Stanley Kurtz writes in a new article that Wright was just the tip of the iceberg for Obama. Oh sure, he attended his sermons but he also sent a lot of money to education programs and schools that taught almost exclusively the anti-American, Afrocentric, ideology preached by Wright.
John McCain, take note. Obama’s tie to Wright is no longer a purely personal question (if it ever was one) about one man’s choice of his pastor. The fact that Obama funded extremist Afrocentrists who shared Wright’s anti-Americanism means that this is now a matter of public policy, and therefore an entirely legitimate issue in this campaign.
Stanley Kurtz then goes on to detail his findings from the Annenberg documents. Findings such as the fact that the group funded the “South Shore African Village Collaborative.” A thoroughly “Afrocentric” institution that used teacher-training, curriculum advice, and community involvement to improve academic performance in the schools it worked with.
The South Shore African Village Collaborative was deeply involved in the “rites of passage movement,” which started in the 90’s. They set up whole curriculum’s centered around the the “rites of passage” ceremonies.
What exactly is the “rites of passage movement?” Kurtz:
To learn what the rites of passage movement was all about, we can turn to a sympathetic 1992 study published in the Journal of Negro Education by Nsenga Warfield-Coppock. In that article, Warfield-Coppock bemoans the fact that public education in the United States is shaped by “capitalism, competitiveness, racism, sexism and oppression.” According to Warfield-Coppock, these American values “have confused African American people and oriented them toward American definitions of achievement and success and away from traditional African values.” American socialization has “proven to be dysfuntional and genocidal to the African American community,” Warfield-Coppock tells us. The answer is the adolescent rites of passage movement, designed “to provide African American youth with the cultural information and values they would need to counter the potentially detrimental effects of a Eurocentrically oriented society.”
The adolescent rites of passage movement that flowered in the 1990s grew out of the “cultural nationalist” or “Pan-African” thinking popular in radical black circles of the 1960s and 1970s. The attempt to create a virtually separate and intensely anti-American black social world began to take hold in the mid-1980s in small private schools, which carefully guarded the contents of their controversial curricula. Gradually, through external partners like CIESS, the movement spread to a few public schools. Supporters view these programs as “a social and cultural ‘inoculation’ process that facilitates healthy, African-centered development among African American youth and protects them against the ravages of a racist, sexist, capitalist, and oppressive society.”
We know that SSAVC was part of this movement, not only because their Annenberg proposals were filled with Afrocentric themes and references to “rites of passage,” but also because SSAVC’s faculty set up its African-centered curriculum in consultation with some of the most prominent leaders of the “rites of passage movement.” For example, a CIESS teacher conference sponsored a presentation on African-centered curricula by Jacob Carruthers, a particularly controversial Afrocentrist.
Google Carruthers and you will find that the guy is a fanatic who believes the true birthplace of our civilization is ancient Kemet in Egypt.
Carruthers’s key writings are collected in his book, Intellectual Warfare. Reading it is a wild, anti-American ride. In his book, we learn that Carruthers and his like-minded colleagues have formed an organization called the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations (ASCAC), which takes as its mission the need to “dismantle the European intellectual campaign to commit historicide against African peoples.” Carruthers includes “African-Americans” within a group he would define as simply “African.” When forced to describe a black person as “American,” Carruthers uses quotation marks, thus indicating that no black person can be American in any authentic sense. According to Carruthers, “The submission to Western civilization and its most outstanding offspring, American civilization, is, in reality, surrender to white supremacy.”
Carruthers’s goal is to use African-centered education to recreate a separatist universe within America, a kind of state-within-a-state. The rites of passage movement is central to the plan.
Even nuttier, Carruthers believes that blacks who have become Americanized were actually raped. They may have been forcibly exposed to American culture but do not need to accept it.
The better option, says Carruthers, is to separate out and relearn the wisdom of Africa’s original Kemetic culture, embodied in the teachings of the ancient wise man, Ptahhotep (an historical figure traditionally identified as the author of a Fifth Dynasty wisdom book). Anything less than re-Africanization threatens the mental, and even physical, genocide of Africans living in an ineradicably white supremacist United States.
Check out the kind of training Carruther’s gave to teachers at his schools:
According to Chicago Annenberg Challenge records, Carruthers’s training session on African-centered curricula for SSAVC teachers was a huge hit: “As a consciousness raising session, it received rave reviews, and has prepared the way for the curriculum readiness survey….” These teacher-training workshops were directly funded by the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Another sure sign of the ideological cast of SSAVC’s curriculum can be found in Annenberg documents noting that SSAVC students are taught the wisdom of Ptahhotep. Carruthers’s concerns about “menticide” and “genocide” at the hand of America’s white supremacist system seem to be echoed in an SSAVC document that says: “Our children need to understand the historical context of our struggles for liberation from those forces that seek to destroy us.”
So now we know the types of schools and teaching that was funded by Annenberg. But how does this tie into Wright and Obama? Well, take a guess who was given the opportunity to speak at the Trinity Church:
When Jeremiah Wright turned toward African-centered thinking in the late 1980s and early 1990s (the period when, attracted by Wright’s African themes, Barack Obama first became a church member), many prominent thinkers from Carruthers’s Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations were invited to speak at Trinity United Church of Christ, Carruthers himself included. We hear echoes of Carruthers’s work in Wright’s distinction between “right brained” Africans and “left brained” Europeans, in Wright’s fears of U.S. government-sponsored genocide against American blacks, and in Wright’s embittered attacks on America’s indelibly white-supremacist history. In Wright’s Trumpet Newsmagazine, as in Carruthers’s own writings, blacks are often referred to as “Africans living in the diaspora” rather than as Americans.
When Asa Hillard died, speaker and writer of such books as “Teachings of Ptahhotep: The Oldest Book in the World,” “The Maroon Within Us,” “SBA: The Reawakening of the African Mind,” and “African Power”, Wright delivered the eulogy to a crowd of prominent members of the Carruthers group “Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations.” He put her picture on the front of his Church’s magazine and a picture of Farrakhan on the back.
Perhaps inadvertently, Wright’s eulogy for Hilliard actually established the fringe nature of his favorite African-centered scholars. In his tribute, Wright stressed how intensely “white Egyptologists recoiled at the very notion of everything Asa taught.” As Wright himself made plain, it seems virtually impossible to find respectable scholars of any political stripe who approve of the extremist anti-American version of Afrocentrism promoted by Hilliard and Carruthers.
To top it all off we have Bill Ayers and his wife Bernardine Dohrn planning to release a book in 2009 called the “Race Course Against White Supremacy.” It will be published by Third World Press which was set up by Carruthers and “Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations.”
So now we know that the Annenberg Challenge funded fringe schools that taught blacks to fear the white man, to fear being Americanized, and embrace being anything but an American. We know that these Afrocentric ideas went from Carruthers schools to the lips of Wright at his church attended by Obama AND we know the terrorist pal of Obama, Bill Ayers, is writing a book about race to be published by the nut Carruthers.
But does Obama buy into this Afrocentric way of thinking?
…in 1995, the same year Obama assumed control of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, he publicly rejected “the unrealistic politics of integrationist assimilation,” a stance that clearly resonates with both Wright and Carruthers.
And as noted, Wright had invited Carruthers, Hilliard, and like-minded thinkers to address his Trinity congregants. Wright likes to tick off his connections to these prominent Afrocentrists in sermons, and Obama would surely have heard of them. Reading over SSAVC’s Annenberg proposals, Obama could hardly be ignorant of what they were about. And if by some chance Obama overlooked Hilliard’s or Carruthers’s names, SSAVC’s proposals are filled with references to “rites of passage” and “Ptahhotep,” dead giveaways for the anti-American and separatist ideological concoction favored by SSAVC.
We know that Obama did read the proposals. Annenberg documents show him commenting on proposal quality.
Kurtz concludes:
However he may seek to deny it, all evidence points to the fact that, from his position as board chair of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Barack Obama knowingly and persistently funded an educational project that shared the extremist and anti-American philosophy of Jeremiah Wright. The Wright affair was no fluke. It’s time for McCain to say so.
Obama has dismissed any allegation that he buys into these teachings but we now have evidence that he not only attended the church that centered around this stuff, he helped fund them also.
And this man is just a breath away from the White House…..
See author page
The New Theme Song for Obama followers:
http://www.nextgenerationcorp.com/NextGenBlog/
Gee, I’m shocked………not at all.
It would be nice if McCain brought this up at the last debate but we know he won’t. He’s been neutered by Cong. John Lewis who warned him that any criticism of Obama’s radical anti-American associations is “playing with fire.”
Free speech is now the exclusive right of liberals.
So who can prove that Ptahhotep was even a black man? Maybe he was semitic or greek or some other line of mankind. Afterall, Egypt was ruled by many different people, some white, some black.
My response to the statement, “these American values “have confused African American people and oriented them toward American definitions of achievement and success and away from traditional African values” is to say, in my sarcastic way, you mean that the founding fathers and the rest of all those who colonized America should have willingly adopted African values? And pray tell, what were those, specifically, at that time? Assuming there was a single set of African values then, as well as now, what are they, and who – what country or tribe – embodies them in Africa (after all, we need to look at an example in order to measure how well it is working).
Fundamentally, that kind of rationale would mean that ANYONE who even willingly moves to another country is not bound to assimilate into the society there. That kind of rationale is one of the things wrong with the world and now with our country. Instead of requiring people to become Americans, as our founding fathers desired, we have degenerated into darn near requiring people to become some kind of romanticized version of what the individual THINKS his or her ancestors were at some independently chosen time in history. What kind of Irish/Welsh/English/German should I pretend to be and what percentage of the values in existence in those representative lands should I choose and for what epoch in history? Good Heavens, what if I don’t know my ancestry? How the heck do I figure out how to behave?
Fabulous analysis of Kurtz’s article, Curt. As I’ve said repeatedly, the Obama-Ayers-Annenberg Challenge-socialism link is all about his designs on education in US public schools. It most certainly is an issue that should be broached. And McCain *should* be going there.
Will he? Hard to say. But this election really comes down not to DNC v GOP, or liberal/progressive v conservative. This November, Americans choose between socialism and capitalism.
And what is wrong with wanting to teach a child about their origin and to appreciate and understand the communal ways of Africans and their ancestors. Its crazy to believe that everything about America is right and correct. It’s even far more ludicrous to condemn a person as anti-American, when for the longest time we were not considered citizens of this country. Afro-centricism is purely to pursuit to know thyself. To reconnect from where we came. You may not notice it because most history books used in public schools reflect a one-sided view of history, but there are many more perspectives from which to learn about the history of the world.
In grammar school I learned Latin, but was never taught that Egypt pre-dated Rome and many of the great scholars of Rome studied in Egypt. Never was I taught about the mathematical wonder that is the Pyramid of Giza. No one apoke about Africans crossing the Atlantic pre-columbus or the Spanish Moors. No one taught us in-depth about Ethiopia, or Mali, or Marcus Garvey & Liberia. These are reasons to help raise the self-esteem of young impressionable minds that only see reflections of themselves in very limited ways in school history books. We see only a very select number of people to have left an indelible impact on this world throughout the long history of this world. That is unacceptable.
It is not anti-american to speak out or stand against the status quo. In fact it is very American to do so. the founing fathers were all traitors against the crown, yet we celebrate them for the outspoken, anti-England rhetoric that gaveway to all of the fundamental values that you cherish today. Remember, it was anarchist that revolted against the country that funded their exploration & occupation of a foreign land that gaveway to America.
So you can’t have it both ways. You can’t condemn and ridicule people that are only following in the path first cleared the same people you celebrate as heros. When you do that it is seen as a double standard and possibly tinged with a bit of bigotry.
@ThomNJ:
Wow…so give up your individuality to become what. American? America is in fact a collection of tribes that descended upon this land in hopes of fame & fortune. It the promise that you can be and become who and what you wish that has allowed America to prosper for so long. To never become stagnant, to push forward through ignorance, arrogance, and even plain stupidity. This is what America is…any reversal of course will doom this country to the same fate that befell Egypt, Greece, Rome, England, and so forth.
America’s engine is greased by the ideas…that is the real capital that built capitalism. Vision, innovatiion, & creativity can not be bought, but it can be sold. The synthesization of the values & know how of various cultures & tribes brought us Jazz, Gumbo, democracy, and countless other innovations that we consider “American”
Umm Regular Joe. What the hell are you talking about. Where thehell did you got to school thatdid not teach youa bout Egypt and Africa???? That is truly amazing. You never took a Social Studies class in school???? If not how the hell did you graduate???
Sorry for being blunt, but that was one of the stupidest comments I have ever seen.
And this is not about learning your own culture, whch schools should not teach anyway, that is what family is for. It was teaching Black Liberation Theology and some crack pot histories that has been thoroughly dicredited.
Remember we are suppossed to be a MeltingPot, not a bunch of Indetity Political pawns.
If more people think like you do, I am afraid of what our country will become
But of course it’s American to speak out against the status quo, RJoe (#6 post). But that’s not the point.
I believe you miss the issue of just what was that curriculum. You’re interpreting it as some passive review of history and culture. Let’s try again in a shortened, more to the point, recap.
The SSCAV received grant funds from the Obama/Ayers CAC to promote educational reform for social and economic justice… a shared pet cause by both Obama and Ayers. And a cause that is rooted in Karl Marx and Rosa Luxemberg.
The SSCAV curriculum was based on the program by Afrocentrist, Jacob Carruthers.
And what is Carruthers vision of history?
Well, it’s interesting that this academic can be so certain. His personal theory has many flaws, as noted by the changed our view of how classic Egyptian civilization emerged.
Others argue thse early Egyptians and accomplishments were Asiatic in descent.
However “melting pot” gains more validity when you consider that the oldest mummy, taken from that period before the reigns of the Kings of Egypt was fair haired, and fair skinned. Archaeologists believe he was an aborigine of Egypt, not of inferior race, and was one conquered by Asiatic invasion. It was their mingling that many believe formed the ancestors of the Eqyptian civiliation later.
There’s no consensus or absolutes amonst archaelogists on the culture. Yes, the Kemetians were black. But to suggest they were the only, let alone the superior, of all races that contributed to Egyptian civilizations is seriously amiss… and borderline on absurd. Carruthers might as well be teaching kids the earth is really flat, and satellite photos are just a government conspiracy.
Carruthers’ insistence upon teaching African superiority in ancient Egypt ignores the presence and influence of other cultures, and worse yet – ignores the rewards and advancements possible when you have a “melting pot” of cultures. The “melting pot” of inventions and innovation is at the heart of the greatest achievements.
There is nothing wrong with learning and honoring historic customs and cultures, Joe. But this is not what the SSCAV was doing with the Carruthers curriculum.
Point is, Joe, like ancient Egypt, the US is a melting pot of Americans from a plethora of cultures and countries. It is our bonds, yet diversive visions and ambitions, that makes us strong. Combine that with capitalism and the free market, which rewards innovation and advancements, and you have what makes us unified… not separatist. (And I can see by your follow up post, we agree on that)
It is, however, absolutely anti-American to teach children at an impressionable age to hate, and to promote segregation, and racial superiority.. which is what they are doing with this curriculum. Especially since what he teaches as “superiority” of civilization, is not rooted in archaeological fact.
From Trinity Church May 1998
I don’t visit conservative blogs often. When I do, I am entertained and amused. Growing up in the Vietnam era, I learned that the worse handle you could hang on someone with whom you were in disagreement was “communist”. Now it’s “socialist” or someone who “hates America”.
George Wallace and Ross Barnett knew how to call a spade a spade. Today we hear that some people are from “exotic” places or they’re “not like us”. Euphemisms such as these are certainly the refuges of scoundrels.
Barack is not anti-American, but you all know that. Like high school debaters, you’re using fuzzy factoids to advance your arguments. Step back a bit and see how silly you sound to outsiders.
“Fuzzy factoids”? The CAC documentation on the Obama/Ayers/Rolling educational experiment in Chicago schools for “social justice” are a “fuzzy factoid”?
Obama’s membership in the Democratic Socialist of America party subsidiary, the New Party, in Chicago (and their proud endorsement and celebration of their member winning the IL Senate seat) is a “fuzzy factoid”?
Obama’s educational policy, as on his website, for “social and economic justice”… a socialist party agenda… is a “fuzzy factoid”??
Obama and Ms. O’s speeches, peppered with Saul Alinsky quotes, are “fuzzy factoids”?
So you grew up in the Vietnam era, eh? Well so did I bubba… with a husband in the military. So let me guess… you were one of those on the streets with a “sign, sign, everywhere a sign”, right?
You shoulda cut back on the LSD, window pane and black beauties, man…. Facts and truths wouldn’t have to be so “fuzzy” for you.
@sandormatyo:
I want to know what you think “soclialism” is????
I think it is someone that has listened to Black Liberation Theology, someone that wants to “Psread the Wealth” thru taxes, and takes money away from those that make money to give to those that do not for Social experiments.
If it quacks like a duck, sounds like a duck you can assume it is a duck.
MataHarley:
I appreciate that many people would become concerned about the concept of “social and economic justice”. Coming from a union family (more Hoffa than Alinsky), I saw early on the value of organizing. As a history major I read about the brutal treatment of labor by capital. Only with the strikes of the 30s led by organizers such as Mr. Alinsky was a middle class established in this country. Mr. Alinsky said many quotable things.
Obama, like many politicians, used what he could to get ahead. The New Party helped him along. They faded out and he worked his way up through the mainstream. Reverend Wright appealed to his flock to take charge of their lives and free themselves of social, political, economic and religious bondage. Obama listened and took the steps that would one day lead him to the verge of the White House.
Obama’s pretty mainstream now. His tax increase on the upper 5% is just. They can afford it.
I don’t know if he’ll be a successful president, but we must remove from power the oligarchs that control our lives, send our children off to die for no reason, and hoard the wealth for themselves.
Can you repond to this post without bitter, angry sarcasm?
Oba@sandormatyo:
Obama is mainstream??? Huh That is ridiculous. If more people knew who he was, more people would run awayfrom him, but the MSM has done a good job of hiding who he is.
You do know that taxing businesses is a tax on everyone????? A majority of small businesses make over the $250,000 level in Obama’s tax code. And how can you give tax breaks to people that do not even pay taxes. About 40% of the population do not pay Federal Taxes, where does this 95% come from??????
And if Obama is mainstream, we are in deep trouble.
My point to all of you whom reject Barack Obama, Afrocentrism, Black Liberation Theology as some type of radical, off-the-cuff, socialist, Anti-American rant are narrow minded and ignorant to the needs of people who do not look like you. My firm belief is that for any person to become a successful, well-adjusted, contributing member of the greater society they must have a strong sense of self. Black Liberation Theology, Afro-centrism is an attempt to build up the self-esteem of a minority class that for the most part are looking for a way to gain a firm grasp of who they are. To understand better who they are and where they come from. To know thyself. Black Liberation Theology teaches three things: 1. Love & respect God & your fellow man 2. That you can accomplish anything regardless of the obstacles placed in front of you 3. To be proud of your Black/African heritage. These are all very important in forming resolve in a person. In developing an upstanding, community minded, individual.
Afro-centrism does more of the same. It teaches people that your heritage is not just slavery. That your ancestors accomplished & contributed a great deal to this world.
What I think upsets people is that through this lense, white people are called out for their mistakes and weaknesses. And the fact that a people may not want want to adopt your culture completely is an afront to the American Exceptionalism that you all profess.
Please do not get me wrong, I am not trying to pit white against blacks, although there are several comments made over and over that are short sighted, but I understand. I understand having pride & prejudice. We are all prone to making mistakes. However, the question is how do we gain better understanding and appreciation for the differences & viewpoints we all have without degrading or demoralizing the other person.
The fact that Obama wishes to spread the wealth is not Socialistic, its human. To see another struggle and to reach back and lend a help is just the right thing to do. When you talk about giving more tax cuts to Corporations and the wealthiest 5% what you do is maintain the status quo. Corporations biggest expense side cost are Employees. Paying you too much drives down their profits. Their main job is to expand profits. His interests and your interests are at odds with each other. The real stimulus package is to put moe money into non-business owners, the vast majority of this country. The more money you put into the consumers hands the more they will spend, which will increase demand, then profits, and finally taxes. Its completely illogical to believe that by putting more into the hands of the few that it will somehow increase the coffers of the many. Its simple numbers. There will always be more shoppers than businesses…always. The numbers just won’t work.
The Republican intent is there, but the execution is terrible. Because just like George Bush and his Cowboy Capitalism, Free “deregulated” Market, you forget that people will naturally look out for themselves and their own first (As exhibited with AIG & Lehman Bros). Which means those at the top want to stay there and don’t want to share their shiny exclusive toys with the rest of us. meaning you lose again because his wants are at odds with yours.
In conclusion what all this means is that Barack is talking about is helping people get on their feet by installing a strong sense of self into people so that they will have enough pride in themselves not to accept handouts. To fight against the odds for their success and if they need a little a help then you give them some help, not a hand out, some help. He also understands that there needs to be rules so Corporations don’t get too big for their pants and drag us down again. That is not a socialist, that is a person who is FOR the mainstream.
Black Liberation Theology is not radical???? What the hell are you talking about. Do you even know what it is. It is for the destruction of the Uniteds States way of life. Not radical.
You can find out who you are without trying to destroy the economic sustem in the United States.
If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it is a duck. Same as a Socialist
Don’t take anything I have to say on Black Liberation Theology. There are plenty of videos here:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=james+cone&search_type=&aq=f
James Cone in his own words explains it in the first video or from his book:
@stix1972:
The question is do you know what it is. Black Liberation Theology has been preached in one form or another since the first Africans were brought to the shores of America and taught Christian values. It does not destroy anyone or anything. It builds…again you just don’t like that it is contrary to what you see as a perfect system. The system is not perfect and as long as you continue to hide from that fact you will not be open to progress.
Like I said yesterday, just because people yell out for change or improvement does not always bring the total destruction of a society or way of life. America has been founded and improved through this fundamental understanding of change & growth through struggle. If it worked for George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Malcolm X, & Martin Luther it can work for Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama, & myself. Remember when Dr. King was fighting for equality he wasn’t as revered as he is now. In fact people routinely sought to snuff out his life until they finally succeded.
The hardest thing a person will ever have to do is face down their own demons
You really hav no clue what you are talking about do you???? Libertation Theology came out of South America in th 60’s and then came to America, and then Cone made Black Liberation Theology out of it. It is a Marxist Front dressed up asa religion.
It has nothing to do with African Culture.
MLK was not preaching anytyhing like what Rev Wright, Phleger, Obama and the rest of thie ilk are preaching. He wanted everyone to be equal. No wonder he was a Republican
@Uddercha0s:
And what was the Revolutionary War. What was that…it was people fighting to be recognized as fully human and free. Don’t preach to me about revolution when everything we have today is founded on revolution. Get your heads out of the clouds. I swear this is why most Black people continue to believe that this a racist society because you all refuse to recognize the LEGITIMACY and another way of doing, speaking, or seeing things. You are not the only way!
Iran-Contra. Sandinistas. Marxism.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,141037,00.html
@RgularJoe: So then you will refrain from calling me a racist if I were to tell you that I am a member of the Ku Klux Klan? After all, they are “Bringing a message of hope and deliverance to white christian America”. Are you going to “recognize the LEGITIMACY and another way of doing, speaking, or seeing things.”?
(This is an example, I am no,t nor ever have been, a member of the KKK)
Cone’s words were Civil War, not Revolution.
@stix1972:
MLK was talking about spreading the weath at the end of his life. He was talking about the classism that persists in America.
And for your information Nat Turner was a FORM of Black Liberation Theology. Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth was a form of Black Liberation Theology. They talked about God delivering them to freedom. The churches that were being bombed in the South for teaching children to read was Black Liberation Theology. Don’t tell me about my culture. The Church has always been a haven and conduit for change & progress. And when it is confronted with resistance it becomes revolution.
Dr King sought equality in a time when equality was restricted to a certain skin pigmentation. He sought to Liberate Black folk from oppressive rules that under cut their God given freedoms. BLACK LIBERATION THEOLOGY! Don’t get caught up in the hype, this is older than you, McCain, & Obama. This has been a movement that most of you only heard of because of Youtube.
I know what I am talking about & I know the results of it. I have benefited from it. I have grown and seen its positives in my very own life. So call it what you will, but I will always defend the spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical freedoms that my wife, my child, my family deserves. Any person that wishes to subvert that will be dealt with. It can happen through diplomacy or with blood, but too many people died to let us move backwards due to the ignorance of a few.
And the funny thing is that America preaches it with its Bush Doctrine, but it can’t stand to have anyone from its lower ranks demand that America repents and pay retribution for her crimes.
Yes we fought for Freedom, not Marxism which is tyrrany. We fought 2 wars in Europe against Marxism. Or has everyone forgotten that.
We fought against the British to get the government out of our lives, which I am sure the Founding Fathers are rolling in their graves at what our country has become.
@Uddercha0s:
Dude you can do whatever the hell you want to do as long as you don’t encroach on me and my family. We all have different views, but when you work to prevent mine from being recognized, we have a problem.
There are stupid people everywhere…I don’t have to agree with them or like them. But they should be respected.
@stix1972:
I agree…but its not freedom of speech that causes them concern. Freedom of speech gave my Greatgrandparents freedom. Without that then I would stil have an iron collar around my neck right now.
You have no idea what it is like. Last week I went to the courthouse to register my business with Prince William County in Virginia. A formerly confederate state where there are signs comemmorating historic battles of the Civil War everywhere. A constant reminder of my history in this country. I thought about the fact that years ago my family wasn’t even allowed to look white people in the eye. At that moment i wanted to tear up but then I had to remember that I am not in that situation today and it is because of Black Liberatin Theology, Freedom of Speech, Freedom from Religious Persecution I can own my own business and walk where the hell I please.
So how you can say that it is radical or anti-American I will never understand.
James H. Cone Black Power and Black Theology
Not radical? Not un-American? This is why you can own you own business and walk freely? This is Jerimiah Wright’s mentor.
**EDIT Joe, Unfortunately race is involved in this discussion and I hate that it is. It is not race that I am arguing about, it is the philosophy that is being preached. I could care less what the race of the next POTUS is. My concern is that they represent ALL people of the US of A. Obama has had way too many Marxists and Socialists surrounding him his entire life.
@RgularJoe: You are so right, my family is VERY diverse and I want my children to know and embrace their culture (all of it the hungarian and black, and the hispanic). People are always scared of something they don’t understand. If more people took the initiative to learn about all walks of life, then we wouldn’t have the racist problem, we have today. All I can do is pray we KEEP moving forward.
@voter: Let’s see. I am Polish, German, Lithiuanian, Norwegian, Jamaican, Mongolian, Scotch, English and a little of everything else. I am the Melting Pot, what America used to be. I know of my family’s culture and history, but I am an American first. All the hyphanation-America is ruining this country. We have no one culture anymore, we are a big group of Political Idendities to be used by both parties.
We are totally screwed and will be Socialist like Eurabia in 20 years, if not sooner.
@voter: Are you going to teach your children to embrace the Hungarian culture that oppressed (Magyarization) the Slovak people?
http://www.slovakia.org/history-magyarization.htm
@stix1972: First of all I was not saying that any one of my children were all I said they are diverse. One is black and two are hispanic, and all mixed with hungarian, I bring that to the table. I just said I want them to embrace all thier cultures. I teach them to love and embrace each others as well as the nieghbors, I encourage them to get to know about thier friends as well. My childern will grow up to accept any and everyone, because they will have the knowledge. I’m sorry that you don’t have any connection to any of your cultures. But in your statement you are the melting pot, so whats wrong with the melting pot taking pride in their culture, (ALL OF THE CULTURE) I’m not trying to argue, I was simply telling Rgular Joe, that I agree with him. And I am glad he said what he said. It needed to be said.
The first sentence didn’t make any sense sorry my 2 year old was demanding my attention as I wrote it.
I was not saying that my children are all hungarian, black, and hispanic. They are a mix between them. I want them to respect all of thier siblings culture as well as thiers.
@Uddercha0s:
I understand that race is not your issue…but what you don’t understand is that Obama is a Black man, a man that like myself and others with our history is still struggling to grasp an identity. To create a space in a world that doesn’t understand you.
In searching for yourself you may encounter fringe perspectives. But what always has allowed America to grow through struggle without imploding is that there is a bond of humanity between us all, especially Black & White. A force that centers us and refocuses us on what truth is… That we are all interdependent…and that we are only as strong as our weakest link. Thats why its important to have the social programs that Help people. Thats why its important to teach kids about their history so that they can stand strong and resolute in who they are. Not blow with the changing wind.
Obama is important to American history because he is truly of the lower class that has risen to the heights of success. His story is important for my nephew, my daughter…his vision is important in re-energizing The People into an active and politically aware group that will hold those at the very top accountable for their actions.
From my perspective and my personal history, I don’t see marxism…I see the American Dream being realized for the American People. For people who for a long time have felt left out of the political arena.
Note: Throughout history you will always find revolutionary views at the bottom rung of society. its because those are the people looking for power in a society that has stripped them of the basic need to self actualize. To feel like they control their future and are not held victim to the whims of people who only come to their community during an election year. (I always hated when that happened…Show up when your job is not at risk.)
Why is Obama so inmportant??? He did not come from poverty,he came from a middle class family.
Obama is not special in any way other than being half black. That is not a reason to vote for someone.
What about Judge Thomas that truly came from poverty and worked his way up. Or Condeleza Rice that had share cropper grandparents. Or Lt Gov Steele. Or are they UNcle Toms, because they do not believe that African Americans need to have special privaleges and get a better chance because of thier skin to get a job, or to get into a college? the worse thing to be right now is a white male in his 30, just like me. I have gotten screwed many times beause I am not black or female. I got passed over because of quotas.
America is still the best place to live, but I fear we are going to fall to the left and become Eurabia and loose our place as “The Land of the Free”, due to Political Correctness and social experiments that have been proven to be failures.
Sandormatyo… first let me get this out of the way. You asked me to “respond without bitter angry sarcasm”. I most certainly can and do that. However I generally work on a cause/effect with some posters. And in this case, you entered the FA community with the following statement:
You have not read many of the articles we authors have posted here. Those include quite thorough coverage of Steve Diamond’s exposure of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and the agenda of William Ayers, Ken Rolling and Obama in that school experiment. They also include much of Obama’s unadmitted past with the New Party, his methods of politics rooted in the Chicago political machine, as well as his sundry policies founded on the redistribution of wealth.
Instead, you came here, read one post and comments, and accused the forum of using fuzzy factoids to advance arguments… like high school debates. Thus my response to you reflected the attitude you bore on your entry.
With your second comment/response, you demonstrate more respect for the level of discussion. And to that, I can most certainly maintain and equal sense of decorum.
And as a response, there appears to be little common ground for you and I. You are willing to give Obama’s past and current socialist alliances a pass as a politician who “used what he could to get ahead.” That’s odd, as he presents himself as a different kind of politician – above all that. You are quite comfortable to ignore this obvious disconnect between his words and his actions.
You say ” Mr. Alinsky said many quotable things.” Your own statement…
… is eerily similar to Alinsky’s owns words in part of his 1972 Playboy interview:
Perhaps you are intimately familiar with Alinsky’s writing, and agree. Or not. But I agree… there are many nefarious characters that have quotable quotes… including Nikita Khrushchev
I suggest we are dangerously close to that prescient statement already.
Obama, today, uses Alinsky’s quotes, passed off as utopian ideals, to gain support for his policies. They form the very foundation of his view towards government’s role in the citizen’s life. This does not suggest that Obama’s socialism philosophy “faded out” along with the New Party.
Like Khrushchev’s statement, I interpret Obama’s use of these quotes as a warning shot over the bow. And combined with the other “fuzzy factoids” I mentioned above, it solidifies a proven pattern in Obama’s political philosophy.
The Alinsky quotes used extensively by Obama and his wife in their respective campaign trail speeches were excerpts from Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals”…. the handbook for mass organization to seize power… oddly enough by the government to act on behalf of “the people”.
As a history major, I should not have to point this out to you. The inherent problem is giving the government that much power… most especially thru seizing the earnings of it’s citizens… historically leads to an elite, corrupt hierarchy, and dirt poor citizenry. Instead of financial classes based on ambition and achievement of a wide variety (which we have today), we end up with only two classes under socialism/Marxism/Communism (the first two being the steps to the last).
In a socialist world, opportunity and rewards for achievement are dashed. The quotes are lofty words in ideology, yes. Unfortunately, you cannot mandate charity in man, and as long as humans walk the earth, the quintessential utopia is but a dream. History has proven any attempt to achieve such a utopia via government is a devasting failure for the common man.
Then you say:
How bizarre is that statement since you and Obama are advocating placing *more* power in the oligarchs that control our lives… and in fact expanding the areas of our lives that they will control.
As the Annenberg Challenge (i.e. his educational policies), his health, energy and tax policies show, Obama is far from mainstream on capitalism and the free market. The “social and economic justice” that is the foundation of his education policies is straight from the Rosa Luxemberg/William Ayers tact to indoctrinate future generations into socialism. Hardly mainstream capitalism… which is the heart of the American opportunities.
Like Obama, you have decided taxation of a segment of the population “is just” and “they can afford it” I’m not sure where you, or Obama, have decided you are the authority to decide how much citizens can earn, and how their earnings should be spent. That 5% may be enough to expand their business, and add more jobs. But that choice is now removed from their power by those such as you and Obama. For in your opinion, the government knows better how to spend the taxpayer’s earnings.
Hardly “mainstream” American attitude.
That you believe Obama’s soundbytes of his tax policy without further research is somewhat naive. Obama’s “tax cut” is actually a spending increase, according to the Tax Policy Center.
Devil in the details, sandormatyo. If there is one thing Obama is good at, it’s raising and spending vast amounts of other people’s money. And he is very careful to pick out only the perceived benefits – a half truth at best – to fool the faithful into a lulled sense of entitlement to government gifts.
The very principle of determining how much a citizen can be allowed to earn before mandating government charity is a dangerous one to implement in our government policies. And once we hit that slope, it’s all downhill from there. For our own good, and increased government control, it will only encompass more and more of the workers’ earnings… of all classes. Obama, Ayers and ilk, are determined to wage class warfare.
There is no such thing as just a little bit of socialism is good. It’s a stealth monster that, as we can see in our own country’s history, just grows into a huge ineffective, money hungry monster as time goes on.
Our increased steps into government welfare and power over the decades have set the stage today for US citizens not see socialism as the dangerous animal it is. By your entire post, I can only assume that you fall into that group of citizens blind to our move to socialism.
… or else this is what you desire.
Ooops.
Somebody spilled the bold.
@Uddercha0s: Im going to teach them about all of it, including the bad, just like how the americans STOLE and KIDNAPPED africans, to be slaves. Then I’m going to teach them how wrong it is. If we don’t learn from our history we are doomed to repeat it.
Voter,
I assume you are going to forget to teach that it was Dutch slave traders buying slaves from Islamic Africans. Am I wrong? Will you also teach them about how America fought a war (the only country to do so) which ended slavery? Will you teach them who put blacks in the Supreme Court? Secretary of State? Chairman JCS? Will you teach them wha tthe leftists did to these people? Will you teach them that there are still countries who have legal slavery (and the US is not one of them)?
Will you teach them that families like mine risked eerything and gave their lives bringing freed slaves through the Underground Rail Road?
Or is my assumption correct?
I see a lot of fake history here and fake Identification. Obama was never “lower class”, nor did his ancestors share the American Slave tradition. What Obama IS however is a died in the wool totalitarian socialist whose followers are fanatically loyal.
Even Howard Stern, in a rare case of saying something which makes sense, noticed this. His “man on the street” interviews switched Obama’s amd McCain’s positions (he said Obama stood for things attributed to McCain) and the responders where whole-heartedly for Obama, even saying that Palin would be a great VP.
Obama is packaged and his followers blind. Obama’s associations make up who he is. His “present” votes in congress will not work if he becomes President. There are no teleprompters when reality smakes us in the face and ground commanders need guidance now.
Many things scare me about Obama. His race is not one of them, yet that is all I hear about from his attack adds… Ok that and lying about McCain’s health plan.
I hear rampant class warfare, taxing and punishing achievement. I hear a terrifying speach about a “Civilian National Security Force”. I hear Obama honestly surprised that Soldiers like me who are deployed in warzones get to choose what they want to watch on TV. I hear the associations and sometimes a half-hearted denouncement only AFTER the associations are brought to life. I hear the threatening of TV and radio stations if they allow adds critical of Obama. I hear that any criticism of Obama is “racist” yet it is just fine for the left to call anyone else any horrible thing. I see “anarchists” attacking RNC delegates at their convention but calling conservatives “hateful” because some reporter makes up “kill him” stories (denied by both the Secret Service and police). I hear Obama and his supporters saying “just you wait” on his own website/blog. And I see black conservatives who are freed of the leftist plantation brutally attacked for not toeing the race line and voting Obama. Yet somehow the left does not consider that racist.
Hmmm.. some revisionist history?
@RgularJoe: I’m working on a response to our convo.
God help your kids if you are home schooling, Erika/voter. For your knowledge of history is deplorable.
Slave trade for Africans and English women (yes… white English women were also sold…) was started by the Dutch traders.
Or perhaps you thought those colonialists were busy sailing all over the seas looking for slaves?
Duh…
Will this include teaching them how the slave trade wasn’t exclusive to just America? That Arabs and Africans had a heavy-hand in it, and that the first anti-slavery movement began in the West?
The moral question of slavery only came up amongst western powers; not in Asia, not in Arabia, not in Africa; but in the West… namely, among the British and American colonialists.
LOL! I see four of us, johnny on the spot with history lessons…. ChrisG, you get the prize, beating two of us by 3 minutes. Honorable mention for Word, bringing in the morality issue.
So does this mean voter/Erika was a grad of an Obama/Ayers school of philosopy??
@voter:
Are you going to teach them how Obama’s ancestors engaged in the slave trade?
@voter: Are you going to teach them about the slave trade that is stilgoingon in Africa, Middle East and Asia????? Mainly young women that are forced into protistution.
Where did you learn your history of the Slave Trade???? Whoever taught you about it did a piss poor job of it.
The African on the coast of Africa (mainly Muslim), went on raiding parties to the interior of Africa, then sold them to the Dutch. Then they would eventually sail them to the Americas.
And guess what it is still happening in Africa and the Middle East and Asia. You do not see it in Western Society
What breathtaking moral reasoning — The Dutch and the Africans made us do it. The entire economy of the American South was based on owning human beings as property, and the best you can do is point your finger at the Dutch and Africans?
Here, try this analogy on for size — the police catch a child molester who has been keeping a child as his property and using the child for sexual gratification. When the cops arrest him he says, “Why are you guys harassing me. That guy down the street sold the kid to me. It was a bargain. What do you expect me to do, pass it up?”
Stix,
Before you accuse people of being piss poor historians, you need to check your own facts. Sexual slavery and human trafficking are far from exclusively non-Western activities. They are going on here in the United States and in Europe. And don’t try to tell me it’s being carried on only by non-Caucasians.
Dave,
Congrats on, yet again, being dead wrong in your moronic attacks. Slavery, in any form, IS and always will be wrong. You again trot out your ignorance and partisan attacks for all to see.
No one SAID it was confined to one group. However, ANTI-slave and ANTI-human trafficing groups have come mainly from the “Evil” West. Yes, we have evil people in Europe and the US who steal kids and even try to buy them. Punishment is severe, though some say not severe enough. You analogy is idiotic at best and insultingly pathetic as it is.
Large scale human trafficing is MAINLY in Islamic African countries (like Sudan), but is also in SE Asian nations (Indonesia, Thailand and others). We have issues in Mexico where illegals get kidnapped and others in the US where criminals steal babies to sell or other nefarious actions. MAINLY does not mean “100%” (you must be using Obama’s comercial counting method).
And yes, where there is slavery, it must be destroyed. Just as piracy must still be fought. Being free is difficult and the costs are high. So guess what, if, for some odd reason, slavery still existed today in the US, people like me would, as they were in the 1800s, be running underground railroads and getting slaves to where they could be free. We would sacrifice and we would die.
As the US doe not have this issues, people like me volunteer as Soldiers to free others who are held slaves (that whole “injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere” thing). And all we and our CiC get in return from people like you is lie after spoon fed partisan lie about our motives, education levels, actions, and intentions. All the while our enemies, who ARE the ones who wish to enslave the world (and if you look at a the human traficing show up as perpetrators in many-but not all-areas) are put on a damn pedistal and called “minutemen” and other utter BS.
Chris,
Like far too many on this blog, you respond with empty knee-jerk insults to legitimate comments. Too bad John McCain couldn’t get away with that last night. On this blog it makes you look like a tough guy defending the FA sanctum from the liberal hoards. In the court of public opinion your kind of response is seen for what it is – fulmination instead of facts, sputum in place of specifics, and angst rather than argument.
Further, why do my comments have anthing to do with who I intend to vote for?
And please, what the hell is this about:
“As the US doe not have this issues, people like me volunteer as Soldiers to free others who are held slaves (that whole “injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere” thing). And all we and our CiC get in return from people like you is lie after spoon fed partisan lie about our motives, education levels, actions, and intentions. All the while our enemies, who ARE the ones who wish to enslave the world (and if you look at a the human traficing show up as perpetrators in many-but not all-areas) are put on a damn pedistal and called “minutemen” and other utter BS.”
You can stop shoving your service in my face. I said absolutely nothing about soldiers like you, or your education levels, actions, and intentions. Whenever someone starts a sentence with “people like you,” you can be sure nothing smart will follow. I am a twenty-year veteran of the Air Force. Unless you working on 30 plus, I suspect I was defending my country while you’re were still playing snap the towel in the high school locker room. I never, here or anywhere else put our enemies on a pedestal or called them “minutemen” (whatever that means).
Stop and think next time before you rant, Chris.
Follow the last line of your own advice Dave and read. We were correcting the blantent innacuracies another poster made. There was no moral equivalence, just correction. I thought I made that clear, though I guess not.
I said “people like you” as I only know you from your posts and the other leftists on the site (and the left’s statements and actions in general). Do you fit the Micheal Moore bill? And no, I am not “shoving” my 16 years in your face. I AM however stating that IF the world was still in the dark ages, that I would be doing what my ancestors did but since it is not, I am doing what I can now. I also stated that the left would probably stab me in the back as they are now. You tend to side with them so, thus the “people like you”. Again, I though I made that clear.
Your statement above to another poster and myself is EXACTLY what you accuse me of being. You must excuse my “angst” at the left as I am damn sick and tired of their lies and associations.
However, you need to think about your own statements and realize I think you are projecting.
Stop and think next time before you rant, Dave.
Chris,
I read Voter’s post. There were no blatant inaccuracies. I return to my child molester analogy. Because someone else sold him the child, is it a blatant inaccuracy to say he “kidnapped” the child? I suggest to you he would be criminally charged with just that. But regardless of what Voter said, it’s shoddy morality to try to deflect attention from your crime by saying you had an accomplice.
There is all the difference in the world between responding specifically to what someone has said, even though in the process you may be hitting them hard, and doing what you did –Starting your post off with reflexive references to someone’s moronic ignorance, just because you disagree with their politics. Your post had nothing to do with what I said and everything to do with how you feel about “people like me.”
I’m sorry about your “angst.” Deal with it. Do you think outrage is the exclusive province of conservatives. Ever been to a liberal blog? If not, I suggest you try jousting with someone who doesn’t agree with you. There’s nothing like a good verbal duel to release your tensions.