I HAVE known my rabbi for more than 20 years. The synagogue he serves as spiritual leader is one I have attended for a quarter-century. He officiated at my wedding and was present for the circumcision of each of my sons. Over the years, I have sought his advice on matters private and public, religious and secular. I have heard him speak from the pulpit more times than I can remember.
My relationship with my rabbi, in other words, is similar in many respects to Barack Obama's relationship with his longtime pastor, Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright. But if my rabbi began delivering sermons as toxic, hate-filled, and anti-American as the diatribes Wright has preached at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, I wouldn't hesitate to demand that he be dismissed.
Were my rabbi to gloat that America got its just desserts on 9/11, or to claim that the US government invented AIDS as an instrument of genocide, or to urge his congregants to sing "God Damn America" instead of "God Bless America," I would know about it straightaway, even if I hadn't actually been in the sanctuary when he spoke. The news would spread rapidly through the congregation, and in short order one of two things would happen: Either the rabbi would be gone, or I and scores of others would walk out, unwilling to remain in a house of worship that tolerated such poisonous teachings. I have no doubt that the same would be true for millions of worshipers in countless houses of worship nationwide.
But it wasn't true for Obama, whose long and admiring relationship with Wright, a man he describes as his "mentor", remained intact for more than 20 years, notwithstanding the incendiary and bigoted messages the minister used his pulpit to promote.
In Philadelphia yesterday, Obama gave a graceful speech on the theme of race and unity in American life. Much of what he said was eloquent and stirring, not least his opening paean to the Founders and the Constitution - a document "stained by the nation's original sin of slavery," as he said, yet also one "that had at its very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time." There was an echo there of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who in his great "I Have a Dream" speech extolled "the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence" as "a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir."
The problem for Obama is that Wright, the spiritual leader he has so long embraced, is a devotee not of King, - who in that same speech warned against "drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred" - but of the poisonous hatemonger Louis Farrakhan, whom the church's magazine honored with a lifetime achievement award. The problem for Obama, who campaigns on a message of racial reconciliation, is that the "mentor" whose church he joined and has generously supported is a disciple not of King but of James Cone, founder of a "black liberation" theology that teaches its adherents to "accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy."
Above all, the problem for Obama is that for two decades his spiritual home has been a church in which the minister damns America to the enthusiastic approval of the congregation, and not until it threatened to scuttle his political ambitions did Obama finally find the mettle to condemn the minister's odium.
When Don Imus uttered his infamous slur on the radio last year, Obama cut him no slack. Imus should be fired, he said. "There's nobody on my staff who would still be working for me if they made a comment like that about anybody of any ethnic group."
When it came to Wright, however, he wasn't nearly so categorical. Oh, he's "like an old uncle who says things I don't always agree with," Obama indulgently explained to one interviewer. He's just "trying to be provocative," he told another." Far from severing his ties to Wright, Obama made him a member of his Religious Leadership Committee -- a tie he finally cut only four days ago."
Such a clanging double standard raises doubts about Obama's character and judgment, and about his fitness for the role of race-transcending healer. Yesterday's speech was finely crafted, but it leaves some troubling questions unanswered.
#2
When Don Imus uttered his infamous slur on the radio last year, Obama cut him no slack. Imus should be fired, he said. "There's nobody on my staff who would still be working for me if they made a comment like that about anybody of any ethnic group."
But you see, Imus is a white man. Free speech is no longer available to him, it hasn't been for quite sometime. Had the Right Reverend Wright screamed "nappy headed whores" from the pulpit, all would have laughed and clapped gleafully and responded with a resounding AMEN!
#4
"There's nobody on my staff who would still be working for me if they made a comment like that about anybody of any ethnic group."
It's not what the man said be he Imus or Wright. It's about the standard Obama set and then refused to implement till the event(s) became public liability knowledge.
We know where this is going. Break out the popcorn, or maybe fava beans and a good chianti.
When they set out, it all looked so bright away to the West, to the Denver convention, nothing but blue skies ahead. They had a continent to cross, a nation to convince, and they vowed to do it in a way that had never been done before.
They moved briskly across the plains of the Bush presidency. There was the scarecrow president who didnt know the price of fuel or the ways of war. Flapping in the wind, he pointed one way, while 70 percent of the country wanted to go the other. On to the arid side of the prairie, they passed one sunbaked skeleton after another Larry Craig and his wide stance, Scooter Libby and his breach of trust, and a man from the Arabian Horse Association, Brownie. Each had the stench of yesterday on them.
Along the way, they moved by Mitt the Muddler, who couldnt decide which way to go, and Rudy the Robo, muttering, 9/11, 9/11, 9/11. Dining on squirrel was a guitar-plucking Huckabee, who at least knew how to keep folks entertained around the campfire.
These refugees from the other party had their nutty preacher, Pat Robertson, who blamed fellow Americans for the big attack. It was their fault, he said: the civil libertarians, the gays, the feminists brought this mass murder upon themselves.
Uphill now, through the high plains, and still the Dems held together. They would not be like that tragic Donner Party of 1846, feuding and scrapping. It would all be over before the snows were gone. They shared their rations and steeled their will, convinced that one way or the other they would make history: a black man or a woman would lead them. They were Democrats doing the impossible: moving in one line, together.
Deep in the treeless expanse of the West, they came upon one of the stragglers from the other party: John McCain. Once, he had been a maverick. Now he looked old and worn and lost. His own party had left him for dead, he explained. Called him amnesty man. He seemed harmless enough, saying he knew nothing about the economy, confused about who was fighting whom in a distant part of the world. They didnt give him a second thought.
And then, as the snow piled high deep into March, the Dems turned on each other. One of their leaders had been hanging around the camp of another preacher man, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. a nutball like Robertson, blaming America for bringing on the horrid attack. What is it with these men of God? Should have left them home.
The Dems grew raggedy, worn, desperate. Whereas the first Donner Party was bogged down in the snow of the high Sierra, these Dems could not get out of the Rockies. One faction wanted to declare it over, based on greater popular support. The other one wanted simply to stick around long enough, waiting for the rival to self-destruct.
Their former leader, Clinton the Elder, was kept on a leash nothing but cards at night. He said hed seen far worse in his time. Will there be more animosity as this thing goes on? Yes. That didnt help.
Looking for leadership, they turned to a quiet man in the rear, a doctor from Vermont: Howard Dean. Do something, Doc! Scream! But he cowered, mumbling about do-overs and going back to Michigan or Florida.
At their lowest ebb, they looked back and again saw the straggler, McCain. He was stronger, walking with renewed vigor despite his age.
He was joined by a grizzled old cuss named Cheney. One strange hombre, Cheney had shot a man in the face. Hed forgotten that his country was a democracy. When he was told that two-thirds of the nation wanted to heed the founders advice and avoid prolonged foreign conflicts, he spit on the ground, and said, So?
His party was united. What had been hatred for McCain was now hatred for the other partys preacher. They could direct all their historic resentments, their bound-up frustrations, against this preacher, the Rev. Wright. So long as they hissed and booed at his picture every night, they stayed together, saying the nastiest of things.
The original Donner Party made history for one reason: by eating their dead. Cannibalism it was all they could do to stay alive.
These modern Dems press on, tearing into each other, crawling to get to the summit, still five months away, in the mile-high city. They are now ravenous with hunger, and it is starting to show.
#2
The graphic (added by the mods) is from the Re-create 68 website, a sort of online clearing house for lefty moonbat attempts to disrupt the convention.
Personally, I would love to see the Denver cops recreate their Chicago colleagues' role in the '68 convention.
The whole world is watching, moonbats, but not through the filter of collaborationist networks this time. The people (the real ones, not the mythical workers and peasants you pretend to represent) will see you for the conniving vermin and nihilist charlatans you really are.
Onward to Denver! May jackals slake their thirst on hippie blood!
#3
Imagine an armored phalanx of cops, mad as hell over continuous '68 style provocations, wading into a mob of 60 year old hippies and basement dwelling paint-huffers.
For real effect, the Denver PD should equip their mounted units with fur hats and sabers, so they can ride down the moonbats cossack-style.
It is a glorious vision....mere words....too...beautiful. I am getting teary-eyed at the very thought. *sniffle*
#4
I s'pect the more abusive stuff will take more place inside the hall than outside.
If the democratic vote for president is still split down the middle as it is now, it will be much more heated in there than on the streets, which will be more of a three ring circus.
#8
The few riots we have had, usually after winning a national championship or some collage party going too far have proved the riot control is lacking. However, knowing what is coming instead of a spontaneous glee-fest, I would be surprised if the Denver cops are sitting on their butts eating donuts.
I think I will contact a friend of mine in the police force to see if plans are in the works for the control of the mob. More than likely they are training and getting ready for it with several contingency plans in the works.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/23/2008 11:46 Comments ||
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#10
Sixty year old types generally covers the Democrat party these days -- gov't ees, burned out trust fund hippies, media fruitcakes. Unless they are able to import some anarchists, which seems doubtful given the Euro's NATOIraq Anniversary pot luck supper drew a mere handful, this will be just groovy grannies hissing, peace queer spitting and puppet parades.
Posted by: regular joe ||
03/23/2008 11:48 Comments ||
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#11
This is a marvelous opportunity to test/ deploy that micro-wave crowd control thingy thats been held up by the human rights weenies.
As an added bonus, after footage of it being used on Americans goes up on cnn, there will be less objection if we use it to fry some Tater Tots in Iraq.
Here's hoping for an entertaining convention in august!
Posted by: N guard ||
03/23/2008 12:06 Comments ||
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#12
Article from the MSM (forgot source, sorry) on Friday stated that Denver was waaa-ay behind in its fundraising to sponsor the DNC. Their excuse was that the infighting was 'distracting' donors and them opening their checkbooks. Ti will be interesting to see how they spin it as the convention date approaches and there is still no obvious choice ( was going to use the word 'leader,' but for obvious reasons, not the right word).
#13
If you want to play the propaganda game, just let the Dems and the anarchists do what they do best. Media coverage will show them at their best.
The republicans may be greedy, slothy, and stupid, but the dems represent no ideas, no solutions, no imagination, perverts, and traitors. Let the dems sink themselves, and if the republicans have not all gone brain dead, they can walk their way to the white house.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/23/2008 20:05 Comments ||
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63 years ago the Allied Air Forces bombed the German city of Dresden into oblivion and thus accelerated the final defeat of the Nazi regime and brought a rapid end to the Second World War just four months later. Today's Islamo-Fascist Jihad is gaining ground against the non-Islamic world and the Islamists are now on the threshold of obtaining nuclear weapons.
Pakistan, a Moslem country, is already nuclear. The failure of the West, including the USA, Europe and Israel to recognize and deal seriously with this existential threat could have catastrophic ramifications for the future of mankind in the relatively near future. It is therefore highly enlightening and educationally imperative to review the concluding events of WWII and thus gain a better perspective of how imperialistic Satanic-Fascist national cults have been successfully dealt with in the past.
By Spring of 1945 the war in Europe and Asia against the Fascists had been won militarily yet the two primary Axis powers were still defiant and determined to fight to the end in the hope of causing the maximum number of American and British casualties even if defeat was inevitable. The large task that still remained for the Allies was the invasion and occupation of Germany and Japan. To this end the US and Great Britain intensified their aerial bombardment of Germany in preparation for the final assault.
The allies decided to "upgrade" their tactics to achieve the maximum psychological impact on the enemy to teach him the folly of further resistance. This new campaign reached its peak in a massive bombardment of the city of Dresden on the night of February 13, 1945. The RAF dispatched some 200 heavily-laden aircraft during the night that were followed the next day by 400 bombers of the US 8th Air Force followed by three more waves of bombings in March and April.
The aircraft dropped incendiary bombs on one of Europes oldest and most beautiful architectural monuments, built from wood to a large extent, and succeeded in obliterating virtually the entire city. Some 100,000 German civilians were incinerated (some estimates range as high as 135,000) as many people as were killed in the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima six months later.
Dresden had no military installations or strategic value other than being a communications center. The primary purpose of the bombing was to assist the advance of the Red Army and to demoralize the German population and further weaken their resolve to defend the Fatherland.
The "success" of the attack on Dresden inspired a change of tactics on the Japanese front as well. Instead of high altitude bombing runs in daylight that caused little damage, low-level night-time napalm strikes were initiated with impressive results. The first, on the night of March 9-10, destroyed 25% of Tokyos flimsy wood buildings killing more than 80,000 people twice the number killed at Nagasaki in the second atomic bomb attack, and made more than 1 million homeless. Similar raids followed against Nagoya, Kobe, Osaka, and Yokohama.
This phenomenal carnage was not "collateral damage" (an American euphemism for inadvertent killing of civilians) but targeted mass annihilation of civilian populations for its morale-weakening contribution to a military effort. The ultimate political goal of the above military effort was to destroy Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan two nations whose organized national purpose, supported by their civilian populations, was to violently take over other nations by willful, indiscriminate and large-scale killing.
#2
Dresden was also a warning to the Russians. I don't think it was a voluntary warning since Roosevelt was
still theoricly at the helm. After VE Day with Truam in cahrge there were a couple of large sacle air parades just to show the Russians some Allied air muscle.
#3
Those who showed the world how to do it at Guernica, Warsaw, Rotterdam, London, Coventry, have very little to cover themselves as victims when payback is given with interest.
#4
The Soviets requested Dresden be bombed. It was a major railroad marshaling point for troops and supplies going to the eastern front. Also by that time, the major activity of all cities was war production.
The British night area bombed with incendiaries and high explosives (to crack open the buildings). The Americans daylight bombed the railroad facilities with high explosives and incendiaries as well as area bombed when the railroads could not be identified. The firestorms burned most of the city.
The accepted death toll is 25-30,000. Some other cities suffered even more dead. The wild estimates like 200-300,000 dead was Nazi propaganda or postwar Communist black propaganda to turn the West Germans against the British and Americans. So shame on this author for propagating this lie. It was the "AIDS was invented by the Americans" of its day.
Posted by: ed ||
03/23/2008 18:34 Comments ||
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#5
Good point Ed. As the other Burgers pointed out, this author clearly hasn't got a grasp on Dresden's own part (location- uses).
#1
I tried to show that radical Islamism is a modern philosophy, not just a heap of medieval prejudices.
Some things are just as valid today as they were hundreds of years ago. In fact, if it weren't so valid, it would have died out long ago, like the Shakers.
It's simple: Get them indoctrinated while they are young. The rest is easy.
#2
The flip tone is a turn off. The message seems to be that there's nothing that can be done about extremism, and we shouldn't even try.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/23/2008 9:32 Comments ||
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#3
Historically, Muslim flare-ups were short lived, and usually happened when some bin Laden-Mahdi type would get them fired up. Interestingly, their purpose *then* was usually to oust a foreign power.
However, today, it is a different kettle of fish. It amounts to a conflict between civilization and barbarity. The radicals see their world slipping away, as the vast majority of Muslims want to modernize. So this tiny minority tries to both *force* Muslims to stay primitive, and annihilate modernity and civilization.
The reason that so many pundits in the West focus on the "decadence" of the West, is because the only parallel in which the primitives actually won against civilization was Rome. And this is believed to have happened mostly because Rome had rotted from within.
But it is the grand exception. Otherwise, throughout history, barbarians always lose. This is because, except for the fanatic, even the most ignorant peasant can tell what works and what doesn't.
Unless they are terrorized into obedience, *and* there *is* no alternative, they will vote with their feet. If the barbarians cannot accomplish both of these things, they lose.
#4
Western leaders are playing the political-islam card, and recognizing the enemy as if their ideas are merely a tolerable variant. Reality dictates: islam is organized slavery and the little free thinking that we find in muslims discourse is only transient; wherever they have the numbers, they move against non-muslims. Islam is the worst genocide factory ever concocted, and its founder and slaves are nothing but frauds, thieves and murderers.
Within the next few years the enemy will form a demographic majority in their first Western city: Malmo, Sweden. This is what Jens Orback, (Democracy Minister in the Social Democratic government) said during a radio debate that: We must be open and tolerant towards Islam and Muslims because when we become a minority, they will be so towards us.
Every time a muslim enters the West, our surrender is piecemeal; when they breed, it becomes wholesale.
EaglesUp.Us brought 400 of their Motorcycle buddies and another 200 pedestrians to downtown Berkeley Saturday morning to support the Marines, which have been under fire from the radical group Code Pink and the Berkeley City Council.
Move America Forwards Chairman Melanie Morgan rode into town on the back of a Hog. She and the VERY LOUD bikers cruised through the streets of Berkeley, giving them a wake-up call. As the roaring bikes cruised by, car alarms and house alarms squealed in the morning. Ive never had so much fun in my life as I did on the back of that bike! Morgan said.
Downtown parking spots were filled with bikes sporting American flags and men and women in leathers ruled the day.
MAF singer Diana Nagy opened the day with the Star Spangled Banner and Melanie kept the enthusiasm high as she introduced me. I gave the following speech, which I wrote last night:... Pictures and Patriotism at the link.
#1
Arr! Area residents and Code Pinko are probably still hiding under their beds until the last echos of patriotism fade as they ride out of town on their hogs.
I've known preachers like the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., former pastor to Sen. Barack Obama. Like many of them, he no doubt sees his congregation as full of victims, and thinks that his words will inspire them to rise out of their victimhood. Once upon a time, I saw myself as a victim, too, destined to march in place. In the 1970s and '80s, as a clenched-fist-pumping black nationalist with my head wrapped in an elaborate gele, I reflected that self-concept in my speech. My words were as fiery as the Rev. Wright's. And more than a few times, I, too, damned America, loudly, for its treatment of blacks.
African Americans have been hearing words like Wright's in churches across the country for decades. And for many of us, the uproar over his comments only underlined the quiet culture war going on within our own community.
For a decade, tensions have been rising over questions ranging from what it means to be black, to whether there needs to be a new, post-civil rights meaning of racism, to what features of black America should be transmitted to the mainstream, to whether there even is such a thing as "black America" anymore. Many of these skirmishes have been relegated to our kitchens and living rooms.
At the center of the storm is Wright's practice of what is called "prophetic speech," according to the Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler, pastor of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington. This is "provocative speech that attempts to awaken and cause people to respond." Such speech has been the lingua franca of much of the black leadership since the days of the civil rights movement, aimed at galvanizing blacks and equipping them with an armor for the battle against segregation. Combined with instruction in the history of blacks in Africa and the diaspora, it has helped to transform the psychological landscape of many who had been crushed over time by racism and had come to feel inferior to whites.
It's also, at least in part, the tradition of Wright's denomination. In several incarnations, the United Church of Christ (UCC) has been a leader in the fight for racial equality since the 19th century. According to Hagler, "congregationals," as the church's members were then called, were involved in the case on behalf of 43 African captives who revolted against their captors aboard the Spanish ship La Amistad in 1839. In the 1970s, the UCC established a commission on racial justice; Wright was on its board of directors.
That other African Americans and I were able to overcome seemingly insurmountable hurdles is undeniably due, in part, to Wright-like prophetic speech. Like Negro spirituals, it helped us organize, motivate and empower ourselves. But just as spirituals eventually lost their relevance and potency as an organizing tool against discrimination -- even as they retained their historical importance in the African American cultural narrative -- so, I believe, has Wright-speak lost its place. It's harmful and ultimately can't provide healing.
I have not removed myself from people in my community who continue to rely on Wright-speak. We simply engage in debates. But their numbers are diminishing. More and more African Americans are coming to understand what we have in common with other Americans. Whites, Hispanics and Asians seem to be going through similar metamorphoses. What else can account for the surprising support Obama has received among non-blacks?
And today, there is an entire generation of young people who know nothing of segregation, who see one another as individuals, not as symbols of a dark past. They do not look into white faces and see, as I once did, a burning cross, a white sheet and a vicious dog on a police officer's leash. This is the coalition pushing for a new America.
Jonetta Rose Barras is the political analyst for National Public Radio affiliate WAMU-88.5.
#1
I have not removed myself from people in my community who continue to rely on Wright-speak. We simply engage in debates. But their numbers are diminishing.
Not nearly fast enought. Off to lovely Liberia or the fantastic Congo for the lot!
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
