend upon them for our sense of self, for our existence. Foolish people. They don't realize that a stronger African American community equals a stronger America.

Please people, please. See the hope, look beyond self doubt and the past. Look forward to the possibilities - he's brought us this far it's time for us to make it the rest of the way.

Letter to Maxine Waters and the Congressional Black Caucus

2008-01-29T12:46:00.000-08:00

You promised. YOU PROMISED! You promised that if we lived right, if we got a good education, if we worked hard that we could have the American Dream, you promised. Well, I did all of those things and you didn’t support me. You lied. You lied to me and to every child like me.

When my son was young I used to tell him fairytales – I’m sure you told them to your children too. They went something like this: “Young Jamal or “little Aisha” you can be anything in the world that you want to be, you could be the President of the United States if you wanted. All that you have to do is…” But did we really mean it? Of course not, we knew in our heart of hearts, that a black person could NEVER be President of these United States. I mean let’s get real, we knew in our heart of hearts that we could not even depend on our own community to support us much less others. No, our community couldn’t support us because they were too busy seeking approval from the power structure. They couldn’t support us because a step up for me, means a step down for them…or so they believed.

I grew up learning Each one Teach one. I grew up with the knowledge that I, as a part of the talented tenth, had an OBLIGATION to support my community first. That is first God, then my community, then others.

I’m sorry that you didn’t learn that or that you’ve forgotten. I’m truly sorry that you obviously have no clue as to what you have just done. You have stolen the hope or sold the hope of our youth. Because you see, the fairytale that I told my son was starting to become a reality. I saw a change in the way my son conducted himself. I’ve seen an improvement in his grades. His friends have told me they are now compelled to do better at school, to “stop skipping third period” … “Shoot, if Obama can be President so can I”, this is the mantra I’m hearing from my son’s classmates. You have sold the hopes of our community.

Don’t believe me? When white woman got the right to vote earlier last century, what did we get?!? NOTHING, that’s what we got. When Martin Luther King Jr. and many unsung heroes gave their lives so that Johnson would feel compelled to pass the Civil Rights Act who benefited?!? EVERYONE, that’s who. EVERYONE! Everyone benefited from our leaders giving up their lives so that OUR COMMUNITY could have hope. So, as it was 90 years ago when white women got the right to vote, so it will be if Hillary Clinton becomes President. My life will not get any better, as it didn’t get any better under any of the Bushes or Bill. I will still have my home, my son will still attend college and life in my household will move forward. However, my brothers and sisters will still be under 3 strikes and your out, while their white counterparts get a slap on the wrist. Economics will ebb and flow depending upon innovations not the President. Look at statistics; look at the GDP over the last 70 years. There’s no relationship between what party is in office and the inflation rate or GDP.

I feel so betrayed and abandoned! I will urge everyone around me to vote Republican if the nomination goes to Billary. It won’t make a difference any way, but our voice will be heard! Either together we stand or divided we fall – and fall we shall if we continue on this path.

Sincerely,

Rabble Rouser
And instigator of TheUrbanRevolution.com

Political - N.O.W. slams Kennedy for endorsing Obama

2008-01-28T19:42:00.001-08:00

Why does a vote/nod for someone have to be against someone else? Kennedy's endorsement for Obama was not a vote against women, it was a vote against Hillary. There's a difference.

This is what TheUrbanRevolution.com wrote to the NY chapter of NOW

I think your organization has missed the point. Kennedy's endorsement was not AGAINST women it was FOR OBAMA. Why does it have to be black and white --- ooops - I guess it is.

Black men in America do not earn as much as white women much less white men. (check the census data if in doubt) So you cannot group black men in the same category as white men. They do not have the power to oppress white women. When the civil rights bill was passed by Johnson, women were included in that bill. Yet it was mostly black people that paid the price with their lives to get that bill passed. Too many black leaders were killed during that time in order to get that bill on the President's desk. And yet your candidate Hillary Clinton dismissed this fact in her statements about King and Johnson. When black folks win EVERY minority group wins! History tells us that this is a fact. I was not against Hillary, I was just for Obama (I was secretly hoping that they both would end up on the same ticket - then I could get a BOGO) but Hillary's tactics have eliminated even the hope for that possibility. (Photo Credit: AP)

Ted Kennedy embraces Obama

2008-01-27T20:45:00.000-08:00

By: MIKE ALLEN and CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN | 01/27/2008 03:06 PM Clinton campaign orchestrates intense campaign to derail stunning endorsement, planned for tomorrow. (go to complete story)

TheUrbanRevolution says: "they're at it again..."

WHAT EXPERIENCE?!?

2008-01-27T20:18:00.000-08:00

1992 - 2000
Bill and Hillary have already had 8 years

They left office with a surplus, but listen people that’s not always good – not for a government.

What programs could have been reinstated from the Reagan/Bush era that were not?!?

The economy was good for the most part because of Silicon Valley and the PC/internet boom
They had an opportunity to pass health care reform…
They had an opportunity to reform immigration
They had an opportunity to make sure that Social Security and Medicare were sustainable
They had an opportunity to institute an energy plan

THEY FAILED ON ALL COUNTS and now they want 8 more years?!?!?
What kind of experience is Hillary talking about? THE EXPERIENCE OF FAILURE?

(some ideas garnered from politico.com)

1992 2000
Fresh from Harvard law Barack Obama took a job at a law firm and became a civil rights attorney helping community organizations. He then sat on the Illinois state senate for 2 terms (he was reelected for a 3^rd term in 2002 – but I guess that ‘ole state senate don’t count as no kinda experience) He was able to make substantial head way in getting legislation changed to favor civil liberties. Most notable to me:

o after finding out how many death row inmates were later found innocent he succeeded in getting all interrogations and confessions videotaped.

o He was able to pass bipartisan legislation in Illinois that expanded healthcare to over 150,000 more people including 70,000 children

There is a list of successes that mirror the needs of the nation – he has the experience – the RIGHT kind of experience – that is the experience of success!!

Now it comes down to this, and Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy said it a bit more eloquently when she noted the similarities between Barack and her father in today’s New York Times:

Senator Obama and Senator Clinton basically are the same on all of the issues, they vary on how to get there and who is right is a matter of opinion since most of the means have not been tried.

After the issues have been settled it comes down to:

Integrity
Character
Leadership skills

Which one is genuine and which one takes 1% truth rapped in 99% lies?
Which one plants people in the audience to ask question and denies it until caught? http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/11/13/clinton.planted/index.html
Which one is more divisive?
True leadership is the ability to put differences aside and rally support for what is right, true, and just.
Which do you think can truly lead?

The answer is clear. There is no more time for indecisiveness. February 5^th is fast upon us and we need to make sure everyone around us knows the truth and understands who these two candidates truly are. The choice is clear, the time is now. Do not miss your opportunity to change the course of the planet.

Political - Obama and John F. Kennedy!

2008-01-26T20:53:00.000-08:00

The daughter of one of our most prolific presidents, John F. Kennedy endorses BARACK OBAMA for president

Caroline Kennedy: A President Like My Father

from The New York Times

Over the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president. This sense is even more profound today. That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama.... (to read the rest go to: http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/carolinekennedy )

Politics - Do We Really want more of the same?!?

2008-01-25T08:14:00.000-08:00

This was sent by some Obama supporters and I find the clip very telling

Hillary Rodham Clinton - The same ole thing with a different wrapper.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyC7loMop58&mode=related&search=

http://www.publicintegrity.org/about/release.aspx?aid=120

And she has the AUDACITY to say that she cannot understand where Senator Obama stands on anything?!?! Give me a break

Senator Barack Obama - The hope for a BETTER AMERICA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3mOyuJvX8U

Is there really any choice? Feel free to comment by simply clicking the comment button below.

Political

2008-01-23T22:35:00.000-08:00

Let me just start by saying I am a die-hard Barack Obama supporter!

In the political part of this blog - I am here to talk about the truth.

The following letter was sent out to Obama supporters -- I want to make sure everyone can see it.
I'm so tired of politics as usual. When Hillary Clinton can sit up there and exaggerate the truth to the point where it is lies - you know 4 years with her will be the same ole thing.

I think the devil tried to trick Jesus the same way. Telling a little bit of the truth and trying to pass it off as the whole truth.

Well for those of you who didn't watch the whole debate on Monday, 1/21/08 - Hillary accused Obama of "representing a slumlord" when he was a practicing attorney. The news played that clip over and over, but didn't not play his response that much.

The truth is this was one of his first jobs out of law school, he was an associate. A local church and Rezco partnered together on a deal. Obama was assigned to do something for the case which required 5 hours of his time. Now how she got 5 hours of lowly associate work as "you represented a slumlord" is beyond me. However, see how the media reacts, listen to the sound bites that they choose to play over and over. It is her accusations not his response that I've been hearing.

I hate that kind of politics and so does John Kerry -- he writes:

Dear Revolutionist,

I support Barack Obama because he doesn't seek to perfect the politics of Swiftboating -- he seeks to end it.

This is personal for me, and for a whole lot of Americans who lived through the 2004 election.

As a veteran, it disgusts me that the Swift Boats we loved while we were in uniform on the Mekong Delta have been rendered, in Karl Rove's twisted politics, an ugly verb meaning to lie about someone's character just to win an election. But as someone who cares about winning this election and changing the country I love, I know it's not enough to complain about a past we can't change when our challenge is to win the future -- which is why we must stop the Swiftboating, stop the push-polling, stop the front groups, and stop the email chain smears.

The truth matters, but how you fight the lies matters even more. We must be determined never again to lose any election to a lie.

This year, the attacks are already starting. Some of you may have heard about the disgusting lies about Barack Obama that are being circulated by email. These attacks smear Barack's Christian faith and deep patriotism, and they distort his record of more than two decades of public service. They are nothing short of "Swiftboat" style anonymous attacks.

These are the same tactics the right has used again and again, and as we've learned, these attacks, no matter how bogus, can spread and take root if they go unchecked.

But not this time -- we're fighting back.

And when I say "we," I mean that literally. I know Barack is committed to fighting every smear every time. He'll fight hard and stand up for the truth. But he can't do it alone.

We need you to email the truth to your address books. Print it out and post it at work. Talk to your neighbors. Call your local radio station. Write a letter to the editor. If lies can be spread virally, let's prove to the cynics that the truth can be every bit as persuasive as it is powerful.

The Obama campaign has created a place where you can find the truth you'll need to push back on these smears and a way to spread the truth to all of your address book.

Take action here:

http://my.barackobama.com/factcheckaction

So when your inbox fills up with trash and the emails of smear and fear, find the facts, and help defeat the lies.

Barack Obama is committed to bringing our country together to meet the challenges we face, but he knows that power gives up nothing without a struggle -- and to win the chance to change America, we must first defeat the hateful tactics that have been used to tear us apart for too long.

With your help, we can turn the page on an era of small, divisive politics -- but only if next time you hear these attacks on Barack, you take action immediately:

http://my.barackobama.com/factcheckaction

The fight is just heating up -- we won't let them steal this election with lies and distortions.

Thank you,

John Kerry