Lawyer, teacher, philanthropist, and author Barack Obama doesn't need another career. But he's entering politics to get back to his true passion--community organization.
By Hank De Zutter December 8, 1995
When Barack Obama returned to Chicago in 1991 after three brilliant years at Harvard Law School, he didn't like what he saw. The former community activist, then 30, had come fresh from a term as president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review, a position he was the first African-American to hold. Now he was ready to continue his battle to organize Chicago's black neighborhoods. But the state of the city muted his exuberance.
"Upon my return to Chicago," he would write in the epilogue to his recently published memoir, Dreams From My Father, "I would find the signs of decay accelerated throughout the South Side--the neighborhoods shabbier, the children edgier and less restrained, more middle-class families heading out to the suburbs, the jails bursting with glowering youth, my brothers without prospects. All too rarely do I hear people asking just what it is that we've done to make so many children's hearts so hard, or what collectively we might do to right their moral compass--what values we must live by. Instead I see us doing what we've always done--pretending that these children are somehow not our own."
Today, after three years of law practice and civic activism, Obama has decided to dive into electoral politics. He is running for the Illinois Senate, he says, because he wants to help create jobs and a decent future for those embittered youth. But when he met with some veteran politicians to tell them of his plans, the only jobs he says they wanted to talk about were theirs and his. Obama got all sorts of advice. Some of it perplexed him; most of it annoyed him. One African-American elected official suggested that Obama change his name, which he'd inherited from his late Kenyan father. Another told him to put a picture of his light-bronze, boyish face on all his campaign materials, "so people don't see your name and think you're some big dark guy."
Obama, running to be the Democratic candidate for the 13th District on the south side, was also told--even by fellow progressives--that he might be too independent, that he should strike a few deals to assure his election. Another well-meaning adviser suggested never posing for photos with a glass in his hand--even if he wasn't drinking alcohol.
"Now all of this may be good political advice," Obama said, "but it's all so superficial. I am surprised at how many elected officials--even the good ones--spend so much time talking about the mechanics of politics and not matters of substance. They have this poker chip mentality, this overriding interest in retaining their seats or in moving their careers forward, and the business and game of politics, the political horse race, is all they talk about. Even those who are on the same page as me on the issues never seem to want to talk about them. Politics is regarded as little more than a career."
Obama doesn't need another career. As a civil rights lawyer, teacher, philanthropist, and author, he already has no trouble working 12-hour days. He says he is drawn to politics, despite its superficialities, as a means to advance his real passion and calling: community organization.
Obama thinks elected officials could do much to overcome the political paralysis of the nation's black communities. He thinks they could lead their communities out of twin culs-de-sac: the unrealistic politics of integrationist assimilation--which helps a few upwardly mobile blacks to "move up, get rich, and move out"--and the equally impractical politics of black rage and black nationalism--which exhorts but does not organize ordinary folks or create realistic agendas for change.
Obama, whose political vision was nurtured by his work in the 80s as an organizer in the far-south-side communities of Roseland and Altgeld Gardens, proposes a third alternative. Not new to Chicago--which is the birthplace of community organizing--but unusual in electoral politics, his proposal calls for organizing ordinary citizens into bottom-up democracies that create their own strategies, programs, and campaigns and that forge alliances with other disaffected Americans. Obama thinks elected officials--even a state senator--can play a critical catalytic role in this rebuilding.
Obama is certainly not the first candidate to talk about the politics of community empowerment. His views, for instance, are not that different from those of the person he would replace, state senator Alice Palmer, who gave Obama her blessing after deciding to run for the congressional seat vacated by Mel Reynolds. She promised Obama that if she lost--which is what happened on November 28--she wouldn't then run against him to keep her senate seat.
What makes Obama different from other progressive politicians is that he doesn't just want to create and support progressive programs; he wants to mobilize the people to create their own. He wants to stand politics on its head, empowering citizens by bringing together the churches and businesses and banks, scornful grandmothers and angry young. Mostly he's running to fill a political and moral vacuum. He says he's tired of seeing the moral fervor of black folks whipped up--at the speaker's rostrum and from the pulpit--and then allowed to dissipate because there's no agenda, no concrete program for change.
While no political opposition to Obama has arisen yet, many have expressed doubts about the practicality of his ambitions. Obama himself says he's not certain that his experimental plunge into electoral politics can produce the kind of community empowerment and economic change he's after.
"Three major doubts have been raised," he said. The first is whether in today's political environment--with its emphasis on media and money--a grass-roots movement can even be created. Will people still answer the call of participatory politics?
"Second," Obama said, "many believe that the country is too racially polarized to build the kind of multiracial coalitions necessary to bring about massive economic change.
"Third, is it possible for those of us working through the Democratic Party to figure out ways to use the political process to create jobs for our communities?"
Obama's intriguing candidacy is the latest adventure in a fascinating life chronicled in Dreams From My Father, published this summer by Times Books. In Obama's words, the book is "a boy's search for his father, and through that search a workable meaning for his life as a black American." In the book, which reads more like a novel than a memoir, Obama comes to terms with the legacy of the African father who left his mother and him when he was two, dropped by when he was ten, and died in an auto accident when he was finishing college. While doing so, Obama takes readers on a multicultural odyssey through three continents and several political philosophies. He casts a skeptical if sympathetic eye on white liberalism, black nationalism, integration, separatism, small-scale economic development, and the transient effectiveness of charismatic black political leaders like the late mayor Washington. While Obama credits all these political movements with bringing some progress to middle-class blacks, he believes that none have built enduring institutions and none have halted the unraveling of black America.
Obama is the product of a brief early-60s college romance and short-lived marriage between a black African exchange student and a white liberal Kansan who met at the University of Hawaii. His critical boyhood years--from two to ten--were spent neither in white nor black America but in the teeming streets and jungle outskirts of Djakarta. Obama's boyhood experiences in Indonesia--where his mother took him when she married another foreign exchange student--propelled him toward a worldview well beyond his mother's liberalism.
"The poverty, the corruption, the constant scramble for security . . . remained all around me and bred a relentless skepticism. My mother's confidence in needlepoint virtues depended on a faith I didn't possess. . . . In a land where fatalism remained a necessary tool for enduring hard-ship . . . she was a lonely witness for secular humanism, a soldier for New Deal, Peace Corps, position-paper liberalism."
When Obama moved back to his grandparents' home in Hawaii, to attend the prestigious Punahou School, he encountered race and class prejudice that would darken his politics even more. At first embarrassed by his race and African name, he soon bonded with the few other African-American students. He quickly learned that integration was a one-way street, with blacks expected to assimilate into a white world that never gave ground. He participated in bitter bull sessions with his buddies on the theme of "how white folks will do you." Obama, who had to reconcile these sentiments with the loving support he had at home from his white mother and grandparents, dismissed much of his buddies' analysis as "the same sloppy thinking" used by racist whites, but he found the racism of whites to be particularly stubborn and obnoxious.
Obama objected when his Punahou basketball coach upbraided the team for losing to "a bunch of niggers." Obama writes that the coach "calmly explained the apparently obvious fact that 'there are black people, and there are niggers. Those guys were niggers.'"
"That's just how white folks will do you," Obama writes. "It wasn't merely the cruelty involved; I was learning that black people could be mean and then some. It was a particular brand of arrogance, an obtuseness in otherwise sane people that brought forth our bitter laughter. It was as if whites didn't know they were being cruel in the first place. Or at least thought you deserving of their scorn."
Obama's politics were tinged with nihilism during his undergraduate years at Occidental College outside Los Angeles. There he played it cool and detached, and began to confuse partying and getting high with rebellion. After he and his buddies joked about the Mexican cleaning woman's forlorn reaction to the mess they'd created at a party, Obama was jolted back to reality by the criticism of a fellow black student, a young Chicago woman. "You think that's funny?" she told him. "That could have been my grandmother, you know. She had to clean up behind people for most of her life." Obama later transferred to Columbia University, where he was shocked by the casual tolerance of whites and blacks alike for the wide disparity between New York City's opulence and ghetto poverty. He graduated from Columbia with a double major in English literature and political science, and a determination to "organize black folks. At the grass roots." He wrote scores of letters looking for the right job, and almost a year later got an offer to come to Chicago. He gave up a job as a financial writer with an international consulting firm and became a $1,000-a-month community organizer.
Here in Chicago, Obama worked as lead organizer for the Developing Communities Project, a campaign funded by south-side Catholic churches to counteract the dislocation and massive unemployment caused by the closing and downsizing of southeast Chicago steel plants.
From 1984 to '88 Obama built an organization in Roseland and the nearby Altgeld Gardens public housing complex that mobilized hundreds of citizens. Obama says the campaign experienced "modest successes" in winning residents a place at the table where a job-training facility was launched, asbestos and lead paint were negotiated out of the local schools, and community interests were guarded in the development of the area's landfills.
Obama left for Harvard in 1988, vowing to return. He excelled at Harvard Law and gave up an almost certain Supreme Court clerkship to come back as promised. Here he met and married his wife, Michelle, a fellow lawyer and activist, joined a law firm headed by Judson Miner, Mayor Washington's corporation counsel, moved into a lakefront condominium in Hyde Park, and launched a busy civic life. He sits on the boards of two foundations with long histories of backing social and political reform, including his own community work--the Woods Fund and the Joyce Foundation. Recently he was appointed president of the board of the Annenberg Challenge Grant, which will distribute some $50 million in grants to public-school reform efforts.
In 1992 Obama took time off to direct Project Vote, the most successful grass-roots voter-registration campaign in recent city history. Credited with helping elect Carol Moseley-Braun to the U.S. Senate, the registration drive, aimed primarily at African-Americans, added an estimated 125,000 voters to the voter rolls--even more than were registered during Harold Washington's mayoral campaigns. "It's a power thing," said the brochures and radio commercials.
Obama's work on the south side has won him the friendship and respect of many activists. One of them, Johnnie Owens, left the citywide advocacy group Friends of the Parks to join Obama at the Developing Communities Project. He later replaced Obama as its executive director.
"What I liked about Barack immediately is that he brought a certain level of sophistication and intelligence to community work," Owens says. "He had a reasonable, focused approach that I hadn't seen much of. A lot of organizers you meet these days are these self-anointed leaders with this strange, way-out approach and unrealistic, eccentric way of pursuing things from the very beginning. Not Barack. He's not about calling attention to himself. He's concerned with the work. It's as if it's his mission in life, his calling, to work for social justice.
"Anyone who knows me knows that I'm one of the most cynical people you want to see, always looking for somebody's angle or personal interest," Owens added. "I've lived in Chicago all my life. I've known some of the most ruthless and biggest bullshitters out there, but I see nothing but integrity in this guy."
Jean Rudd, executive director of the Woods Fund, is another person on guard against self-appointed, self-promoting community leaders. She admires not only Obama's intelligence but his honesty. "He is one of the most articulate people I have ever met, but he doesn't use his gift with language to promote himself. He uses it to clarify the difficult job before him and before all of us. He's not a promoter; from the very beginning, he always makes it clear what his difficulties are. His honesty is refreshing."
Woods was the first foundation to underwrite Obama's work with DCP. Now that he's on the Woods board, Rudd says, "He is among the most hard-nosed board members in wanting to see results. He wants to see our grants make change happen--not just pay salaries."
Another strong supporter of Obama's work--as an organizer, as a lawyer, and now as a candidate--is Madeline Talbott, lead organizer of the feisty ACORN community organization, a group that's a thorn in the side of most elected officials. "I can't repeat what most ACORN members think and say about politicians. But Barack has proven himself among our members. He is committed to organizing, to building a democracy. Above all else, he is a good listener, and we accept and respect him as a kindred spirit, a fellow organizer."
Obama continues his organizing work largely through classes for future leaders identified by ACORN and the Centers for New Horizons on the south side. Conducting a session in a New Horizons classroom, Obama, tall and thin, looks very much like an Ivy League graduate student. Dressed casually prep, his tie loosened and his top shirt button unfastened, he leads eight black women from the Grand Boulevard community through a discussion of "what folks should know" about who in Chicago has power and why they have it. It's one of his favorite topics, and the class bubbles with suggestions about how "they" got to be high and mighty.
"Slow down now. You're going too fast now," says Obama. "I want to break this down. We talk 'they, they, they' but don't take the time to break it down. We don't analyze. Our thinking is sloppy. And to the degree that it is, we're not going to be able to have the impact we could have. We can't afford to go out there blind, hollering and acting the fool, and get to the table and don't know who it is we're talking to--or what we're going to ask them--whether it's someone with real power or just a third-string flak catcher."
Later Obama gets to another favorite topic--the lack of collective action among black churches. "All these churches and all these pastors are going it alone. And what do we have? These magnificent palatial churches in the midst of the ruins of some of the most run-down neighborhoods we'll ever see. All pastors go on thinking about how they are going to 'build my church,' without joining with others to try to influence the factors or forces that are destroying the neighborhoods. They start food pantries and community-service programs, but until they come together to build something bigger than an effective church all the community-service programs, all the food pantries they start will barely take care of even a fraction of the community's problems."
"In America," Obama says, "we have this strong bias toward individual action. You know, we idolize the John Wayne hero who comes in to correct things with both guns blazing. But individual actions, individual dreams, are not sufficient. We must unite in collective action, build collective institutions and organizations."
In an interview after the class, Obama again spoke of the need to organize and mobilize the economic power and moral fervor of black churches. He also argued that as a state senator he might help bring this about faster than as a community organizer or civil rights lawyer.
"What we need in America, especially in the African-American community, is a moral agenda that is tied to a concrete agenda for building and rebuilding our communities," he said. "We have moved beyond the clarion call stage that was needed during the civil rights movement. Now, like Nelson Mandela in South Africa, we must move into a building stage. We must invest our energy and resources in a massive rebuilding effort and invent new mechanisms to strengthen and hasten this community-building effort.
"We have no shortage of moral fervor," said Obama. "We have some wonderful preachers in town--preachers who continue to inspire me--preachers who are magnificent at articulating a vision of the world as it should be. In every church on Sunday in the African-American community we have this moral fervor; we have energy to burn.
"But as soon as church lets out, the energy dissipates. We must find ways to channel all this energy into community building. The biggest failure of the civil rights movement was in failing to translate this energy, this moral fervor, into creating lasting institutions and organizational structures."
Obama added that as important and inspiring as it was, the Washington administration also let an opportunity go by. "Washington was the best of the classic politicians," Obama said. "He knew his constituency; he truly enjoyed people. That can't be said for a lot of politicians. He was not cynical about democracy and the democratic process--as so many of them are. But he, like all politicians, was primarily interested in maintaining his power and working the levers of power.
"He was a classic charismatic leader," Obama said, "and when he died all of that dissipated. This potentially powerful collective spirit that went into supporting him was never translated into clear principles, or into an articulable agenda for community change.
"The only principle that came through was 'getting our fair share,' and this runs itself out rather quickly if you don't make it concrete. How do we rebuild our schools? How do we rebuild our communities? How do we create safer streets? What concretely can we do together to achieve these goals? When Harold died, everyone claimed the mantle of his vision and went off in different directions. All that power dissipated.
"Now an agenda for getting our fair share is vital. But to work, it can't see voters or communities as consumers, as mere recipients or beneficiaries of this change. It's time for politicians and other leaders to take the next step and to see voters, residents, or citizens as producers of this change. The thrust of our organizing must be on how to make them productive, how to make them employable, how to build our human capital, how to create businesses, institutions, banks, safe public spaces--the whole agenda of creating productive communities. That is where our future lies.
"The right wing talks about this but they keep appealing to that old individualistic bootstrap myth: get a job, get rich, and get out. Instead of investing in our neighborhoods, that's what has always happened. Our goal must be to help people get a sense of building something larger.
"The political debate is now so skewed, so limited, so distorted," said Obama. "People are hungry for community; they miss it. They are hungry for change.
"What if a politician were to see his job as that of an organizer," he wondered, "as part teacher and part advocate, one who does not sell voters short but who educates them about the real choices before them? As an elected public official, for instance, I could bring church and community leaders together easier than I could as a community organizer or lawyer. We would come together to form concrete economic development strategies, take advantage of existing laws and structures, and create bridges and bonds within all sectors of the community. We must form grass-root structures that would hold me and other elected officials more accountable for their actions.
"The right wing, the Christian right, has done a good job of building these organizations of accountability, much better than the left or progressive forces have. But it's always easier to organize around intolerance, narrow-mindedness, and false nostalgia. And they also have hijacked the higher moral ground with this language of family values and moral responsibility.
"Now we have to take this same language--these same values that are encouraged within our families--of looking out for one another, of sharing, of sacrificing for each other--and apply them to a larger society. Let's talk about creating a society, not just individual families, based on these values. Right now we have a society that talks about the irresponsibility of teens getting pregnant, not the irresponsibility of a society that fails to educate them to aspire for more."
Obama said he's not at all comfortable with the political game of getting and staying elected, of raising money in backroom deals and manipulating an electable image.
"I am also finding people equivocating on their support. I'm talking about progressive politicians who are on the same page with me on the issues but who warn me I may be too independent."
Although Obama has built strong relationships with people inside Mayor Daley's administration, he has not asked for their support in his campaign. Nor has he sought the mayor's endorsement.
"I want to do this as much as I can from the grass-roots level, raising as much money for the campaign as possible at coffees, connecting directly with voters," said Obama. "But to organize this district I must get known. And this costs money. I admit that in this transitional period, before I'm known in the district, I'm going to have to rely on some contributions from wealthy people--people who like my ideas but who won't attach strings. This is not ideal, but it is a problem encountered by everyone in their first campaign.
"Once elected, once I'm known, I won't need that kind of money, just as Harold Washington, once he was elected and known, did not need to raise and spend money to get the black vote."
Obama took time off from attending campaign coffees to attend October's Million Man March in Washington, D.C. His experiences there only reinforced his reasons for jumping into politics.
"What I saw was a powerful demonstration of an impulse and need for African-American men to come together to recognize each other and affirm our rightful place in the society," he said. "There was a profound sense that African-American men were ready to make a commitment to bring about change in our communities and lives.
"But what was lacking among march organizers was a positive agenda, a coherent agenda for change. Without this agenda a lot of this energy is going to dissipate. Just as holding hands and singing 'We shall overcome' is not going to do it, exhorting youth to have pride in their race, give up drugs and crime, is not going to do it if we can't find jobs and futures for the 50 percent of black youth who are unemployed, underemployed, and full of bitterness and rage.
"Exhortations are not enough, nor are the notions that we can create a black economy within America that is hermetically sealed from the rest of the economy and seriously tackle the major issues confronting us," Obama said.
"Any solution to our unemployment catastrophe must arise from us working creatively within a multicultural, interdependent, and international economy. Any African-Americans who are only talking about racism as a barrier to our success are seriously misled if they don't also come to grips with the larger economic forces that are creating economic insecurity for all workers--whites, Latinos, and Asians. We must deal with the forces that are depressing wages, lopping off people's benefits right and left, and creating an earnings gap between CEOs and the lowest-paid worker that has risen in the last 20 years from a ratio of 10 to 1 to one of better than 100 to 1.
"This doesn't suggest that the need to look inward emphasized by the march isn't important, and that these African-American tribal affinities aren't legitimate. These are mean, cruel times, exemplified by a 'lock 'em up, take no prisoners' mentality that dominates the Republican-led Congress. Historically, African-Americans have turned inward and towards black nationalism whenever they have a sense, as we do now, that the mainstream has rebuffed us, and that white Americans couldn't care less about the profound problems African-Americans are facing."
"But cursing out white folks is not going to get the job done. Anti-Semitic and anti-Asian statements are not going to lift us up. We've got some hard nuts-and-bolts organizing and planning to do. We've got communities to build."
It is quite refreshing and gratifying to see that way back then, Barack Obama believed in what he still believes in now - that we must all roll up our sleeves and work as a community that belongs together.
I really admire Obama, but I worry about what's underneath all that charm and all the uplifting but vague statements. It's good to see he has deep roots.
I keep hearing everyone say about Barack, "vague comments" or "no substance behind what he says". To everyone who says that, I say, he put all the substance in his books. Read "The Audacity of Hope" and you'll find tons of substance.
In this article Obama critizes everything achieved thus far by Blacks as lacking; from the Church and it's pastors,the civil rights movements, million man march,et., etc., etc. Ego, Ego, Ego
Quoted from PR "In this article Obama critizes everything achieved thus far by Blacks as lacking; from the Church and it's pastors,the civil rights movements, million man march,et., etc., etc. Ego, Ego, Ego"
PR, Baracks observations in this article show his vision of how to sustain momentum by establishing community that perpetually exerts peer pressure on itself to move forward.
He sees the end game and I think he sees it correctly. Are you African American? Do you honestly not see the shortcomings with where we are as a people. There are reasons for that and a good deal of the responsibility rest with those in our leadership. It's not all external forces that have hindered our progress. We've built a lot of sand castles, caught a lot of fish, but without teaching folk how to fish and so we've gone a bit hungry.
Barack also has some very astute observations about how politicians learn to play the game elevating their own self-preservation before the needs of their constituents.
I think the article is fascinating in Barack's observation about how politicians view themselves and their service.
Wouldn't you find the very idea that a politician paid by the people to make things better for the people might willfully hedge on that contract, upsetting?
Perhaps he or she draws out the length of time it would take to get something done because it might give him or her something to get accomplished in the next term or right before election time or something. And all that power crap, I hate. I really think that there should be no such thing as a lifetime politician. There needs to be term limits for every position. Folk need to see their time in office as that of necessity of the moment, do their level best for the time that they're in to implement their visions and then move on.
Uncle Barrack, may God richly bless U as u are moving up. and always remember your brothers down.It is now time for the good people to win(Lead)America for a better day.
Obama, talks about not being this political machine . . .to rid "politics as usual." But, with his ties to Chicago politics, Ted Kennedy, and Rezko this guy's agenda come right out of the ultimate political playbook. I read somewhere that he had "sweet words," but no "emotion," I agree totally. To think he was even remotely involved with those housing horrors that hurt poor people makes me want to run as far as I can from this guy's bid for the White House.
Hey Wayne, did you actually read this article? How could you not see the emotion behind what people said about him and from his own words? As far as the ties you refer to...show me one person, not just a politician, who does not have someone in their past who they would have rather not been a part of had they known the truth about them from the start? Do you expect perfection? Because you might as well keep living in your la-la land if so. Peace out. GO OBAMA!
"Obama writes that the coach "calmly explained the apparently obvious fact that 'there are black people, and there are niggers. Those guys were niggers.'" "
This same explanation was given to me at work years ago - by an African American woman, after I "Tsk"d her for saying the "N" word !
"These are mean, cruel times, exemplified by a 'lock 'em up, take no prisoners' mentality that dominates the Republican-led Congress. Historically, African-Americans have turned inward and towards black nationalism whenever they have a sense, as we do now, that the mainstream has rebuffed us, and that white Americans couldn't care less about the profound problems African-Americans are facing."
""Now all of this may be good political advice," Obama said, "but it's all so superficial. I am surprised at how many elected officials--even the good ones--spend so much time talking about the mechanics of politics and not matters of substance. They have this poker chip mentality, this overriding interest in retaining their seats or in moving their careers forward, and the business and game of politics, the political horse race, is all they talk about. Even those who are on the same page as me on the issues never seem to want to talk about them. Politics is regarded as little more than a career.""
He has become everything that he did not want to be. Sad.
I'd love to lambast you, John, and I kind of will, but I think I see where you're coming from. It's very easy to be prematurely disillusioned. Obama has set a practically impossible bar for himself, in trying to be basically an honest politician. Notice he doesn't go on the offensive very often--he counterattacks. He avoids taking big money handouts...if he can. It chips away at his image of integrity. But if you were Obama, what would you do? Leave politics to those with less integrity? More polarity? He's said in debate that everybody's hands get dirty in politics. It's impossible to associate with only honest folk.
Clearly, Obama has evolved (as "The Audacity of Hope" also reveals), but at the same time he has remained amazingly consistent and true to his roots in organizing for community-based systemic change, which has been, not surprisingly, the key to the success of his current campaign.
As for Rezko, sure, he supported Obama, just as he supported dozens of other politicians - Republicans and Democrats alike - but there were never any strings attached; Rezko never once asked Obama for anything. In fact, just the opposite: apparently Obama vociferously objected to Rezko's proposed gambling interests while in the Illinois Senate. Furthermore, the Chicago papers have investigated and searched for the supposed political landmines for years and have concluded "there's no there there." Period. Read the Chicago Trib's 3/16/08 op-ed (that's the conservative paper, by the way): www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0316edit1mar16,0,2616801.story. One might also consider that after years of dredging for dirt, the Trib has seen fit to endorse Obama over Clinton.
The the Clinton campaign repeatedly attempts to arouse suspicion, suggests that Obama has "gotten a pass," and continues to agitate for "vetting" - knowing full well that the Chicago media has already done its job and even noted that Obama filed "unusually frank ethics disclosure reports" - indicates to me that greater scrutiny for honesty and integrity should be directed at Clinton, who has yet to release her tax returns, White House archives and donor lists for the Clinton Presidential Library. Given the flak the Clintons have sent Obama's way, her refusal to offer full disclosure of her own past is totally hypocritical and lacking in integrity. I should think that someone who has been the target of persistent innuendo and accusation a la Whitewater, Travelgate, the missing Rose Law firm files, the Foster suicide ... would be a little more conscientious with the conduct of her own campaign.
Oh, sure, Rezco never asked for anything...that's why Obama simply out of the goodness of his heart recommended that he be given all that taxpayer money...which the slumlord pocketed while Obama's elderly and minority constituents froze in those publically funded run-down buildings without any heat.
It turns out that the black agenda I suspected he had is real. As stated in the article he is tired of seeing the moral fervor of black folks whipped up--at the speaker's rostrum or from the pulpit--and then allowed to dissipate because ther's no agenda, no concrete program for change. So now is is all set the give us the black agenda (he also gives a nod to the Latinos and Asians). Is he really interested in the white folk I wonder? I think he is a brilliant leader who will deeply divide this country. He scares me.
Im with Megan. This guy can say nothing more eloquently than anyone I've ever seen. The Dems are about to nominate a community activist. He is a divider not a uniter. He is a partisan not a maverick. He is a hater not a lover. He is the polar opposite of what he claims to be.
How has his theory about building communities worked out? What are the results? As far as I can tell, he talked about it, and is still talking about it. Meanwhile, the businessmen create businesses that give jobs to workers. They are not talkers. I guess that's why they are not politicians. Obama seems to be an excellent talker about doing, but he lacks actual accomplishments in the areas he is advocating.
The people he denounces - Mayor Daley and big business - have done far more for the people than any of his communities. The man he speaks of most admiringly - Harold Washington - was a terrible and ineffectual mayor. Obama's narcissism prevents him from seeing these obvious truths.
It is really disheartening to see so many people on the right unwilling to acknowledge and accept the intellectual heft of this man. You are unable to see his profound understanding of the human condition, something that so many of you do not. I like that one of his undergraduate degrees is in Literature. A man who enjoys reading, and understands what he reads. Additionally, he has a life experience, that gives him a broad worldview. So many of you sound hollow and empty in your constant negative reframes. Stop projecting your negative emotions onto him. Own your own feelings, whatever they are. Part of his success is his approach to problem-solving, working from the botttom up. Do not fear that he has an agenda for the blacks or minorities. America is still a majority white country. He wants to be the president for all Americans. How unusual? This is "no ordinary man."
So he helped Mosely Braun's election. Great. His judgment is already in question regarding the folks he reveres and takes as mentors and contributors. Alan Dixon was a really good man; and Mosely Braun, who was cashing her mom's wefare checks while the old lady was in a State-paid nursing home, and who let taxpayers fund her boyfriend's trips to Africa with her was just the type of pol he purports NOT to admire. Sorry, but his emphasis on collectivism has turned me off entirely.
Bastrop, if a white politician spoke repeatedly of working with pastors in white neighborhoods to ensure that whites get "their share", which he insists they are currently denied. If a white politician spoke of the need for long-lasting institutions to be created beyond the temporal excitement created by a politician who furthered the power of the race to which he belonged, and the need for real change to be initiated after the conclusion of such marches in which he'd participated as one led by Lester Maddox (a rough equivalent to Louis Farrakhan and his Milloin Man March), would you really be writing, "He wants to be the president for all Americans?"
What evidence of that is there in this article? I see none.
His role as community organizer was merely to further the material standards of blacks and Hispanics merely in the community he resided - unfortunatly that's wholly different than an elected official's position to look out for the concerns of his state or nation at large - he doesn't see the difference.
E.g., when he speaks of anti-Semitic statements not doing the job of lifting black communities - do you get a sense of outrage at the existence of anti-Semitic statements? I don't. Again, if a white politician spoke of anti-black statements not doing the job for the frustated ambitions of poor whites - shouldn't we feel umbrage at such a nonchalant reference to the existence of such bigotry?
Obama is pretty frank in describing himself as one who wants to improve the lot of those of his race - rather like Frank Rizzo when he created the National Association of White People. Rizzo and Obama - trying to help their self-identified racial communities.
Obama is a socialist, plain and simple. He eschews individualism, calling it a "myth" that individual effort and hard work can allow people to work their way out of poverty -- while evading the fact that millions of people, black and white, have done precisely that.
No, instead, he wants to offer blacks an alternative to the notion that they must work for a living; he wants to promise them a "share of the pie" -- a pie they did not produce, by the way -- to be achieved by "collective action". Translation: if enough of us stick together and become a big enough block of voters, then we can get government to further loot the taxpayers and give us more of their earnings.
That is all Obama is promising: more of the same government looting that has been on the rise for decades. Obama is not a candidate of change; Obama is a candidate of "staying the course" on the march to socialism in America.
So Obama is a "community organizer" – what does that mean? As far as I can tell from this article, Obama get funds from unnamed people of wealth and grant money from various government entities. Then he impresses other people and gets invited to sit on their 501c3 Board of Directors. Next he holds classes for aspiring "community organizers" and spouts some really nifty phrases like: "I could bring church and community leaders together easier than I could as a community organizer or lawyer. We would come together to form concrete economic development strategies, take advantage of existing laws and structures, and create bridges and bonds within all sectors of the community……"
Not only does it sound like something Miss Congeniality would say, this actually is Obama’s shtick and is nothing more than patronage. Has Obama ever had a real job or owned a business? The swooning over 12 hour days!! Oh the humanity!
Skimmed through this article and missed referrence to Nobama marching with Calypso Louie? I'm drooling with hope that Barry and Hillbillary show-up and duke it out on stage at the "Demo" cornvention. This mess with these two is better to watch than wolfn'-down Apple Butter on Sour Dough bread. :oP
Obama is half white (American mother) and half black (Kenyan father) - correct? He was raised by his white mother and white grandparents. Why does he only identify himself as a black man? Why has he forgotten the heritage of his white mother? Curious.
Obama is saintly man. Deep in his heart he does not want to be the next US president. He wants to be the president or prime minister of Kenya. But Kenya is a highly developed super power, full of happy, prosperous people living in harmony with each other while the US is a third world poverty ridden country. Leaving the US for Kenya means a brain drain for the US. Kenya, a paradise doesn't need the titanic Promethean genius of this statesman. Underdeveloped US does.
Obama became involved in politics to advance black people...This article shows that clearly.. If you want to know how Obama really feels inside study J. Wright's sermons.Obama is like satan.. he promises everyone everything but gives nothing and will take everything
That "mean cruel times" and "white Americans couldn't care less" business is perfect. Along with Wright and all the crazy stuff from Michelle we are getting a terrific picture of the real Obama. Of course it was fine in the Democratic primary but this guy is toast once all this is pounded home in the general election.
Those who read this article and fail to see the deep humanity, residing in Obama's soul are just simply being hypocritical. Any person who consistently thinks about the welfare of society, without thinking about his personal welfare is a noble person. Names like Ghandhi, Martin Luter king, Jesus, Mohammed, Nelson Mandela etc all share the same trait: selflessness. That is what set these people apart. Its a character that is divinely given. You cannot pretend it,and cannot fake it. It remains consistent from infancy to old age. Obama has displayed that selflessness and our failure to see it only attest to our moral blindness and ineptitude.
community sounds good, development sounds good... but the federal government implementing communities seems to almost be a contradiction in terms? shouldnt individuals within the community take the responsibility of developing their own communities since they are the ones that will be living there? we did such a great job developing iraq's communities. if that's what you want, run with it but... no not in my direction, away .... f a r t h e r.... yeah that's better.
the last time the federal government came around talking about community development our working lower income citizens became neatly packed into their own community but .... hey do you see any real difference other than looking new again? same people, same policy of divide and conquer. the government divides us so it can conquer the lower income citizens one way and the mid-range income citizens another way. the concept seems very villiage- like, all working for the common good. you know communities, togetherness is good, blending in, mixing up... sure it sounds good. but wait... too late. divided. one side the suburb, the other da block... the thing about the community concept is that is is still a form of segmentation.. so much talk about racial relations... almost seem to divide us more, ya know? why not let your community schedule activities with other communities? get to really know something about each other rather than what we see from the eoutside looking in... when you go to someone else's home, and sit with a glass of tea... perhaps a "unity barbecue" that rotates hosting??? i'm sure you are aware that they train police working in low-income areas of primarily non-white citizens, than those working in higher income areas. they recruit different kinds of teachers, the same reason the other side has more street lights... they're baking cakes down there and they're skiing up there...
this whole thing of race identification... i don't define my self as a white man, i see myself as an free human being. when you're being you're doing and as long as you keep it up, there's no time to fit ourselves into labels. can't we just be who we are and then if someone asks who we are we can ask them "hummm... havent tought about it much really, how would you describe us?
the label thing is almost like the community thing. when you stop re-defining yourself, you're stuck being who you were, not who you could be...
if my skin is white but i live beside you, feed your cat when you're on vacationing, i change the melton's oil for them... you know with his back and everything.... in doing so it becomes much more in touch and finally seeing you as an independent human be-ing. sometimes just want to stop trying. but then i'd be dying. as humans, we like what feels comfortable and predictable. change is scary.. what if i fail? only to realize you might feel the same way!
when you stop using labels to define who you are, you forget to give everybody else a label too
labels. names. so now are you my bla.... oh wait.... breakin old habbits so hard to do.. luckily, a label only has the power we give it. its the paradox of still photography of a moving dancer. when you stop to look at it, it stops be-ing, do- ing. go-ing bye
share the One Love. that is what brings us all together. keep sharing it, dont let it stop
Hitler did good things for his community. I want a President not a good speeker I want to talk about his votes and non-votes What he wont say and when He wont say it. He spoke asap for the black woman when she was hated by a white man but when Rev Wright showed hatered for his Country and the white man Obama took days and had to be asked to speek out, He had to be told to speek out Hello!
Elitest, people get real. Someone that just paid off there student loans and have been down in the trenches with the poor and downtroded. Some of us do not want to see our country as it is. OBAMA is man enough to voice cocerns of the people, Yes, I am bitter, angry, disallusioned every time I fill my car with gas, have to pay $5.99 for a gallon of milk, have to help my mom pay for prescriptions, see my copmany continue to outsource jobs to Mexico and Manila. I get very upset to know that a pregnant illegal immigrant can come into this country and get the best FREE healthcare and now her new baby is a US citizen and on and on and on. OBAMA 08
well, this sounds great. i can respect what he was saying here. but he doesn't talk like this now. why is he making so many offensive "typical white person" "bitter" remarks and pissin off people? he needs to revisit his old voice and get back on message, or the way politics works... he will be history. Until i read this, I've just about written him off as a grade A a#%hole
If you thought he was an a-hole, it's because there are people who work to manufacture that perception.
The trivial fabricated snippets and Fox sound-bites are not intended to inform anyone. They're intended to preserve power for those who currently hold it.
Obama is human. He's a good person and he'll make a great president. At this time in history, his election will serve to right the (partially) right the ship of state. Intelligence isn't everything, but used well by people with big hearts, it can accomplish many things. Obama has that combination of intellect and heart. His positions on the economy and foreign policy will set this country on a better course.
Tracy he was referring to her grandmother's feelings over 30 years ago. They were "typical" back then. I recall watching a couple of older newscasters say, Obama is wright.
Gov. Rendell said some Whites in his state are not ready for African American.
Read the last paragraph. "But cursing out white folks is not going to get the job done. Anti-Semitic and anti-Asian statements are not going to lift us up. We've got some hard nuts-and-bolts organizing and planning to do. We've got communities to build."
Obama will be the Democratic nominee and at the first debate with McCain, the nation will see old man McCain attempting to keep up with a vibrant, intelligent Barack Obama and it will be a wrap. McCain will still get the white male vote and that third of white women who long for days of Dixie...but everybody else uses common sense and votes for Barack, especially in the larger states and he gets the electoral votes. I can't wait for that day, it'll be great to see the neo-cons losing their racist, elitist minds.
Barack Obama made some quite impressive speeches back then that he echoes now. He has come a long way, and he is obviously quite the visionary, but I also have to question the progress toward bettering impoverished, uninspired and worn-out neighborhoods. (Case in point: the deadly Chicago shootings over the weekend--an obvious media downplay). As a voter--an American who cares about our children's future--I have a right to question not only Obama's past accomplishments, but his past associations as well. This is not racist, but unfortunately, race will continue to come front and center. Mr. Obama gets my utmost respect, but is not sufficiently answering the hard questions--not nearly enough to earn my vote.
This article gave me goosebumps as I read it! Could this be the president we've been waiting for? I have a feeling that by electing Obama, we'll be setting America on a whole new PROGRESSIVE track!
Fascinating article. Clearly he had noble ideas back then. I'm wondering what he did with the power he won in that election. He talked about holding elected officials accountable for their achievements. Did his election make things better for the people of his community? Did their housing improve? Did they get jobs? Or was his time in the Illinois State Senate (and US Senate) simply a stepping stone along the way to his next election? I have a feeling that the fine young man written about in this story lost his way as he, like so many others before him, was seduced by the corridors of power.
I think this article is illustrative of the fact that Obama has not just come about his politics out of expedience, but out of a lifetime of thinking deeply about how communities can help themselves. No, he isn't perfect. But at least he aspires to an ideal, rather than the likes of Clinton who are so cynical and steeped in old politics that they have no moral compass. Obama has my vote
This entire article confirms what many have suspected all along. Obama is a SOCIALIST.
He eschews the individual and favors the collective. It's pretty obvious what "collective" he favors.
That is why he was so drawn to the racist hate monger, Jeremiah Wright.
Never once has Obama ever spoken about personal responsibility. Never once do you ever hear him speak of the very black problem of out of wedlock births in that community that cause the majority of the black communities problems.
To him socialism is the answer. Take from those who are productive to those who live grievance lifestyles.
This guy is dangerous. He will be the most racially divisive man in the history of this country if people are insane enough to elect him. He will be a one term failure of a president that is for sure. If he does get to the White House, he will guarantee no other black person is ever elected president for at least two generations.
I won't even bother getting into the failure and total weakness he would represent on a foreign policy front.
If Obama was white, he would have been eliminated already in the early primaries. He offers nothing but larger government taking from those who have earned and giving it to those who do nothing to help themselves. He offers nothing but the failure of socialism.
Most people are idiots. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Obama has never run anything larger than his senate office staff. This country will be in for much larger disaster than the Jimmy Carter years where Carter weakened this country abroad and at home gave us 17% interest rates.
Obama spells failure for this country.
He won't get elected now anyway. Jeremiah Wright is seeing to that. Plus Obama's cozy friendships with terrorists and other corrupt Chicago power players have yet to even see much light of day.
The public already sees that Obama's wife hates this country. They are starting to see now that Obama also hates his country. He wouldn't stay friends with rabid racists and hate mongers like Jeremiah Wright if he actually loved this country.
if anything the Obama campaign is showing America that "Black Liberation Theology" is nothing but pure hatred. No different than the KKK.
White people in the general election will not vote for a black dude who hates white people. Obama doesn't have a chance. Not anymore. Not since the real Obama is starting to come to the surface.
This campaign has been and continues to be an interesting journey. It truly holds out a mirror for America to view itself; and for those hearts not hardened by fear, cynicism or ignorance, the door of opportunity to face those aspects of who we are, that divides us, is open.
Slavery has had a heinous effect on both blacks and whites alike. The pervading culture in America seems afraid to embark on that path of change and healing I would venture to guess that those with such strong stances in regards to Barak being a "Pro Black" candidate have no African American FRIENDS. Not acquaintances or co-workers but genuine bonds of good feeling between each other. If you did, you would see that everyone wants the same thing. At the core, everyone wants health, liberty and security. It is simply the cultural differences on how to achieve life's blessings that are currently causing so much hardship.
Many African Americans appear to be so rooted in the pains of the past that they continue to inflict self defeating wounds, continuing to fan the flames of fear in their fellow Americans.
African Americans are an oppressed people, whether you like them or not is irrelevant to that fact. Slavery is a direct cause (not the only) of that oppression. This is reality. African Americans can only go back about 2 or 3 generations because their families were broken up and sold like you'd sell car parts. Imagine it. Put yourself in that place. Do you really feel that the over 350 years of slavery has no effect on the current state of African Americans and our country at large? If you do, than you've not been paying attention to our climate and how our actions of the past can destroy our future.
We are at a crossroads. Our current problems require unity. We no longer have the luxury of racism. Let this moment be the beginning where we allow our wisdom to catch up with our technological advances. Our Country is Great...doubtlessly. Let us go deeper...let us support each other...let us no longer be divided. Let the conversation begin. We can do this America!
Wow! I have to say, I am really impressed by the consistency of Obama's message. It's clear that even before he entered politics he was already developing some of the same values that he has now. I find that impressive.
All that said... I continue to think that in the general election Hillary would be the stronger candidate. I guess that isn't really going to happen now since she basically can't catch up to him any more. But I just don't think the "new politics" is going to work with the Republicans who are always so underhanded. It's going to be hard for Obama to hit back without being called a hypocrite. But I like them both and just wish this long primary would be over already.
it will be an interesting moment if americans will give a chance to a black person like obama to rule the great nation of yours.obama,an interllectual an philantropies,who cares for the common in america.indeed with the aforemention character of obama, he will surely bring infrastructural developemt,unity, peace and progess to the expected 21st centuary global economic growth to united state of america.
I accept that Barack Obama is a sophisticated intellectual leader, but business people view leadership as having some sort of an "impact". For example, Ralph Nader is a leader of enormous impact in his day as a consumer advocate - changed the auto industry. Ralph did not need to be elected to have this impact. Somehow Barack Obama's impact seems to be that of a best selling author. Are you sure that he belongs in the White House rather than in a univeristy? It is so hard for me to reconcile his output with others in the Democratic or Republican race for the White House? Or our founding fathers. When compared with any of them he just seems like an underachiever.
Collectivism is a cornerstone of communist thought. Do what is better first for the State, then the individual. The constitution is based on the individual, not the State. Quoting Obama in this article:"The political debate is now so skewed, so limited, so distorted," said Obama. "People are hungry for community; they miss it. They are hungry for change. "In America," Obama says, "we have this strong bias toward individual action. You know, we idolize the John Wayne hero who comes in to correct things with both guns blazing. But individual actions, individual dreams, are not sufficient. We must unite in collective action, build collective institutions and organizations." "The right wing talks about this but they keep appealing to that old individualistic bootstrap myth: get a job, get rich, and get out. Instead of investing in our neighborhoods, that's what has always happened. Our goal must be to help people get a sense of building something larger. If you wish to take a major turn toward communism vote for the BIG O!
Working communities aren't communism. If you want to see the modern day Soviets in this country look to the party that wants the government unfettered power to easedrop, search without cause, jail indefinately, and convict secretly American citizens.
John Wayne was a Hollywood construct. The studio wasn't going to cast an actor named "Marion Morrison". They decided to give him a name of a Revolutionary War Hero, Anthony Wayne. They changed Anthony to John because it was too ethnic.
The Wild West Gunfighter Nation is a Hollywood fantasy, it isn't American heritage.
I am a white male and I thoroughly understand the injustice that has been given to blacks over the last 400 years. what I don't understand is why does everyone want the government to take care of them. Have we become so lazy that as long as we have TV/Alcohol/ and Sex we are content. I will tell ALL OF YOU one thing, if you Congress and the President decide what is best for you then you are doomed to be SLAVES. A persons race will not matter.
After reading this all I could think of was "blah, blah, blah". Lots of talk and lots of generalities, but no substance. What did he ever accomplish other than to promote himself?
When a leftwinger criticizes "John Wayne individualism" he's speaking code for "Everything inside the State; nothing outside the State," Mussolini's slogan for Fascism. If you want to see a real attack on the Constitution --- not the mere piddling stuff Bush has been accused of --- just elect Barack Obama to the presidency. His "collective" vision wants everything you've got, starting with your liberty.
Anyone accusing Obama of being a "socialist" clearly has no idea of what they are talking about...but yes, that old hack Ayn Rand must be spinning in her Grave...haha. If old Ayn were alive, just the suggestion of working collectively would be enough to give her the vapors.
If one looks at the gains made since LBJ's Great Society, you can see that a Black middle class has emerged and is gaining in number, but certainly not at the speed or on a par with the white middle class that greatly expanded after WW2.
Unfortunately, poor Black ghettos continue to fester in the inner cities sunken under the weight of helplessness and hopelessness. I guess that these people haven't gotten the "bootstrap memo."
Obama's idealism vis a vis helping this community get their own piece of the American dream demonstrates the sort of thinking outside the box that I admire in him. His plan is not to play Politics as usual, i.e., consolidate your power then do squat, but rather he is trying to get this community that many Americans, both White AND the Black Middle-Class have basically abandoned as hopeless, to take control over their own lives and to gather strength in numbers, to take advantage of the political power that a bloc of voters CAN demand. If you want to see that power in action just look at how the Republicans have cynically swayed poor rural whites to vote against their self interest by playing on, in part their fears. Obama on the other hand wants to take the power of the many and make it work IN their self interest; instead of the old way of throwing enough government money at them to meet their basic needs, but never enough to truly lift them out of poverty, Obama is proposing some new and unusual ideas to bring jobs, prosperity, safety to the inner city, his take is so new that it scares people, especially privileged White people who have the luxury in this Country of not having to think about their skin color every time they make a move, or consolidate their power.
What's with all this "Barack is doing this for our own good?" crap?
I don't want someone I don't know and don't trust making my decisions for me or telling me what I should do. I think he and his followers should just go to hades and be done with it.
What a bunch of pushy, bossy, inconsiderate people.
So Obama has "unusual ideas to bring jobs" to the inner city, eh? I'd love to see them codified. Pity you didn't link to the position paper where they're laid out. I could've used a good laugh.
Here's the thing. There's an unavoidable hierarchy where useful work is concerned. Skills have relative values. If you can't speak and communicate (Ebonics doesn't qualify), add and subtract, write, apply a specialized learned skill, or show up to work on time, or at all, your chances of finding a remunerative place in the 21st century hierarchy are almost nil, Barack's miracle cures notwithstanding. C'est la vie, or, as dear old Ayn might say, bad premises lead to bad results.
"His plan is not to play Politics as usual, i.e., consolidate your power then do squat, but rather he is trying to get this community that many Americans, both White AND the Black Middle-Class have basically abandoned as hopeless, to take control over their own lives and to gather strength in numbers, to take advantage of the political power that a bloc of voters CAN demand."
And do what? Join with Fr. Pfleger and demand reparations? We now know that Obama's church and Wright had received as much as $15 million in federal grant money to underwrite many of its ministries. Heck, the congregants weren't paying for all the good works Obama lauds the church for--American taxpayers were. What frauds.
And what will Senator Obama due with all of that left-over cash his campaign has raised when the presidential election is done? He won't be giving to the south-siders, that's for sure!
For blacks living in Chicago's South Side, how has Obama improved things? Has he provided more jobs? Is unemployment down? Is crime down? Are high school graduation rates up?
The Goverment has had this "war on poverty" for what, 40 years now? If you ain't out of poverty yet, you ain't never gonna be. Stay in school, stop having baby mamas, stop selling and using drugs, drinking, get a job, work your way up, become middle class. Viola!
I'm trying to understand how it is that a man who had such a hard time letting go of 2 hate spewing racists had no problem at all with throwing his "typical white" grandmother under the bus or denying his true ethnic makeup.Yes he had a white mother, but his father was actually 87.5% Arabic and only 12.5% African Negro. One might accuse him of being an opportunist.Afterall many more doors were open to him with respect to education and employment by ignoring his true nationality, (Arabic American),and using his skin color to take advantage of benefits that otherwise might not be available to him.
Riddle me this.. Michelle Obama has spoke of how they know what its like trying to make ends meeet these days. Gee, she makes over $300,000.00 a year and then whatever he makes from his books and job. Shame on me... here I was feeling frustrated making less than $20,000.00 while my male counterparts make closer to $30,000.00 a year.
For those having trouble doing the math: Obama is 50% caucasion,43.25% Arabic and 6.25% African Negro. So actually rather than the first African American he is really the first Arabic American to be nominated for president. So it seems that some in the African American community really are only voting for him because of the color of his skin. It appears he's ashamed of his Arabic heritage. Why else would cling to his 6.25% African Negro heritage.
"The right wing, the Christian right, has done a good job of building these organizations of accountability, much better than the left or progressive forces have. But it's always easier to organize around intolerance, narrow-mindedness, and false nostalgia. And they also have hijacked the higher moral ground with this language of family values and moral responsibility."
Wow, calling the Christian Church, which he claimed to be espoused for so many years, "Intolerant and narrow-minded." I guess we are seeing his true colors here. Someone who was an activist and a member of various organizations for the sole purpose of higher office. This brings me back to what I have always wondered about this man, what does he truely believe?
Research the definitions, so called intelectuals want to take what I've worked for and earned and redistribute it to those who are so called less fortunate! I have worked hard since i was 13 years old, nothing has been given to me and i'm not looking for a handout from anyone. Especially the Fed Gov't, remember people everything offered has strings attached. i.e. loss of personal freedoms
Hot dog all the National Review wingnuts have jumped on this link... ============= "And do what? Join with Fr. Pfleger and demand reparations? We now know that Obama's church and Wright had received as much as $15 million in federal grant money to underwrite many of its ministries. Heck, the congregants weren't paying for all the good works Obama lauds the church for--American taxpayers were. What frauds." =============== And what say you about Falwell's Church, The Moral Majority, John Hagee, Rod Parsley, and their ilk who are Politically active and operate at the pleasure of the tax-payer...not the least of which is enjoying tax-free status. Let me guess, you see nothing wrong with their "good works," or their brand of hate speech against homosexuals, Liberals, feminists, or any other American that doesn't agree with their view of what constitutes "morality." D'oh the hypocrisy.
"In America," Obama says, "we have this strong bias toward individual action. You know, we idolize the John Wayne hero who comes in to correct things with both guns blazing. But individual actions, individual dreams, are not sufficient. We must unite in collective action, build collective institutions and organizations."
I believe that is the same rhetoric used by Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini and Castro. Destroy the individual desire for achievement and rely on the government to take care of you. This guy is pure Marxist to the core and always has been. God help us as the other choice is marginally better. Sad to think in 2008 this is the best the USA has to offer.
"I believe that is the same rhetoric used by Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini and Castro. Destroy the individual desire for achievement and rely on the government to take care of you. This guy is pure Marxist to the core and always has been" =========== You are completely misinterpeting his ideas. Specifically he was talking about improving life in the black ghetto. Didn't you read what he said about the Black Middle Class? As soon as individual Blacks reach a certain level of success they leave the inner city just as the whites before them. The "bookstrap" paradigm has not worked in the inner city for most people, and neither has the welfare model...Obama is suggesting that these people can succeed through pooling their collective energies to improve their lives, bring their schools up to par so some of them CAN board the "bootstrap train," he is also suggesting that Black communities can learn by looking at how White Evangelicals have harnessed their collective political power to make real changes and to elect selected Politicans.
What you need to be careful of is when you assume Obama is talking about marxism when he says "collective effort." I would argue that it is anything BUT Marxism. He is talking about creating an environment in the inner city community so that they can take part in the American Dream, so that they will become self sufficent.
Note that he says: "The thrust of our organizing must be on how to make them productive, how to make them employable, how to build our human capital, how to create businesses, institutions, banks, safe public spaces--the whole agenda of creating productive communities. That is where our future lies."
What more would whites, some of who have been whining about "lazy blacks" living on the Government dole for decades, want than to see come to fruition than Obama's dream of a Working, skilled productive community that no longer needs tax payer hand-outs?
"...Let's talk about creating a society, not just individual families, based on these values. Right now we have a society that talks about the irresponsibility of teens getting pregnant, not the irresponsibility of a society that fails to educate them to aspire for more."
Like most liberals, Obama probably means well, but his schooling and church learning are betrayed in this line, where he's basically dismissing individual responsibility and the role of family and placing the responsibility on a nebulous term called "society", where only a "collective" solution will work...that individual responsibility for moral behavior and teaching same to our children is less important than some politician or "community leader" telling you what you need to do and expropriating the money from others to do it. This kind of thinking is prevalent on college campuses and in the media, where victimization and blame is the name of the game.
And what say you about Falwell's Church, The Moral Majority, John Hagee, Rod Parsley, and their ilk who are Politically active and operate at the pleasure of the tax-payer...not the least of which is enjoying tax-free status. Let me guess, you see nothing wrong with their "good works," or their brand of hate speech against homosexuals, Liberals, feminists, or any other American that doesn't agree with their view of what constitutes "morality." D'oh the hypocrisy."
Hold-the-Tiger equates tax-free status with pork. And what constitutes morality will always be in dispute with humans. We reap what we sow, do unto others, karma, etc., is the core teaching of all the major legitimate religions. I think the beef Christians have with homos, liberals and feminists is the inherent self-interest (i.e. selfishness) of those identities and directly relates to the breakdown of family along with the stability and security it traditionally provides for children (and "society" at large).
I guess I just don't understand how people can support this guy after reading articles of this nature. Great - so he wants to improve the ghetto - but what about everyone else? He talks of change and uniting a divided nation, but all he writes about is helping our African American communities. How can I possibly give him my vote when he's so obviously motivated to concentrate his efforts on one demographic? I'm not black and I don't live in the ghetto, but I'm also not a rich white person living in the suburbs either. I need someone who has EVERYONE's interests in mind. I too feel the squeeze everytime I stop at the gas pump, or go to the grocery store. But I'm still considered "middle-class" (although I'd like them to see my checking account balance at the end of each month), so my taxes are raised to fund more social programs to help those who are struggling during these hard economic times. What I want to know is, where's MY help?
Whew! Were I to need any more examples of why poor science/engineering students can excel in journalism, I'll use this article. Keep your writer away from anything requiring logic.
Obama May be sincere about community organizing, but that is not enough to be President. It appears to me that he is running for the wrong office. Maybe he should run for mayor of Chicago, but not president. Also, after reading this article and Obama's quotes as well as so much hatred by many who have posted here, I believe he would do better just staying in Chicago and taking care of business there.
I am amazed at people who support Obama because he has such concern, such understanding,such intelligence and compassion. Particularly for blacks, of which he represents by 6.25%, according to one person commenting here. Do you realize he is poised to support and fulfill all of Planned Parenthood's agenda? The same organization who took calls for donations to "kill black babies" and didn't even bat an eye? Who puts centers up in black low-income areas so they can continue to kill black babies at an alarming rate? Do you realize he supports partial birth abortion, where they pull a viable baby backwards out of the mother (except the head), stick a tube in its head, suction out its brains, crush the skull and THEN deliver it? He also rejects the born-alive protection act, where babies who actually survive an abortion are not left to die in linen closets? What kind of human being could truly believe that a civilized society could support such monstrous acts? No matter how smooth his tongue is, his inhumanity towards 'the least of these' speaks volumes to me, and drowns out his eloquent rhetoric.
As a resident of Hawaii for 42 and a Haole or White male,as is the racially motivated term used here, I am amazed that BHO had such difficulty at a local elitist school like Punahou. If he had attended Iolani another elitist school of a different racial make up he would have known just how racial things can get in this wonderful melting pot of humanity. It is beyond me how anyone can fall for this Used Car Salesman! Haven't they observed what has and is still happening in the Southside of Chicago? All of the US Government money that is dumped into this area under the guise of helping the poor. The result is what BHO saw in Djakarta but on a larger scale. This money goes to make the elite blacks rich, and BHO is one of them who has gained his power and riches on the backs of the very same people he continues to say he is helping. And if he becomes our President alot of your money and mine will end up in his pocket and the pockets of his friends.
Senator Compassion voted to kill a baby who survives an abortion in Illinois Senate in 2001...read the transcript, and if it does not send chills down your spine you are not human. Fast forward to 2008 when he said he doesn't want his daughters "punished by a baby"...of course, that would be his grandkid he's talking about! The senator is a wild-eyed idealogue who said his first act will to sign the Freedom of Choice Act which will permit the federal govt to fund all abortions on demand, and then Obama will raise all of our taxes to pay for it. Get ready for the nanny state of the God-less One.
If John McCain said, in response to a direct question whether he accepted the support of David Duke, anything other than "no," I wouldn't even consider voting for him. What I can't understand is why anyone would even consider voting for Obama.
Obama is a: a) collectivist, b) fascist,or c)socialist? Take your pick. Our great country was not founded on any of the above political theories. Inquire, research, question, learn; leave the 'herd' mentality behind. I am reading 'The Audacity of Hope' so I am learning what Obama stands for (collectivism) and it scares me!!!
According to www.50states.com "There are no racial or ethnic majorities in Hawaii. Everyone is a minority. Caucasians (Haoles) constitute about 34%; Japanese-American about 32%; Filipino-American about 16% and Chinese-American about 5%. It is very difficult to determine racial identification as most of the population has some mixture of ethnicities."
According to hawaiinews.com the percentage of whites is closer to 23%. Figures are available for 1970s when Obama was in high school. There were just over 1300 15-19 yo black boys and girls Hawaii in 1976. How then does Obama frame his high school experience in terms of anti-black / white racism?
From the article: "When Obama moved back to his grandparents' home in Hawaii, to attend the prestigious Punahou School, he encountered race and class prejudice that would darken his politics even more. At first embarrassed by his race and African name, he soon bonded with the few other African-American students. He quickly learned that integration was a one-way street, with blacks expected to assimilate into a white world that never gave ground. He participated in bitter bull sessions with his buddies on the theme of "how white folks will do you." Obama, who had to reconcile these sentiments with the loving support he had at home from his white mother and grandparents, dismissed much of his buddies' analysis as "the same sloppy thinking" used by racist whites, but he found the racism of whites to be particularly stubborn and obnoxious.
Obama objected when his Punahou basketball coach upbraided the team for losing to "a bunch of niggers." Obama writes that the coach "calmly explained the apparently obvious fact that 'there are black people, and there are niggers. Those guys were niggers.'"
"That's just how white folks will do you," Obama writes. "It wasn't merely the cruelty involved; I was learning that black people could be mean and then some. It was a particular brand of arrogance, an obtuseness in otherwise sane people that brought forth our bitter laughter. It was as if whites didn't know they were being cruel in the first place. Or at least thought you deserving of their scorn."
"We have no shortage of moral fervor," said Obama. "We have some wonderful preachers in town--preachers who continue to inspire me--preachers who are magnificent at articulating a vision of the world as it should be. In every church on Sunday in the African-American community we have this moral fervor; we have energy to burn.
"But as soon as church lets out, the energy dissipates. We must find ways to channel all this energy into community building."
So it seems in 1995 Barack was paying attention to those fiery racist diatribes delivered by the likes of Jeremiah Wright. Maybe he just forgot by the time 2008 rolled around...
Obama is good at expressing what he would like to see happen in the "communities", but doesn't say where the money to do this will come from. Does anyone else but me wonder how immigrants of all races come here, most not even speaking the language, learn the language and economic system and withing a matter of years buy their own home, yet our own citizens will not avail themselves of the same resources and work ethics these foreign immigrants have proven are a recipe for success? Obama, like all Marxists attempt to fan the flames of class envy. For all the intellect he clearly has, he fails to see that it is better to guarantee equal opportunity to compete, not guarantee outcome without competition. Societies always benefit from the fruits of those who struggle and suffer from supporting those who are capable of effort, but refuse to do so.
As the first post said, Obama is a socialist. We really don't get much sense of the life he led. He has, however, profited by the myth he has created about himself. As to why he calls himself black? Not much choice, since he looks black.
Hmmm, 10 years after this article it took a "John-Wayne-dude" to take charge of the FEDERAL response & catalyze the feeble local, parish, & state responses to Hurricane Katrina. (by the by, can anyone tell me why the state of Mississippi didn't get nearly the press NOLA did when Katrina's eye ran up through Mississippi & not LA?)It is STILL the individual that makes things happen in our society, NOT the collective. To butcher a line from Men in Black, "people are stupid, a person is smart."
"In America," Obama says, "we have this strong bias toward individual action. You know, we idolize the John Wayne hero who comes in to correct things with both guns blazing. But individual actions, individual dreams, are not sufficient. We must unite in collective action, build collective institutions and organizations."
"The right wing talks about this but they keep appealing to that old individualistic bootstrap myth: get a job, get rich, and get out. Instead of investing in our neighborhoods, that's what has always happened. Our goal must be to help people get a sense of building something larger. "
???
I thought Obama proved this wasn't a myth by starting at the bottom and working hard to get where he is. Unless he meant the folks who co-signed for his 'student loans' like Percy Sutton and Khalid al-Mansour.
More houses have been flooded this year in Cedar Rapids, IA than were lost in Katrina. Do we hear more about Louisiana or Iowa? In New Orleans, most played the victim card. Victims make good headlines. In Iowa, most people dried themselves off, put on a pair of rubber boots and went back to work. Were is the drama in that?
Hey Chicago, Barry just told a crowd near Toledo that he wants to "spread the wealth around" Is that really the way "organizers" in Chicago work? I don't want to play the part of Robin Hood in any Obama Presidency!! McCain/Palin '08 (Nobama/Noway)
Now, with the eve of the election approaching, it is quite amazing to look back at this. President Obama. Just say it.
The icing of the whole package is Sarah Palin's belligerent scoff at community organizers. She has made it quite clear that she doesn't know what a community organizer does. That is certain.
Obama is a pretty slick and effective campaigner and so smooth. I don't doubt that he can give a speech. What is frightening is his lack of experience in other areas of what the job requires. I not only fear for my family but for this country overall from our enemies on the outside. On the domestic side I fear what happens to this nation with a democratic congress, White House and a liberal court system. May God have mercy on us if Obama is successful.
As I read the article I see the Community Organizer as Divider. It's the same old Democrat saw pitting one group against the other. Redistributing wealth, power or what have you. Obama actually said you grow an economy from the ground up. Take from the rich give to the poor and all that...what a disaster. If that's the case Cuba and North Vietnam are the next economic powerhouses. If he gets elected and raises taxes, people who have the means to enter or expand business, and create those precious jobs, will to opt out. Period.
Obama, is going to be the worst thing for our country. If he cared so much and with the attention, he should handle home first! Crime rate in Chicago is off the charts, he should open up about Donald Young. Maybe not, that may get him JAILED, he or his wife knows what happened to Mr. Young! The Nation of Islam is the next question up, what is his closeness to them? There are so many things that have not been answered. I ask you Mr.Obama how can you promise so many things to so many and have nothing in command with the mass? Oh, Mr. Obama I have already met you and I have never fallen for your Gyme. It's for those who don't know that God don't know them! Anyone who wants to know the true Obama should go to youtube and type in Obama mocks the Bible. It's out his own mouth. And look for a Rockefeller to some how before the Vice President, Then Mr. Obama you will be in deep due do. They don't love you, you're their puppit! And it starts with your Wife!
Mocking the bible? What's next, mocking Greek mythology?
I fail to understand how this superstitious, divisive nonsense called religion continues to influence U.S. politics. You bible thumpers are no better than the suicide bombers, acting on behalf of some imaginary higher being instead of taking responsibility for how you treat other people.
I am a "Bible thumper" and for this reason am glad that Obama will now be our President. He was an effective community organizer, a briliant law student, and remained a caring man who desires change. In many ways Obama reminds me of Jimmy Carter. I am glad that he now has the chance to live the Gospel. I think that our country will begin to prosper again, as we'll now have someone in office who fights for the ever-shrinking middle class. I am proud to be an American now that Obama has been given a chance!
I think it is pathetic that we always have to come to this. Will Obama be the change we need. He is the president. He will have those around him who are dedicated to make that happen. He doesn't have the Washington experience but he does have the drive and determination to ask the tough questions. And finding the right solutions. God bless America and it people. He going to do great things. Let us do great things as well. Let us work toward being unified and helpful.
John Galt for President 2012at 11:10 AM on 11/6/2008
If you want to see America's future - study what happened since Hugo Chavez took over Venezuela. Food rationing of meat/eggs/milk, oil production down 25%, oil workers forced to grow food/build furniture, no free press, thugs who beat up those who speak out against him, alliances with dictators, attempted to declare himself President for life (watch what happens if he loses his next election) ect. This is your future America.
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David Bwakali at 11:49 PM on 12/13/2007
It is quite refreshing and gratifying to see that way back then, Barack Obama believed in what he still believes in now - that we must all roll up our sleeves and work as a community that belongs together.
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aleks h at 2:41 AM on 1/4/2008
I really admire Obama, but I worry about what's underneath all that charm and all the uplifting but vague statements. It's good to see he has deep roots.
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KA at 2:38 PM on 1/4/2008
I keep hearing everyone say about Barack, "vague comments" or "no substance behind what he says". To everyone who says that, I say, he put all the substance in his books. Read "The Audacity of Hope" and you'll find tons of substance.
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PR at 6:52 PM on 1/4/2008
In this article Obama critizes everything achieved thus far by Blacks as lacking; from the Church and it's pastors,the civil rights movements, million man march,et., etc., etc. Ego, Ego, Ego
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inspired at 12:02 AM on 1/8/2008
Quoted from PR "In this article Obama critizes everything achieved thus far by Blacks as lacking; from the Church and it's pastors,the civil rights movements, million man march,et., etc., etc. Ego, Ego, Ego"
PR, Baracks observations in this article show his vision of how to sustain momentum by establishing community that perpetually exerts peer pressure on itself to move forward.
He sees the end game and I think he sees it correctly. Are you African American? Do you honestly not see the shortcomings with where we are as a people. There are reasons for that and a good deal of the responsibility rest with those in our leadership. It's not all external forces that have hindered our progress. We've built a lot of sand castles, caught a lot of fish, but without teaching folk how to fish and so we've gone a bit hungry.
Barack also has some very astute observations about how politicians learn to play the game elevating their own self-preservation before the needs of their constituents.
I think the article is fascinating in Barack's observation about how politicians view themselves and their service.
Wouldn't you find the very idea that a politician paid by the people to make things better for the people might willfully hedge on that contract, upsetting?
Perhaps he or she draws out the length of time it would take to get something done because it might give him or her something to get accomplished in the next term or right before election time or something. And all that power crap, I hate. I really think that there should be no such thing as a lifetime politician. There needs to be term limits for every position. Folk need to see their time in office as that of necessity of the moment, do their level best for the time that they're in to implement their visions and then move on.
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Patrick David at 8:38 AM on 1/8/2008
Uncle Barrack, may God richly bless U as u are moving up. and always remember your brothers down.It is now time for the good people to win(Lead)America for a better day.
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Wayne at 6:50 PM on 1/30/2008
Obama, talks about not being this political machine . . .to rid "politics as usual." But, with his ties to Chicago politics, Ted Kennedy, and Rezko this guy's agenda come right out of the ultimate political playbook. I read somewhere that he had "sweet words," but no "emotion," I agree totally. To think he was even remotely involved with those housing horrors that hurt poor people makes me want to run as far as I can from this guy's bid for the White House.
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WAYNO at 12:20 PM on 2/10/2008
Hey Wayne, did you actually read this article? How could you not see the emotion behind what people said about him and from his own words?
As far as the ties you refer to...show me one person, not just a politician, who does not have someone in their past who they would have rather not been a part of had they known the truth about them from the start?
Do you expect perfection? Because you might as well keep living in your la-la land if so.
Peace out. GO OBAMA!
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Stan at 10:23 PM on 2/21/2008
"Obama writes that the coach "calmly explained the apparently obvious fact that 'there are black people, and there are niggers. Those guys were niggers.'" "
This same explanation was given to me at work years ago - by an African American woman, after I "Tsk"d her for saying the "N" word !
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Megan at 6:36 PM on 2/24/2008
"These are mean, cruel times, exemplified by a 'lock 'em up, take no prisoners' mentality that dominates the Republican-led Congress. Historically, African-Americans have turned inward and towards black nationalism whenever they have a sense, as we do now, that the mainstream has rebuffed us, and that white Americans couldn't care less about the profound problems African-Americans are facing."
WHAT??
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John at 4:56 PM on 3/5/2008
""Now all of this may be good political advice," Obama said, "but it's all so superficial. I am surprised at how many elected officials--even the good ones--spend so much time talking about the mechanics of politics and not matters of substance. They have this poker chip mentality, this overriding interest in retaining their seats or in moving their careers forward, and the business and game of politics, the political horse race, is all they talk about. Even those who are on the same page as me on the issues never seem to want to talk about them. Politics is regarded as little more than a career.""
He has become everything that he did not want to be. Sad.
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MJF at 7:07 PM on 3/6/2008
I'd love to lambast you, John, and I kind of will, but I think I see where you're coming from. It's very easy to be prematurely disillusioned. Obama has set a practically impossible bar for himself, in trying to be basically an honest politician. Notice he doesn't go on the offensive very often--he counterattacks. He avoids taking big money handouts...if he can. It chips away at his image of integrity. But if you were Obama, what would you do? Leave politics to those with less integrity? More polarity? He's said in debate that everybody's hands get dirty in politics. It's impossible to associate with only honest folk.
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Eliot at 9:33 AM on 3/17/2008
Clearly, Obama has evolved (as "The Audacity of Hope" also reveals), but at the same time he has remained amazingly consistent and true to his roots in organizing for community-based systemic change, which has been, not surprisingly, the key to the success of his current campaign.
As for Rezko, sure, he supported Obama, just as he supported dozens of other politicians - Republicans and Democrats alike - but there were never any strings attached; Rezko never once asked Obama for anything. In fact, just the opposite: apparently Obama vociferously objected to Rezko's proposed gambling interests while in the Illinois Senate. Furthermore, the Chicago papers have investigated and searched for the supposed political landmines for years and have concluded "there's no there there." Period. Read the Chicago Trib's 3/16/08 op-ed (that's the conservative paper, by the way): www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0316edit1mar16,0,2616801.story. One might also consider that after years of dredging for dirt, the Trib has seen fit to endorse Obama over Clinton.
The the Clinton campaign repeatedly attempts to arouse suspicion, suggests that Obama has "gotten a pass," and continues to agitate for "vetting" - knowing full well that the Chicago media has already done its job and even noted that Obama filed "unusually frank ethics disclosure reports" - indicates to me that greater scrutiny for honesty and integrity should be directed at Clinton, who has yet to release her tax returns, White House archives and donor lists for the Clinton Presidential Library. Given the flak the Clintons have sent Obama's way, her refusal to offer full disclosure of her own past is totally hypocritical and lacking in integrity. I should think that someone who has been the target of persistent innuendo and accusation a la Whitewater, Travelgate, the missing Rose Law firm files, the Foster suicide ... would be a little more conscientious with the conduct of her own campaign.
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Zee at 12:34 PM on 3/26/2008
Oh, sure, Rezco never asked for anything...that's why Obama simply out of the goodness of his heart recommended that he be given all that taxpayer money...which the slumlord pocketed while Obama's elderly and minority constituents froze in those publically funded run-down buildings without any heat.
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Adrian at 10:50 PM on 3/27/2008
It turns out that the black agenda I suspected he had is real. As stated in the article he is tired of seeing the moral fervor of black folks whipped up--at the speaker's rostrum or from the pulpit--and then allowed to dissipate because ther's no agenda, no concrete program for change. So now is is all set the give us the black agenda (he also gives a nod to the Latinos and Asians). Is he really interested in the white folk I wonder? I think he is a brilliant leader who will deeply divide this country. He scares me.
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Uh, Adrian at 10:56 PM on 3/27/2008
Just what is it that could be done to improve the lives of black Americans that you think is going to be bad for white ones?
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RYAN76 at 5:37 PM on 3/29/2008
Im with Megan. This guy can say nothing more eloquently than anyone I've ever seen. The Dems are about to nominate a community activist. He is a divider not a uniter. He is a partisan not a maverick. He is a hater not a lover. He is the polar opposite of what he claims to be.
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Caleb Standafer at 8:12 PM on 3/29/2008
How has his theory about building communities worked out? What are the results? As far as I can tell, he talked about it, and is still talking about it. Meanwhile, the businessmen create businesses that give jobs to workers. They are not talkers. I guess that's why they are not politicians. Obama seems to be an excellent talker about doing, but he lacks actual accomplishments in the areas he is advocating.
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OWS at 9:00 PM on 3/29/2008
The people he denounces - Mayor Daley and big business - have done far more for the people than any of his communities. The man he speaks of most admiringly - Harold Washington - was a terrible and ineffectual mayor. Obama's narcissism prevents him from seeing these obvious truths.
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bastrop at 9:24 PM on 3/29/2008
It is really disheartening to see so many people on the right unwilling to acknowledge and accept the intellectual heft of this man. You are unable to see his profound understanding of the human condition, something that so many of you do not. I like that one of his undergraduate degrees is in Literature. A man who enjoys reading, and understands what he reads. Additionally, he has a life experience, that gives him a broad worldview. So many of you sound hollow and empty in your constant negative reframes. Stop projecting your negative emotions onto him. Own your own feelings, whatever they are. Part of his success is his approach to problem-solving, working from the botttom up. Do not fear that he has an agenda for the blacks or minorities. America is still a majority white country. He wants to be the president for all Americans. How unusual? This is "no ordinary man."
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Claire at 10:03 PM on 3/29/2008
So he helped Mosely Braun's election. Great. His judgment is already in question regarding the folks he reveres and takes as mentors and contributors. Alan Dixon was a really good man; and Mosely Braun, who was cashing her mom's wefare checks while the old lady was in a State-paid nursing home, and who let taxpayers fund her boyfriend's trips to Africa with her was just the type of pol he purports NOT to admire. Sorry, but his emphasis on collectivism has turned me off entirely.
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Thomas at 10:20 PM on 3/29/2008
Bastrop, if a white politician spoke repeatedly of working with pastors in white neighborhoods to ensure that whites get "their share", which he insists they are currently denied. If a white politician spoke of the need for long-lasting institutions to be created beyond the temporal excitement created by a politician who furthered the power of the race to which he belonged, and the need for real change to be initiated after the conclusion of such marches in which he'd participated as one led by Lester Maddox (a rough equivalent to Louis Farrakhan and his Milloin Man March), would you really be writing, "He wants to be the president for all Americans?"
What evidence of that is there in this article? I see none.
His role as community organizer was merely to further the material standards of blacks and Hispanics merely in the community he resided - unfortunatly that's wholly different than an elected official's position to look out for the concerns of his state or nation at large - he doesn't see the difference.
E.g., when he speaks of anti-Semitic statements not doing the job of lifting black communities - do you get a sense of outrage at the existence of anti-Semitic statements? I don't. Again, if a white politician spoke of anti-black statements not doing the job for the frustated ambitions of poor whites - shouldn't we feel umbrage at such a nonchalant reference to the existence of such bigotry?
Obama is pretty frank in describing himself as one who wants to improve the lot of those of his race - rather like Frank Rizzo when he created the National Association of White People. Rizzo and Obama - trying to help their self-identified racial communities.
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TNH at 12:49 AM on 3/30/2008
Obama is a windbag.
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Michael Smith at 6:56 AM on 3/30/2008
Obama is a socialist, plain and simple. He eschews individualism, calling it a "myth" that individual effort and hard work can allow people to work their way out of poverty -- while evading the fact that millions of people, black and white, have done precisely that.
No, instead, he wants to offer blacks an alternative to the notion that they must work for a living; he wants to promise them a "share of the pie" -- a pie they did not produce, by the way -- to be achieved by "collective action". Translation: if enough of us stick together and become a big enough block of voters, then we can get government to further loot the taxpayers and give us more of their earnings.
That is all Obama is promising: more of the same government looting that has been on the rise for decades. Obama is not a candidate of change; Obama is a candidate of "staying the course" on the march to socialism in America.
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Murphy at 11:32 AM on 3/30/2008
So Obama is a "community organizer" – what does that mean? As far as I can tell from this article, Obama get funds from unnamed people of wealth and grant money from various government entities. Then he impresses other people and gets invited to sit on their 501c3 Board of Directors. Next he holds classes for aspiring "community organizers" and spouts some really nifty phrases like: "I could bring church and community leaders together easier than I could as a community organizer or lawyer. We would come together to form concrete economic development strategies, take advantage of existing laws and structures, and create bridges and bonds within all sectors of the community……"
Not only does it sound like something Miss Congeniality would say, this actually is Obama’s shtick and is nothing more than patronage. Has Obama ever had a real job or owned a business? The swooning over 12 hour days!! Oh the humanity!
This qualifies Obama as President???
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claspur at 9:34 PM on 3/30/2008
Skimmed through this article and missed referrence to Nobama marching with Calypso Louie?
I'm drooling with hope that Barry and Hillbillary show-up and duke it out on stage at the "Demo" cornvention.
This mess with these two is better to watch than wolfn'-down Apple Butter on Sour Dough bread. :oP
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Sandra G. at 7:25 AM on 3/31/2008
Obama is half white (American mother) and half black (Kenyan father) - correct? He was raised by his white mother and white grandparents.
Why does he only identify himself as a black man? Why has he forgotten the heritage of his white mother?
Curious.
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Jan Voorsicht at 10:43 AM on 3/31/2008
Obama is saintly man. Deep in his heart he does not want to be the next US president. He wants to be the president or prime minister of Kenya. But Kenya is a highly developed super power, full of happy, prosperous people living in harmony with each other while the US is a third world poverty ridden country. Leaving the US for Kenya means a brain drain for the US. Kenya, a paradise doesn't need the titanic Promethean genius of this statesman. Underdeveloped US does.
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ruth at 11:16 AM on 3/31/2008
Obama became involved in politics to advance black people...This article shows that clearly.. If you want to know how Obama really feels inside study J. Wright's sermons.Obama is like satan.. he promises everyone everything but gives nothing and will take everything
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Sanju at 11:58 AM on 3/31/2008
Ruth is satan. Read the audacity of hope and study the more than 14 years of elected office.
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laughs@themessiah at 4:28 PM on 3/31/2008
That "mean cruel times" and "white Americans couldn't care less" business is perfect. Along with Wright and all the crazy stuff from Michelle we are getting a terrific picture of the real Obama. Of course it was fine in the Democratic primary but this guy is toast once all this is pounded home in the general election.
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Siam at 7:09 PM on 3/31/2008
Those who read this article and fail to see the deep humanity, residing in Obama's soul are just simply being hypocritical. Any person who consistently thinks about the welfare of society, without thinking about his personal welfare is a noble person. Names like Ghandhi, Martin Luter king, Jesus, Mohammed, Nelson Mandela etc all share the same trait: selflessness. That is what set these people apart. Its a character that is divinely given. You cannot pretend it,and cannot fake it. It remains consistent from infancy to old age. Obama has displayed that selflessness and our failure to see it only attest to our moral blindness and ineptitude.
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ofoo at 7:28 AM on 4/2/2008
read this
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steve@strangetrip org at 3:12 PM on 4/4/2008
let's play a word game, shall we?
community sounds good, development sounds good... but the federal government implementing communities seems to almost be a contradiction in terms? shouldnt individuals within the community take the responsibility of developing their own communities since they are the ones that will be living there? we did such a great job developing iraq's communities. if that's what you want, run with it but... no not in my direction, away .... f a r t h e r.... yeah that's better.
the last time the federal government came around talking about community development our working lower income citizens became neatly packed into their own community but .... hey do you see any real difference other than looking new again?
same people, same policy of divide and conquer. the government divides us so it can conquer the lower income citizens one way and the mid-range income citizens another way. the concept seems very villiage- like, all working for the common good. you know communities, togetherness is good, blending in, mixing up... sure it sounds good. but wait... too late. divided. one side the suburb, the other da block... the thing about the community concept is that is is still a form of segmentation..
so much talk about racial relations... almost seem to divide us more, ya know? why not let your community schedule activities with other communities? get to really know something about each other rather than what we see from the eoutside looking in... when you go to someone else's home, and sit with a glass of tea... perhaps a "unity barbecue" that rotates hosting???
i'm sure you are aware that they train police working in low-income areas of primarily non-white citizens, than those working in higher income areas. they recruit different kinds of teachers, the same reason the other side has more street lights... they're baking cakes down there and they're skiing up there...
this whole thing of race identification... i don't define my self as a white man, i see myself as an free human being. when you're being you're doing and as long as you keep it up, there's no time to fit ourselves into labels. can't we just be who we are and then if someone asks who we are we can ask them "hummm... havent tought about it much really, how would you describe us?
the label thing is almost like the community thing. when you stop re-defining yourself, you're stuck being who you were, not who you could be...
if my skin is white but i live beside you, feed your cat when you're on vacationing, i change the melton's oil for them... you know with his back and everything.... in doing so it becomes much more in touch and finally seeing you as an independent human be-ing. sometimes just want to stop trying. but then i'd be dying. as humans, we like what feels comfortable and predictable. change is scary.. what if i fail? only to realize you might feel the same way!
when you stop using labels to define who you are, you forget to give everybody else a label too
labels. names. so now are you my bla.... oh wait.... breakin old habbits so hard to do.. luckily, a label only has the power we give it. its the paradox of still photography of a moving dancer. when you stop to look at it, it stops be-ing, do- ing. go-ing
bye
share the One Love. that is what brings us all together. keep sharing it, dont let it stop
just some thoughts.
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Anthonytampafl at 10:04 PM on 4/12/2008
Hitler did good things
for his community.
I want a President not
a good speeker
I want to talk about his votes and non-votes
What he wont say and when He wont say it.
He spoke asap for the black woman when she was hated by a white man but when Rev Wright showed hatered for his Country and the white man Obama took days and had to be asked to speek out,
He had to be told to speek out Hello!
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Yvonne at 9:28 PM on 4/14/2008
Elitest, people get real. Someone that just paid off there student loans and have been down in the trenches with the poor and downtroded. Some of us do not want to see our country as it is. OBAMA is man enough to voice cocerns of the people, Yes, I am bitter, angry, disallusioned every time I fill my car with gas, have to pay $5.99 for a gallon of milk, have to help my mom pay for prescriptions, see my copmany continue to outsource jobs to Mexico and Manila. I get very upset to know that a pregnant illegal immigrant can come into this country and get the best FREE healthcare and now her new baby is a US citizen and on and on and on. OBAMA 08
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KidFromSmallPATown at 9:58 PM on 4/14/2008
I can relate to what OBAMA is saying... Good to see a politician who get it.
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Tracy at 3:42 AM on 4/18/2008
well, this sounds great. i can respect what he was saying here. but he doesn't talk like this now. why is he making so many offensive "typical white person" "bitter" remarks and pissin off people? he needs to revisit his old voice and get back on message, or the way politics works... he will be history. Until i read this, I've just about written him off as a grade A a#%hole
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Mr. Unite Us at 6:50 PM on 4/18/2008
Tracy he is still saying many of the same things, but the media truncates much of what he says.
Read hat he really said in San Francisco.
http://factcheck.barackobama.com/factcheck/2008/04/11/transcript_of_obamas_remarks_a.php
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Well Tracy at 10:54 PM on 4/18/2008
If you thought he was an a-hole, it's because there are people who work to manufacture that perception.
The trivial fabricated snippets and Fox sound-bites are not intended to inform anyone. They're intended to preserve power for those who currently hold it.
Obama is human. He's a good person and he'll make a great president. At this time in history, his election will serve to right the (partially) right the ship of state. Intelligence isn't everything, but used well by people with big hearts, it can accomplish many things. Obama has that combination of intellect and heart. His positions on the economy and foreign policy will set this country on a better course.
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Mr. Unite Us at 2:34 AM on 4/20/2008
Tracy he was referring to her grandmother's feelings over 30 years ago. They were "typical" back then. I recall watching a couple of older newscasters say, Obama is wright.
Gov. Rendell said some Whites in his state are not ready for African American.
Read the last paragraph.
"But cursing out white folks is not going to get the job done. Anti-Semitic and anti-Asian statements are not going to lift us up. We've got some hard nuts-and-bolts organizing and planning to do. We've got communities to build."
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Michelle Fan at 7:50 AM on 4/20/2008
Obama will be the Democratic nominee and at the first debate with McCain, the nation will see old man McCain attempting to keep up with a vibrant, intelligent Barack Obama and it will be a wrap. McCain will still get the white male vote and that third of white women who long for days of Dixie...but everybody else uses common sense and votes for Barack, especially in the larger states and he gets the electoral votes. I can't wait for that day, it'll be great to see the neo-cons losing their racist, elitist minds.
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Dave Bigdee at 5:10 PM on 4/20/2008
Barack Obama made some quite impressive speeches back then that he echoes now. He has come a long way, and he is obviously quite the visionary, but I also have to question the progress toward bettering impoverished, uninspired and worn-out neighborhoods. (Case in point: the deadly Chicago shootings over the weekend--an obvious media downplay). As a voter--an American who cares about our children's future--I have a right to question not only Obama's past accomplishments, but his past associations as well. This is not racist, but unfortunately, race will continue to come front and center. Mr. Obama gets my utmost respect, but is not sufficiently answering the hard questions--not nearly enough to earn my vote.
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Kisha at 4:29 AM on 4/21/2008
This article gave me goosebumps as I read it! Could this be the president we've been waiting for? I have a feeling that by electing Obama, we'll be setting America on a whole new PROGRESSIVE track!
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Concerned about Chicago at 12:59 PM on 4/27/2008
Fascinating article. Clearly he had noble ideas back then. I'm wondering what he did with the power he won in that election. He talked about holding elected officials accountable for their achievements. Did his election make things better for the people of his community? Did their housing improve? Did they get jobs? Or was his time in the Illinois State Senate (and US Senate) simply a stepping stone along the way to his next election? I have a feeling that the fine young man written about in this story lost his way as he, like so many others before him, was seduced by the corridors of power.
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Sean at 11:46 PM on 4/27/2008
I think this article is illustrative of the fact that Obama has not just come about his politics out of expedience, but out of a lifetime of thinking deeply about how communities can help themselves. No, he isn't perfect. But at least he aspires to an ideal, rather than the likes of Clinton who are so cynical and steeped in old politics that they have no moral compass.
Obama has my vote
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Natasha at 4:34 PM on 4/28/2008
If Obama is so good at this, how come all of Chicago's problems are not solved after 20 years of organizing there (or at least significantly better)?
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Jim W at 3:39 AM on 4/30/2008
This entire article confirms what many have suspected all along. Obama is a SOCIALIST.
He eschews the individual and favors the collective. It's pretty obvious what "collective" he favors.
That is why he was so drawn to the racist hate monger, Jeremiah Wright.
Never once has Obama ever spoken about personal responsibility. Never once do you ever hear him speak of the very black problem of out of wedlock births in that community that cause the majority of the black communities problems.
To him socialism is the answer. Take from those who are productive to those who live grievance lifestyles.
This guy is dangerous. He will be the most racially divisive man in the history of this country if people are insane enough to elect him. He will be a one term failure of a president that is for sure. If he does get to the White House, he will guarantee no other black person is ever elected president for at least two generations.
I won't even bother getting into the failure and total weakness he would represent on a foreign policy front.
If Obama was white, he would have been eliminated already in the early primaries. He offers nothing but larger government taking from those who have earned and giving it to those who do nothing to help themselves. He offers nothing but the failure of socialism.
Most people are idiots. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Obama has never run anything larger than his senate office staff. This country will be in for much larger disaster than the Jimmy Carter years where Carter weakened this country abroad and at home gave us 17% interest rates.
Obama spells failure for this country.
He won't get elected now anyway. Jeremiah Wright is seeing to that. Plus Obama's cozy friendships with terrorists and other corrupt Chicago power players have yet to even see much light of day.
The public already sees that Obama's wife hates this country. They are starting to see now that Obama also hates his country. He wouldn't stay friends with rabid racists and hate mongers like Jeremiah Wright if he actually loved this country.
if anything the Obama campaign is showing America that "Black Liberation Theology" is nothing but pure hatred. No different than the KKK.
White people in the general election will not vote for a black dude who hates white people. Obama doesn't have a chance. Not anymore. Not since the real Obama is starting to come to the surface.
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Let us Rise... at 3:10 PM on 4/30/2008
This campaign has been and continues to be an interesting journey. It truly holds out a mirror for America to view itself; and for those hearts not hardened by fear, cynicism or ignorance, the door of opportunity to face those aspects of who we are, that divides us, is open.
Slavery has had a heinous effect on both blacks and whites alike. The pervading culture in America seems afraid to embark on that path of change and healing I would venture to guess that those with such strong stances in regards to Barak being a "Pro Black" candidate have no African American FRIENDS. Not acquaintances or co-workers but genuine bonds of good feeling between each other. If you did, you would see that everyone wants the same thing. At the core, everyone wants health, liberty and security. It is simply the cultural differences on how to achieve life's blessings that are currently causing so much hardship.
Many African Americans appear to be so rooted in the pains of the past that they continue to inflict self defeating wounds, continuing to fan the flames of fear in their fellow Americans.
African Americans are an oppressed people, whether you like them or not is irrelevant to that fact. Slavery is a direct cause (not the only) of that oppression. This is reality. African Americans can only go back about 2 or 3 generations because their families were broken up and sold like you'd sell car parts. Imagine it. Put yourself in that place. Do you really feel that the over 350 years of slavery has no effect on the current state of African Americans and our country at large? If you do, than you've not been paying attention to our climate and how our actions of the past can destroy our future.
We are at a crossroads. Our current problems require unity. We no longer have the luxury of racism. Let this moment be the beginning where we allow our wisdom to catch up with our technological advances. Our Country is Great...doubtlessly. Let us go deeper...let us support each other...let us no longer be divided. Let the conversation begin. We can do this America!
obama '08
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Janine Lessig at 6:30 PM on 4/30/2008
Wow! I have to say, I am really impressed by the consistency of Obama's message. It's clear that even before he entered politics he was already developing some of the same values that he has now. I find that impressive.
All that said... I continue to think that in the general election Hillary would be the stronger candidate. I guess that isn't really going to happen now since she basically can't catch up to him any more. But I just don't think the "new politics" is going to work with the Republicans who are always so underhanded. It's going to be hard for Obama to hit back without being called a hypocrite. But I like them both and just wish this long primary would be over already.
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ahmed at 4:53 PM on 5/4/2008
it will be an interesting moment if americans will give a chance to a black person like obama to rule the great nation of yours.obama,an interllectual an philantropies,who cares for the common in america.indeed with the aforemention character of obama, he will surely bring infrastructural developemt,unity, peace and progess to the expected 21st centuary global economic growth to united state of america.
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Mary OK at 2:56 PM on 5/7/2008
I accept that Barack Obama is a sophisticated intellectual leader, but business people view leadership as having some sort of an "impact". For example, Ralph Nader is a leader of enormous impact in his day as a consumer advocate - changed the auto industry. Ralph did not need to be elected to have this impact. Somehow Barack Obama's impact seems to be that of a best selling author. Are you sure that he belongs in the White House rather than in a univeristy? It is so hard for me to reconcile his output with others in the Democratic or Republican race for the White House? Or our founding fathers. When compared with any of them he just seems like an underachiever.
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David DeLong at 5:42 AM on 5/11/2008
Collectivism is a cornerstone of communist thought. Do what is better first for the State, then the individual. The constitution is based on the individual, not the State. Quoting Obama in this article:"The political debate is now so skewed, so limited, so distorted," said Obama. "People are hungry for community; they miss it. They are hungry for change.
"In America," Obama says, "we have this strong bias toward individual action. You know, we idolize the John Wayne hero who comes in to correct things with both guns blazing. But individual actions, individual dreams, are not sufficient. We must unite in collective action, build collective institutions and organizations."
"The right wing talks about this but they keep appealing to that old individualistic bootstrap myth: get a job, get rich, and get out. Instead of investing in our neighborhoods, that's what has always happened. Our goal must be to help people get a sense of building something larger. If you wish to take a major turn toward communism vote for the BIG O!
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Michael P. at 11:32 PM on 5/18/2008
Working communities aren't communism. If you want to see the modern day Soviets in this country look to the party that wants the government unfettered power to easedrop, search without cause, jail indefinately, and convict secretly American citizens.
John Wayne was a Hollywood construct. The studio wasn't going to cast an actor named "Marion Morrison". They decided to give him a name of a Revolutionary War Hero, Anthony Wayne. They changed Anthony to John because it was too ethnic.
The Wild West Gunfighter Nation is a Hollywood fantasy, it isn't American heritage.
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MLT at 11:55 AM on 5/29/2008
I am a white male and I thoroughly understand the injustice that has been given to blacks over the last 400 years. what I don't understand is why does everyone want the government to take care of them. Have we become so lazy that as long as we have TV/Alcohol/ and Sex we are content. I will tell ALL OF YOU one thing, if you Congress and the President decide what is best for you then you are doomed to be SLAVES. A persons race will not matter.
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Jackson at 1:16 PM on 6/2/2008
...And the picture of Obama becomes clear: Racist and Socialist/Collectivist. His only hope for election is to hide this through November.
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Sandra G. at 2:37 PM on 6/2/2008
After reading this all I could think of was "blah, blah, blah". Lots of talk and lots of generalities, but no substance.
What did he ever accomplish other than to promote himself?
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Tom B at 5:37 PM on 6/2/2008
When a leftwinger criticizes "John Wayne individualism" he's speaking code for "Everything inside the State; nothing outside the State," Mussolini's slogan for Fascism. If you want to see a real attack on the Constitution --- not the mere piddling stuff Bush has been accused of --- just elect Barack Obama to the presidency. His "collective" vision wants everything you've got, starting with your liberty.
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Hold_That_Tiger at 9:24 PM on 6/2/2008
Anyone accusing Obama of being a "socialist" clearly has no idea of what they are talking about...but yes, that old hack Ayn Rand must be spinning in her Grave...haha. If old Ayn were alive, just the suggestion of working collectively would be enough to give her the vapors.
If one looks at the gains made since LBJ's Great Society, you can see that a Black middle class has emerged and is gaining in number, but certainly not at the speed or on a par with the white middle class that greatly expanded after WW2.
Unfortunately, poor Black ghettos continue to fester in the inner cities sunken under the weight of helplessness and hopelessness. I guess that these people haven't gotten the "bootstrap memo."
Obama's idealism vis a vis helping this community get their own piece of the American dream demonstrates the sort of thinking outside the box that I admire in him. His plan is not to play Politics as usual, i.e., consolidate your power then do squat, but rather he is trying to get this community that many Americans, both White AND the Black Middle-Class have basically abandoned as hopeless, to take control over their own lives and to gather strength in numbers, to take advantage of the political power that a bloc of voters CAN demand. If you want to see that power in action just look at how the Republicans have cynically swayed poor rural whites to vote against their self interest by playing on, in part their fears. Obama on the other hand wants to take the power of the many and make it work IN their self interest; instead of the old way of throwing enough government money at them to meet their basic needs, but never enough to truly lift them out of poverty, Obama is proposing some new and unusual ideas to bring jobs, prosperity, safety to the inner city, his take is so new that it scares people, especially privileged White people who have the luxury in this Country of not having to think about their skin color every time they make a move, or consolidate their power.
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Kate Sheahan at 10:11 PM on 6/2/2008
What's with all this "Barack is doing this for our own good?" crap?
I don't want someone I don't know and don't trust making my decisions for me or telling me what I should do.
I think he and his followers should just go to hades and be done with it.
What a bunch of pushy, bossy, inconsiderate people.
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Tom B at 10:32 PM on 6/2/2008
So Obama has "unusual ideas to bring jobs" to the inner city, eh? I'd love to see them codified. Pity you didn't link to the position paper where they're laid out. I could've used a good laugh.
Here's the thing. There's an unavoidable hierarchy where useful work is concerned. Skills have relative values. If you can't speak and communicate (Ebonics doesn't qualify), add and subtract, write, apply a specialized learned skill, or show up to work on time, or at all, your chances of finding a remunerative place in the 21st century hierarchy are almost nil, Barack's miracle cures notwithstanding. C'est la vie, or, as dear old Ayn might say, bad premises lead to bad results.
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Sam Karp at 7:05 AM on 6/3/2008
When Obama speaks, people in the audience go weak in the knees. When McCain speaks, the terrorists go weak in the knees. I know which one I prefer.
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SAM34 at 8:26 AM on 6/3/2008
Hold That Tiger wrote, in part:
"His plan is not to play Politics as usual, i.e., consolidate your power then do squat, but rather he is trying to get this community that many Americans, both White AND the Black Middle-Class have basically abandoned as hopeless, to take control over their own lives and to gather strength in numbers, to take advantage of the political power that a bloc of voters CAN demand."
And do what? Join with Fr. Pfleger and demand reparations? We now know that Obama's church and Wright had received as much as $15 million in federal grant money to underwrite many of its ministries. Heck, the congregants weren't paying for all the good works Obama lauds the church for--American taxpayers were. What frauds.
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zzx375 at 9:27 AM on 6/3/2008
And what will Senator Obama due with all of that left-over cash his campaign has raised when the presidential election is done? He won't be giving to the south-siders, that's for sure!
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mlc at 6:07 PM on 6/3/2008
For blacks living in Chicago's South Side, how has Obama improved things? Has he provided more jobs? Is unemployment down? Is crime down? Are high school graduation rates up?
The Goverment has had this "war on poverty" for what, 40 years now? If you ain't out of poverty yet, you ain't never gonna be. Stay in school, stop having baby mamas, stop selling and using drugs, drinking, get a job, work your way up, become middle class. Viola!
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notdallas at 1:37 AM on 6/4/2008
I'm trying to understand how it is that a man who had such a hard time letting go of 2 hate spewing racists had no problem at all with throwing his "typical white" grandmother under the bus or denying his true ethnic makeup.Yes he had a white mother, but his father was actually 87.5% Arabic and only 12.5% African Negro. One might accuse him of being an opportunist.Afterall many more doors were open to him with respect to education and employment by ignoring his true nationality, (Arabic American),and using his skin color to take advantage of benefits that otherwise might not be available to him.
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notdallas at 1:53 AM on 6/4/2008
Riddle me this..
Michelle Obama has spoke of how they know what its like trying to make ends meeet these days. Gee, she makes over $300,000.00 a year and then whatever he makes from his books and job. Shame on me... here I was feeling frustrated making less than $20,000.00 while my male counterparts make closer to $30,000.00 a year.
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notdallas at 2:07 AM on 6/4/2008
For those having trouble doing the math:
Obama is 50% caucasion,43.25% Arabic and 6.25% African Negro.
So actually rather than the first African American he is really the first Arabic American to be nominated for president.
So it seems that some in the African American community really are only voting for him because of the color of his skin.
It appears he's ashamed of his Arabic heritage. Why else would cling to his 6.25% African Negro heritage.
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Devin at 2:33 AM on 6/4/2008
"The right wing, the Christian right, has done a good job of building these organizations of accountability, much better than the left or progressive forces have. But it's always easier to organize around intolerance, narrow-mindedness, and false nostalgia. And they also have hijacked the higher moral ground with this language of family values and moral responsibility."
Wow, calling the Christian Church, which he claimed to be espoused for so many years, "Intolerant and narrow-minded." I guess we are seeing his true colors here. Someone who was an activist and a member of various organizations for the sole purpose of higher office. This brings me back to what I have always wondered about this man, what does he truely believe?
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JD at 9:41 AM on 6/4/2008
Progressivism = Socialism.
Research the definitions, so called intelectuals want to take what I've worked for and earned and redistribute it to those who are so called less fortunate! I have worked hard since i was 13 years old, nothing has been given to me and i'm not looking for a handout from anyone. Especially the Fed Gov't, remember people everything offered has strings attached. i.e. loss of personal freedoms
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Hold_that_Tiger at 6:31 PM on 6/4/2008
Hot dog all the National Review wingnuts have jumped on this link...
=============
"And do what? Join with Fr. Pfleger and demand reparations? We now know that Obama's church and Wright had received as much as $15 million in federal grant money to underwrite many of its ministries. Heck, the congregants weren't paying for all the good works Obama lauds the church for--American taxpayers were. What frauds."
===============
And what say you about Falwell's Church, The Moral Majority, John Hagee, Rod Parsley, and their ilk who are Politically active and operate at the pleasure of the tax-payer...not the least of which is enjoying tax-free status. Let me guess, you see nothing wrong with their "good works," or their brand of hate speech against homosexuals, Liberals, feminists, or any other American that doesn't agree with their view of what constitutes "morality." D'oh the hypocrisy.
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JC at 9:39 PM on 6/4/2008
"In America," Obama says, "we have this strong bias toward individual action. You know, we idolize the John Wayne hero who comes in to correct things with both guns blazing. But individual actions, individual dreams, are not sufficient. We must unite in collective action, build collective institutions and organizations."
I believe that is the same rhetoric used by Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini and Castro. Destroy the individual desire for achievement and rely on the government to take care of you. This guy is pure Marxist to the core and always has been. God help us as the other choice is marginally better. Sad to think in 2008 this is the best the USA has to offer.
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Hold_That_Tiger at 10:28 PM on 6/5/2008
"I believe that is the same rhetoric used by Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini and Castro. Destroy the individual desire for achievement and rely on the government to take care of you. This guy is pure Marxist to the core and always has been"
===========
You are completely misinterpeting his ideas. Specifically he was talking about improving life in the black ghetto. Didn't you read what he said about the Black Middle Class? As soon as individual Blacks reach a certain level of success they leave the inner city just as the whites before them. The "bookstrap" paradigm has not worked in the inner city for most people, and neither has the welfare model...Obama is suggesting that these people can succeed through pooling their collective energies to improve their lives, bring their schools up to par so some of them CAN board the "bootstrap train," he is also suggesting that Black communities can learn by looking at how White Evangelicals have harnessed their collective political power to make real changes and to elect selected Politicans.
What you need to be careful of is when you assume Obama is talking about marxism when he says "collective effort." I would argue that it is anything BUT Marxism. He is talking about creating an environment in the inner city community so that they can take part in the American Dream, so that they will become self sufficent.
Note that he says:
"The thrust of our organizing must be on how to make them productive, how to make them employable, how to build our human capital, how to create businesses, institutions, banks, safe public spaces--the whole agenda of creating productive communities. That is where our future lies."
What more would whites, some of who have been whining about "lazy blacks" living on the Government dole for decades, want than to see come to fruition than Obama's dream of a Working, skilled productive community that no longer needs tax payer hand-outs?
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trice at 5:37 AM on 6/7/2008
"...Let's talk about creating a society, not just individual families, based on these values. Right now we have a society that talks about the irresponsibility of teens getting pregnant, not the irresponsibility of a society that fails to educate them to aspire for more."
Like most liberals, Obama probably means well, but his schooling and church learning are betrayed in this line, where he's basically dismissing individual responsibility and the role of family and placing the responsibility on a nebulous term called "society", where only a "collective" solution will work...that individual responsibility for moral behavior and teaching same to our children is less important than some politician or "community leader" telling you what you need to do and expropriating the money from others to do it.
This kind of thinking is prevalent on college campuses and in the media, where victimization and blame is the name of the game.
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trice at 6:03 AM on 6/7/2008
And what say you about Falwell's Church, The Moral Majority, John Hagee, Rod Parsley, and their ilk who are Politically active and operate at the pleasure of the tax-payer...not the least of which is enjoying tax-free status. Let me guess, you see nothing wrong with their "good works," or their brand of hate speech against homosexuals, Liberals, feminists, or any other American that doesn't agree with their view of what constitutes "morality." D'oh the hypocrisy."
Hold-the-Tiger equates tax-free status with pork.
And what constitutes morality will always be in dispute with humans. We reap what we sow, do unto others, karma, etc., is the core teaching of all the major legitimate religions. I think the beef Christians have with homos, liberals and feminists is the inherent self-interest (i.e. selfishness) of those identities and directly relates to the breakdown of family along with the stability and security it traditionally provides for children (and "society" at large).
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BW at 3:21 PM on 6/11/2008
I guess I just don't understand how people can support this guy after reading articles of this nature. Great - so he wants to improve the ghetto - but what about everyone else? He talks of change and uniting a divided nation, but all he writes about is helping our African American communities. How can I possibly give him my vote when he's so obviously motivated to concentrate his efforts on one demographic? I'm not black and I don't live in the ghetto, but I'm also not a rich white person living in the suburbs either. I need someone who has EVERYONE's interests in mind. I too feel the squeeze everytime I stop at the gas pump, or go to the grocery store. But I'm still considered "middle-class" (although I'd like them to see my checking account balance at the end of each month), so my taxes are raised to fund more social programs to help those who are struggling during these hard economic times. What I want to know is, where's MY help?
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Mike G at 3:57 PM on 6/11/2008
Whew! Were I to need any more examples of why poor science/engineering students can excel in journalism, I'll use this article. Keep your writer away from anything requiring logic.
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David Pat Pace at 4:52 PM on 6/11/2008
Obama May be sincere about community organizing, but that is not enough to be President. It appears to me that he is running for the wrong office. Maybe he should run for mayor of Chicago, but not president.
Also, after reading this article and Obama's quotes as well as so much hatred by many who have posted here, I believe he would do better just staying in Chicago and taking care of business there.
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oldgranolagirl at 1:41 AM on 6/12/2008
I am amazed at people who support Obama because he has such concern, such understanding,such intelligence and compassion. Particularly for blacks, of which he represents by 6.25%, according to one person commenting here. Do you realize he is poised to support and fulfill all of Planned Parenthood's agenda? The same organization who took calls for donations to "kill black babies" and didn't even bat an eye? Who puts centers up in black low-income areas so they can continue to kill black babies at an alarming rate? Do you realize he supports partial birth abortion, where they pull a viable baby backwards out of the mother (except the head), stick a tube in its head, suction out its brains, crush the skull and THEN deliver it? He also rejects the born-alive protection act, where babies who actually survive an abortion are not left to die in linen closets? What kind of human being could truly believe that a civilized society could support such monstrous acts? No matter how smooth his tongue is, his inhumanity towards 'the least of these' speaks volumes to me, and drowns out his eloquent rhetoric.
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Jorge Qualyo at 7:23 PM on 6/25/2008
As a resident of Hawaii for 42 and a Haole or White male,as is the racially motivated term used here, I am amazed that BHO had such difficulty at a local elitist school like Punahou. If he had attended Iolani another elitist school of a different racial make up he would have known just how racial things can get in this wonderful melting pot of humanity. It is beyond me how anyone can fall for this Used Car Salesman! Haven't they observed what has and is still happening in the Southside of Chicago? All of the US Government money that is dumped into this area under the guise of helping the poor. The result is what BHO saw in Djakarta but on a larger scale. This money goes to make the elite blacks rich, and BHO is one of them who has gained his power and riches on the backs of the very same people he continues to say he is helping. And if he becomes our President alot of your money and mine will end up in his pocket and the pockets of his friends.
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chris at 11:31 AM on 6/26/2008
Senator Compassion voted to kill a baby who survives an abortion in Illinois Senate in 2001...read the transcript, and if it does not send chills down your spine you are not human. Fast forward to 2008 when he said he doesn't want his daughters "punished by a baby"...of course, that would be his grandkid he's talking about! The senator is a wild-eyed idealogue who said his first act will to sign the Freedom of Choice Act which will permit the federal govt to fund all abortions on demand, and then Obama will raise all of our taxes to pay for it. Get ready for the nanny state of the God-less One.
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jimbob at 10:09 AM on 6/29/2008
If John McCain said, in response to a direct question whether he accepted the support of David Duke, anything other than "no," I wouldn't even consider voting for him. What I can't understand is why anyone would even consider voting for Obama.
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ironsmaker at 4:27 PM on 7/14/2008
Do not committ the impardonable sin of speaking anything negative about Obammbie
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Amie Hayes at 3:16 PM on 7/20/2008
Obama is a: a) collectivist, b) fascist,or c)socialist? Take your pick. Our great country was not founded on any of the above political theories. Inquire, research, question, learn; leave the 'herd' mentality behind. I am reading 'The Audacity of Hope' so I am learning what Obama stands for (collectivism) and it scares me!!!
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Roryn at 5:16 PM on 7/25/2008
Come Join Us for more black power and anti-white discussions.
May Obama be president and black power take over America!
http://forum.literotica.com/forumdisplay.php?f=4
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JAL at 11:20 PM on 8/27/2008
According to www.50states.com "There are no racial or ethnic majorities in Hawaii. Everyone is a minority. Caucasians (Haoles) constitute about 34%; Japanese-American about 32%; Filipino-American about 16% and Chinese-American about 5%. It is very difficult to determine racial identification as most of the population has some mixture of ethnicities."
According to hawaiinews.com the percentage of whites is closer to 23%. Figures are available for 1970s when Obama was in high school. There were just over 1300 15-19 yo black boys and girls Hawaii in 1976.
How then does Obama frame his high school experience in terms of anti-black / white racism?
From the article: "When Obama moved back to his grandparents' home in Hawaii, to attend the prestigious Punahou School, he encountered race and class prejudice that would darken his politics even more. At first embarrassed by his race and African name, he soon bonded with the few other African-American students. He quickly learned that integration was a one-way street, with blacks expected to assimilate into a white world that never gave ground. He participated in bitter bull sessions with his buddies on the theme of "how white folks will do you." Obama, who had to reconcile these sentiments with the loving support he had at home from his white mother and grandparents, dismissed much of his buddies' analysis as "the same sloppy thinking" used by racist whites, but he found the racism of whites to be particularly stubborn and obnoxious.
Obama objected when his Punahou basketball coach upbraided the team for losing to "a bunch of niggers." Obama writes that the coach "calmly explained the apparently obvious fact that 'there are black people, and there are niggers. Those guys were niggers.'"
"That's just how white folks will do you," Obama writes. "It wasn't merely the cruelty involved; I was learning that black people could be mean and then some. It was a particular brand of arrogance, an obtuseness in otherwise sane people that brought forth our bitter laughter. It was as if whites didn't know they were being cruel in the first place. Or at least thought you deserving of their scorn."
Color me skeptical.
I don't want or need a confabulator for POTUS.
percentage of whites
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lunatique asylum at 10:09 PM on 9/2/2008
"We have no shortage of moral fervor," said Obama. "We have some wonderful preachers in town--preachers who continue to inspire me--preachers who are magnificent at articulating a vision of the world as it should be. In every church on Sunday in the African-American community we have this moral fervor; we have energy to burn.
"But as soon as church lets out, the energy dissipates. We must find ways to channel all this energy into community building."
So it seems in 1995 Barack was paying attention to those fiery racist diatribes delivered by the likes of Jeremiah Wright. Maybe he just forgot by the time 2008 rolled around...
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Ralph at 9:41 AM on 9/3/2008
Obama is good at expressing what he would like to see happen in the "communities", but doesn't say where the money to do this will come from. Does anyone else but me wonder how immigrants of all races come here, most not even speaking the language, learn the language and economic system and withing a matter of years buy their own home, yet our own citizens will not avail themselves of the same resources and work ethics these foreign immigrants have proven are a recipe for success?
Obama, like all Marxists attempt to fan the flames of class envy. For all the intellect he clearly has, he fails to see that it is better to guarantee equal opportunity to compete, not guarantee outcome without competition. Societies always benefit from the fruits of those who struggle and suffer from supporting those who are capable of effort, but refuse to do so.
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RobbyS at 10:29 PM on 9/30/2008
As the first post said, Obama is a socialist. We really don't get much sense of the life he led. He has, however, profited by the myth he has created about himself. As to why he calls himself black? Not much choice, since he looks black.
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AA at 1:39 PM on 10/9/2008
Hmmm, 10 years after this article it took a "John-Wayne-dude" to take charge of the FEDERAL response & catalyze the feeble local, parish, & state responses to Hurricane Katrina. (by the by, can anyone tell me why the state of Mississippi didn't get nearly the press NOLA did when Katrina's eye ran up through Mississippi & not LA?)It is STILL the individual that makes things happen in our society, NOT the collective. To butcher a line from Men in Black, "people are stupid, a person is smart."
"In America," Obama says, "we have this strong bias toward individual action. You know, we idolize the John Wayne hero who comes in to correct things with both guns blazing. But individual actions, individual dreams, are not sufficient. We must unite in collective action, build collective institutions and organizations."
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Tim at 3:47 PM on 10/9/2008
"The right wing talks about this but they keep appealing to that old individualistic bootstrap myth: get a job, get rich, and get out. Instead of investing in our neighborhoods, that's what has always happened. Our goal must be to help people get a sense of building something larger. "
???
I thought Obama proved this wasn't a myth by starting at the bottom and working hard to get where he is. Unless he meant the folks who co-signed for his 'student loans' like Percy Sutton and Khalid al-Mansour.
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Tim at 8:49 AM on 10/10/2008
More houses have been flooded this year in Cedar Rapids, IA than were lost in Katrina. Do we hear more about Louisiana or Iowa? In New Orleans, most played the victim card. Victims make good headlines. In Iowa, most people dried themselves off, put on a pair of rubber boots and went back to work. Were is the drama in that?
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Legally Registered at 1:24 PM on 10/13/2008
Hey Chicago,
Barry just told a crowd near Toledo that he wants to "spread the wealth around" Is that really the way "organizers" in Chicago work? I don't want to play the part of Robin Hood in any Obama Presidency!!
McCain/Palin '08 (Nobama/Noway)
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Rafaelo at 10:55 AM on 10/14/2008
From this article I gather Obama fundamentally wants to channel an upswelling of energy and votes into "lasting institutions." What institutions?
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keiverarrow at 10:58 AM on 10/19/2008
Now, with the eve of the election approaching, it is quite amazing to look back at this. President Obama. Just say it.
The icing of the whole package is Sarah Palin's belligerent scoff at community organizers. She has made it quite clear that she doesn't know what a community organizer does. That is certain.
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George Armstrong at 8:04 PM on 10/22/2008
Obama is a pretty slick and effective campaigner and so smooth. I don't doubt that he can give a speech. What is frightening is his lack of experience in other areas of what the job requires. I not only fear for my family but for this country overall from our enemies on the outside. On the domestic side I fear what happens to this nation with a democratic congress, White House and a liberal court system. May God have mercy on us if Obama is successful.
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Herr Mann at 1:26 PM on 10/24/2008
As I read the article I see the Community Organizer as Divider. It's the same old Democrat saw pitting one group against the other. Redistributing wealth, power or what have you. Obama actually said you grow an economy from the ground up. Take from the rich give to the poor and all that...what a disaster. If that's the case Cuba and North Vietnam are the next economic powerhouses. If he gets elected and raises taxes, people who have the means to enter or expand business, and create those precious jobs, will to opt out. Period.
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nick at 12:15 PM on 11/1/2008
even Mccain said you were morons thinking those things
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chuckles199 at 3:10 AM on 11/3/2008
make no mistake about this barack obama II is all about barack obama II.
but as much as he loves to hear himself, michelle is 'the MAN'.
what's going on with those 'health club stopovers'?
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Uneed2luvgod at 12:39 PM on 11/4/2008
Obama, is going to be the worst thing for our country. If he cared so much and with the attention, he should handle home first! Crime rate in Chicago is off the charts, he should open up about Donald Young. Maybe not, that may get him JAILED, he or his wife knows what happened to Mr. Young! The Nation of Islam is the next question up, what is his closeness to them? There are so many things that have not been answered. I ask you Mr.Obama how can you promise so many things to so many and have nothing in command with the mass? Oh, Mr. Obama I have already met you and I have never fallen for your Gyme. It's for those who don't know that God don't know them! Anyone who wants to know the true Obama should go to youtube and type in Obama mocks the Bible. It's out his own mouth. And look for a Rockefeller to some how before the Vice President, Then Mr. Obama you will be in deep due do. They don't love you, you're their puppit! And it starts with your Wife!
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sue at 3:11 PM on 11/4/2008
Title says Philanthropist?? Where is that shown in his life. That means giving away your own money, n'est pa?? money,
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Mocking the bible? at 11:22 AM on 11/5/2008
Mocking the bible? What's next, mocking Greek mythology?
I fail to understand how this superstitious, divisive nonsense called religion continues to influence U.S. politics. You bible thumpers are no better than the suicide bombers, acting on behalf of some imaginary higher being instead of taking responsibility for how you treat other people.
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RickyDs03 at 5:18 PM on 11/5/2008
I am a "Bible thumper" and for this reason am glad that Obama will now be our President. He was an effective community organizer, a briliant law student, and remained a caring man who desires change. In many ways Obama reminds me of Jimmy Carter. I am glad that he now has the chance to live the Gospel. I think that our country will begin to prosper again, as we'll now have someone in office who fights for the ever-shrinking middle class. I am proud to be an American now that Obama has been given a chance!
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Mad Martaggan at 6:23 PM on 11/5/2008
I think it is pathetic that we always have to come to this. Will Obama be the change we need. He is the president. He will have those around him who are dedicated to make that happen. He doesn't have the Washington experience but he does have the drive and determination to ask the tough questions. And finding the right solutions. God bless America and it people. He going to do great things. Let us do great things as well. Let us work toward being unified and helpful.
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Joe The Plumber at 11:04 AM on 11/6/2008
How do you starve a welfare recipient? Hide his food stamps under his work boots.
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John Galt for President 2012 at 11:10 AM on 11/6/2008
If you want to see America's future - study what happened since Hugo Chavez took over Venezuela. Food rationing of meat/eggs/milk, oil production down 25%, oil workers forced to grow food/build furniture, no free press, thugs who beat up those who speak out against him, alliances with dictators, attempted to declare himself President for life (watch what happens if he loses his next election) ect. This is your future America.
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Mike Ling at 2:23 AM on 11/8/2008
Every president behaves good in the first term. I am sure Obama will be thinking of his second term election.
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