Former Secy of National Security backs Obama

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

“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!