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The change in people who don't know is frightening. I suspect a bunch of those folks thought he is Christian, have been hearing the Muslim bullshit, and now are uncertain.
More disturbing though is the recent appearance of Obama's minister's rants on youtube and elsewhere.
That is going to devastate his campaign; it will be the end. It won't take many plays of "God damn America" to rile up the right, presently a little despondent over their candidate, and turn off a lot of those independents who've been supporting Obama.
The minister from Chicago is going to be the end of Barack. What a heartbreak. And I have to wonder what on earth he was thinking, as a politician, to affiliate with this man for 15-20 years?
Everything that lunatic shrieks from the pulpit supports all of the subtext of the attacks on Obama: Michelle Obama is not proud of her country; Barack Obama won't say the pledge of allegiance, won't wear a flag on his lapel; Barack's a Muslim, he's antisemitic.
I knew it was too good to be true, that we could truly have a change in this country. There is really no hope for any democratic candidate against the right wing machine.
Cluster Bombs Are Not Good for Children, Hillary
(Ditto for Landmines and Sanctions)
by Paul Rockwell
The human soul is difficult to fathom. One person alone is capable of both compassion and cruelty.
In her autobiography, Living History, Senator Hillary Clinton portrays herself as an advocate for children, a defender of women and human rights. In fact, the Clintons have a long history of sacrificing the rights, even the lives of children, for political expediency. It is time to set the record straight.
On September 6, 2006, a Senate bill–a simple amendment to ban the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas–presented Senator Clinton with a timely opportunity to protect the lives of children throughout the world.
The cluster bomb is one of the most hated and heinous weapons in modern war, and its primary victims are children.
Senator Obama voted for the amendment to ban cluster bombs. Senator Clinton, however, voted with the Republicans to kill the humanitarian bill, an amendment in accord with the Geneva Conventions, which already prohibit the use of indiscriminate weapons in populated areas.
All senators are expected to inform themselves on the issues before they cast a vote. The evidence is overwhelming. It is hard to believe that Senator Clinton was unaware of the humanitarian crisis when she voted to continue the use of cluster bombs in cities and populated areas. A U.N. weapons commission called cluster bombs “weapons of indiscriminate effect.” For years the international press reported the horrific consequences of cluster bombs on civilians. On April 10, 2003, for example, Asia Times described the carnage in Baghdad hospitals: “The absolute majority of patients are women and children, victims of shrapnel, and most of all, fragments of cluster bombs.” Reporting from a hospital in Hillah, The Mirror, a British newspaper, became graphic: “Shrapnel peppered their bodies. Blackened the skin. Smashed heads. Tore limbs. A doctor reports that ‘all the injuries you see were caused by cluster bombs. The majority of the victims were children who died because they were outside.’”
Even after wars subside, after treaties are signed, after belligerents return home, cluster bombs wreak havoc on civilian life. Up to 20 percent of the bomblets fail to detonate on the first round, only to become landmines that later explode on playgrounds and farmlands. Children are drawn to cluster bomb canisters, the deadly duds that look like beer cans or toys before they explode.
Clinton on Landmines
Of course Senator Clinton did not expect her vote on cluster bombs to become an issue in a presidential campaign. But that vote is one of many examples in a pattern of indifference to the welfare of children in the Developing World.
Because Clinton is now taking credit for the White House years, when she was a partner in power, we should also look closely at the Clinton policy regarding landmines, an issue of great concern to parents, to all those who care for children. The U.S. is the leading manufacturer of landmines. For families across the rest of the globe, landmines are buried terror. More than 100 million landmines are deployed in over 60 countries worldwide–nine million in Angola, 10 million in Cambodia. About 20,000 M14 antipersonnel mines are buried in the mountain areas of Yong-do, South Korea. According to U.N. estimates, 26,000 people, mostly civilians in developing countries, are killed or mutilated by landmines every year. In rural areas landmines are so ubiquitous and lethal, peasants risk their lives to earn a living tilling the soil and planting crops.
The worldwide movement to ban landmines burgeoned in the Clinton years. It was a visionary U.S. citizen, Jody Williams of Vermont, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to end the ignominy of landmines. And it was primarily in defense of children that Princess Diana, speaking from a minefield in Angola, raised international awareness about devastation caused by weapons from the West.
In December 1997, 137 nations, more than two-thirds of the world, signed the Ottawa treaty, an agreement to ban the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of anti-personnel landmines. How did the Clintons respond to world opinion, to the humanitarian movement against landmines?
President Clinton flat out refused to become party to the Ottawa convention. As he put it, “I could not sign in good conscience the treaty banning landmines.” In “good conscience”?! Are landmines good for children?
The Clinton Sanctions Were Calamitous
Senator Clinton is currently trying to build a campaign around her experience in the White House, but she refuses to take responsibility for the most inhumane and disastrous foreign policy operation of the Clinton years: the infamous economic sanctions against Iraq. The sanctions, a colossal failure, formed the centerpiece of Clinton foreign policy. While the sanctions began with Bush senior in 1990, they were carried out and enforced with a vengeance by the Clinton Administration. The second war against Iraq actually began long before George Bush launched the shock-and-awe bombings in 2003. The Clinton sanctions afflicted the entire Iraqi population. Child mortality, as well as the death rate for the elderly and the chronically ill, skyrocketed. Malnutrition debilitated the country. Irrigation and sanitation systems collapsed. Common diseases multiplied. The Iraqi medical services, the most advanced medical system in the Mideast prior to the sanctions, fell apart. Farmers ran out of fertilizers and machine parts. Thousands of trained professionals fled the country. The sanctions, combined with surprise bombing raids, destroyed the entire infrastructure.
As the full magnitude of the calamity became public knowledge, humanitarian organizations, like Voices in the Wilderness, made appeals to the White House. Denis Halliday, former U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, resigned in protest in 1998. (His successor, H.C. von Sponeck, later resigned as well). Contemptuous of human rights and world opinion, President Clinton blocked Russian and French proposals to end the sanctions.
The Premise of Foreign Policy
It was Madeline Albright, Clinton’s Secretary of State, who fully revealed the Clinton Administration’s cold indifference to human rights. In her notorious interview on national TV with Leslie Stahl, Albright said that Clinton policy objectives were worth the sacrifice of half a million Arab children, children who were dying of disease and malnutrition as she spoke. For the record, Albright did not deny that half a million children under the age of five perished as the result of sanctions. When Stahl asked: “Is the price worth it?” Albright said without qualification: “We think the price is worth it.”
Half a million children under five is a genocidal number. Of course, Albright was talking about Arab children, not Europeans. Had she made a similar remark about British or German children, she would have been fired and denounced within an hour. Albright’s candid statement uncovered the essentially racist view of Arabs common among foreign policy experts–all men and women of experience, to be sure–in Washington.
The premise of U.S. foreign policy under Clinton and Bush is unmistakable: Arab peoples have no rights which the U.S. is bound to respect.
When historians sum up the sanguine events between 1992 and 2008, Clinton’s economic sanctions against Iraq and the Bush occupation of Iraq will be grouped together as part of a single, catastrophic process.
Senator Clinton has never disavowed the sanctions or the racist attitudes that made them possible. In fact, she is now calling for sanctions against another country in the Mideast–Iran.
I have no doubt that Senator Clinton is sincere when she promotes domestic programs for children–projects to reduce childhood obesity, plans to curtail teenage smoking. And like Obama, she advocates full health care insurance for all American children. All well and good.
But it is clear from her record–her voting record and her White House experience–that Senator Clinton, like her husband, does not measure human rights by one yardstick. The lives of Arab and Iranian children are measured on a different scale. We need a president who cares for all God’s children, not just the white kids depicted in her Red Phone ad.
It is not experience itself, but the capacity to learn from experience, that should determine who should lead, and who should be deprived of power over the lives of others.
Paul Rockwell is a national columnist living in the Bay Area. (rockyspad@hotmail.com)
He's not finished trust me!! I have people blowing up my phone who all want to come on the trip to Philly tommorow. So far we have 380...yes...380 people who are coming from NYC and Westchester (Hillary's neighbors). That number will grow. He still has enthusiastic volunteers and support. The crowd is mostly white like 80%. I'm sure they are watching the news. The best thing to do is volunteer and get the truth out to as many ppl as possible.
Angela, yup, I always discuss that when people talk about Hillary's foreign policy experience.
Maybe 8 years of Karl Rove have left me gunshy, but I don't even have to put on my little tinfoil to see this as the plan all along.
They let him build up momentum, look like he's going to take it, then start rolling this shit out, one video at a time.
The first I saw of this man was watching Jon Stewart this morning ~ last night's show. It was absolutely shocking and it is going to go viral on the internet. Lord, I hope not, but I am so afraid this is it, this is the end because hardly anyone's really aware of it now. It's take months for the Muslim thing to really take hold and now pastor shut the fuck up . . . i am so fucking depressed.
For years people have been telling the Democrats that the Democrats need to be more publicly cozy with religion. Okay, well now we have a Democratic presidential nominee who is public and visible about their Christianity for the first time in, what, thirty years? And the only response is we have people working overtime to turn his religion into a liability in the public eye, one way or another.
So let's say "The bulk of folks just don't know about Obama's religion." right now. As long as the media keeps ignoring Obama's religion except to either misrepresent it, or dig through his ex-pastor's old sermons looking for anything controversial-sounding-- is that ever going to change?
He denounced and rejected the statements of Pastor Wright, spoke on his previous teachings and said that he was angered and pain by the publicized statements.
He did however maintain that he will still attend the church. He spoke about the good the church does for the community
Here's a site that tracks superdelegates:
Superdelegate Transparency Project
A vote for Hillary is the equivalent of uttering this evilness one's personal self.
@Angela, ooo, that's gonna be good. Too bad I don't have cable. Wonder if Keith is gonna bulldog him to make up for his Special Commentary, though? Oh well, whatever happens, I think Obama can handle it.
deep end sometimes, but that is not his standard sermon and does not represent the church's beliefs in any way. Also he's not racist. He also said this:
The good news that's coming is for all people! Not white people—all people. Not black people—all people. Not rich people—
all people. Not poor people—all people. I know you'll hate this... not straight people—all people! Not gay people—all people. Not American people—all people. ...God's good news isn't just for Americans, it's for all people. Say "all people"! Jesus came for Iraqis and Afghanis. Jesus was sent for Iranians and Ukrainians. All people! Jesus is God's gift to the brothers in jail and the sisters in jeopardy. All people! The Lord left his royal courts on high to come for all those that you love, yes, but he also came for all those folk that you can't stand. All people!
My fear has been that there is a message to Senator Obama to show white people how deferential he is.
I agree anonymous....
Hillary to Obama:
"shame on you, Barack Obama!"
Ferraro to Diane Sawyer:
"I'm hurt, absolutely hurt by how they've taken this thing and spun it to imply.." (distress call to white males)
Ferraro to David Axelrod:
"If Barack Obama is the candidate he shouldn't really antagonize people like me because he's going to come to me and ask me to raise money for Barack Obama.."
Clinton Campaign:
He hasn't passed the commander in chief threshold
He hasn't passed the national security test
etc etc..
(She subjects him to tests which he consistently fails according to her benchmarks)
Hillary plays "which one of these things is not like the other" by saying she and McCain are qualified and Obama is not...by suggesting she's a workhorse an he's a showhorse...by saying he was "missing in action" or in other words, a deserter and absentee father.
Video
Link to redlasso clip
2. Since when did being of the Islamic Faith make you evil or the enemy? OH YEAH, it was the Media and the Bush Administration that sold American those bag FEAR and lies.
3. If being a Christian President is the norm, and Barak Obama is a "messenger" of CHANGE maybe him NOT being Christian or Jewish is a GOOD thing considering the Issues that this country is under.
4. All these statistic show are the percentage of people who do not READ and or lack the comprehension to want to know the TRUTH about Obama, an inherent prejudice that they are willing to live with and most likely would not vote for Obama anyway.
5. GUESS WHAT .. there is something called the separation of CHURCH AND STATE. For me, anyone Champion their FAITH before the ISSUES and we go right back to what we currently have in Office.
Lastly ... If Obama says he is Christian when asked .. then CASE CLOSED. Then again, the Church he belongs to (TRINITY) is a bit SUSPECT. Since "Perception is Reality" most Christian Americans will say .. that's not the type of Christian Church I recognized. Jews will then see that that Church is friendly to Farrakhan and that too will be an issue. That will and is Obama's problem, no different than how Americans over analyzed the Mormon Church with Romney.
Personally I don't care what his RELIGION IS, as long as he knows how to seperate CHURCH from STATE in his Presidency.
To put things in perspective, America voted for George Bush TWICE! Yet, here they are demanding answers from Barack regarding his Pastor...demanding that he assume the position...demanding that he prostrate himself, prove himself. There is no one in America who dares question George Bush in this way as he acts with impunity.
It is said that nations receive the leaders they deserve. As the economy collapses, as Americans burn their foreclosed homes for the insurance, as Americans line up for charity health care, It remains to be seen whether America has "earned" Obama or Hillary, or McCain.
My feelings are raw tonight...
I just went to my dad's funeral....he was an 85 year old Native American who very much experienced racial bias.
I found it very interesting at my dad's funeral that he was honored by a caucasian elderly contingent of men who probably fought my dad every step when my dad tried to earn a way to support his family.
Christianity has injected itself into the business of the state for over 10 years, against the mission of the Constitution. What did we think Gay marriage or the anti-abortion movemement was really about? These are divisive beliefs that do not belong within the narrative of State.
Churches receive tax exempt status by refraining from Political endorsement. If the media does it's job, perhaps it will question the involvement of the church in influencing social policy.
It seems our Obama embodies the spirit of Loki. His mere presence inspires change - whether we want it or not. He drags things into the open where we must face up to them. This is a terrifying but necessary thing.
:)
I feel you. I too have Native American blood running through my veins. Choctaw! In College, took some History classes & I had a very hard time sitting there, listening to the brutality that happened to my ancestors! It was horrific! And now top that with black oppression that we've suffered too! And they wonder why blacks are angry!
[For starters]---apologize for this horrific trauma that have been inflicked upon America's own people! Acknowledge the wrongness!
Hillary Clinton is a divisive and destructive force, as is her husband. Their presence inspires strife, separation, disgrace and insecurity. I am sure, if she steals this nomination unopposed, and if she becomes President(unlikely) - she will bring that destructive, non-productive, stife-filled spirit with her. And, it will become the tone of the entire country.
No amount of political power that can fix what is wrong with her "soul".
I'm sorry that you lost your Dad.
Your comment highlights the reality of different experience of America depending on what race you are.
-----------------------------------
Lord Yes! And it is ungodly!
As for Hillary not defending Obama from the Muslim smears on 60 minutes, well that just shows you how unworthy of our vote she is. As some have pointed out, she has been to prayer breakfasts with Obama. She could have used that cackle of hers for good for once, and just said something like "oh, it's so silly...I've been to prayer breakfasts with Barack, and he has a strong Christian faith."
There is no doubt that Hillary is indeed a destructive and divisive candidate, who is very bad for the party and the nation. Indeed, I fear that we could not tolerate another 4 years of partisan polarization, like we would have under Hillary.
Obama is clearly the way to go, and I do believe we will win. It will take a lot of hard work and faith, but we can do it!
Anonymous, you have lost your mind. The media??? Are you crazy?? The same media that destroyed Kerry will try to destroy Barack Obama or Clinton. It doesn't matter which democratic candidate runs, the media will join forces with corporate power and their ass sucking rethug friends to destroy the candidate.
If you're relying on the media to straighten this out, you are delusional. They will only make it worse.
These people have really hurt me. They have agreed to cast off Black people to win. They want all of Barack's new energy voters, but they won't come out in November for Billary.
I still think Barack can win. People forget he is up in NC (112 delegates).
While I don't think they should get a do-over, I think he does better in FL and Michigan that he would've in January.
My pithy comment is that this survey neglects one important question. It does not ask "Do you care what religion Obama / Clinton /McCain is?
Temple