The Problem With Obama's -- Not Wright's -- Vision

Link
03/19/2008

"These policies are legalized abortion, which allows unborn children to be killed, and granting same-sex unions the same legal status as marriage, including the "right" to adopt children, which results in children being denied either a mother or a father by the deliberate policy of the state."

From the article:

QuoteKing, an African American Baptist clergyman, explained his vision in the Letter from Birmingham Jail, where he referenced not only the Declaration of Independence, which was drafted by a Deist...

I'm pretty sick and tired of people rewriting history to suit their fancy.  Yes, Jefferson was a Deist. Many of the principles of our republic were profound Deists including George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine. 

Richard Hooker, a prominent historian has written:

"Deists believed that if God created a rational universe, a universe that could be understood by human reason alone, that must mean that God was rational as well. If God is rational, then God can be understood through the use of reason without recourse to mysticism, superstition, prayer, or even the divinity of Christ. The Deists set out to replace Christianity with its ceremonies, devices, and supernatural aspects...."

Here's what Jefferson had to say about Christianity:

"I have examined all the known superstitions of the word, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth."

From the article:

Quote
This is precisely what the Founding Fathers were saying when they cited "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God" and insisted that all men "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights."

Now here is a perversion of all men "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights".  When I read this, I take it to mean that ALL of mankind (including women) should be offered the SAME civil rights as anyone else.  Please take note that the term Creator was used and not Christian God.  Jefferson was careful to NOT EXCLUDE anyone.  It's also interesting to note that the word "God" exists no where within the constitution.  Isn't the constitution the foundation upon which our government is established?

John Adams signed the Treaty of Tripoli which says in Article 11:

"The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."

Tomas Paine wrote:

"It is the duty of every true Deist to vindicate the moral justice of God against the evils of the Bible."   and "The Christian church has set up a religion of pomp and revenue in pretended imitation of a person (Jesus) who lived a life of poverty."

James Madison wrote:

"Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."

It should also be noted that most people in the colonies were members of no church (93 percent) at the time the Declaration of Independence was written.  Many of the people who migrated to the colonies did so to secure freedom from religious persecution.

I find it unwise to let a few religious zealots rewrite our history.  They misrepresent the facts and our citizenry is too lazy to check the facts.  Our nation's founders may not have been religious people. But they were wise enough to realize that men will have their beliefs and they must be allowed to follow them free from the persecution from the government.  Religion was written out of our constitution as a result.

No, ours is not a Christian nation. It is a nation where Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, and many others may freely exercise their option to worship however they want.... but beware.... "Don't tread on me."

Cindi

You do know we are electing a President, not the head of the parish committie on faith.  I'm tired of al this religion, when we have major financial problems, major foreign policy problems, a failing infrastructure, and on, and on.

Well, since Religion has played a big part of Obama's personality till now and
Wright's also a big part of that, I think that this was bound to happen
and the way he responded is not very convincing.

The problem with Obama is that he's never really been vetted by the press
or the GOP and had been walking on a momentum cloud for months,
and thus, he's never had to respond to the kind of attacks
Clinton has had to face continuously for 16 years.

I find that Obama reacts kinda badly to crisis and lets hope there are
no more ammunition in his closet because the GOP will find them, even
if Clinton doesn't use them.

Quote from: Cindi Jones on March 19, 2008, 08:05:33 PM
No, ours is not a Christian nation. It is a nation where Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, and many others may freely exercise their option to worship however they want.... but beware.... "Don't tread on me."

Brilliant post Cindi. I wish more people would take the time to know the history of their country. It could save us all a lot of grief, just maybe. And that doesn't just go for the US. South Africans, Brits, the rest of the world - all of us are guilty of not even bothering to learn about the mistakes of the past, much less learn from them.

The most interesting argument has been if "freedom of religion" includes "Freedom from religion." 

And its more than slightly misleading to say they were not members of a church in colonial times - there were few churches to belong to.  But that did not mean they were not people of faith, did not host the preacher who was riding the circuit, didn't go to tent meetings and all the rest. 

And, I wonder (and have been for a long time now) if all this junk ain't just smoke and mirrors to keep people from looking at real issues and real problems.

Keira,

I'll take this opportunity to respectfully disagree with your perspective.  We of all people know what true discrimination is.  Some of us more than others have experienced it first hand.  Wright's comments are completely misunderstood when taken out of context. On the whole, we do not understand anything about the black community in our country. We have no idea.  Really.

We, ourselves, have condemned the actions of our country in murdering innocents in the conflicts in which we are engaged.... and God would certainly do the same for the individuals responsible.  I understand the pent up frustrations of the black community in this time in which they have been sorely neglected in the Katrina debacle and the recent mortgage crunch where they have been particularly hit. It's nothing new. It has happened since the inception of our great country.

I find it sad, that Obama had to come before the public and apologize for the black community's reaction to discrimination.  Can you imagine?  He has responded quickly and wisely, directly confronting one of the issues that no one has dared discuss in public.  His speech was superbly crafted, to the point, and inspirational.  I believe that it will stand in history as one of the great speeches of all time.  It will be required reading in history classes some day.

Yes, the media will fully vet him.  They will attempt to find every tidbit of religious, racial, and sexual fodder they can dig up.  It's truly unfortunate that they will make no attempt to go through his congressional record and tally his votes on important issues to present to us.  I can assure you, that he will face the most thorough "vetting" that any candidate will ever face... because you see.... he is black.

I will happily vote for either Hillary or Obama in the general election. But at this time, I am truly enraged for these "vettings" that have little relevance for the issues our candidates are having to deal with.

Cindi

I kinda feel bad that OB had to fall into the trap of speaking to it, he might find it hard to get out now that its opened.

Cindi, you are very naive to the political process in the US
if you think the opposition won't use anything to make
a point or divide or whatever.

Its been going on since the very start, hundreds of years ago.

As for the Wright,
even when putting things in context,
his speaches are unfathomable.
There's a limit to how much history you
can drag into the present if you want
a person to be a person.

There's plenty of overt sex descrimination
and women are 50% of the population,
and that has led some fringe feminists
to advocate pretty extreme things.
But, I don't see Clinton currently
attending their meetings...

I can't believe for one second Obama didn't know
that Wright's positions wouldn't come back to haunt him.
If that was so, Obama would not ready for prime time.
Just imagine what they did to Kerry, a
decorated veteran!!
That was not right at all, but the GOP used this
to skew a few percent their side, that's all
they need to get elected, they don't
need to change the minds of the core
democrats audience, only the 10% in the middle
that can go either way.

Anyway, its US politics and Obama has to live with it.
And, while Obama's speach is OK.
I feel he's much better at speachwriting than
decisive action. He did as poor PR job on
this. It just took him too long to respond
properly; in PR, a few days is a lifetime.

I think Obama made a great tactical error in not distancing himself very early on from Wright.  And I agree that his explanation is not likely to convince many, because first impressions are hard to change.  He needed to do this proactively.  Wright is a lunatic, pure and simple.  And it has nothing to do with his religion.  Most of the outlandish things he talks about have nothing to do with any religion and everything to do with drumming up racial hatred.  I know a good number of UCC folks who consider themselves marginally Christian anyway.  I can only imagine that Obama had to cling to his church, at least through the election,  to try to dispel what the media would say about his Muslim ancestry.  I am just waiting till the other side starts calling him by his full name and the country reacts emotionally to the name Hussein.  You watch:  It will have a field day with that.  But let's face it...both candidates are soon to be blasted.  That is the time we live in.  Can you imagine if JFK had been held to the scrutiny that Bill Clinton was? 

Kristi

The political process in America is about money.  Lots of money.  Anything else is stupid. Naive is just a stopping point.  Do you really think that race matterers more than class.  Get a grip mary.

Keira and Kristi,

You both make excellent points.  And yes, I am totally naive.  I don't pretend to be so either.  I've seen candidates ruined for petty things... over and over... and yet, I am still naive to believe that it need not be this way.

We, as transgender people, will never be able to explain and help someone on the outside understand the unique problems that we face.   They may be sympathetic and they may campaign for us but they will never truly feel what we have felt.

I was a member of a religion many years ago.  It was vocal in its undertones and behind closed doors.  It was secretive in its practices and policies. It was racist. I served a two year mission for this church and my mother paid for it. While serving I contracted typhoid fever, had all of my teeth drilled by an incompetent dentist, and had my backside ruined for the rest of my life with what should have been a simple surgical procedure. The reason I had these medical problems was not that I was in a foreign country with poor living conditions and unscrupulous medical professionals.  Oh no... it was because my faith was lacking.  I was told so by my church leaders.  My family and I believed them.

This shining example of Christiandom stripped me of my family, job, and my very eternal life.  It publicly humiliated me when I was outed for being transsexual.  And yet with all of this, I still truly believed.  I would go crawling back for more.  Finally, I reached a point where my transsexualism and my church could no longer coincide.  I left Utah with a gut wrenching decision that I would surely go to hell and I moved to California with a crippling debt and financial problems that would follow me for years.  Even after they excommunicated and had driven me away, they sent people to my home in California to convince me to repent and return. I moved several times and yet they still followed me. You know, in this church, that's how they completely break you.  You are set up for a fall, they excommunicate you, kick you while you are down, and then have the nerve to expect you to repent, come back and sit in the rear pews in virtual shackles for two years before you can again rejoin.  Numbers of people thus humiliated do come back, even more entrenched with a cultist view and attitude.

Kristie and Keira, you have a healthy attitude towards religion.  You have been able to see the good in it and choose for yourselves how you will accept that which is offered to uplift your lives.  I could not do this.  I was a cultist.

Now, I don't believe that Obama is a cultist.  But I use my own personal example to demonstrate just how much power religion can hold over someone.  Obama has been a member of this church for decades. I remember the marches organized by Martin Luther King.  I remember the Black Panthers. I remember the speeches against "the man" (meaning white America).  I remember hearing speeches by black leaders that were inspiring and I remember many that were violent.  I remember the conflicts between black America and the turmoil that we whites dismissed as behavior befitting the "monkeys they were". That's how we viewed them when I was growing up.  The common sayings in my neighborhood were that "we should just shoot them all and be done with it" or "we should ship them all back to Africa".  We even circulated jokes about lynching them.  What a disgrace.

We truly have no understanding of what the blacks feel and how they live in this country.  I have a hint from the times I lived in poor neighborhoods, from having a very few friends, and from what I remember from various life experiences.  Racism is alive and well, still, in this country.  They face it every day just as we face bigotry with our condition.  The difference, is that  we are not organized.  The organizations, clans, clubs, and churches remember far better than one person remember far too well. That memory will last for decades and centuries.  Just look to the Arab countries to see how powerful these memories can be.

Would you leave a religion that is so bigoted and racially motivated?  I did only because they excommunicated me.  I did not go back.  But the experience nearly killed me.  I felt guilty for years about the whole affair.  So here is the question in several parts...

Would you leave your church for hate speech under the circumstances of a long held belief (fully justified) that your people had long lived under the hammer of active discrimination and murder?  Let's expand our view of "the religion".  Would you and could you leave a company for which you worked who had disregarded human life in favor of profit?  Or... let us go even further... would we willfully belong to a country directly responsible for willful destruction of property and death of innocents?

If you did live in such a place where you belonged to such a religion, worked for this company, and were a citizen of this country... just what would you do?  What would you think others would expect you to do?  Would you extricate yourself from the situation and move away from it or would you take the higher ground to stay and work within the system to change it?

I will agree with you on many points.  Racism is racism and it matters not from which side it comes. However we have this pesky thing of history and culture to deal with.  We will either live to work to change these things or we will run away from them.  They must be changed.

I will accept Obama's statement that he completely and unequivocally rejects these racist remarks as those he holds to be true.  I believe he felt compelled to come to us representing all of black America and had the audacity to apologize to US for they wrong THEY have long suffered and which they continue to suffer.  Between the words I felt his strong message that it is time for reconciliation (check out the reconciliation in South Africa after the fall of the white government). It is time to heal those wounds and move forward.  I felt his compassion and resolve to work through these issues and leave bygones behind in the history books.

Now, can we listen to his speech, understand the facts, and formulate our own decisions?  Or do we sit back and listen to the pundits blend this up all in a drink that tastes good but smells bad? Do we exercise our abilities to form our own opinions?  Do we look deep down inside ourselves and learn to find the compassion and understanding to stand next to someone who is willing to face the racial divide to build that big bridge?  I think that we as a people are ultimately up to the task.  Yes, I am still naive enough to believe that ultimately, we will do so.  We can set aside our differences.  We can take those things ingrained into our very souls and learn to accept each other.  We can overcome our own entrenched personal views and change them.

Cindi

Are you so naive that you don't think he represents the same ruling class that has always held sway?  What exactly happened to the people who had an other point of view.  I sure dont' see them in the elect (slect) three.

Quote from: tekla on March 22, 2008, 12:14:57 AM
Are you so naive that you don't think he represents the same ruling class that has always held sway?  What exactly happened to the people who had an other point of view.  I sure dont' see them in the elect (slect) three.

Very true Tekla. However, any port in a storm, even if it is Pirate Cove. Obama won't change the overall status quo, but at least we might see some movement in the right direction on equal rights and engagement  across the table rather than on the battlefield as far as foreign policy goes. At this point, ANYTHING slightly more moderate than a neocon will do. But I grant that, for real change, you'd need a revolutionary at the helm for that. Wonder if Fidel wants to come out of retirement and run for office in the US maybe...  >

Quote from: tekla on March 22, 2008, 12:14:57 AM
Are you so naive that you don't think he represents the same ruling class that has always held sway?  What exactly happened to the people who had an other point of view.  I sure dont' see them in the elect (slect) three.

I'll just quote myself to answer that question.

Quoteyes, I am totally naive.  I don't pretend to be so either.

and

Quote... and yet, I am still naive to believe that it need not be this way.

OK. so what do we have?  Three people who have never managed anything more than thier their own (re)election.  Damn fine.  And were were the people who could, in fact, manage government?  Must have been too busy this year.

Tekla,
Ouch!  That is, to me, the biggest problem with this election.


Cindi my dear,
One of the things I so appreciate about you is that you have taken a terrible situation and eventually used your experience to make both yourself and the world a better place.  I hope you always have that wonderful naive sense to your being.  That is the kind of visionaries we need. 

You need to know that I work with immigrants to this country every day.  I know what that life is like, better than most.  They come from all over the world.  And I also work with those who are trying to recover some sense of spirituality after being burned by some really hellish religious systems.  I also have some very deep personal connections with what happened with MLK and his letter from the Birmingham jail.  (History is finally starting to be able to assess that both sides of those events.)  So I don't even pretend to come to this conversation in an unbiased way.  Yes, I agree, racism is alive and well today.  And it is wrong, no matter where it comes from or why. 

Further, I have a rather unhealthy attitude towards religion quite often.  I have seen its effects.  At times I have been on the wrong side of it.  However, I believe I have healthy attitude towards God.  While these two are not necessarily mutually exclusive, they are nevertheless separate issues.

FWIW, I have never though Obama to be any kind of a racist.  Unfortunately, in this country, that is not the issue.  It should be, but it is not.  You have more faith in the American public than I do.  By his association with Wright, IMHO, Obama has lost the trust of many who have absolutely no interest in looking past the junk food information they are fed by the fast food, sound bite media.  I wish I could be certain that all of these folks would be diligent in studying the issues for themselves.  I just highly doubt it.  I really hope your naiveté is proven to be correct, and I am wrong.

Kristi

The other day, everyone was praising the Obama speech.  It was good, and he is an excellent public speaker.  But, it was not "on the same level as I Have A Dream" something I've heard several people - in the media, and in real life say.  King was talking about a movement and an injustice to millions and millions of people carried on over centuries.  Obama was trying to bail himself out.  King's speech was about social change on a fundamental level, Obama was about getting elected.  King was speaking for a mass of people, Obama, was merely being self serving and that's a huge difference. 

As much as I might wish that Obama is something new, I have little faith that anything 'new' gets this far in the process.  Anyone watching has seen a few candidates - some dumb beyond belief (I'm thinking Fred Thompson here - whose qualification for President was that he played some powerful guys in movies, yeesh) getting coverage for just being in the process, while anyone talking about ideas, values, or solutions to problems - some of which have us teetering on the brink of total collapse - have been pushed to the sidelines and not covered at all.

Our military has been gutted.  It could not respond if it had too.  It has been so devastated by Iraq that it can't even respond to natural disasters in this, our own country.  Officer retention - critical to a strong military - is at an all time low.  The vice president the other night, when told that 65% of the American public did not support the war replied "So?"  Got to love that "government of the people" stuff don't ya?

Our production ability has been shipped overseas, at a tax break for those who did it.  While our natural resources were all but given away.

Our debt, run up to astronomical levels, has been sold to China, by which, it was sold to the Red Army.  That does not bother anyone?  China, knowing that the people in Washington will not do or say anything massacred people in Tibet last week.  Coverage?  Nah, Olympics as usual.

Our currency, once the most valuable in the world is now approaching squat.  A friend of mine just got back from Europe.  Some currency exchanges will no longer even take dollars.  A cup of coffee or two and a roll in a Paris Starbucks (yes, there are such things) will cost you about $25. 

Gas has not really got more expensive, the dollar just buys less.  Gas has kept pace with gold more or less for the last 8 years.  Despite that, oil consumption keeps going up.  Conservation, does not exist, no plans are being made to deal with a crisis we all know full well is coming down the tracks at us like a freight train coming down the mountain.

The housing market is in free fall, the number of foreclosures is at an all time high, from McMansions to trailer parks. In some places entire neighborhoods have been foreclosed, well, 80% of the houses in them.  However, if you have a bank, watch the federal government rip its underwear trying to dig money out of its pockets for you.

So, given these six (and I could have gone on, and on, and on) problems, what do we hear?  Hillary is a woman, Obama is black and McCain is a POW.  Like any of that makes any difference at all.  I love it when the TV guy tells me that Obama is African American and that Hillary is a woman - gosh, I'm watching them on TV, I kind of knew that. But these problems, what about them?  Oh never mind, Obama is black you know.  Hey, what about the record number of financial institutions that have gone under in the past two years?  (and the ones that almost did except that the oil sheiks bailed out Citibank with a loan that even Vinny and Guido from Jersey would have been ashamed to write for the mob, and my bank, Washington Mutual was bought out by a guy in Brazil, and that might not even help it, given the amount of bad paper it's carrying...)  What?  Oh yeah, Hillary is a woman.  Right, I got that.

People applying for entry level jobs renting video tapes have to have better qualifications then these three do.  The job is defined in the Constitution (something none of these people seem to read at any rate) as "Chief Executive."  Might we then inquire about what, if anything, these people have ever administrated?  Nope.  Better not.  "Ready On Day One"?  I doubt they - any of them, will be ready on year eight.  Hillary, well she was married to a guy who except for the fact that the current resident of 1600 Penn. Ave. is as dumb as a bag of hammers would be the worst president any of us have ever seen.  And while she was there (and he was doing fat girls) what exactly did she do to qualify?  Health Care?  Ooooh, a record unstained by success for sure on that one.  Obama?  Quick, name on piece of legislation he wrote and got passed - oh hell, omit the got passed deal, I will settle for one attempt.  None.  Hey, but Oprah likes him, what more do you need?  And McCain, he was a POW remember - even if he gets Iran and Iraq mixed up (while he is standing in one of them for pete's sake) and can't tell the difference between the Suni and ->-bleeped-<-e sects in this, the defining war of our time?  Oh  details.