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."
This article on Barack Obama is extremely revealing. He talked of change then in 1995 and is talking now in his election campaign - a high degree of consistency in political philosophy. I urge that this article be widely circulated.
Despite the raves accorded Obama, I, a black man,can't bring myself to support him. Why? Because he won't even discuss reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans. Can you imagine Jews offering their support to Sen. Joseph Lieberman if his position was that discussing ongoing efforts to pursue holocaust reparations was divisive? Even Richard Daley voiced support for Black Reparations...
Obama is one of the most dangerous people in America...and he is just like Huey Long and his "Every man a King" rhetoric. He is a "Messiah-maniac" with a "Jesus Savior" complex that will result in slavery for you and total economic destruction if he is elected. HE MUST BE STOPPED BY ANY MEANS!"
No wonder this man is ahead in the polls, he speaks a language of committment, responsibility, caring and accountability. Something the US hasn't seen in a long long time.
Thank you for publishing this. I find the resonance of these early themes and his current presidential rhetoric as evidence of a genuine commitment to change and progressive causes. I found reading this actually brought tears to my eyes because I think I have become so used to my hard won cynicism concerning most politicians that I had forgotten what leadership, honor, and forthrightness sounded like.
Enough of cynicism. It seems we are in the presence of the genuine article -- for once -- a leader with integrity, vision, and the ability to draw together a disparate coalition around a transcendent set of ideals. I say to all here, let's reach for a cause larger than ourselves, because we can do better. And with Barack Obama as our president, we can begin to erase the last 7 years of backward movement, moving together toward a better future for this country and the world.
Not only was Obama talking about change, but the same kind of change: from the bottom-up. His constitency is remarkable. It's almost as Obama, gulp, actually means it. I have this unfortunate tendency to frame what I read within the current campaign. But it's hard not to compare this to Senator Clinton, who tried to flip her political message from experience to change over the course of one week before the Nevada caucus when it looked like it might be politically expedient.
If this is what Obama believes in, then I support his goals.
I am skeptical of his methods. It's nice to have these goals to build a society, but there will be people who will oppose you every step of the way. Unless you are prepared to use whatever means necessary, they'll always have a way to put an end to your dreams of changing the world.
It's not enough to have goals, it's not even enough to have a plan, I agree with his goals and his plan. I'm concerned with his tactics.
How will he bring people together if he cannot identify a common enemy? If he does not see the opposition as the enemy, yet the opposition sees him as the enemy, then how will he accomplish anything?
Tactics are about how to get from A to Z, if Obama has a list of goals he wants to accomplish, and that list is then broken down into missions, and these missions are divided amongst his followers, there will be those who will stand in the way of these missions, and unless the Obama followers are prepared to use Machiavellian tactics, then on the grassroots level a lot of individual missions will not be accomplished. And if the individual missions are not accomplished, the overall goals wont be accomplished.
Barack Obama is smart enough, I can see that from his thinking, but in order to get what you want in the world, you need superior muscle, superior tactics, and you need leadership at the top, not a disorganized group of people who want to get something don't but don't have the tactical ability to deal with the opposition.
As much as Democrats want to be critical of the Republican/Bush slime machine, and as much as Democrats are critical of the hardball that Hillary Clinton plays, you NEED Machiavellian methods if you want to do good things just as you need these methods to do bad things.
"unless the Obama followers are prepared to use Machiavellian tactics, then on the grassroots level a lot of individual missions will not be accomplished."
You just do NOT GET IT do you friend?
Machiavellian tactics only work if your opponent does not have the people united against you.
And that is exactly what Obama aims to do.
Wouldn't it be beautiful if we could have a hard fighting guy up there who didn't resort to kneecapping his opponents? Who elevates the dialog? It would render the fear and hate mongers moot!
Danielle Clarke phila pa vietnam veteranat 5:04 PM on 2/17/2008
Barack has done what many of us who care about only dreamed of doing but we still have hopes in living this dream by supporting the person we longed to be. I know i have tried many times in my life to bring about real change in the few communities i have lived in only to have something sway me or misdirect me. Today i am just happy there is someone who has survived and will finally help all of us to make parts of our dreams of making the world a better place a reality as we all work together in unison with the Obama campaign as grassroots workers.
GOBAMA08
I am Barack Obama You are Barack Obama We are Barack Obama.
I'm a 65 yo white Republican male from PA in that great oasis between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh! I'm going to switch to Democratic so that I can vote for YOU , Barack Obama, in PA's primary in April.
I feel that we need a change in Washington-- someone that realizes the needs of individuals in this country who make less than $50,000 per year and doesn't focus on big business and millionaires. I've never in my life been this involved in political matters. I feel we need YOU in the White House because we need change. You are the person I feel can do that job. You inspire me about your policies on matters this country needs to address.
The more I see, hear and learn of Barak Obama, the better he looks. This article helps me understand how he has outmanuvered the Clinton machine: he's a more experienced organizer, NOT a machiavelan manipulator! (While I like a lot about Senator Clinton, I don't like the baggage her husband and his neo-liberal/republican lite policies-never mind his personal behaviors-bring back to Washington.) Barak Obama gets my vote, my money, my volunteer service, and my prayers.
Obama Obama Obama, Whilst i appreciate his consistentt message over the years, and support his courage in tackling head on the enormous challenge called America, It would be refreshing to understand his blueprint for his term in office (if he gets nominated and elected)
He hasn't changed his objectives since at least 1995 as proven in the article. And that is refreshing. I believe that the message he is trying to sell now, as he did then, is that this CHANGE must come from within the voters action. In other words he is telling people to get off of their butts and make changes in the people they elect in the future, after this presidential election, so that those then in power will be able to legislate the changes the people/voters/grassroot constituents/or whatever we call them want. It's called activism and without it no change will take place. Obama is not God or Superman. He's just the guy who can lead us down the right path to a hopefully better county, a more equal country, and one that will get some respect from the rest of the world if not envy.
He hasn't changed his objectives or methods since at least 1995 as proven in the article. And that is refreshing. I believe that the message he is trying to sell now, as he did then, is that this CHANGE must come from within the voters actions. In other words he is telling people to get off of their butts and make changes in the people they elect in the future, after this presidential election, so that those then in power will be able to legislate the changes the people/voters/grassroot constituents/or whatever we call them want. It's called activism and without it no change will take place. It's like a passenger train leaving the station with nobody on board. Is it a passenger train then or just a train? If nobody gets on board with this political ideal then it will fail. After we vote for him in Nov. we must continue to be involved rather than sit back and say we did something good. Without an active and supporting constituency nothing will change and the empty train will go on down the tracks full of nothingness. Obama is not God or Superman. He's just the guy who can lead us down the right path to a hopefully better county, a more equal country, a govt. actually representing the voters, and one that will get some respect from the rest of the world if not envy.
Amani, are you serious? Reparations? You werent a slave, your father wasnt a slave, your grandfather wasnt a slave... What makes you deserve reparations? Anyone who caused slavery, or was a slave themselves, IS DEAD..... Get over it.
The most brilliant propaganda technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly...it must confine itself to few points and repeat them over and over and over''
Doing things for "blacks" is a matter of human rights and shouldn't seem much different from doing things for everyone else. We are all lifted up when those on the bottom are lifted.
The "church" is an incredible organizing tool and it would be incompetent for a community organizer not to utilize it and see its value.
I find this very informative-thanks for putting it up.I also find it encouraging from a historical perspective that as a young man, Mr. Obama, worked in a place named for a successful, self made, immigrant from Germany.I wonder how many people know the story of John Peter Altgeld-a progressive politician at the end of the 19th century. Also- just for irony; translated, alt geld, means old money which John Peter certainly wasn't(yet he became new money). Now, I know Mr.Obama is not old politics! We are fortunate he has chosen to help organize a new politics.
What about ACTION? Oh here it is!at 7:01 PM on 2/26/2008
People keep saying "What Change?" and "I don't hear him saying what he wants to change" or "What experience does he have?" All of those are so easy to answer if you just look at his website or watch a single debate, but for detailed lists of his accomplishments in the senate and his detailed platforms here are some links:
Obama worked in this Chicago community in the early
far-south-side communities of Roseland and Altgeld Garden
I've been trying to search the web in regards to Obama history in Chicago. Specificly the far-south-side communities of Roseland and Altgeld Garden. I can't get anything.
Question
How many children in far-south-side communities of Roseland and Altgeld Garden went to college (before and after Obama)?
What is the drop out rate for the far-south-side communities of Roseland and Altgeld Garden?
Are the far-south-side communities of Roseland and Altgeld Garden economicly better off after the Obama magic?
Has this community risen from the ashes of their past?
I agree that this is an interesting article. It was good to see Obama is consistent with his 1998 self. I was almost ready to give him the benefit of the doubt on his candidacy until some of the posts reminded me of why I have hesitated all along. No record of accomplishments - and in fact - he didn't even accomplish his IL legislative record. His name was put on bills that others worked on for years to build a profile for the US Senate run.
His political tactics indicate his is duplicitous with he colleagues. I've read enough from reputable sources to be convinced of this.
Just don't know if this should be forgiven as a necessary evil to get out his meesage. Also, I think those Rezko ties are worse than we think - there is a slimy international component to how Rezko got the money to help Obama with that home purchase. I read another article written by someone who was a Chicago reporter in the late 90s that indicated Barack is the type of person who looked for a promotion every three years or so. Same person who revealed how Barack got his voting record.
Women see Barack's type of the tacts all the time. Fashioning a persona as a visionary more as a job advancement strategy than a desire to accomplish anything. The suspicion is that Barack's vision is 1960s style social program. Read the call to actions in "The Speech" the African American needs to take full responsibility for their lives and their family. White Americans need to address discrimination with deeds - not words "investing in schools and communities" by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity." Shouldn't both groups be investing in schoos and communities? The income redistribution subtlety in these statements bother me, especially after the Great Society Programs. John Edwards did a better job of separating poverty from race and linking it to globalization.
my husband loves obama loves mr.obama every day we get home from work he wants me to put the tv. on cnn news to watch him to see him make the next big move toward his life changing world we are going to be living in if he erer make it . to where we are suppose to be in the years to come no more worring about how we are going to pay the rent buy food put gas in our cars to take the kids to school to pay thire unionforms fix lunuhboxes and after school lession we want for our kids the change he is speking about. the ojeyemis
I'm more interested in why 3+8 is an anti spam measure. Is this the level of progressive achievement Obama brought about on the South side of Chicago with his rhetoric of change? You've got it wrong Barak, you don't raise the level of a family starting with the community. It all begins with the foundation of the family. Both black & white and all others need two responsible parents who spend time with their children and less time creating more, and then take off for another conquest. You were not a decendent of slaves but if you were you would know the value that many of them put on education, because it had been denied. That is the message the young people need to hear. Some died just because they were caught reading a book. The core beliefs of their ancestors should not go untold. Anger and hate corodes the vessel that contains it. Your not so right Reverend Wright is sending the wrong message. 20 years you followed your mentor I don't accept that you are all that different.
How is it he is going to unite the country with words like this: "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." How does he expect us to believe he can unite Republicans and Democrats when he was named the most liberal person in the Senate, or when he can't even unite his own fellow liberals? Don't fall for the hype and the platitudes people.
I am independent, not politically inclined nor have I ever pledged financial support to any political party or nominee before. However, this time I feel compelled to take a stand on behalf of my kids (7, 13 and 19) and other citizens of this great nation, and because I feel that our country is in peril, and choosing the wrong leader may have grave consequences for us all.
I have no faith in our leaders, nor do I trust the political establishment, be it Republican or Democrat, and I view Mrs. Clinton to represent this establishment. Regrettably, I voted for Bush the first time, and against him the second time, and over the past 7 years, I have seen this great nation drift in the wrong direction, like a ship without a rudder.
Our national debt is heaping and I see no end in sight. We are borrowing money from the Chinese and oil-rich Gulf States to finance an unjust war, which was based on lies and deception; a war that was conceived by interest groups, driven by alien ideology and fueled by scare tactics. A war that has cost us almost a trillion (and counting), tore apart a country that meant us no harm, killed and maimed many soldiers. This is at a time when our schools are falling apart, our roads and infrastructure are in total disrepair, Katrina's victims are still waiting for aid and the health insurance and drug companies are trading with sick people's lives.Therefore,because of all this I’m going to Vote for Sen.Obama this time.
So let me get this straight. He speaks of hope, change in 1995, but attends a church with a pastor that says "US of KKA" or "God Damn America" and "America's Chicken's are Coming Home to Roost" and then thinks that America will vote for him when he condemns the same separatist black nationalism that he has been apart of for 20 years?
This is a wolf (Obama) in sheep clothing and Fox News is exposing the heck out of this.
The Obama Titantic has hit an iceberg and is sinking, Fast!
The posting before mine goes to show what the republicans will do to try to discredit obama. Obama stands for all as you read in the article if you read it at all what sean hannity put on his show only gave snippets of what the big picture obama was saying. Obama loves everyone and it shows people like the poster before me will never get out of bigotry or look beyond there own front door before judging someone else
Rick Warren has given credit to Peter Drucker for being his mentor for twenty years. I wonder if he has also been Obama's? His ideas ring of Peter Drucker. The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit is a Bio on Walter Reuther. Couldn't put it down. The same methods used by Drucker to bridge Labor and Management is being applied now with church and state. I'am a life long Democrat and believe strongly in social justice, but somehow this all seems a little strange.
I think he and Michelle represents really well. I hope the best for both of them. However, I will be voting for Hillary, I think you will make the best President at this time. I hate they are both running at the same time.
Amani-it is a shame your post appears near the top of these comments. It represents such a minuscule minority belief which is based on vengeance rather than justice, and lacks any practical means whatsoever to manifest itself. - Juan velasco-same goes to you, raving like a maniacal fool and spouting lies and disingenuous demagoguery. There can be no doubt that Obama is motivated by a sense of moral guidance that is beyond reproach. His benevolence and self sacrifice stem directly from his belief that one such as himself, having the intelligence and vision he has been afforded, has a moral obligation to help his fellow humans (not family, not neighbors, not citizens, but humans) with the best of his abilities. You may disagree with his political philosophy, but there can be no doubt about the legitimacy of his motives, nor the qualifications from which he forms his judgments. Obama's belief system is a rare instance of one constructed by the individual himself through his exposure the many diverse influences and experiences, rather than by dictates drawn from pastors and preaches, bibles and bulletins, rhetoric and absent minded tradition.
Jonathan1122, you have spoken for me as well. Most anti-Obama people are either racist or haven't looked hard enough at Hillary's resum'e IMHO. AS for his church, I only wish I'd had such a powerful preacher in my background of the liberal mainline church. I have no doubt Obama can make for major positive change in the USA when he's elected---especially if more Democrats follow him into congress this year.
Did Alice Palmer give Obama her blessing, and promise not to run against him and then back out, or is someone lying? This article from the Chicago Tribune says he forced her and three other candidates off the ballot in '96. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-070403obama-ballot,1,57567.story There's so much b.s. in the media that I never know who to believe anymore. First of all, I'm an Obama supporter, 100%. It will be a great day when we can trust the press again.
Conservatives, Independents and Clinton Dems are accusing Obama of vagueness and inexperience. This article is prtty darn specific about what he believes to be our greatest challenge - organizing locally. He sincerely believes community activty is the means to achieving many if not most of his stated goals. Its that simple, and that's what's so confusing and threatening to his detractors. It's about US, not THEM.
Obama is just another liberal fascist in a smiley face. We patriots will never allow the implementation of his far left agenda. America is too great to allow it to be destroyed by this smooth talking upstart and his fellow tarvelers.
I cannot believe how many people are totally bamboozled by this guy. Change what? Hope what? Obama is one good snake oil salesman. Like they say, "There's a sucker born every minute." You people are suckers!
Obama risks becoming another progressive leader with a domestic vision driven into oblivion by circumstances he can not control; globalization, energy, international terrorism, illegal immigration, the economic cycle, etc., etc. He is more likely to be a rerun of Lyndon Johnson or Jimmy Carter; progressive idealists destroyed by international political and economic pressures they could not control. He may grow into the job, but it is more likely he will be a short term President badgered by a string of failures. His greatest strength, which is that he really believes what he says, is also his greatest weakness. Lets hope he does not destroy the United States in his effort to save it.
"...white Americans couldn't care less about the profound problems African-Americans are facing."
That's right. And why should any people care about another people which hates them? Reparations for slavery? How about 650,000 dead white men in the Civil War, and 20,000 white people murdered every year by blacks now? Reparations? What if white folks just went away and gave black people all their money, everything they own? Within 15 years the U.S. would be indistinguishable from Liberia. Black people need to stop talking about or even thinking about white people. Just shut up and do something for once. Open a God-damned hardware store.
It is extraordinary to read the article and feel the emotions growing. It all sounds so "right" and reasonable. How consistent, how deeply caring, etc.
Then I read the entries that bring me back to reality. What successes, what personal sacrifices or loss? The answer comes - he wants others to do the work for him, spend their time and money ... so he can win - because I'm sure we would all know what concrete accomplishements he has made, if he had made any. (Other than moving up and out of the neighborhood)
How frightening. I think I prefer to vote for someone not quite so manipulating, someone I don't agree with so easily & emotionally. Smooth talkers are dangerous - be they preachers, despots or politicians. We have know many charismatics in world history - some have been downright deadly.
"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."
Did you people realize what's the meaning of that paragraph! Can't you see the lying? How can you people be so blind!Wealthy people who will not attach strings!!! I will not need that kind of money when i'm known!! he begs for money to Exelon, to Wall Street speculators, he refused the people's money and went for private. where do you people live!! wake up.
I'm late coming in on this discussion. If I were 'wide eyed', dreamy and delusional, I to would be floating and flushed with the excitement that is Obama. Along with 'puzzled', above, this is a man who has learned well how to excite the public with high sounding morality of what is right and what is very, very wrong with America and white people. The star gazers among us just light up when the the gifted 'smooth talkers' - (let's see, that would include JFK, WJC)take to the podium. Here is man (and like wife), who has the answers to everything and has done nothing accept tell everyone (star gazers)how really wonderful he is! Both he and his wife have made it very clear to anyone with half and ear to listen, that they are the salvation of a great country - that they are ashamed of. How dare this man attend and listen for 20 yrs. to Rev. Wright blast white's and America and tell us he doesn't agree. I am not a racist - I also am not a fool. Wake up America, your putting your money on an empty suit!
Wow! When I read this article among other sources to get a glimpse of Obama, I found comments from voters that can overshadow or support anything said about him.
If I've learned anything it is that people see what they want to see no matter what is said or how it's said.
We read and we listen, but we can't trust the media. We see the record or the lack thereof but do most people know what we are looking for? What's enough...Hilary had a record; it didn't get her nominated.
The election is really all about us and what we want to see. We don't mind sharing our criticisms although what we believe couldn't stand under the scrutiny of our own life's actions. Still we will see what we want.
Has NOTHING happened??? or do we feel it is not enough? Did anyone take action and support the work? or did we just criticize it? Would we know a plan when we see it? or are WE just blowing smoke ourselves?
I'm still deciding but I chose to be honest about what I see.
Wow! When I read this article among other sources, to get a glimpse of Obama, I found comments from voters that can overshadow or support anything said about him.
If I've learned anything, it is that people see what they want to see no matter what is said or how it's said.
We read and we listen, but it is said we can't trust the media. We see the record or the lack thereof, but do we know what we are looking for? What is enough...Hilary had a record; it didn't get her nominated.
The election is really all about us and what we want to see. We don't mind sharing our criticisms, although what we believe probably couldn't stand under the scrutiny of our own life's actions. Still we will see what we want to see.
Has NOTHING happened on the south-side??? or do we feel it is not enough? Did anyone take action and support the work? or are we just content with criticizing? Would we know a good plan if we saw it? or are WE just blowing smoke ourselves?
I'm still deciding but I chose to be honest about what I see.
The only reason Obama went to Chicago is because he knew that the electorate were ignorant welfare poor he could easily exploit in his bid for power and money. The Chicago slums are still slums. Actually, the people there are worse off than before Obama got there.
Wow. Obama is so a marxist, so a socialist, so a liberal, so a leftist. It is breathtaking. Raw hatred for effective Christian institutions. Adoration for the Rev Wright's of the world. Disrespectful of individual power. It's so sad to see the American electorate has been dumbed down so much. Obama exists because the public schools have effectively brainwashed bazillions. It's impossible to tell me you hate me more than when you tell me you are an Obama voter.
Obama is getting on my nerves. His dad is from Africa - he isn't a descendant of any slaves, so I would think his attachement to the black ghettos is either A) calculated, in which case he is an opportunist; or B) in devotion to his wife, in which case it's Michelle who will run the country and not him. His eyes remind me of someone I had a huge crush on during grad school and who turned out to be a borderline masochistic mess.
Obama is a created candidate, doing all the right things to claim the highest office in the land. He did not start this alone,and this support frightens me, because I believe we will find that he does not own his very soul, and that someone we will not want will be running our country. I know many of you will tell me I am crazy, but if everyone quit sending in contributions, you would find that he still can claim millions of dollars because the little guy is not where his money is coming from. He does not even need this small money. Soros of moveon.org, is just one of these tremendous donors. I am afraid of Obama's beliefs and connections.
The only thing that frightens me is that most of the people lodging complaints here voted for George W Bush twice! And these are the people that are frightened by Obama. How's that vote looking now? W sure did make things better in his eight years, right? More debt, a larger deficit, a credit crisis, more people defaulting on their home loans, higher unemployment (6.1% as of today), higher inflation, higher energy prices (gee, wasn't Iraq supposed to pay for our military support with their oil revenue?), a stock market barely above where it started when Bush took office....
Yeah, let's vote for the Republicans again...they'll lower our taxes!! duh.
Was a Republican in 2000. Changed to Dem. because I did not like that Bush was appointed. Now we have the same thing in the Dem. Primary. Obama was "appointed" did not vote for Bush will not vote for Obama! It's not his policies that worry me as much as his tactics. His lack of love for America is frightening. Just what is his love? who really is financing him. Who mentored him in his youth in Hawaii? Who paid for Harvard for him? what is his Saudi Arabia connection? Do you know those answers?
Gridlock says that people lodging complaints on this blog voted for George Bush. So, what about it? He/She then goes on to list all the recent U.S. problems, most of which have occurred after the Democrats got into Congress.
Let's just take the sub-prime loan crisis as an example. In 1998 the Democrats came up with the idea that home ownership in the U.S. needed to be increased --- much of this idea driven my Andrew Cuomo, Democrat, the youngest Housing and Urban Development secretary in history, who made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country's current crisis. He took actions that—in combination with many other factors—helped plunge Fannie and Freddie into the sub-prime markets without putting in place the means to monitor their increasingly risky investments. He turned the Federal Housing Administration mortgage program into a sweetheart lender with sky-high loan ceilings and no money down, and he legalized what a federal judge has branded "kickbacks" to brokers that have fueled the sale of overpriced and unsupportable loans. Three to four million families are now facing foreclosure, and Cuomo is one of the reasons why! He was fully supported by the Democrats in Congress. Fannie and Freddie were the playpens for Senator Chuck Schumer and many others who received $600,000 plus political contributions from Fannie and Freddie foundations. The CEO of Fannie or Freddie (can't recall which) received $53 million in bonuses during the meltdown.
It is about time the country knew more about the horrible leadership of Democrats and how they want Americans dependent on the Government. Well, we can sure see how the managed just one mess! Obama is a community organizer all right and would "organize" us in a central government mess, that would make Freddie and Fannie look like peanuts. Adopt the Republican ideas of decentralization and a hand-up but not a hand-out. Michelle and Barack both have chips on their shoulders and resent whites, just like pastor Wright.
I hope mr obama changes America because america is getting worth everywhere the economic, the education, the health so manythings need to be changed and i only believe the man who can make change is obama macain enough is enough we dont need 4 more years like Bush we know you are hero that doesnt make you to be a president what we need is change and Mr Obama can do that GOD BLESS AMERICA
Is this article really from 1995? Could you scan a copy of the published article? It just seems convenient that this would be here now...
And what about this: "he won the Democratic nomination for his Illinois seat by getting a team of lawyers to throw all the other candidates off the ballot on various technicalities. One of those he threw off was a veteran black politician, a woman who helped him get started in politics in the first place." -David Freddoso
Obama is just advertising. Let's please get over the fact that he's a good-looking, young black man. Let's judge the candidates by what they stand for.
You gotta love "politics". Sure enough, we get candidates trying to bring out our better angels, but so many of their followers think it is necessary to come out with their inner idiots.
There is nothing to fear but the hate-mongerers themselves. We need to get to work--resolving entropic "opportunities", building the bridges that enable us to prosper together.
These and other similar articles/comments, have given me enough cause, as an American Citizen, to be extremely concerned and angered because, they have made me question whether or not our MSM has been biased (fair and balanced) in their coverage of the Iraq War, our current economic crisis, that are also suspicious, and, more importantly, this and other Presidential elections.
My concerns are three-fold and are based on the following:
1) after taking the time to conduct my own investigation and/or research to confirm the substance of these articles that, on the surface, may be considered, by some, that seem to have their own hidden agendas, to be outrages and un-true, as a means of educating myself prior to casting my vote for our next President, which I have always taken very seriously as an American Citizen. And, I have discovered that the substance of some of these articles, along with some of their public comments, have turned out to be true, which leads me to believe that they were either, not aggressively researched/investigated and/or purposely kept from the American public by our MSM, as a means of slanting the Iraq War, our economic crisis, and this and prior elections;
2) most Americans either don't take the time or don't have the time and/or resources to conduct their own research to educate themselves prior to this and other elections and are, thereby, forced to rely solely on the integrity of our MSM to do it for them, not knowing that what they get from our MSM may be false and/or biased; and,
3) if my concerns have MERIT, it leads me and, more than likely, other Americans, along with individuals from other nations around the world, who are closely watching the Iraq War, our economic crisis and our Historic Presidential election, to QUESTION our, supposedly, unbiased (fair and balanced) democratic election process. A process that our country has historically been preaching and aggressively assisting other nations (e.g. Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) to adopt, at any cost, and, more importantly, a cause for which millions of our young Americans, as members of our Armed Forces, which I honorably served in for 20 years as a Marine, continue to, proudly and selflessly, help to uphold by honorably serving, fighting and dying for.
BOTTOM LINE: I Hope and Pray that my and other American's concerns are unfounded and have no merit, which I am now doubting, after reading this and other similar articles that seem to have been glossed over and/or slanted by our MSM, as a means of fulfilling their own hidden agendas.
But, if they HAVE MERIT, which, tragically, the American public, more than likely, won't even know until after this election is over and done with, I demand that our MSMs (e.g. CBS, ABC, NBC, etc.) do some serious soul searching and have the integrity and fortitude to step up to the plate, without concerning themselves about their ratings, as a means of keeping their jobs, while many other Americans go homeless, and TAKE SOME CREDIT for helping to fuel the current negative ads, racist attacks, anger and fear that is now visibly consuming some of Americans, through their blatantly biased (unfair and unbalanced) coverage of the Iraq War, our economic crisis and this and other Presidential elections. And, if they don't, which is very likely, all I can say is: "GOD BLESS AMERICA."
Are you kidding me? I could never vote for a man as president whose ONLY concern is for ONE group of people. he sounds like, and wants all blacks to feel like, a victim. its obvious that they need to clean up their own house. this is possible without having to enter politics. if he is so concerned about organizing communities so that they can lift themselves up, then he needs to go back to chicago and do so.
Being the most far left liberal in the Senate, Obama is the biggest supporter of Abortion and supports Partial Birth Abortion. I can't figure out how anyone of a good Christian conscience can support him and his willingness to kill an unborn child and do nothing to help a child of a botched abortion.This is of grave concern to me, as well as his judgment as to who he "hangs" out with, i.e., Ayers, Resko, Wright and his ties to Odingo in Kenya (his cousins) who are Communists, and ACORN. To learn of these things, just go to the National Review Online and read Stanley Kurtz' articles. NOBAMA!!!
In this article, Obama denounced those upwardly mobile blacks who educate themselves, live the American Dream, and move out of their depressed neighborhoods. Yet that is precisely what Obama himself has done. He sends his children to private school and lives in a posh neighborhood, where he paid $1.65 million for his home.
In the article, Obama stated that trashing whites, Jews, and Asians will not solve the problems facing the black community. Yet Obama has associated (even aligned?) himself with individuals and organizations committed to trashing whites, Jews, and America at large (Jeremiah Wright, William Ayres, Rashid Khalidi).
In the article, Obama stated that the real problems facing the black community – schools, housing, poverty, jobs – cannot be solved by black leaders who merely energize and inspire their audiences but give them no plan or agenda for change. Yet that is all Obama has managed to do with his audiences for the last 13 years. In fact, when Obama had the chance to effect concrete and positive change as the head of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, he instead chose to fund "educational" programs that did nothing to improve the reading and math skills of the public school children. Instead, the African-centered curriculum of the groups Obama funded shared the same anti-Americanism of Rev. Wright and William Ayres (the latter of which also sat on the board of the Annenberg Challenge and funded these same programs).
Obama’s agenda for "change" is not new. It is the old collectivist ideas of the hard-left masked by the rhetoric of "community". Obama’s high taxes will kill jobs. (Like other liberals, he loves jobs, but hates employers.) His recent comment about redistributing wealth captures his economic philosophy. An Obama-Pelosi-Reid regime would be disastrous for our economy and our institutions; once socialist government programs are put in place, they are virtually impossible to undo. Obama’s agenda for "change" (higher taxes and more government spending) will undoubtedly lead to a deeper recession. And that’s just the economy! I dare not imagine what will happen to our national security and foreign policy under Obama. As Biden himself repeated over and over yesterday, if elected, Obama will be tested by Russia or a Middle Eastern country within the first six months of his Presidency and "it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right." Ominous (and by Obama’s own VP pick!).
I’m a black woman who comes from a family of staunch democrats. We’ve been democrats for generations, believing they work for our common good. But I’m voting republican. Obama sounds so compassionate in this article - but where is the compassion in supporting an agenda which encourages abortion - killing of millions of innocent unborn babies? 15 years ago I had an abortion. I was young, poor, unmarried, and scared. Following the urging of a TEACHER, I went to an organization which specializes in "aborting" fetus’s. No one talked about what I was really doing - killing my own child. I was offered no other alternatives. I felt like I was rushed in and out and have regretted my decision ever since. I am now unable to have children of my own and consider my legal "choice", the worst mistake of my whole life. Our children are being killed by the millions and the percentage of black babies "aborted" far outweighs that of whites. Just because we deny what we are doing (killing babies), doesn’t change the truth. Science - through sonograms and DNA proves they are alive and human. Just because we amend our constitution (as Obama has promised to do via the Freedom of Choice act) to say that every woman has the right to kill her unborn child, doesn’t make it right. There are some things that are wrong regardless what our "law" claims, and murder of the innocent is one of them. Yet Obama supports the right of a woman to choose to kill her child if it hasn’t been born yet, and not only that, he supports the killing of that baby if it manages to survive an attempted murder - in politically correct terms - an "abortion". When will this madness stop? I’ve angered many family and friends by not voting democrat. But I don’t care anymore. My conscience will not allow it.
Obama sounds good on paper and in theory but in the real world not practical. There's nothing wrong in dreams but dreams are just that-dreams.Will the human race ever reach its potential. Only God knows.
A country in crisis needs to put forth an equal effort from EACH citizen to balance the blame and bring forth a blend of wealth, not in dollars-- rather in tolerance and acceptance of one another as fellow human beings in need of equality and harmony, not dominance and discord. The pendulum swings to and fro. I vote for clarity and truth. It's not a president that can provide that, it's you and me.
I wrote this article in 1995 and continue to be amazed at how similar the Obama then was and is to the Obama of the present. A few observations: 1. Some people wonder about his relationship with Alice Palmer--the state senator who gave him her blessing to run for her seat while she pursued a Congressional seat.
This article was written before she contradicted herself and went back on her promise to let him run for her seat even if she lost the Congressional race, and before she tried to get her seat back; she even filed petitions to get back on the ballot. This happened AFTER I wrote this article.
Though she asked him to step aside so she could get her seat back,Obama refused to step back and instead challenged her petitions--as well as those of other candidates--and went on to win the Democratic nomination for the state Senate seat. He did this despite considerable pressure from Palmer's supporters to get him to back off. In other words, he did not stab her in the back--he just tried to get her to honor her word.
2. He said absolutely nothing about Rev. Wright or Michael Pfleger in this article--although several right wing analyses of this article have tried to use this piece to show how strong Obama's links were to the two South Side clergymen.
3. The Senate seat that Obama sought at this time was in a district that was predominantly African-American. His comments and concerns with empowering and developing the African-American community reflect this reality.
I read with amazement the evolution of the commentaries and relative support of Sen. Barack Obama's presidiential bid from the first post to the most recent. Clearly, there has been a change in direction which, if reflected in the Nov.4th election, will be good news for America: McCain will be elected president, but no, there will not be 4 more years of Bush (thank God for term limits, sorry NYC). We Americans will be spared the leadership of a perhaps well-intentioned, yet duplicitous or at least too enigmatic leader. Now is not the time for any great social experiment, now is the time to get back to basics, personal responsibility, etc. God Bless America!
Wow. These comments range from the sublime to the ridiculous. It was wonderful to read this article, since it made his entire campaign and his history-making win make that much more sense. Look at what he accomplished: millions of people who became involved in the political process for the first time. All kinds of ordinary people coming together. If you go to his website now, there's a post that discusses what's next for the 35,000 new community groups that were created during the course of the campaign. The same people who came together for him will do it again, because if nothing else, one of the those clear messages from him was that WE have the power to change things.
I am not an American. I see what is outstanding between him and prev democrat Hillary is that Obama mentioned the severe damage in America Economy as a serious result from Former President Bush autocratic management in Terrorism and the Middle East Wars. Something that Madame Hillary failed to make use of during her chance in the elections. Its expected by Obama's voters that his CHANGE in his decree represents a share from public management in bringing the economy back to shape. Tyrannical politics are waiting to be diminished under Obama's rules. Though I am not in favor of the church style of preaching to stablise any election condition but I gv it to President Obama who used this method and won supporters different from his religious practice and upbringing. I guess President Obama won by how he can represent his nation in this economic reccession and be the big brother to other countries in the world. Mr Obama has to face his heavily bias race questions and answered them weighing the Racial Pride with a philosophy of the minority, majority, appreciation and existence. I am proud of his style in running the campaign. Good luck to Mr Obama in his future days as President of America, Big Brother of the World.
Roaring victory sounded off through-out the world as they announced America’s next Commander in Chief. Congratulations, Mr. Barack Obama on becoming the 44th President of the United States. Your endurance is beyond admirable as you have come to the end of your 22-month campaign, emerging with victory. If you thought the campaign was rough, wait until you actually dive into the issues that await you with the American economy. In actuality, your journey has just begun. You have proposed a number of different stimulus packages in recent weeks regarding the financial system and we all know our ailing economy must be stabilized. The two targets that will most likely score you points on both sides are your ideas about temporarily exempting the unemployed from having to pay tax on their unemployment benefits and temporarily exempting seniors from having to make annual withdrawals from their IRAs and 401Ks after age 70 ½. Yet, the largest issue should be keeping the bailout/credit repair that Bush started on track. You must stem the tide of real estate foreclosures and change the outlook of financial regulation, making it "more transparent." At this point, Mr. President-Elect you already have a wide range of tough work cut out for you. Oh, but for those good old carefree campaign days….Click to read more on Payday Loans
Thank you, Mr. DeZutter. This former newspaper reporter recognizes a first-rate and fairly written article when he reads one. Yours qualified as such. It is more informative on President-elect Obama than anything else I've read this year. That includes a long article that appeared in The New Yorker.
As a "right wing" person who has offered an analysis of a portion of the article--limited space prevented a more detailed assessment--I also thank you for your surely knowledgeable conclusion that the Obama of today is quite similar to the Obama of 1995.
The man was an intolerant, hate-filled bigot in 1995. He surely is one today, though he is sufficiently smart to at least try to hide his prejudices. The divisive Executive Orders he is guaranteed to issue will not be good for the nation.
The press will do all it can to aid him. I expect that, at the first hint of economic recovery, we will see a spate of AP articles telling of the improving times and crediting Obama for the improvements., while, of course, not thanking President Bush and his aides for what they are doing now.
The mot important restraint on Obama's prosecution of bad foreign and domestic policies: his awareness that a presidency that satisfies his base, the most extreme left in American history, will not satisfy the nation as a whole and he will fail to win re-election. But that should moderate what he does only a little. One has to hope he survives to then, though: Joe Biden will be the weakest VP in my lifetime
I am a 63 year old black man. this is a time that no one ever thought of in these times. Its not even in nosterdomus notes,no prophets forcast and there are people who still dont want this. we are seeing a time when america will grow in leaps and bounds in the world. In science technology and the betterment of the common man. You are seeing a revolution of a new kind. thank america for you have saved the world with a new new deal
To all of you who said all the stupid things about Obama, eat your heart out, he is a president and although I am a Iranian, Canadian in the past seventeen years I have to tell you all the leaders before him except for Clinton shit all over America and my country and many other countries. Eat your heart, since we got the best leader and his name is Obama. I wish he was the president of Canada or for the better word he was the leader of the whole world. You don't deserve him. He is far educated for a country as poor and ill educated as America and believe it or not eight months living In California, I couldn't wait to move to Canada since you Americans are nothing but ignorant. You didn't even know if we grow vegetable in my country. Even before the war with Iraq, you didn't know Iran was their nieghbor. Shame on you. My country went through the war with Iraq for eight years and nobody including your country cared about it. Now there is a president who cares about everything including the problems in middle east. Please educate yourself about the world and politics before bull shitting all over the place. As I said you don't deserve a president like him. You need same person as Bush who was nothing but a airhead and a moron. Please study before you say one more words about him.
Hank DeZutter, just wanted to take a minute to thank you for posting a comment to clarify some issues, that was thoughtful.
I first read this article in my early research on the Dem candidates and it really made an impression. I have come back a few times to grab a quote to post (linking back to this article) but this is the first time I read all the new comments.
The quote I keep grabbing is this: ""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."
I think we are in the process of finding out how it is if a politician sees his job as part teacher and part advocate, who does not sell voters short but educates them about the real choices before them. Kind of nice.
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Vishwanath P. Agrawal at 11:03 AM on 1/10/2008
This article on Barack Obama is extremely revealing. He talked of change then in 1995 and is talking now in his election campaign - a high degree of consistency in political philosophy. I urge that this article be widely circulated.
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Amani at 9:29 PM on 2/9/2008
Despite the raves accorded Obama, I, a black man,can't bring myself to support him. Why? Because he won't even discuss reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans. Can you imagine Jews offering their support to Sen. Joseph Lieberman if his position was that discussing ongoing efforts to pursue holocaust reparations was divisive? Even Richard Daley voiced support for Black Reparations...
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juan velasco at 10:44 AM on 2/12/2008
Obama is one of the most dangerous people in America...and he is just like Huey Long and his "Every man a King" rhetoric. He is a "Messiah-maniac" with a "Jesus Savior" complex that will result in slavery for you and total economic destruction if he is elected. HE MUST BE STOPPED BY ANY MEANS!"
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Therese at 2:54 PM on 2/12/2008
No wonder this man is ahead in the polls, he speaks a language of committment, responsibility, caring and accountability. Something the US hasn't seen in a long long time.
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Anr at 12:09 AM on 2/15/2008
digg please:
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/What_Makes_Obama_Run_for_State_Senate
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grg at 3:15 AM on 2/15/2008
incredible. he really is the real deal.
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sereniac at 5:33 AM on 2/15/2008
Thank you for publishing this.
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Steve McGlamery at 9:53 AM on 2/15/2008
A most revealing,inspiring, reassuring look at Obama as a young man. He's the real deal, folks. We couldn't ask for anyone better as a leader!
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David Mussington at 9:54 AM on 2/15/2008
Thank you for publishing this. I find the resonance of these early themes and his current presidential rhetoric as evidence of a genuine commitment to change and progressive causes. I found reading this actually brought tears to my eyes because I think I have become so used to my hard won cynicism concerning most politicians that I had forgotten what leadership, honor, and forthrightness sounded like.
Enough of cynicism. It seems we are in the presence of the genuine article -- for once -- a leader with integrity, vision, and the ability to draw together a disparate coalition around a transcendent set of ideals. I say to all here, let's reach for a cause larger than ourselves, because we can do better. And with Barack Obama as our president, we can begin to erase the last 7 years of backward movement, moving together toward a better future for this country and the world.
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such sweet thunder at 11:52 AM on 2/15/2008
Not only was Obama talking about change, but the same kind of change: from the bottom-up. His constitency is remarkable. It's almost as Obama, gulp, actually means it. I have this unfortunate tendency to frame what I read within the current campaign. But it's hard not to compare this to Senator Clinton, who tried to flip her political message from experience to change over the course of one week before the Nevada caucus when it looked like it might be politically expedient.
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Go Foward at 12:36 PM on 2/15/2008
My voting decision was determined long before I read this article. Now my decision is reinforced.
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Lucian at 1:54 PM on 2/15/2008
If this is what Obama believes in, then I support his goals.
I am skeptical of his methods. It's nice to have these goals to build a society, but there will be people who will oppose you every step of the way. Unless you are prepared to use whatever means necessary, they'll always have a way to put an end to your dreams of changing the world.
It's not enough to have goals, it's not even enough to have a plan, I agree with his goals and his plan. I'm concerned with his tactics.
How will he bring people together if he cannot identify a common enemy? If he does not see the opposition as the enemy, yet the opposition sees him as the enemy, then how will he accomplish anything?
Tactics are about how to get from A to Z, if Obama has a list of goals he wants to accomplish, and that list is then broken down into missions, and these missions are divided amongst his followers, there will be those who will stand in the way of these missions, and unless the Obama followers are prepared to use Machiavellian tactics, then on the grassroots level a lot of individual missions will not be accomplished. And if the individual missions are not accomplished, the overall goals wont be accomplished.
Barack Obama is smart enough, I can see that from his thinking, but in order to get what you want in the world, you need superior muscle, superior tactics, and you need leadership at the top, not a disorganized group of people who want to get something don't but don't have the tactical ability to deal with the opposition.
As much as Democrats want to be critical of the Republican/Bush slime machine, and as much as Democrats are critical of the hardball that Hillary Clinton plays, you NEED Machiavellian methods if you want to do good things just as you need these methods to do bad things.
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Angry Mouse at 2:01 PM on 2/15/2008
He was talking about change in the 90s and he's talking about change now.
But I still don't understand what that change is. He said that it was important to have an agenda -- what is his agenda now?
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Steph at 2:45 PM on 2/15/2008
Check his website or listen to his debates to learn his agenda. Its not hard to find.
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TB at 2:17 PM on 2/16/2008
"unless the Obama followers are prepared to use Machiavellian tactics, then on the grassroots level a lot of individual missions will not be accomplished."
You just do NOT GET IT do you friend?
Machiavellian tactics only work if your opponent does not have the people united against you.
And that is exactly what Obama aims to do.
Wouldn't it be beautiful if we could have a hard fighting guy up there who didn't resort to kneecapping his opponents? Who elevates the dialog? It would render the fear and hate mongers moot!
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Danielle Clarke phila pa vietnam veteran at 5:04 PM on 2/17/2008
Barack has done what many of us who care about only dreamed of doing but we still have hopes in living this dream by supporting the person we longed to be. I know i have tried many times in my life to bring about real change in the few communities i have lived in only to have something sway me or misdirect me. Today i am just happy there is someone who has survived and will finally help all of us to make parts of our dreams of making the world a better place a reality as we all work together in unison with the Obama campaign as grassroots workers.
GOBAMA08
I am Barack Obama
You are Barack Obama
We are Barack Obama.
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Richard Ahrens at 6:12 PM on 2/17/2008
I'm a 65 yo white Republican male from PA in that
great oasis between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh! I'm
going to switch to Democratic so that I can vote for
YOU , Barack Obama, in PA's primary in April.
I feel that we need a change in Washington-- someone
that realizes the needs of individuals in this country
who make less than $50,000 per year and doesn't focus
on big business and millionaires. I've never in my
life been this involved in political matters. I feel
we need YOU in the White House because we need change.
You are the person I feel can do that job. You inspire
me about your policies on matters this country needs
to address.
Sincerely,
Richard Ahrens
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nanceinnm at 12:47 AM on 2/20/2008
The more I see, hear and learn of Barak Obama, the better he looks. This article helps me understand how he has outmanuvered the Clinton machine: he's a more experienced organizer, NOT a machiavelan manipulator! (While I like a lot about Senator Clinton, I don't like the baggage her husband and his neo-liberal/republican lite policies-never mind his personal behaviors-bring back to Washington.) Barak Obama gets my vote, my money, my volunteer service, and my prayers.
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Adrian Fellows at 4:03 AM on 2/20/2008
Obama Obama Obama, Whilst i appreciate his consistentt message over the years, and support his courage in tackling head on the enormous challenge called America, It would be refreshing to understand his blueprint for his term in office (if he gets nominated and elected)
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John L. Sullivan at 11:58 PM on 2/21/2008
He hasn't changed his objectives since at least 1995 as proven in the article. And that is refreshing.
I believe that the message he is trying to sell now, as he did then, is that this CHANGE must come from within the voters action.
In other words he is telling people to get off of their butts and make changes in the people they elect in the future, after this presidential election, so that those then in power will be able to legislate the changes the people/voters/grassroot constituents/or whatever we call them want.
It's called activism and without it no change will take place.
Obama is not God or Superman. He's just the guy who can lead us down the right path to a hopefully better county, a more equal country, and one that will get some respect from the rest of the world if not envy.
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John L. Sullivan at 12:17 AM on 2/22/2008
He hasn't changed his objectives or methods since at least 1995 as proven in the article. And that is refreshing. I believe that the message he is trying to sell now, as he did then, is that this CHANGE must come from within the voters actions. In other words he is telling people to get off of their butts and make changes in the people they elect in the future, after this presidential election, so that those then in power will be able to legislate the changes the people/voters/grassroot constituents/or whatever we call them want. It's called activism and without it no change will take place. It's like a passenger train leaving the station with nobody on board. Is it a passenger train then or just a train? If nobody gets on board with this political ideal then it will fail. After we vote for him in Nov. we must continue to be involved rather than sit back and say we did something good. Without an active and supporting constituency nothing will change and the empty train will go on down the tracks full of nothingness. Obama is not God or Superman. He's just the guy who can lead us down the right path to a hopefully better county, a more equal country, a govt. actually representing the voters, and one that will get some respect from the rest of the world if not envy.
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Brandon at 2:46 AM on 2/22/2008
Amani, are you serious? Reparations? You werent a slave, your father wasnt a slave, your grandfather wasnt a slave... What makes you deserve reparations? Anyone who caused slavery, or was a slave themselves, IS DEAD..... Get over it.
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DCrat at 4:16 PM on 2/22/2008
No question, Obama has consistently called for change for almost 13 years straight. What about results? What results has he delivered?
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susie q at 10:28 PM on 2/22/2008
The more I learn about him the less I like him.
I think it is great, what he wants to do for "blacks". But what about the rest of the freakin country?
Racist. And too involved with the "church".
He is a good talker..and a big talker. But look at his Senatorial Record.
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very afraid that the people are sheeple at 10:49 PM on 2/22/2008
HOPE,HOPE,HOPE,CHANGE,CHANGE,CHANGE,CHANGE,HOPE,HOPE,CHANGE,HOPE,HOPE,
CHANGE,HOPE
-Barrack Obama---------'
The most brilliant propaganda technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly...it must confine itself to few points and repeat them over and over and over''
-Joseph Goebels,Nazi minister of Propaganda.
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Aimee at 9:29 PM on 2/23/2008
Doing things for "blacks" is a matter of human rights and shouldn't seem much different from doing things for everyone else. We are all lifted up when those on the bottom are lifted.
The "church" is an incredible organizing tool and it would be incompetent for a community organizer not to utilize it and see its value.
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marcus medler at 11:15 PM on 2/23/2008
I find this very informative-thanks for putting it up.I also find it encouraging from a historical perspective that as a young man, Mr. Obama, worked in a place named for a successful, self made, immigrant from Germany.I wonder how many people know the story of John Peter Altgeld-a progressive politician at the end of the 19th century. Also- just for irony; translated, alt geld, means old money which John Peter certainly wasn't(yet he became new money). Now, I know Mr.Obama is not old politics! We are fortunate he has chosen to help organize a new politics.
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What about ACTION? Oh here it is! at 7:01 PM on 2/26/2008
People keep saying "What Change?" and "I don't hear him saying what he wants to change" or "What experience does he have?" All of those are so easy to answer if you just look at his website or watch a single debate, but for detailed lists of his accomplishments in the senate and his detailed platforms here are some links:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/2/20/201332/807/36/458633
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/02/obama-actually.html
http://lessig.org/blog/Fact%20Sheet%20Innovation%20and%20Technology%20Plan%20FINAL.pdf
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/
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jon at 7:48 PM on 2/26/2008
Thanks for publishing this article. Now I am going to vote for him twice!
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prian at 5:40 PM on 2/29/2008
Obama worked in this Chicago community in the early
far-south-side communities of Roseland and Altgeld
Garden
I've been trying to search the web in regards to Obama
history in Chicago. Specificly the far-south-side
communities of Roseland and Altgeld Garden. I can't
get anything.
Question
How many children in far-south-side communities of
Roseland and Altgeld Garden went to college (before
and after Obama)?
What is the drop out rate for the far-south-side
communities of Roseland and Altgeld Garden?
Are the far-south-side communities of Roseland and
Altgeld Garden economicly better off after the Obama
magic?
Has this community risen from the ashes of their past?
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Tiana at 11:37 AM on 3/6/2008
Why do you want to run for President? What would you do about taxes?
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Dane at 1:57 PM on 3/14/2008
Just alot of hollow rhetoric from the Hollow-Man...
So is the South Side of Chicago paradice yet.. or has Hollow-man moved on to other ambitions?
Nothing to see here.. move on.....
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TRF at 1:23 PM on 3/20/2008
suzy q - you're an IDIOT!!
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Mary OK at 12:20 PM on 3/23/2008
I agree that this is an interesting article. It was good to see Obama is consistent with his 1998 self. I was almost ready to give him the benefit of the doubt on his candidacy until some of the posts reminded me of why I have hesitated all along. No record of accomplishments - and in fact - he didn't even accomplish his IL legislative record. His name was put on bills that others worked on for years to build a profile for the US Senate run.
His political tactics indicate his is duplicitous with he colleagues. I've read enough from reputable sources to be convinced of this.
Just don't know if this should be forgiven as a necessary evil to get out his meesage. Also, I think those Rezko ties are worse than we think - there is a slimy international component to how Rezko got the money to help Obama with that home purchase. I read another article written by someone who was a Chicago reporter in the late 90s that indicated Barack is the type of person who looked for a promotion every three years or so. Same person who revealed how Barack got his voting record.
Women see Barack's type of the tacts all the time. Fashioning a persona as a visionary more as a job advancement strategy than a desire to accomplish anything. The suspicion is that Barack's vision is 1960s style social program. Read the call to actions in "The Speech" the African American needs to take full responsibility for their lives and their family. White Americans need to address discrimination with deeds - not words "investing in schools and communities" by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity." Shouldn't both groups be investing in schoos and communities? The income redistribution subtlety in these statements bother me, especially after the Great Society Programs. John Edwards did a better job of separating poverty from race and linking it to globalization.
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mrs. linda ojeyemi at 1:14 PM on 3/27/2008
my husband loves obama loves mr.obama every day we get home from work he wants me to put the tv. on cnn news to watch him to see him make the next big move toward his life changing world we are going to be living in if he erer make it . to where we are suppose to be in the years to come no more worring about how we are going to pay the rent buy food put gas in our cars to take the kids to school to pay thire unionforms fix lunuhboxes and after school lession we want for our kids the change he is speking about. the ojeyemis
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paulette at 4:08 PM on 3/30/2008
i just love obama, every thing he does is so appealing to me. And my entire family have fallen for him , he is God sent BRAVO; MY DEAR.
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J. Emily at 9:01 PM on 4/3/2008
I'm more interested in why 3+8 is an anti spam measure. Is this the level of progressive achievement Obama brought about on the South side of Chicago with his rhetoric of change?
You've got it wrong Barak, you don't raise the level of a family starting with the community. It all begins with the foundation of the family. Both black & white and all others need two responsible parents who spend time with their children and less time creating more, and then take off for another conquest.
You were not a decendent of slaves but if you were you would know the value that many of them put on education, because it had been denied. That is the message the young people need to hear.
Some died just because they were caught reading a book. The core beliefs of their ancestors should not go untold. Anger and hate corodes the vessel that contains it. Your not so right Reverend Wright is sending the wrong message. 20 years you followed your mentor I don't accept that you are all that different.
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Nobama at 2:46 PM on 4/4/2008
How is it he is going to unite the country with words like this: "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." How does he expect us to believe he can unite Republicans and Democrats when he was named the most liberal person in the Senate, or when he can't even unite his own fellow liberals? Don't fall for the hype and the platitudes people.
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Mr. Unite Us at 3:35 PM on 4/18/2008
Thank you for writing this. The man has wisdom and foresight.
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Dave at 10:07 PM on 4/18/2008
I am independent, not politically inclined nor have I ever pledged financial support to any political party or nominee before. However, this time I feel compelled to take a stand on behalf of my kids (7, 13 and 19) and other citizens of this great nation, and because I feel that our country is in peril, and choosing the wrong leader may have grave consequences for us all.
I have no faith in our leaders, nor do I trust the political establishment, be it Republican or Democrat, and I view Mrs. Clinton to represent this establishment. Regrettably, I voted for Bush the first time, and against him the second time, and over the past 7 years, I have seen this great nation drift in the wrong direction, like a ship without a rudder.
Our national debt is heaping and I see no end in sight. We are borrowing money from the Chinese and oil-rich Gulf States to finance an unjust war, which was based on lies and deception; a war that was conceived by interest groups, driven by alien ideology and fueled by scare tactics. A war that has cost us almost a trillion (and counting), tore apart a country that meant us no harm, killed and maimed many soldiers. This is at a time when our schools are falling apart, our roads and infrastructure are in total disrepair, Katrina's victims are still waiting for aid and the health insurance and drug companies are trading with sick people's lives.Therefore,because of all this I’m going to Vote for Sen.Obama this time.
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Knowledgeforreal at 12:19 AM on 4/19/2008
So let me get this straight. He speaks of hope, change in 1995, but attends a church with a pastor that says "US of KKA" or "God Damn America" and "America's Chicken's are Coming Home to Roost" and then thinks that America will vote for him when he condemns the same separatist black nationalism that he has been apart of for 20 years?
This is a wolf (Obama) in sheep clothing and Fox News is exposing the heck out of this.
The Obama Titantic has hit an iceberg and is sinking, Fast!
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chae whale at 1:02 AM on 4/19/2008
The posting before mine goes to show what the republicans will do to try to discredit obama. Obama stands for all as you read in the article if you read it at all what sean hannity put on his show only gave snippets of what the big picture obama was saying. Obama loves everyone and it shows people like the poster before me will never get out of bigotry or look beyond there own front door before judging someone else
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Mac at 5:25 PM on 4/20/2008
Rick Warren has given credit to Peter Drucker for being his mentor for twenty years. I wonder if he has also been Obama's? His ideas ring of Peter Drucker. The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit is a Bio on Walter Reuther. Couldn't put it down. The same methods used by Drucker to bridge Labor and Management is being applied now with church and state. I'am a life long Democrat and believe strongly in social justice, but somehow this all seems a little strange.
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Josephine H. perry at 10:26 PM on 4/21/2008
I think he and Michelle represents really well. I hope the best for both of them. However, I will be voting for Hillary, I think you will make the best President at this time. I hate they are both running at the same time.
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Jonathan1122 at 10:20 AM on 4/22/2008
Amani-it is a shame your post appears near the top of these comments. It represents such a minuscule minority belief which is based on vengeance rather than justice, and lacks any practical means whatsoever to manifest itself. - Juan velasco-same goes to you, raving like a maniacal fool and spouting lies and disingenuous demagoguery. There can be no doubt that Obama is motivated by a sense of moral guidance that is beyond reproach. His benevolence and self sacrifice stem directly from his belief that one such as himself, having the intelligence and vision he has been afforded, has a moral obligation to help his fellow humans (not family, not neighbors, not citizens, but humans) with the best of his abilities. You may disagree with his political philosophy, but there can be no doubt about the legitimacy of his motives, nor the qualifications from which he forms his judgments. Obama's belief system is a rare instance of one constructed by the individual himself through his exposure the many diverse influences and experiences, rather than by dictates drawn from pastors and preaches, bibles and bulletins, rhetoric and absent minded tradition.
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jmichaelman at 8:08 PM on 5/8/2008
Jonathan1122, you have spoken for me as well. Most anti-Obama people are either racist or haven't looked hard enough at Hillary's resum'e IMHO. AS for his church, I only wish I'd had such a powerful preacher in my background of the liberal mainline church.
I have no doubt Obama can make for major positive change in the USA when he's elected---especially if more Democrats follow him into congress this year.
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futurefan at 2:12 PM on 5/15/2008
Did Alice Palmer give Obama her blessing, and promise not to run against him and then back out, or is someone lying? This article from the Chicago Tribune says he forced her and three other candidates off the ballot in '96. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-070403obama-ballot,1,57567.story There's so much b.s. in the media that I never know who to believe anymore. First of all, I'm an Obama supporter, 100%. It will be a great day when we can trust the press again.
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To "NOBAMA" from April at 2:06 PM on 6/2/2008
Where did you get that quote?
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eddieznj at 4:10 PM on 6/11/2008
Conservatives, Independents and Clinton Dems are accusing Obama of vagueness and inexperience. This article is prtty darn specific about what he believes to be our greatest challenge - organizing locally. He sincerely believes community activty is the means to achieving many if not most of his stated goals. Its that simple, and that's what's so confusing and threatening to his detractors. It's about US, not THEM.
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Robert at 5:46 PM on 6/16/2008
Obama is just another liberal fascist in a smiley face. We patriots will never allow the implementation of his far left agenda. America is too great to allow it to be destroyed by this smooth talking upstart and his fellow tarvelers.
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Laughing at Idiots at 5:23 PM on 6/17/2008
I cannot believe how many people are totally bamboozled by this guy.
Change what?
Hope what?
Obama is one good snake oil salesman.
Like they say, "There's a sucker born every minute."
You people are suckers!
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Petronius Arbiter at 1:45 PM on 6/18/2008
Obama risks becoming another progressive leader with a domestic vision driven into oblivion by circumstances he can not control; globalization, energy, international terrorism, illegal immigration, the economic cycle, etc., etc.
He is more likely to be a rerun of Lyndon Johnson or Jimmy Carter; progressive idealists destroyed by international political and economic pressures they could not control.
He may grow into the job, but it is more likely he will be a short term President badgered by a string of failures. His greatest strength, which is that he really believes what he says, is also his greatest weakness.
Lets hope he does not destroy the United States in his effort to save it.
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Bill Baar at 3:49 PM on 6/18/2008
He didn't change much of anything for the better in Chicago or Illinois.
That should tell you something.
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Typical White Person at 1:05 AM on 6/24/2008
"...white Americans couldn't care less about the profound problems African-Americans are facing."
That's right. And why should any people care about another people which hates them? Reparations for slavery? How about 650,000 dead white men in the Civil War, and 20,000 white people murdered every year by blacks now? Reparations? What if white folks just went away and gave black people all their money, everything they own? Within 15 years the U.S. would be indistinguishable from Liberia. Black people need to stop talking about or even thinking about white people. Just shut up and do something for once. Open a God-damned hardware store.
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Miguel at 2:02 PM on 6/27/2008
"Where did you get that quote?"
-------------------
It's in the article
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puzzled at 12:02 PM on 6/28/2008
It is extraordinary to read the article and feel the emotions growing. It all sounds so "right" and reasonable. How consistent, how deeply caring, etc.
Then I read the entries that bring me back to reality. What successes, what personal sacrifices or loss? The answer comes - he wants others to do the work for him, spend their time and money ... so he can win - because I'm sure we would all know what concrete accomplishements he has made, if he had made any. (Other than moving up and out of the neighborhood)
How frightening. I think I prefer to vote for someone not quite so manipulating, someone I don't agree with so easily & emotionally. Smooth talkers are dangerous - be they preachers, despots or politicians. We have know many charismatics in world history - some have been downright deadly.
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robert t at 8:40 PM on 7/1/2008
"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."
Did you people realize what's the meaning of that paragraph! Can't you see the lying? How can you people be so blind!Wealthy people who will not attach strings!!! I will not need that kind of money when i'm known!! he begs for money to Exelon, to Wall Street speculators, he refused the people's money and went for private. where do you people live!! wake up.
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guy b at 5:52 PM on 7/23/2008
I'm late coming in on this discussion. If I were 'wide eyed', dreamy and delusional, I to would be floating and flushed with the excitement that is Obama. Along with 'puzzled', above, this is a man who has learned well how to excite the public with high sounding morality of what is right and what is very, very wrong with America and white people. The star gazers among us just light up when the the gifted 'smooth talkers' - (let's see, that would include
JFK, WJC)take to the podium. Here is man (and like wife), who has the answers to everything and has done nothing accept tell everyone (star gazers)how really wonderful he is! Both he and his wife have made it very clear to anyone with half and ear to listen, that they are the salvation of a great country - that they are ashamed of. How dare this man attend and listen for 20 yrs. to Rev. Wright blast white's and America and tell us he doesn't agree. I am not a racist - I also am not a fool. Wake up America, your putting your money on an empty suit!
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Johnny Q. Public at 11:27 AM on 7/29/2008
Wright, Rezko, Ayers, and his voting record tell you all you need to know about this man.
His words mean NOTHING!
You believe hima na d you are being scammed. Just look at the districts he represented in Illinois.
NOTHING CHANGED!
STILL NO HOPE!
The man is a fraud and a con-artist!
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Making Observations at 8:39 AM on 8/5/2008
Wow! When I read this article among other sources to get a glimpse of Obama, I found comments from voters that can overshadow or support anything said about him.
If I've learned anything it is that people see what they want to see no matter what is said or how it's said.
We read and we listen, but we can't trust the media. We see the record or the lack thereof but do most people know what we are looking for? What's enough...Hilary had a record; it didn't get her nominated.
The election is really all about us and what we want to see. We don't mind sharing our criticisms although what we believe couldn't stand under the scrutiny of our own life's actions. Still we will see what we want.
Has NOTHING happened??? or do we feel it is not enough? Did anyone take action and support the work? or did we just criticize it? Would we know a plan when we see it? or are WE just blowing smoke ourselves?
I'm still deciding but I chose to be honest about what I see.
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Making Observations at 8:47 AM on 8/5/2008
Wow! When I read this article among other sources, to get a glimpse of Obama, I found comments from voters that can overshadow or support anything said about him.
If I've learned anything, it is that people see what they want to see no matter what is said or how it's said.
We read and we listen, but it is said we can't trust the media. We see the record or the lack thereof, but do we know what we are looking for? What is enough...Hilary had a record; it didn't get her nominated.
The election is really all about us and what we want to see. We don't mind sharing our criticisms, although what we believe probably couldn't stand under the scrutiny of our own life's actions. Still we will see what we want to see.
Has NOTHING happened on the south-side??? or do we feel it is not enough? Did anyone take action and support the work? or are we just content with criticizing? Would we know a good plan if we saw it? or are WE just blowing smoke ourselves?
I'm still deciding but I chose to be honest about what I see.
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Mandy at 6:07 AM on 8/12/2008
The only reason Obama went to Chicago is because he knew that the electorate were ignorant welfare poor he could easily exploit in his bid for power and money. The Chicago slums are still slums. Actually, the people there are worse off than before Obama got there.
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James at 12:16 AM on 8/13/2008
Wow. Obama is so a marxist, so a socialist, so a liberal, so a leftist. It is breathtaking. Raw hatred for effective Christian institutions. Adoration for the Rev Wright's of the world. Disrespectful of individual power. It's so sad to see the American electorate has been dumbed down so much. Obama exists because the public schools have effectively brainwashed bazillions.
It's impossible to tell me you hate me more than when you tell me you are an Obama voter.
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leia at 2:48 PM on 8/27/2008
Obama is getting on my nerves. His dad is from Africa - he isn't a descendant of any slaves, so I would think his attachement to the black ghettos is either A) calculated, in which case he is an opportunist; or B) in devotion to his wife, in which case it's Michelle who will run the country and not him. His eyes remind me of someone I had a huge crush on during grad school and who turned out to be a borderline masochistic mess.
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Joan at 6:20 PM on 9/4/2008
Obama is a created candidate, doing all the right things to claim the highest office in the land. He did not start this alone,and this support frightens me, because I believe we will find that he does not own his very soul, and that someone we will not want will be running our country. I know many of you will tell me I am crazy, but if everyone quit sending in contributions, you would find that he still can claim millions of dollars because the little guy is not where his money is coming from. He does not even need this small money. Soros of moveon.org, is just one of these tremendous donors. I am afraid of Obama's beliefs and connections.
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Gridlock at 1:33 PM on 9/5/2008
The only thing that frightens me is that most of the people lodging complaints here voted for George W Bush twice! And these are the people that are frightened by Obama.
How's that vote looking now? W sure did make things better in his eight years, right? More debt, a larger deficit, a credit crisis, more people defaulting on their home loans, higher unemployment (6.1% as of today), higher inflation, higher energy prices (gee, wasn't Iraq supposed to pay for our military support with their oil revenue?), a stock market barely above where it started when Bush took office....
Yeah, let's vote for the Republicans again...they'll lower our taxes!! duh.
Obama in '08!
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Joan at 6:56 PM on 9/8/2008
Was a Republican in 2000. Changed to Dem. because I did not like that Bush was appointed. Now we have the same thing in the Dem. Primary. Obama was "appointed" did not vote for Bush will not vote for Obama! It's not his policies that worry me as much as his tactics. His lack of love for America is frightening. Just what is his love? who really is financing him. Who mentored him in his youth in Hawaii? Who paid for Harvard for him? what is his Saudi Arabia connection? Do you know those answers?
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Val-Tom at 9:27 PM on 9/8/2008
Gridlock says that people lodging complaints on this blog voted for George Bush. So, what about it? He/She then goes on to list all the recent U.S. problems, most of which have occurred after the Democrats got into Congress.
Let's just take the sub-prime loan crisis as an example. In 1998 the Democrats came up with the idea that home ownership in the U.S. needed to be increased --- much of this idea driven my Andrew Cuomo, Democrat, the youngest Housing and Urban Development secretary in history, who made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country's current crisis. He took actions that—in combination with many other factors—helped plunge Fannie and Freddie into the sub-prime markets without putting in place the means to monitor their increasingly risky investments. He turned the Federal Housing Administration mortgage program into a sweetheart lender with sky-high loan ceilings and no money down, and he legalized what a federal judge has branded "kickbacks" to brokers that have fueled the sale of overpriced and unsupportable loans. Three to four million families are now facing foreclosure, and Cuomo is one of the reasons why! He was fully supported by the Democrats in Congress. Fannie and Freddie were the playpens for Senator Chuck Schumer and many others who received $600,000 plus political contributions from Fannie and Freddie foundations. The CEO of Fannie or Freddie (can't recall which) received $53 million in bonuses during the meltdown.
It is about time the country knew more about the horrible leadership of Democrats and how they want Americans dependent on the Government. Well, we can sure see how the managed just one mess! Obama is a community organizer all right and would "organize" us in a central government mess, that would make Freddie and Fannie look like peanuts. Adopt the Republican ideas of decentralization and a hand-up but not a hand-out. Michelle and Barack both have chips on their shoulders and resent whites, just like pastor Wright.
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jama at 9:25 AM on 9/12/2008
I hope mr obama changes America because america is getting worth everywhere the economic, the education, the health so manythings need to be changed and i only believe the man who can make change is obama macain enough is enough we dont need 4 more years like Bush we know you are hero that doesnt make you to be a president what we need is change and Mr Obama can do that
GOD BLESS AMERICA
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Harriet at 11:14 PM on 9/28/2008
Is this article really from 1995? Could you scan a copy of the published article? It just seems convenient that this would be here now...
And what about this: "he won the Democratic nomination for his Illinois seat by getting a team of lawyers to throw all the other candidates off the ballot on various technicalities. One of those he threw off was a veteran black politician, a woman who helped him get started in politics in the first place."
-David Freddoso
Obama is just advertising. Let's please get over the fact that he's a good-looking, young black man. Let's judge the candidates by what they stand for.
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keylaw at 10:44 AM on 9/30/2008
You gotta love "politics". Sure enough, we get candidates trying to bring out our better angels, but so many of their followers think it is necessary to come out with their inner idiots.
There is nothing to fear but the hate-mongerers themselves. We need to get to work--resolving entropic "opportunities", building the bridges that enable us to prosper together.
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thechef at 11:09 PM on 10/1/2008
snake-oil salesman (American, informal)
someone who tries to sell you something of no value. The American people are too easily deceived - the perfect target for any passing snake-oil salesman.
Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms © Cambridge University Press 1998
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weady at 10:34 AM on 10/16/2008
I think he should be the presint
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WeroInNM at 1:54 AM on 10/19/2008
Re: What Stage of Subversion Is America In: Demoralization, Destabilization, Crisis, Normalization?
Check out the following videos/article for the answer:
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvcZiNt6ypI&NR=1
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDyDtYy2I0M&feature=related
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNElWkYrdLs&feature=related
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bShv-FA_9cY&feature=related
These and other similar articles/comments, have given me enough cause, as an American Citizen, to be extremely concerned and angered because, they have made me question whether or not our MSM has been biased (fair and balanced) in their coverage of the Iraq War, our current economic crisis, that are also suspicious, and, more importantly, this and other Presidential elections.
My concerns are three-fold and are based on the following:
1) after taking the time to conduct my own investigation and/or research to confirm the substance of these articles that, on the surface, may be considered, by some, that seem to have their own hidden agendas, to be outrages and un-true, as a means of educating myself prior to casting my vote for our next President, which I have always taken very seriously as an American Citizen. And, I have discovered that the substance of some of these articles, along with some of their public comments, have turned out to be true, which leads me to believe that they were either, not aggressively researched/investigated and/or purposely kept from the American public by our MSM, as a means of slanting the Iraq War, our economic crisis, and this and prior elections;
2) most Americans either don't take the time or don't have the time and/or resources to conduct their own research to educate themselves prior to this and other elections and are, thereby, forced to rely solely on the integrity of our MSM to do it for them, not knowing that what they get from our MSM may be false and/or biased; and,
3) if my concerns have MERIT, it leads me and, more than likely, other Americans, along with individuals from other nations around the world, who are closely watching the Iraq War, our economic crisis and our Historic Presidential election, to QUESTION our, supposedly, unbiased (fair and balanced) democratic election process. A process that our country has historically been preaching and aggressively assisting other nations (e.g. Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) to adopt, at any cost, and, more importantly, a cause for which millions of our young Americans, as members of our Armed Forces, which I honorably served in for 20 years as a Marine, continue to, proudly and selflessly, help to uphold by honorably serving, fighting and dying for.
BOTTOM LINE: I Hope and Pray that my and other American's concerns are unfounded and have no merit, which I am now doubting, after reading this and other similar articles that seem to have been glossed over and/or slanted by our MSM, as a means of fulfilling their own hidden agendas.
But, if they HAVE MERIT, which, tragically, the American public, more than likely, won't even know until after this election is over and done with, I demand that our MSMs (e.g. CBS, ABC, NBC, etc.) do some serious soul searching and have the integrity and fortitude to step up to the plate, without concerning themselves about their ratings, as a means of keeping their jobs, while many other Americans go homeless, and TAKE SOME CREDIT for helping to fuel the current negative ads, racist attacks, anger and fear that is now visibly consuming some of Americans, through their blatantly biased (unfair and unbalanced) coverage of the Iraq War, our economic crisis and this and other Presidential elections. And, if they don't, which is very likely, all I can say is: "GOD BLESS AMERICA."
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breanna lango at 6:58 PM on 10/20/2008
Are you kidding me? I could never vote for a man as president whose ONLY concern is for ONE group of people. he sounds like, and wants all blacks to feel like, a victim. its obvious that they need to clean up their own house. this is possible without having to enter politics. if he is so concerned about organizing communities so that they can lift themselves up, then he needs to go back to chicago and do so.
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Jim W. at 8:07 PM on 10/20/2008
I never liked Obama prior to reading this article, and I like him far less now. I also trust him far less now.
He has very dangerous ideas and is a "collectivist". That is a very dangerous concept and the complete antithesis of the American experience.
Marxists despise the individual and are "collectivists".
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Bonnie Blue at 12:38 AM on 10/21/2008
Being the most far left liberal in the Senate, Obama is the biggest supporter of Abortion and supports Partial Birth Abortion. I can't figure out how anyone of a good Christian conscience can support him and his willingness to kill an unborn child and do nothing to help a child of a botched abortion.This is of grave concern to me, as well as his judgment as to who he "hangs" out with, i.e., Ayers, Resko, Wright and his ties to Odingo in Kenya (his cousins) who are Communists, and ACORN. To learn of these things, just go to the National Review Online and read Stanley Kurtz' articles. NOBAMA!!!
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What Change? at 3:18 AM on 10/21/2008
In this article, Obama denounced those upwardly mobile blacks who educate themselves, live the American Dream, and move out of their depressed neighborhoods. Yet that is precisely what Obama himself has done. He sends his children to private school and lives in a posh neighborhood, where he paid $1.65 million for his home.
In the article, Obama stated that trashing whites, Jews, and Asians will not solve the problems facing the black community. Yet Obama has associated (even aligned?) himself with individuals and organizations committed to trashing whites, Jews, and America at large (Jeremiah Wright, William Ayres, Rashid Khalidi).
In the article, Obama stated that the real problems facing the black community – schools, housing, poverty, jobs – cannot be solved by black leaders who merely energize and inspire their audiences but give them no plan or agenda for change. Yet that is all Obama has managed to do with his audiences for the last 13 years. In fact, when Obama had the chance to effect concrete and positive change as the head of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, he instead chose to fund "educational" programs that did nothing to improve the reading and math skills of the public school children. Instead, the African-centered curriculum of the groups Obama funded shared the same anti-Americanism of Rev. Wright and William Ayres (the latter of which also sat on the board of the Annenberg Challenge and funded these same programs).
Obama’s agenda for "change" is not new. It is the old collectivist ideas of the hard-left masked by the rhetoric of "community". Obama’s high taxes will kill jobs. (Like other liberals, he loves jobs, but hates employers.) His recent comment about redistributing wealth captures his economic philosophy. An Obama-Pelosi-Reid regime would be disastrous for our economy and our institutions; once socialist government programs are put in place, they are virtually impossible to undo. Obama’s agenda for "change" (higher taxes and more government spending) will undoubtedly lead to a deeper recession. And that’s just the economy! I dare not imagine what will happen to our national security and foreign policy under Obama. As Biden himself repeated over and over yesterday, if elected, Obama will be tested by Russia or a Middle Eastern country within the first six months of his Presidency and "it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right." Ominous (and by Obama’s own VP pick!).
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Brenda at 8:30 AM on 10/21/2008
I’m a black woman who comes from a family of staunch democrats. We’ve been democrats for generations, believing they work for our common good. But I’m voting republican. Obama sounds so compassionate in this article - but where is the compassion in supporting an agenda which encourages abortion - killing of millions of innocent unborn babies? 15 years ago I had an abortion. I was young, poor, unmarried, and scared. Following the urging of a TEACHER, I went to an organization which specializes in "aborting" fetus’s. No one talked about what I was really doing - killing my own child. I was offered no other alternatives. I felt like I was rushed in and out and have regretted my decision ever since. I am now unable to have children of my own and consider my legal "choice", the worst mistake of my whole life. Our children are being killed by the millions and the percentage of black babies "aborted" far outweighs that of whites. Just because we deny what we are doing (killing babies), doesn’t change the truth. Science - through sonograms and DNA proves they are alive and human. Just because we amend our constitution (as Obama has promised to do via the Freedom of Choice act) to say that every woman has the right to kill her unborn child, doesn’t make it right. There are some things that are wrong regardless what our "law" claims, and murder of the innocent is one of them. Yet Obama supports the right of a woman to choose to kill her child if it hasn’t been born yet, and not only that, he supports the killing of that baby if it manages to survive an attempted murder - in politically correct terms - an "abortion". When will this madness stop? I’ve angered many family and friends by not voting democrat. But I don’t care anymore. My conscience will not allow it.
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DaveM at 4:18 PM on 10/21/2008
I agree with Brenda. Vote McCain/Palin
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LouieLouie at 6:02 PM on 10/21/2008
Obama sounds good on paper and in theory but in the real world not practical. There's nothing wrong in dreams but dreams are just that-dreams.Will the human race ever reach its potential. Only God knows.
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Uncle Bouncy at 12:22 PM on 10/24/2008
What a hypocrite Obama is!
He says he's against back room politics...and what does he do? Gets downright neighborly with a convicted felon
Sadly, he is nothing but another scam artist...our country must do better than Obama
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Just Janet at 7:03 PM on 10/26/2008
A country in crisis needs to put forth an equal effort from EACH citizen to balance the blame and bring forth a blend of wealth, not in dollars-- rather in tolerance and acceptance of one another as fellow human beings in need of equality and harmony, not dominance and discord. The pendulum swings to and fro. I vote for clarity and truth. It's not a president that can provide that, it's you and me.
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Hank DeZutter at 8:16 AM on 11/1/2008
I wrote this article in 1995 and continue to be amazed at how similar the Obama then was and is to the Obama of the present. A few observations:
1. Some people wonder about his relationship with Alice Palmer--the state senator who gave him her blessing to run for her seat while she pursued a Congressional seat.
This article was written before she contradicted herself and went back on her promise to let him run for her seat even if she lost the Congressional race, and before she tried to get her seat back; she even filed petitions to get back on the ballot. This happened AFTER I wrote this article.
Though she asked him to step aside so she could get her seat back,Obama refused to step back and instead challenged her petitions--as well as those of other candidates--and went on to win the Democratic nomination for the state Senate seat. He did this despite considerable pressure from Palmer's supporters to get him to back off. In other words, he did not stab her in the back--he just tried to get her to honor her word.
2. He said absolutely nothing about Rev. Wright or Michael Pfleger in this article--although several right wing analyses of this article have tried to use this piece to show how strong Obama's links were to the two South Side clergymen.
3. The Senate seat that Obama sought at this time was in a district that was predominantly African-American. His comments and concerns with empowering and developing the African-American community reflect this reality.
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Ed at 12:35 AM on 11/2/2008
I read with amazement the evolution of the commentaries and relative support of Sen. Barack Obama's presidiential bid from the first post to the most recent. Clearly, there has been a change in direction which, if reflected in the Nov.4th election, will be good news for America: McCain will be elected president, but no, there will not be 4 more years of Bush (thank God for term limits, sorry NYC). We Americans will be spared the leadership of a perhaps well-intentioned, yet duplicitous or at least too enigmatic leader. Now is not the time for any great social experiment, now is the time to get back to basics, personal responsibility, etc.
God Bless America!
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not medvedev at 9:18 PM on 11/2/2008
slightly messianic?
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annalise at 2:19 PM on 11/8/2008
Wow. These comments range from the sublime to the ridiculous. It was wonderful to read this article, since it made his entire campaign and his history-making win make that much more sense. Look at what he accomplished: millions of people who became involved in the political process for the first time. All kinds of ordinary people coming together. If you go to his website now, there's a post that discusses what's next for the 35,000 new community groups that were created during the course of the campaign. The same people who came together for him will do it again, because if nothing else, one of the those clear messages from him was that WE have the power to change things.
And we did. Yes we can. And yes, we will.
I've never loved my country more.
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xoria at 4:45 AM on 11/9/2008
I am not an American. I see what is outstanding between him and prev democrat Hillary is that Obama mentioned the severe damage in America Economy as a serious result from Former President Bush autocratic management in Terrorism and the Middle East Wars. Something that Madame Hillary failed to make use of during her chance in the elections.
Its expected by Obama's voters that his CHANGE in his decree represents a share from public management in bringing the economy back to shape.
Tyrannical politics are waiting to be diminished under Obama's rules.
Though I am not in favor of the church style of preaching to stablise any election condition but I gv it to President Obama who used this method and won supporters different from his religious practice and upbringing.
I guess President Obama won by how he can represent his nation in this economic reccession and be the big brother to other countries in the world.
Mr Obama has to face his heavily bias race questions and answered them weighing the Racial Pride with a philosophy of the minority, majority, appreciation and existence. I am proud of his style in running the campaign.
Good luck to Mr Obama in his future days as President of America, Big Brother of the World.
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Lisa P at 10:39 PM on 11/10/2008
Roaring victory sounded off through-out the world as they announced America’s next Commander in Chief. Congratulations, Mr. Barack Obama on becoming the 44th President of the United States. Your endurance is beyond admirable as you have come to the end of your 22-month campaign, emerging with victory. If you thought the campaign was rough, wait until you actually dive into the issues that await you with the American economy. In actuality, your journey has just begun. You have proposed a number of different stimulus packages in recent weeks regarding the financial system and we all know our ailing economy must be stabilized. The two targets that will most likely score you points on both sides are your ideas about temporarily exempting the unemployed from having to pay tax on their unemployment benefits and temporarily exempting seniors from having to make annual withdrawals from their IRAs and 401Ks after age 70 ½. Yet, the largest issue should be keeping the bailout/credit repair that Bush started on track. You must stem the tide of real estate foreclosures and change the outlook of financial regulation, making it "more transparent." At this point, Mr. President-Elect you already have a wide range of tough work cut out for you. Oh, but for those good old carefree campaign days….Click to read more on Payday Loans
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Alfred J. Lemire at 9:05 PM on 11/15/2008
Thank you, Mr. DeZutter. This former newspaper reporter recognizes a first-rate and fairly written article when he reads one. Yours qualified as such. It is more informative on President-elect Obama than anything else I've read this year. That includes a long article that appeared in The New Yorker.
As a "right wing" person who has offered an analysis of a portion of the article--limited space prevented a more detailed assessment--I also thank you for your surely knowledgeable conclusion that the Obama of today is quite similar to the Obama of 1995.
The man was an intolerant, hate-filled bigot in 1995. He surely is one today, though he is sufficiently smart to at least try to hide his prejudices. The divisive Executive Orders he is guaranteed to issue will not be good for the nation.
The press will do all it can to aid him. I expect that, at the first hint of economic recovery, we will see a spate of AP articles telling of the improving times and crediting Obama for the improvements., while, of course, not thanking President Bush and his aides for what they are doing now.
The mot important restraint on Obama's prosecution of bad foreign and domestic policies: his awareness that a presidency that satisfies his base, the most extreme left in American history, will not satisfy the nation as a whole and he will fail to win re-election. But that should moderate what he does only a little. One has to hope he survives to then, though: Joe Biden will be the weakest VP in my lifetime
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giles at 8:12 AM on 12/2/2008
I am a 63 year old black man. this is a time that no one ever thought of in these times. Its not even in nosterdomus notes,no prophets forcast and there are people who still dont want this. we are seeing a time when america will grow in leaps and bounds in the world. In science technology and the betterment of the common man. You are seeing a revolution of a new kind. thank america for you have saved the world with a new new deal
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monica at 8:46 PM on 1/20/2009
To all of you who said all the stupid things about Obama, eat your heart out, he is a president and although I am a Iranian, Canadian in the past seventeen years I have to tell you all the leaders before him except for Clinton shit all over America and my country and many other countries. Eat your heart, since we got the best leader and his name is Obama. I wish he was the president of Canada or for the better word he was the leader of the whole world. You don't deserve him. He is far educated for a country as poor and ill educated as America and believe it or not eight months living In California, I couldn't wait to move to Canada since you Americans are nothing but ignorant. You didn't even know if we grow vegetable in my country. Even before the war with Iraq, you didn't know Iran was their nieghbor. Shame on you. My country went through the war with Iraq for eight years and nobody including your country cared about it. Now there is a president who cares about everything including the problems in middle east. Please educate yourself about the world and politics before bull shitting all over the place. As I said you don't deserve a president like him. You need same person as Bush who was nothing but a airhead and a moron. Please study before you say one more words about him.
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Joy at 12:27 AM on 3/1/2009
Hank DeZutter, just wanted to take a minute to thank you for posting a comment to clarify some issues, that was thoughtful.
I first read this article in my early research on the Dem candidates and it really made an impression. I have come back a few times to grab a quote to post (linking back to this article) but this is the first time I read all the new comments.
The quote I keep grabbing is this:
""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."
I think we are in the process of finding out how it is if a politician sees his job as part teacher and part advocate, who does not sell voters short but educates them about the real choices before them.
Kind of nice.
Anyways, thanks.
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