Saturday, March 29, 2008

Why aren't these dealbreakers?

I have to confess that much of the US populace puzzles me. I see things that to me would make me drop support for a person *like that,* and yet these people still have enough support to continue on.

Hillary Clinton
A man lies about his war record. Or his resume. This is found out. He loses his job immediately. Hillary Clinton lies about being under fire in Bosnia....nothing happens. Three days later no one is even talking about it. She says she "mispoke." No. Saying Walgreens when you mean Walmart is "mispeaking." Making up a story out of whole cloth is lying. And worse - at least a thousand people must have known she was lying - how could she think she could get away with it?

The Reverent Jeremiah Wright
His church has bought him a house worth a million dollars, in a gated community. How is this possible? How can a black man in white-controlled, racist America, afford to live in a million dollar house? (Yes, there are plenty of blacks, and Latinos, who live in nice houses, but not in Jeremiah Wright's world view, I would have thought.)

Also, apparently, this house is being built in a "gated community." A gated community? Are there gated communities for blacks only? Must be pretty wealthy blacks to live in a gated community... again...how is this possible in a racist, white-controlled US of KK A?

Why is this man of God living in a gated community surrounded by wealthy people? Shouldn't he be living in the ghettos of Chicago, bringing the good word to the people and showing them what they can obtain by being religious?

Barack Obama
First speech he made, he said he never sat in the pews when Wright said any of his controversial remarks. Second speech he made, yes, of course he heard them, but he's not going to disown his pastor. Third speech he made - or rather, interview, yes, if Wright hadn't retired from the Church, he'd have left it. (Yet, Wright retired from the Church, yes, only to become part of Obama's campaign!)

Now, remember, Wright himself has said that he and Obama had talked about Wright's controversialness. "Your sermons can get kind of rough, so I may need to ask you to step aside."

Seems to me that Obama is lying as bad as Hilary. He knows the truth is out there but he's obfuscating it. And while LImbaugh has asked Obama the tough questions on his show - no one else is.

What are the questions?

Which of Wright's controversial statements do you agree with?
Which do you disagree with.

He refuses to specify. Like all politicians, you will never catch him giving a "yes" or " no" answer.

John McCain
Well...the soap opera of the democrats is such that I haven't really been paying attention to McCain, but if Limbaugh is to be believed he's a bigger Democrat than the Democrats...

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Hillary and Obama - cut from the same cloth?

Hillary "embellishes" (i.e., lies) time and time again, from being named for Sir Edmund Hillary to being under sniper fire in Bosnia - and yet her politician-supporters, who have got to know that this is total crap, still support her. Presumably they are hoping for appointments should she be elected President.

Then we've got Obama. For the last month or so he's been saying, in essence, that Jeremiah Wright's sermons were no big deal. Just a couple of days ago he said that Wright had given at least 3 sermons a week for 30 years, and what's been going around is just a few snippets turned into a 5-second soundbyte (I paraphrase), and that people shouldn't let that flap distract them from the more important things like the economy and the war in Iraq.

But, today, Obama says this:
WASHINGTON - White House hopeful Barack Obama suggests he would have left his Chicago church had his longtime pastor, whose fiery anti-American comments about U.S. foreign policy and race relations threatened Obama's campaign, not stepped down.

"Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying at the church," Obama said Thursday during a taping of the ABC talk show, "The View." The interview will be broadcast Friday.


I don't remember seeing anywhere that the Reverend Wright has acknowledged that he's offended people and said inappropriate things.

More importantly, first Obama says that he was never "in the pews" when Wright was saying that kind of stuff, THEN he says that "yes, of course he heard it," NOW he's saying that, after listening to Wright for 20 years, if Wright hadn't stepped down NOW, he would have left the church.

Does this not suggest anything to people? That the guy is a total hypocrite?

I mean, to me this is a big mistake. You've ALREADY said that you regard Wright as an Uncle whom you can't disown despite the fact that he says things with which you disagree, but that YOU WON'T DISOWN HIM, now you're saying that if he hadn't retired (and joined your campaign by the way) you would have left the Church? (IE, disowned him?)

(And how can a black man use the word "disowned" anyway? IF a white person used the word "disowned," you can bet he'd be pilloried for making a racist comment (as in "owning" a slave), but a black can say it and it's just taken as a normal word. [I say this because there was that "lynching" flap where some white reporter, a friend of Tiger's, joked that if anyone of his golfing opponents wanted to beat him they'd have to lynch him first, and everyone was up in arms because that word had a special meaning for blacks and she was being insensitive...)

And I really, really wonder what the rest of Wright's congreation - who seemed to eat Wright's sermons up - think of Obama now? And what other congregations of other black pastors, who also apparently agree with what Wright said (why else would he have had at least half a dozen speaking engagements recently, and been scheduled to get an award at one of them - albeit ones he canceled out on because of "security" issues.)

Frankly, I do find the state of the country very worrisome. We cannot have white separatists, we cannot have black separatists, or even Latino separatists. We have to work together to show our young people that the "American way" is the way to prosperity, and sticking to your own ghetto and your "own people" only brings you misery. We are all Americans, no hyphens wanted.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Wright cancelling appearances

Obama's ex-pastor cancels speeches
...The Rev. Marcus Cosby, pastor at Houston's Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, told Houston television station KTRK and the Houston Chronicle that safety concerns had prompted Wright's decision.


Wright was scheduled to appear in quite a few places in the last few weeks - all of which he is cancelling. Which just goes to show how much influence he has - that he'd been asked to speak at all these black churches.

No one is saying his speeches are being cancelled because the visitee churches don't want to be associated with him, they're all saying that it's just due to "safety" or "security" issues.

So what's the deal, I wonder? Wright was a marine, is he afraid of being attacked by someone? Do the churches not want white attendees to come and hear what Wright has to say? Do they expect there will be protests?

Where is Obama, anyway? Has he taken a vacation in the middle of running for the nomination?? Or is he in the Senate building, busily working on some stuff right now that needs to be solved?????

Meantime, I cannot believe that Hilary Clinton still has any supporters, after her lies about her trip to Bosnia in 1996. The more so because everyone who was on the trip with her (for example Sinbad) and the soldiers in Bosnia at the time, knows she was lying. Why would she even think she could get away with telling such lies?

And yet she did lie, and now apparently believes that saying she "mispoke" will be believed.

I live close to a Walmart (which I am now boycotting bcause of what they're doing to Debbie Shank, by the way), and yet whenever I tell people I'm going to it I invariably say I'm going to Walgreens. That is mispeaking. But to make up paragraph after paragraph of something that bears no relationship at all to what really happened...that's plain out lying. Hillary has done this so often that it would seem that she is, quite simply, a compulsive liar. There's no other explanation for someone who tells lies that can so easily be discovered!

And McCain's speaking voice...I don't know that he mangles words like Bush...but it sure is a pain to listen to, especially when he's trying to modulate his voice as he's obviously been taught in speech class... sounds so phony.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Give Hannity a swirly too...

Well, Hannity is playing a new anti-Hillary "bit" - she has lied about her trip to Bosnia in 1995, saying she'd been under sniper fire when she hadn't been. So he's playing those words...fair enough - but in the background is Helen Reddy's "I am woman" song - seems to me he's getting in a subtle blow at feminists.

I haven't heard Hannity owning up to the fact that early in his career he used to give a platform to the psychotic white supremacist Harold "Hal" Turner.

And he's another one like Limbaugh who likes to get in that fake laughter when he's ridiculing someone.

Anyway, apparently some general who is Obama's military adviser - Merrill "Tony" McPeak - has angered some Jewish organization, and they want him removed. I dont' know anything about McPeak or what he said, except what Hannity has just read, but it didn't seem that bad to me.

The problem is simple. You can't criticize blacks without being called a racist. You can't criticize Israel without being called an anti-Semite. So they pretty much get to do whatever they want to do.

And don't take the above paragraph as me being an "anti-Semite" please! One can be anti-Israel without being anti-Semite. Not that I'm particularly anti-Israel. Obviously, if some terrorists are sending rockets into your country, you have to respond - and if those cowards hide behind women and children - well, it's them who should be castigated for that, not the soldiers who are trying to kill those cowards.

But the whole situation in the Middle East is just a mess, and the fact that it's taking place on what is still called "the Holy Land" is just obscene.

I ain't against Jews, I ain't against Muslims, I ain't against Christians. I'm against 'em all. The only way to bring sanity to this planet is for everyone to embrace atheism.

I mean, really. What kind of God do these people worship, that would countenance Protestants killing Catholics and vice versa, Sunnis killing Shiites and vice versa, and Jews being killed by everybody else.

Jews are God's chosen people and he allows them to suffer for thousands of years up to and including the Holocaust?

Blacks are God's chosen people and he allows them to suffer in hundreds of years of slavery and the "long night of racism"

What kind of God allows these things to happen to his "chosen" people?

What kind of God allows diseases such as Alzheimer's, muscular dystophry, multiple sclerosis, cancers of various kinds, etc?

I could go on and on... all I can say is... if there is a God, if God as envisioned by Chrisitans or Muslims or even Jews really did exist, I'd refuse to worship "Him" because he's obviously a psycho who enjoys watching people suffer. There's no other explanation for what has been going on in this world since the dawn of time. God made man in his image, right - and that includes the psychoticness...

Well, bit of a rant but I'm not in a good mood right now.

Give him a swirly!

Just tuned in Rush Limbaugh today, and he is laughing so gleefully - and so fakedly (is that a word?) that I'd really like to escort him into a bathroom, and give him a swirly - in a clean toilet of course.

The American political process is in disarray, and it has been for some years. Convicted criminals are elected to political office...or once they've been elected they're convicted of something - and don't lose their jobs. If they do lose their jobs, a year or two is allowed to pass to allow things to die down, then they're given a sinecure somewhere.

However much of a laughing stock we were before, it's getting worse now. We've got three Democrats running for President (McCain isn't a Republican, for all that he go the nomination...) we've got newspapers building up politicians just to break them down...

On the other hand, some loon named Weingarten has just made a fool of himself. Limbaugh has just played a clip of Weingarten saying that Limbaugh pronounces "Obama" in his weird way because he's trying to pronounce it a black way, a racist way. Well, obviously Weingarten doesn't listen to his program because Limbaugh uses that "orotund way" to pronounce various words, including God (another reason why I'd like to give him a swirly - he's so arrogant.) "Talent on loan from Go-od."

Anyway, whatever happens, one hopes - (I would have said, I'm sure, but I'm not sure anymore) - that the two political parties fix their procedures so that "cross over" voting is not possible anymore.

Monday, March 24, 2008

This caucusing crap!

I must say that the more I pay attention to the Democratic caucuses and primaries this year, the more discouraged I get about American politics in general.

States have been holding these caucuses and primaries every four years, and now in the year 2008 they still can't get it right?

I just found this blog entry today, from a woman who went and "caucused" on Feb 9, and walked into a scene of total chaos because very few people knew what to do and the volunteers who were supposed to stand around and know what was going on...didn't know what was going on.

I went and caucused today

Here's an excerpt:

I've always thought that the caucus system in Washington State disenfranchised voters --

the sizable chunk who simply aren't aware that their vote on the primary ballot doesn't count for anything,

those who can't get off work for the caucus (unlike polling places which are usually open much of the day, for a caucus there's really a set 30 minute period in which you need to show up),

those with transportation difficulties (for those who can walk, it's a great spot -- but for those who can't, there is virtually no parking, and street parking on that block is generally sparse to begin within on a weekend afternoon)
But the fact that I saw so many different barriers to successful voting even for those who *were* able to show up, that is just seriously upsetting for me. Not only were many people unable to figure out how to get to the upstairs room, but once within the rooms, it was pretty complicated to figure out where you were supposed to be going (there was a separate table for each precinct), and what you were supposed to do when you get there (there were sheets floating around you were supposed to sign in on, but it was too crowded for any lines).

On top of that, when I looked at the sheet you sign in on, absolutely no one else on my sheet had realized that the sign-in sheet is where you actually vote -- there was a box on the far right-hand corner where you were supposed to write in your choice for candidate, and no one else had filled in that blank at all. That part of the form was not labeled in the same way as the rest of the boxes (which had the standard, bold-faced, small print labels) -- instead, it said "Indicate presidential preference" in a very pale grey font across the background of the box. Given that we were in a crowded room with poor lighting (not to mention ventilation), and no instructions were being given, is it that surprising that so many people just had no clue?


It's time for the election process in this country to be streamlined and moved into the 21st century, because this is just ridiculous.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Sean Hannity's feet of clay....

Well, well, well...

I was just reading Sean Hannity's bio over at Wikipedia...and it seems that Mr. Hannity has rather close associations with White Supremacist Hal Turner - indeed, giving him airtime on his radio show several years ago.

And he apparently has never denounced Hal Turner's views...

Well..if Jeremiah Wright is a racist hate-monger, and Obama should have disavowed him long ago (which I agree with), so should Sean Hannity!

And the fact that he hasn't does make him just a wee bit of a hypocrite. (The more so because Hal Turner's calls for actions - arson, murder, assassination - are so much more extreme than Wright's that he makes Wright look like a Sunday school teacher! Scary stuff.)

Not very good judgement on Hannity's part, I'd say.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Obama's Anger, by Ed Kaitz

Obama's Anger, By Ed Kaitz

A very interesting article that everybody, regardless of race, should read, because it makes a lot of sense.

Once again it explains why, while many blacks are haves, many more are have nots.

Here's an excerpt:

In Bayou country I lived on boats and in doublewide trailers, and like the rest of the Vietnamese refugees, I shopped at Wal-Mart and ate a lot of rice. When they arrived in Louisiana the refugees had no money (the money that they had was used to bribe their way out of Vietnam and into refugee camps in Thailand), few friends, and a mostly unfriendly and suspicious local population.

They did however have strong families, a strong work ethic, and the "Audacity of Hope." Within a generation, with little or no knowledge of English, the Vietnamese had achieved dominance in the fishing industry there and their children were already achieving the top SAT scores in the state.

While I had been fishing my new black friend had been working as a prison psychologist in Missouri, and he was pursuing a higher degree in psychology. He was interested in my story, and after about an hour getting to know each other I asked him point blank why these Vietnamese refugees, with no money, friends, or knowledge of the language could be, within a generation, so successful. I also asked him why it was so difficult to convince young black men to abandon the streets and take advantage of the same kinds of opportunities that the Vietnamese had recently embraced.

His answer, only a few words, not only floored me but became sort of a razor that has allowed me ever since to slice through all of the rhetoric regarding race relations that Democrats shovel our way during election season:

"We're owed and they aren't."

In short, he concluded, "they're hungry and we think we're owed. It's crushing us, and as long as we think we're owed we're going nowhere."

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Did Barack Obama "overcome" racism?

I just visited the Los Angeles Times site and saw a blog entry about Jeremiah Wright. Part of Wright's sermon was printed, and I post it here.

Wright didn't mention Obama by name but nevertheless recounted the candidate's life story. The minister spoke about a biracial child using hope to overcome racism, go to an Ivy League law school and become a politician.

"How many children of biracial parents can make it in a world controlled by racist ideology?" Wright asked.

"But if you use your mind, instead of a lost statistic in a hate-filled universe, you just may end up a law student at Harvard University. In fact, if you use your mind, you might end up as the editor of the Harvard Law Review. If you use your mind, instead of [being] a statistic destined for the poor house, you just may end up a statesman destined for the . . . Yes, we can!" Wright said, without mentioning the White House, but using the Obama campaign slogan to bring the crowd to its feet.


So in a "racist" society, Barack Obama was - up until just a few weeks ago - leading the race for the Democratic nomination. While his numbers among black voters in the upcoming primaries have apparently not fallen, his numbers among white voters have. In other words, whites were perfectly prepared to vote for this black man, until they found out that he had been friends with and attended for 20 years a Church where the pastor preached separatism, white guilt, white racism, etc. etc.

It was the white vote that was propelling Obama over Hillary.

Now that he's lost the white vote... is it because the white vote has suddenly turned racist... or because they've now found out a side of Barack Obama they had not known was there?

The key sentence in Wright's sermon was this one: "But if you use your mind,"

In other words, if you get an education, so that you can speak intelligently on a variety of subjects, if you embrace the English language rather than some separatist dialect, if you get an education, you can rise in America!

Derek Jeter is bi-racial, I believe. How much money does he make?? Halle Berry... bi-racial. Won an Oscar ya da ya da ya da.

Sure, it took a while for barriers to be broken. Jackie Robinson in baseball. Sidney Poitier in movie acting. Bessie Coleman in aviation. The Tuskegee Squadron in aviation. Bill Cosby on TV (1969 - first black man to have a co-starring role in I, Spy.)

Tremendous strides have been made. There's some woman called Condoleeza Rice....

Why do so many blacks live in poverty today? (And how many do, percentage wise, as opposed to poor whites? Of these, how many come from homes where the mother is not divorced from the father, but rather doesn't even know his father's name?) Is it because they're oppressed by the minority of white racists in this country? Or is it because their pastors are telling them not to get an education, don't practice birth control, don't integrate with white America, don't become middle class, don't "sell out" your people.

"Barack can get shot going to a gas station."

"As a black man, Barack can get shot going to a gas station."

so says his wife on 60 Minutes.

Who's likely to do the shooting, though, I ask myself. Robbers who heist gas stations on a regular basis, hm? Not the people who work at those gas stations who aren't allowed to have guns to protect themselves!

Here's the video - I believe from the McCain guy who has just been fired for posting these videos, but I'm not sure, as they're proliferating there now. I don't care for the way the video is manipulated - sentences repeated over and over again..but some of what is said is interesting.

By their jokes you shall know them

I listen to Rush Limbaugh. I agree with some of what he says, disagree with some of what he says, and of him personally, I think he's a jerk.

So, today, I'm listening, and he says, "Do we have our Greek interpreter ready?" and then he plays an excerpt from Ms Huffington (getting in that disdain on the word Ms. of course) Ariana Huffington, the

"former right-winger who has evolved into a compassionate and progressive populist". She is the founder of The Huffington Post, a left-wing online news and commentary website and aggregated blog. Her latest book is On Becoming Fearless.... in Love, Work, and Life.

(from Wikipedia)

So she speaks, and although her voice is accented, she was perfectly understandable. And then he comes back and says that her voice reminds him of "the woman from Green Acres" and they should play a bit of that music each time they reference her on the program.

Now... I listen to Limbaugh but I admit I don't listen to him all the time. Does he ever insult the accents of men who criticize him (if there are any accented-men who do so?)? Or does he just accept that they're men, and answer their comments.

Limbaugh of course makes other jokes demeaning to women. He's got his "mistresses" around the country (he wishes), everytime he talks about Hillary Clinton his contempt is as much because she's a woman as because of anything else. Anytime he talks about a female reporter or spokesperson, she is always referred to as a "babe."

Indeed, at 2:35 pm today he just referred to the Tennessee governor's spokesperson as a "spokesbabe." And of course a few weeks ago he referred to the governor of Alaska as a "babe." Although in her case it was just because she was beautiful...he didn't think he was insulting her by saying, "Her being a babe is just the icing on the top."

Yes...I sent him an email pointing out that I didn't like the fact that he demeaned women every single damn time by referring to women like that...but of course that's how he really thinks about women...they are there just for eye candy, and that's it.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Compare the two websites

http://barackobama.com

http://hillaryclinton.com

I visited the two websites today, and they are designed essentially the same. They both have stores, they both have bios, etc.

The one thing the Obama site has that I could not find on the Clinton site was a button called "National Voter Protection Center." It's in Spanish as well as English, and says, "Use this area to empower yourself and others with the information you need to be sure you know the rules for your state on Election Day" and it also requests anyone who is a lawyer: "On election day across the country over the coming months, we will need lawyers willing to help us stand up for everyone's right to be heard. "

I'm surprised Hillary doesn't have this on her site demanding that the people of Florida and Michigan not be disenfranchised...

In that instance, my sympathies are with the Democratic National Convention. They said - You hold your convention early, we're not going to seat your delegates. Both Obama and Hillary agreed. Now Hillary wants to go back on the deal because she needs those delegates.

I dont understand people, frankly. There are so many deal breakers for Obama and Hillary, I'd have tossed them overboard long ago. I'm not too hipped on McCain, either...

But for Hillary - 1) there are no tears in politics! 2) The delegate fiasco in Michigan and Flordia. 3) Sticking will Bill despite his infidelities. 4)Whitewater.

Obama - 1) I'm not too fond of the religious people he hangs around with. 2) He lied. First he said he'd never heard Wright say those inflammatory things, two days later, he says, "Of course I heard them." Then there's the Rezko deal which seems a bit dishonest....etc.

McCain - no one's really paying any attention to him! But he is too old. His choice of running mate is key.

Gangsta Rap and how it treats black women

I embed lots of videos in my blogs, but I'm not going to embed this one, even with a warning about the foul language involved and "click on it only if you're prepared to here foul language."

If you want to see it, it's here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yH8b5ruc_-E

Some "gangsta rappers" apparently like Star Wars, and put together a song about it. Full of the F-word, as Gangsta rap is, but more frightening to me, it gets in several obscenely vicious digs about women, calling them "hos" and so on, which is apparently what "gangsta rap" and indeed "rap" is all about. Black men dissing and despising black women.

And yet...young white males listen to this gangsta rap. In fact they are the biggest audience! (I remember a line from Transformers, a minor male character tells the main male character, who wants him out of the car so he can pick up a beautiful, hot-pants clad woman, "Bros before hos." If black males don't have respect for black females, and inculcate it in their songs, and white males listen to it, is it any wonder that they think poorly of black women? And whose fault is that?

Limbaugh has just played a clip of Barack Obama saying that Imus should be fired over his comments last year on the Rutgers women's basketball team, saying they sure did look like "_ _". "He wouldn't work for me," says Obama.

Yet Jeremiah Wright was okay, Limbaugh points out. And what I'm saying is - where in your speech last night was your comments on getting black males to look at black women in a respectful manner instead of looking at them as "hos."

Is Obama responsible for the statements of his pastor?

I visited Hannity.com a few mintutes ago, and read some posts on his message board I wanted to respond to, but for some reason my registration didn't go through, so I'll say them here.

Forget the statements for the moment. What's the aftermath?

1. A few days ago Obama denied categorically that he'd ever heard his pastor say those inflammatory remarks.

2. In his speech yesterday, he said, "Yes, of course I heard them."

So he was lying when he said he hadn't. It's that lying that is the key. Typical politician?

3. "Why is this just coming out now?" is the demand.

That is a good question. Hannity had an interview with the Rev Wright last year, had been talking about Obama's pastor and his comments for the last several weeks, yet no comments are made by the mainstream media until now?

4. I've read a few comments about Barack's church (I've visited the site and haven't been able to find where this is said), where it tells its members NOT to become middle-class. To stay on welfare, then? And let us not forget the wealthy Michele Obama telling some poor black women in some speech not to go to college, not to become an investment banker or anything like that, because they'd just have to spend all of their lives paying back their student loans!

What kind of person -what kind of wealthy person - advises poor people to want to stay poor?????

5. The statements themselves. Those folks on Hannity are saying, "Should Catholics be held responsible for the sexual crimes of their priests? My answer - if they knew about them and looked the other way.... yes!

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Barack Obama's speech on Race in America, 3/18/08



Cick on the arrow at the bottom of the box twice to play.

Obama speaks of his grandmother - she loves him, but he has heard her say that she was afraid to walk down a street past black teenagers, or has heard her utter racial stereotypes that have made him cringe.

Well...I'd like to ask him two questions.

1. What kind of a neighborhood was his grandmother afraid to walk down? If it was a middle-class black neighborhood, then yeah, she's racist. If it was a poor neighborhood...maybe she had a reason to be afraid? That's the neighborhoods where black pastors are telling their congregations that whites are the enemy, isn't it?

[Apparently he covers this in his book. She'd been standing at a bus-stop, and threatened by a black panhandler, so the next day she asked to be driven to work because she was afraid to stand at the bus stop. Obama reveals his anger at his grandfather for granting her request.]

2. Has Mr Obama ever been called by the racial epithet "Oreo?" If so - what was the color of people who were calling him that? For many blacks, anyone who is the child of a white mother and a black father, or vice versa, is an "oreo" or some other racial epithet. Any black who gets an education and moves into "middle-classness" has "sold out." Some blacks are just as racist as some whites...yet I don't think I heard Mr. Obama point out that obvious fact.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Barack Obama video: My plans for 2008

Video/Song: Jeremiah was my pastor

My, people are quick off the mark at YouTube. I'm pretty sure Limbaugh debuted that song today, and it's already at YouTube, albeit only in song form with lyrics on screen.



As an aside... Barack Obama has denounced what Jeremiah Wright has said about 9-11, etc., BUT, at least one black, and one white commentator has pointed out that a lot of blacks (and whites) do believe the charges Wright makes in his sermons.

So...now that Barack is rejecting what Wright has said... will those particular people see him as a hypocrite who isn't willing to say the same things on a national stage that Wright said at his pulpit?

In addition - and this is far more troubling - Barack is saying that his pastor - and mentor - for 20 years - never said any of that type of stuff in his hearing. Yet Jeremiah Wright himself, in interviews, has said that Barack has said, "You're sermons can get kind of rough, so I may have to ask you to stand aside a little later on."

That sounds pretty hypocritical to me. Again, if you believe what the pastor is saying - stand up and say it on the national stage! Get it all out in the air!

Al Sharpton apparently once said that Barack Obama was not "black enough." I wonder what those who agreed with Sharpton, think of Barack now.

Let us hope that Barack Obama merely paves the way...and that Colin Powell is the next black to run for presidency. He's a proven quantity.... he'd deserve the position!

You think you're better than us?

Point 1:
In an earlier post, I gave the URL to a website that has a photo of Obama not having his hand over his heart for the National Anthem - but they label it the Pledge of Allegiance.

I made a Comment, saying that it was the National Anthem, and giving a link to *my* blog post that had the video that proves it.

The blogger did post my comment, but has not corrected his entry.

Point 2:
On another note...while all of conservative talk radio is blasting Jeremiah Wright for the things he's said about the US, I've read/heard a few black commentators say that what Wright says is actually quite mild compared to what goes on in other black churches. And other commentators - including some white ones - are taking Wright's side in the matter - "Much of what he said is true," they say.

Well...what about the status of blacks in this country today - as opposed to 50 years ago?

Up until 50 years ago, yes, they were held down in the US by whites. (Some whites. Just as some whites fought that oppression from the very beginning. Just as slavery and conquest by force of arms has been in existence since the dawn of time, in all countries inhabited by all races, so there have been people in each conquering country who have said, "This is wrong. We shouldn't be treating them like this.")

But now, in 2008, ...who is holding blacks down in the US? Whites, who don't get jobs that they're qualified for because Affirmative Action says the job must be given to a black, even if he's less qualified?

Or the blacks themselves, who refuse to join "the man" by getting a decent education, learning how to talk grammatically, and moving into the middle class.

Not all blacks - obviously - there is a black middle class. There is a Latino middle class. There is a middle class of immigrants who, now that the barriers have been removed via the Civil Rights movement, have been able to take advantage of the American way of life - get an education, work hard, prosper.

But the poor blacks. Why do they stay poor?

Because...any poor black kid who wants to study hard and learn anything - is beaten up by his peers who say, "What - you think you're better than us?" This is the same for poor Latinos, anyone who wants to better themselves, who actually wants to learn - gets beaten up. "What - you think you're better than us?" [Ever see those movies of some "father figure" who goes into classrooms in inner cities and says, "I'm going to turn your lives around?" Like the Edward James Olmos movie Stand and Deliver. The gang member wants to learn how to do math, but he can't come straight out and say it, because he knows his gang will beat him up if they see him trying to get an education). In other words, it's people's own peers who are holding them down.]

As for poor white kids - yes, there are poor white kids - same thing.

Education is no longer valued in this country. That was how people got out of poverty in the past. They got an education, they worked hard, they made money. There was no welfare so they didn't have a choice. (The Great Depression and Roosevelt changed all that - but that's another story.)

If you've got a "god-given" talent for playing sports, if you spend every waking hour playing your sport, you're lauded by everybody. But if you work on your education, spend every waking hour on learning...well, you're just trying to be better than your brothers and sisters, you're betraying your own culture, and you need to be beaten down.

Michele Obama, a woman who makes a great deal of money, is married to a politican who also makes a great deal of money, not the least because of two best selling books - The Audacity of Hope and Dreams from my Father.

Both of them have college educations, but according to Michele, they also had huge student loans and were just weighed down by them, and still would be, she says, if Barack's books hadn't become best sellers.

So she's talking to a bunch of women in a lower class area of town, and she's telling these women - don't go to college. You'll just go into debt because of your student loans, and you'll have to spend all your life paying it off. No, much better to get a job right away, that you don't need to be highly educated for, and start helping people.

I paraphrase, but that's the gist.

And that's stupid. Why is a greater percentage of white folks in the "middle class"? Because they go to college - with those darn student loans - get a good education, and get a good job, pay back their loans in time, and go on to live the good life.

And blacks? Poor blacks, I mean, not the middle class. They see their black pastor telling them, apparently, that there's no way they can advance in life because whitey is holding them down, so they musn't get an education, they've just got to find as high a paying job as they can - to make sure they can tithe a decent amount to the church, and live and blame whitey for all the ills of their life. And take the welfare money whitey gives them...

Here's a link to an article about Michele Obama's speech:

Michelle Obama: "Don't Go Into Corporate America"


And an excerpt:

The salaries don't keep up with the cost of paying off the debt, so you're in your 40s, still paying off your debt at a time when you have to save for your kids," she says.


Here's a thought. If you can't afford to have any kids...don't have any kids. Get an education, get a good job, get a house, get some savings - then plan a family.

But heck - nobody , of any race, does that in America. Or very few people, anyway. Most people think, "Oh, a woman has to have as many kids as possible. That's what she's put on this earth for and it would be selfish not to have kids." Makes me want to vomit!

If you can't afford to have kids - without getting the welfare checks which means other people are having to pay for your kids - don't have any! Obviously if you lose your job and need help for a while - go on welfare. That's what it should be there for. You stay on welfare while you look for another job, you do not increase the burden on society by getting pregnant while you're on welfare, and you get off welfare as soon as possible.

That's the way it should be...

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Obama did not put his hand over his heart...

and a lot of emails are going out saying he refused "to pledge allegiance to the flag." That is not the case. (Indeed, I just came across a website that had a photo of it, also claiming it was the pledge of allegiance! I made a comment pointing out the truth, but it has to be "moderated" first. Will be interesting to see if the blog author publishes my correction - or better still corrects the caption.)

Someone was singing the National Anthem. Everyone else on the podium - including Hilary Clinton - had their hands over their heart except Obama. To paraphrase Obama when he was asked about this: "We sing the Anthem, hand over heart is for the Pledge of Allegiance."



Look at everybody in a baseball or football stadium when the National Anthem is played. Very few - usually the older folk only - have their hands over their hearts.

Which isn't to say that I'm not curious about the way he was bending his knees there at the end. Was he bored with the song, or embarrassed for the singer (the rendition has been criticized....) but it does seem to look like he's singing along...the video quality isn't clear enough for me to tell.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

America has its priorities right!

I have two blogs - this political one, brand new - and a sports blog, a few months old.

My counter at each blog tells me from what IP a visitor comes, and what search phrase they used to find the blog.

So.

On March 13, I posted a link to video of Barack Obama's controversial pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

On March 14, at 5.30, I watched PTI and learned that Steve Bowen had kicked Chris Paul. I went to YouTube to see if there was video of it, and there was, and I put a link to it on my sports blog.

For every one hit that I get from someone searching for "Jeremiah Wright", I've gotten at least 30 hits from people looking for Steve Bowen!

Sports rules!

After Wright was let go from Obama's campaign yesterday, I was expecting an upsurge in curiosity, but....nothing.

Of course once Monday comes around and Neil Boortz, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity start talking about it, that might cause some curiosity.

The "drive by media," as Limbaugh terms them, is certainly interesting.

As Limbaugh pointed out, when Mitt Romney was running for the Republican nomination, his Mormon religion was under scrutiny from day one.

But the "Drive Bys" have known of Obama's pastor for at least as long, and yet they didn't do an article about them until the last week???

Sean Hannity did an interview with Wright a little before March 2007 (that'd be a year ago), and has been pointing out Wright's views for at least three weeks .... and yet it has only been in the last week that the "Drive Bys" have done articles on it - and shared the video in which Wright says that the US deserved 9/11 because of our activities abroad, from bombing Nagasaki and Hiroshima onward.

(And on that score...at least he seems to think that it was Al Quaida who murdered all those innocent civilians. Quite a lot of people - whites - think that the US government itself deliberately destroyed the towers.)

The point is... the Drive Bys (I dislike Limbaugh's habit of referring to certain people and entities with disparaging names, but in this case I'm afraid it's accurate) have a demonstrable habit of building people up, waiting til the exact worst moment, and then shooting them down again.

Disturbing.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Other black churches defend Jeremiah Wright

In an article which reports that Barack Obama disavowed all knowledge of, or sympathy toward, Jeremiah Wright's comments about 9/11, it was reported that another church is defending him.

This one has the quote from John H. Thomas: Yahoo News
Also Friday, the United Church of Christ issued a 1,400-word statement defending Wright and his "flagship" congregation. John H. Thomas, United Church of Christ's president, lauded Wright's church for its community service and work to nurture youth. Other church leaders praised Wright for speaking out against homophobia and sexism in the black community.

"It's time for all of us to say no to these attacks and to declare that we will not allow anyone to undermine or destroy the ministries of any of our congregations in order to serve their own narrow political or ideological ends," Thomas said in the statement.


I wonder what Thompson meant.... "we will not allow anyone to undermine or destroy the ministries of any of our congregations in order to serve their own narrow political or ideological ends."

If any white pastor had said that blacks were the cause of all the crime in America and all the trouble overseas - who is doing all the killing in Somalia, in the Sudan, in Kenya, what has happened to Zimbabwe and South Africa since the natives took their countries back over - that white pastor would have been out on his ear so fast it would have made his head spin. Racist! the ACLU would have cried.

Yet Wright blames whites for everything ("rich whites" is the phrase he seems to constantly use. All whites are rich, eh?) and that's not racist?

I've looked at Wright's church site, and yes, they have almost a dozen ministries to help the disadvantaged - drug addicts, battered women, ex-cons getting out of jail, they provide computer education, etc.; and there's no anti-white rhetoric there that I could find, although a few of the books they have on offer are interesting in that regard. Unashamedly black and and they do keep referring to "God's people" and I kinda don't think they're including whites when they say that phrase....

There is a phrase on the site.... I paraphrase it.... "If you get a raise, do you think first of buying something for yourself, or do you think of increasing your tithe to the church?" which you probably find on church sites everywhere, admittedly. That tithing...I wonder how much of that goes to paying Wright's salary (or any pastor's salary in any church, of any color - I'm not too impressed with religion generally, let it be said) and how much goes to the programs they run?

And here's there explanation of who they are:

We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian... Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain "true to our native land," the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. God has superintended our pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism. It is God who gives us the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people, and as a congregation. We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a Black worship service and ministries which address the Black Community.

The Pastor as well as the membership of Trinity United Church of Christ is committed to a 10-point Vision:

A congregation committed to ADORATION.
A congregation preaching SALVATION.
A congregation actively seeking RECONCILIATION.
A congregation with a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO AFRICA.
A congregation committed to BIBLICAL EDUCATION.
A congregation committed to CULTURAL EDUCATION.
A congregation committed to the HISTORICAL EDUCATION OF AFRICAN PEOPLE IN DIASPORA.
A congregation committed to LIBERATION.
A congregation committed to RESTORATION.
A congregation working towards ECONOMIC PARITY.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Books by the Candidates

If you're going to vote for a candidate in the next Presidential election (and may I suggest you do a write in candidate - how about the President Martin Sheen played on West Wing?) it's important that you know everything about what they stand for.

There's several books on each candidate - I only show one for each below, and then a few humorous books.

If you're interested, search out every book written about Obama, and see if any of them are critical of him and if so, why (I couldn't find any), and then every book on Hillary Clinton - and there are tons of critical books (and I'm not surprised, frankly) and then do the same for John McCain. It's not the books written that are "pro-" the candidate that you should read, but the ones that are "anti-", because then you might find things out you didn't know. But then, of course, you have to do further research to see if the statements were lies, exaggerated, and so on.

Barack Obama



Hillary Clinton




John McCain



Political satire


Jeremiah Wright at YouTube

Below are some videos from YouTube, featuring Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's pastor, who apparently is one of the 10 most influential black pastors in the USA.

They are from the Hannity and Colmes show.

Interview with Wright


Interview with other black religious leaders on Wright


Geraldine Ferraro was castigated by Obama's supporters for saying the only reason he - a senator with 2 years of experience under his belt - was in the position he was in, is because he's black. Hillary Clinton apologized for offending black voters. Here, Jeremiah Wright points out that it's because Obama is black that his congregation - several thousand strong by the look of it - should vote for him. (I wonder if he has ever mentioned that Obama had a white mother? Or was that left to Al Sharpton?)


Barack on CSpan


Wright urges people to get tested for AIDs. Bravo for Wright on this particular subject!
Black heterosexual women are most at risk these days for AIDs. Get tested!


"Bill was 'ridin' dirty'"


Barack's new pastor, Otis Moss III (Wright is now on Barack's campagn committee)

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Jack Nicholson's brief commercial for Hilary Clinton

Until the very end, where Jack Nicholson himself comes on screen and says he approves this message, I thought this was some spoof commercial. It features clips of him in various movies talking about what is needed in a President.

But, it's all fluff, and I don't really see where it can help Hilary, and frankly with his psychotic Joker as the lead-in, I would think it would only hurt.

It is unfortunate on one hand. Hilary Clinton is not losing this election because "feminism is dead" as Rush Limbaugh has taken to saying, but because she's just not a likeable woman and is hardly a feminist, considering that she rode to power on the coat-tails of her cheating husband. She's got a lousy speaking voice - but so does McCain. And at least she's more articulate than George Bush... I won't vote for her, simply because I don't like the socialism that she - and Barack Obama, want to enlarge in this country. And unfortunately - McCain will take us down the same path. This is a lose-lose election this year...