Obama: the man who wasn’t there
As I was going up the stair
I saw a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish, he’d stay away.
The above ditty, “Antagonish,” is a children’s poem written at the turn of the twentieth century. At this point, Obama probably would like to apply it to his tarnished relationship with his erstwhile pastor, Jeremiah Wright. But I think it also applies to Obama himself, who is in some ways a man who wasn’t—and isn’t—there.
Obama has now repudiated the fire-breating minister Wright, and accepted his resignation from a position with the campaign. The gist of Obama’s explanation for why he tolerated Wright’s inflammatory statements for so long is that he was unaware of them.
Twenty years in the congregation, and Obama’s designation of Wright as his “spiritual advisor,” makes one a bit skeptical of this claim. But perhaps it is true; the Anchoress cuts him some slack, and I defer to her greater knowledge of pastors and priests and disagreements, and the importance of a church community and the difficulty of leaving it.
That said, if you look at the comments on the Anchoress’s thread, you’ll see that many people take issue.
I understand what the Anchoress is saying. But it does seem extremely odd to me that Obama could sit for twenty years in those pews and claim never to have heard the most offensive of Wright’s rhetoric. We’re not talking about some mild (or even serious) dogmatic disagreements here—not whether a Catholic should use birth control or support capital punishment, for example. We’re talking hate-filled invective that appears to have not been a sometime thing, but part and parcel of many of the man’s public utterances.
The Wright/Obama flap spotlights two other phenomena, as well. The first is the power of the internet, specifically You Tube in this case. Would anything like this have been possible before we had the technology to easily make and disperse tapes of Wright’s preachings? I don’t think so.
The second is the fact that, although Obama seems politically savvy in some ways, his relative free ride until lately in the press has obscured the fact that he seems politically tone deaf (or perhaps arrogant, which may be the same thing) in others.
Did it never occur to him that his association with this pastor could be a liability? Maybe he’s telling the truth when he says he never heard these particular sermons, although it’s a bit hard to believe. But there’s no doubt he heard earlier about other controversies with Wright, such as the Farrakhan award, which should have put him very much on his guard. The repudiation should have come earlier in his campaign.
The way he dealt with the Farrakhan issue is telling. First he said he saw no reason to comment on the matter. This sort of response is in line with his “hey, I already answered eight questions” when asked about his relations with the indicted Rezko, or his many votes of “present” in the Illinois Senate when faced with controversial issues.
Later, Obama misrepresented (lied?) about what that award was for, saying it was based on Farrakhan’s work with ex-offenders. Once again, both disingenuous and tone deaf.
I just don’t see how Obama can claim lack of awareness when there were videos of Wright on You Tube as far back as January. In addition, according to Wright himself, Obama had said to him in February when Wright wasn’t allowed to give the invocation at Obama’s kickoff rally, “’You can get kind of rough in the sermons, so what we’ve decided is that it’s best for you not to be out there in public.”
Obama is famous for his vague platitudes, and for his lack of a solid record on which to base an evaluation of what he would be like as President. As the picture of Obama comes more clearly into focus, it appears that this fuzziness is no accident. Obama’s defense is always that he’s the man who wasn’t there. And I, for one, wish I wish he’d stay away.
Even if we give him some slack on this one point, how can you sit in the pews for 20 years and listen to everyone around you shout “amen!” to this? Even casual Sunday dinners with friends would be bound to include this sort of rhetoric.
“Oh, did you hear what Pastor Wright said today?”
Regular churchgoers understand what the media do not: either you were a nominal member who never attended and remained fairly disengaged, or you were the Pastor’s friend, had your kids baptized by him, and asked him to stand by you in your glorious rise to leadership.
I still say that this picture will now come back to haunt him, no matter his words.
Hillary and Bill Clinton have made a significant issue about how the press is treating Hillary unfairly in their hyper-critical reporting on her and their “softball” reporting on Barack Obama. Hillary maintains she has been fully investigated by the media and Barak hasn’t!
As the Tony Rezko trial begins in Chicago, Clinton and her surrogates are linking Obama to Rezko and the media is speculating about whether Obama will be called to testify as a witness in the case. Obama has always admitted he received $85,000 in contributions from Rezko which Obama has now donated to charity rather than keep.
Yet the civil fraud trial of Bill Clinton for defrauduing Hillary’s largest donor in 2000 into giving her campaign more than $1.2 million, pending in Los Angeles courts since 2003, is now preparing for a November, 2008 trial. The discovery that is now proceeding after a February 21 hearing, and the pending trial, have NEVER been announced by the mainstream media.
Hillary was able to extricate herself as a co-defendant in the case in January, 2008 after years of appeals to be protected by the First Amendment from tort claims arising out of federal campaign solicitations she made. Her abuse of the intent of California’s anti-SLAPP law after the California Supreme Court refused to dismiss her from the case in 2004 is emblematic of her contempt for the Rule of Law.
Hillary will be called as a witness in both discovery and the trial according to the trial court Judge who so-advised Hillary’s attorney David Kendall when he dismissed Hillary as a co-defendant in 2007. A subpoena is being prepared this month and will be served personally on Hillary, along with Chelsea, Pa Gov. Ed Rendell, Al Gore and other well known political and media figures.
Yet the media has refused to report about this landmark civil fraud case- brought by Hillary’s biggest 2000 donor to her Senate race, regarding allegations that were corroborated by the Department of Justice in the criminal trial of Hillary’s finance director David Rosen in May, 2005. That indictment and trial was credited as resulting from the civil suit’s allegations by Peter Paul, the Hollywood dot com millionaire Bill Clinton convinced to donate more than $1.2 million (according to the DOJ prosecutors and the FBI) to Hillary’s Senate campaign as part of a post White House business deal with Bill.
The media – except for World Net Daily- has also suspiciously refused to report on Hillary’s last FEC report regarding her 2000 Senate campaign, filed in January 30, 2006. In a secret settlement of an FEC complaint by the plaintiff in Paul v Clinton, Peter Paul, the FEC fined Hillary’s campaign $35,000 for hiding more than $720,000 in donations from Paul, and it required Hillary’s campaign to file a 4th amended FEC report.
In that report Hillary and her campaign again hid Paul’s $1.2 million contribution to her campaign and falsely attributed $250,000 as being donated by Paul’s partner, Spider Man creator Stan Lee, who swore in a video taped deposition he never gave Hillary or her campaign any money.
Lee did testify to trading $100,000 checks with Paul to make it appear he gave $100,000 to Hillary’s campaign (admission of a felony) but none of that has been reported by the “overly critical” media!
Where is the outrage from Obama that the press is engaging in a double standard relating to his possible role in the Rezko trial and his refunding the $85,000 contributed to his campaign by Rezko- which Obama has always admitted taking. The media makes no mention of Hillary’s role as a witness in Bill’s fraud trial for defrauding Hillary’s largest donor- and Hillary’s refusal to refund the $1.2 million she illegally received from Paul, which she has denied taking from Paul ever since the Washington Post asked her about Paul and his felony convictions from the 1970’s before her first Senate election in 2000?
Let the truth be told, see the video of Hillary commiting crimes at http://www.hillcap.org
And to those that like to get brainwashed by the media, like CNN (Clinton News Network) lets be real. We know churches are not 20 years talking about the same thing, the media gathered up those few clips. Do I think the pastor is a bit racist, there’s no doubt about it. But to link Obama with the Pastor, No. First of all, people are forgetting (Maybe because of his color) that OBAMA is WHITE and BLACK! As much as people want to make Obama un-American…. he is not. Youtube videos showing him not Pledge to the flag? First of all he and the audience were the only smart people that knew that was not the pledge of allegiance, plus was the only one singing it when Clinton and the others didn’t even know the song. I friend of mines I knew for 23 years murdered two people, I hate him for doing such stupidity, but he was part of the family, and I see him like twice every year. But that doesn’t make me a murderer. I never knew or seen my cuz do anything criminal. It didn’t make my wife switch her mind on being with me, that because I’m my own person. People should pay attention to what Obama says and not his pastor, so as much as you want to make it look like Obama is un-American. That is such a Clinton!!! in other words such a LIE! I mean just look at her latest lie about her experience with Children health care, BUSTED!!! The Clinton were forced by the real people in SCHIP and they weren’t ready, and now they are taking all the credit that they created it.
VISIT http://WWW.HILLCAP.ORG TO CHECK OUT THE VIDEOS OF HER COMMITTING CRIMES
It’s looking pretty good for McCain. The Dems have a liar running against a crooked liar. That’s gonna leave a mark…
Re: Rev. Wright’s church
To me, the problem is Rev. Wright’s does not render unto Caesar. Rev. Wright’s theology intertwines the spiritual with the political; intertwines the spiritual with economics, foreign policy, social policy, managed socialism vs. democratic freedom, et al, et al, et al times five hundred. To my knowledge, Rev. Wright doesn’t have a Rome type entity to guide him, or to tutor and coach him. Rev. Wright doesn’t have a national religious organization to answer to. To the best of my knowledge, Rev. Wright has self-created his own religious ideology. It is an ideology which celebrates the virtue of victimhood to an alarming extent.
When a religious ideology is openly designed to intertwine the spiritual and the political, then: where does the criticism of politics end, and criticism of religion begin? A tricky little question, that.
There is more to be thought through about this intriguing and very American situation. I’m confident there are several lessons to be learned(if only I could think what they are!).
Re: Obama
Barack, b/c
1) he is a cypher(a man who wasn’t there) who has spent his life encouraging people to believe what they want to believe about him, and b/c
2) he has a lifetime’s experience being protected from criticism via our national reflex to label criticism of black people as “racism”, and b/c
3) advancement attributable to his beauty and his charisma have resulted in hubris
has therefore failed to directly address issues which are potentially catastrophic to his candidacy.
Rev. Wright is THE PRIMARY EXAMPLE of an issue which could’ve been directly addressed, and fully handled, in Feb. 07. Instead, Barack tamped down controversy over Rev. Wright. This is what he does with everything controversial or threatening: he tamps down, tamps down, tamps down. He never directly addresses and fully handles an issue. His tamping down is incredibly, arrogantly hubristic. It is incredibly short-sighted and unwise. Barack obviously believes that – when such issues rearise in the future – his beauty and his charm and his charisma will allow him to tamp down, tamp down, tamp down, as often as he needs to. I suspect Barack also senses his status as a black man – aka an entity which is protected/innoculated by our culture’s reflex to shout “racism”, will further protect him from catastrophe. From Barack’s perspective: beauty and charisma and protected-from-criticism status have always worked before … therefore … why should they fail him now? Being “the man who was not there” has always worked before … why should it fail him now?
Well let’s see. We’ve learned recently that BO isn’t really against NAFTA, despite what he told the folks in the rust belt; and that he doesn’t really plan to skedaddle out of Iraq, no matter what he promised the anti war base. So I can’t think of a reason to believe anything that flips off his golden tongue.
So we’re left with a trail of his highly poisonous associates and that telling photo kindly supplied by Joan of A.
I think he very much is “there”. And the name of that there is abiding hatred against this country.
Neo:
“I understand what the Anchoress is saying. But it does seem extremely odd to me that Obama could sit for twenty years in those pews and claim never to have heard the most offensive of Wright’s rhetoric.”
Victor Davis Hanson makes a valid point inresponse to Obama when Obama says:
“But because Rev. Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community, where I married my wife and where my daughters were baptized, I did not think it appropriate to leave the church.”
…Hason says: “That makes it even worse, because now Obama hints that he might have been in fact aware of the Wright rhetoric, but gave him a pass because he was “on the verge of retirement,” as if the albatross were about to disappear anyway, and with it the cause of prior embarrassment.”
More VDH dismantling of Obama’s denouncement:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmE1M2U2NmQ3NzFlNDE1MmNlZDZkYjBjZjhiY2ZiYjQ=
My own mother supported Obama in the Illinois primary (fortunate son and all), but this has changed her mind.
I dont see how the Anchoress can rationalize Obama’s claim that he didnt know his spiritual advisor was a racist. So much for bringing people together.
You might want to see this column. It appears that Obama hasn’t yet learned that Denial isn’t a river in Egypt.
My Granfather was a bigot, but I loved him anyway. He was good to me and whatever his views, I always reminded myself that he was a man of his times.
But I am not running for President and if I were, I would not make him part of my campaign.
Barack has been dishonest and has shown bad judgment, that is the real issue. He tied himself to the whole liberation theology business because it was useful to him when he needed that sort of support to get going. Just like he needed people like Rezko. Now he wants to rise above it and we are just supposed to ignore the lunatic ranting God Damn America.
I understand what the Anchoress is saying, in fact she actually makes a comparison to Jindal..but unless Jindal puts someone on his campaign who thinks throwing widows on funeral pyres is a good thing..I really do not think the fact that his family came here from India and were Hindu before they converted to Catholicism…is anywhere near the same thing as Obama hanging out with this guy.
BTW, I grew up in the Southern Baptist Church. People change churches all the time for all sorts of reasons. That is what Obama should have done.
in the list of things that the church follows on their site is “progressive” which is code for communist, and “liberation theology”, which is marxist now too.
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Liberation Theology owes much of success to its allies among American clergy. Unable to withstand contemporary currents of power, these liberal religious leaders are swept up in the race to trade theology for Marxist ideology.
Throughout the 1960s, the major topic dominating the theological scene was secularization of the Gospel. Paul van Buren, author of The Secular Meaning of the Gospel, declared that the modern Christian must be a secular person with a secular understanding of existence. In other words, the world should dictate the content of the Christian message. With a secular savior, a secular mission, and a secular future, it was a short step to the “God-is-dead” theology of the later 1960s.
Then with a troublesome God out of the way, it was time to usher in Marx. So-called “theologians of hope,” like Jurgen Moltmann, called for a new understanding of the Kingdom of God where the future is shaped by the actions of men rather than the sovereignty of God.
Theologians from Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish ranks have embraced Liberation Theology as the answer for a secular society. While they vary in the degree to which they espouse Marxist ideology or in the religious terminology they employ, all liberation theologians share one common ground: They abandon some or all of their traditional, orthodox teaching. Perhaps most frightening, many young theologians are never exposed to any substantive theology in which God and the Scriptures still reign as absolute.
Professor Harvey Cox deserves special mention for his notable contribution to the Liberation Theology Hall of Shame. One of its most influential Protestant advocates of liberation, this Harvard Divinity School professor has authored several bestsellers including The Secular City.
Cox remolds theology to fit the collectivist goals of Marxism. For Cox, Christian theology is at work in historical events, particularly communist-controlled national liberation movements. Crusading for a Christian-communist dialogue, Cox wrote in 1966: “Nothing more exacerbates the global confrontation between East and West than the rhetoric that bills it as a duel to the death between God and atheism… A dialogue between Christianity and Marxism is now possible. Both are fascinated with the future and what it means for man’s freedom, maturation, and responsibility.”
In an essay for Marxism and Christianity, edited by Communist Party theoretician Herbert Aptheker, Cox asked, “Will Christians, who have preached the virtue of humility for centuries, be able to accept correction from Marxists?”
Cox has participated in pro-communist causes related to the Vietnam War, violent student protests, and “national liberation” struggles in Central America.
Joining Cox in pro-communist activism during the Vietnam War were other leftist Protestants including Presbyterian minister and Yale University Chaplain William S. Coffin. Coffin did not hesitate to endorse a much broader leftist platform in 1967, when he signed the call for a National Conference on New Politics, a united third-party movement largely controlled by the Communist Party. It is worth noting that Coffin studied at New York’s Union Theological Seminary, a bastion of embryonic Liberation Theology thinking.
Black American James H. Cone carried on the liberationist cause at Union Theological Seminary as the Charles H. Briggs Professor of Systematic Theology. Long influenced by identified communist Harry F. Ward, Cone’s devotion to the Ward tradition is clear in his books, including A Black Theology of Liberation and Speaking the Truth: Ecumenism, Liberation and Black Theology.
These works reveal Cone’s concept of a racial theology – a “black power” gospel.
Cone says that concepts essential to Marxism are “connected with the Christian idea of obedience and are identical with the horizontal implementation of the vertical dimension of faith.” He then quotes Jesus Christ to argue his point. This anti-Christian , Marxist, racist polemic was published by William B. Eerdmans of Grand Rapids (1986), a major source of Christian publications.
Charles H. Bayer, senior minister of the First Christian Church in St. Joseph, Missouri, is another leading purveyor of Liberation Theology. In his book, A Guide to Liberation Theology for Middle Class Congregations, Bayer admits the connection between Liberation Theology and Marxism.
Bayer’s chapters reek with Soviet versions of how communists came to power in places such as Cuba and Nicaragua. He argues that the Red Chinese depotism that has murdered an estimated 60 million Chinese since 1949 “has not only held out hope, but has significantly improved life for those who had been oppressed.”
The General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church (GBGM) has been a particularly ardent supporter of Liberation Theology. Bishop Roy I. Sano, President of GBGM, called it “blasphemous” for a United Methodist not to support Liberation Theology. He declared in 1984 that it is “profanity” in theology thinking when God’s salvation is seen only in acts of “reconciliation,” the forgiveness of sins, and rebirth in Christ.
================
there are a lot of these code terms that tell you what they are about so that those in the know, know what to support (and i suspect a number just add the name because like majic its more successful).
change, change agent, progressive, pragmatic, secular humanism, radical, etc.
you will find that when they run their speech is dotted with these terms, and if they actually said something meaningful you would notice it more. but worked in as the porpose you get these mindless things that bury them in the open.
Dancing from genisis
not recomending them, didnt even look, but its just to show a lot of people know what things mean.
Obama calls his religion the “social gospel,” which is another way of saying liberation theology, “power to the people,” and Obama’s cousin in Kenya, Raila Odinga, recently ran in and lost the election for president there, running with the same social gospel and revolutionary “power to the people” and “change” mantra-code-words for socialist government tyranny; in Odinga’s case in Kenya, his form of socialist tyranny was to be Islamic Sharia Law, which he promised to his muslim supporters if elected.
and outside they US they discuss it. even in india.
The Cross and the Communist
While violence was seen as antithetical to Christian values, the Marxist method of analysis was welcomed by many, said theologian, Julian Saldhana. It made Catholics realise that poverty, illiteracy and corruption were man-made and not God-ordained. “The new philosophy, however, placed too much emphasis on economic issues ignoring the vital spiritual dimensio of everyday life,” he added.
The Vatican came down heavily on the new theology. It condemned the connection with Marxism and sidelined senior clergy. Pope John Paul II was particularly bitter about priests who had joined the leftist Sandinista government as ministers in the 1980s.
In India, Liberation Theology failed to blossom into a strong movement due to various factors. The minority status of the Catholic groups meant that they were not able to communicate their ideas to other groups. They also came under attack from right-wing sections which found them to too radical while the mainstream Left was suspicious of them. In fact, some of the liberation activists were even dubbed “agents of the West” by the more hardline Leftists.
last post: from discover the networks.
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guideDesc.asp?catid=131&type=issue
Liberation theology gained currency through its appeal among elite theological students who were cloistered far from the workers and peasants in whose name they embraced this new doctrine. Their enthusiasm was heightened by the newfound respect that secular intellectuals were expressing for a version of Christianity that seemed to endorse socialism.
Prior to the advent of liberation theology, socialism and communism, because they were seen as essentially godless, had little appeal among religious Catholics. Authoritative Catholic teaching had a longstanding tradition in opposition to socialism. Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), in the first year of his papacy, devoted an encyclical against socialism which cited his predecessors. These had in turn built their position upon earlier Scholastics who stood in a line of orthodox theologians — rejecting collective ownership, embracing private property, and affirming business economies — that extends from the earliest centuries to the current day. But once socialism became wedded to churchmen’s calls for political activism as a means of serving the Deity’s underprivileged children, socialist theory seemed much more palatable to the faithful.
Because of their insistence that ministry mandated involvement in the political struggle of the impoverished against wealthy elites, liberation theologians were often criticized–not only by outside observers, but also from within the Roman Catholic Church–as purveyors of Marxism. In the 1990s the Vatican, under Pope John Paul II, began trying to slow the movement’s momentum through the appointment of more conservative prelates throughout Latin America.
Liberation theology as a doctrine was dealt a crippling blow by the market economics revolution that has swept through Latin America–or the localization of what is often called globalization. This development persuaded well-intended revolutionaries that a better means of helping the poor was available: not through revolution but through entrepreneurship.
I couldt find where to comment on Anchoresses site, but this her defense of her views…:
“I just hope when Bobby Jindal gets to run (please God, 2012) the fact that he is a Catholic Convert of Hindu parents – with all the imperfect clergy those two religions may provide for fodder – does not create a handy opening to destroy him.”
…doesnt quite make sense. If Bobby Jindal’s Catholic, Hindu, Tree Druid, what-ever, spiritual advisor has a history of making racial remarks, its fair game for a reason to go after the candidate. Its an amazing John McCain-like unwillingness to do the necessary thing to win. We’re talking about the Presidency. What is wrong with some of us?
Muslims Against Sharia call on Senators McCain and Obama to cut all ties with their racist, Islamophobic, and anti-Semitic supporters.
McCain: http://muslimsagainstsharia.blogspot.com/2008/03/mccains-spiritual-guide-destroy-islam.html
Obama: http://muslimsagainstsharia.blogspot.com/2008/03/racist-congregation-cheering-racist.html
if you will closely study your own posting on this issue i think you will conclued that you are taking the same stance on the subject as Obama. it’s as obvious as a thing can be that Obama is lying. what’s the matter with you? a little research, like reading his book, “The Audacity of Hope” will reveal he literally does discuss Wright’s points and accepts them. you might also listen to his wife’s hateful comments and Obama’s lame attempts to dress them up. do you have something against plain language?
as for “liberation theology” Wright’s and Obama”s take on the issue is a little simpler. the problem is “white folks.”
So…he’s asking us to believe he didn’t know the views of the man who’d been his spiritual mentor for 20 years?
Please.
Next he’ll be telling us he has no idea what his wife believes either. Maybe he’s in a coma.
Maybe Obama tolerated Wright because Obama’s a tolerant kind of guy.
What? You mean we in Ohio were lied to about NAFTA by Obama? No. I don’t believe it. The tooth fairy told me it was true!
“What? You mean we in Ohio were lied to about NAFTA by Obama?”
I heard it was some rich white guys.
Artfldgr Says: ……..
Very interesting comments and background about “liberation theology”, etc. Thanks for taking the time Art.
It’s hard to believe that half the country, in the form of the Democratic Party, is promoting and acquiescing in the current candidates and campaign. Then consider the global warming “debate”. I can’t help but feel that the MSM, more than any other critical group, has sold this country out. They need to have the truth crammed down their/up their respective… The intellectual malaise in this country is only going to recover when the MSM is forced to champion the truth above zealous political agendas and charades.
artfldgr,
Thank you for putting up all that information about Liberation Theology. As one who 30 years ago studied it, I can clearly see that this has seeped into parishes like Rev. Wright’s.
There is not much I would add to your multiple posts about this theology, because for some it would be rather arcane to the point of meaninglessness. The only objection I would have to the information posted is the credit it seems to give to Prof. Harvey Cox. I never liked Cox’s rendition of it; I never liked his writing because it lacked the kind of systematic rigor I prefer. When I was in the seminary most of us thought of him as not a serious theologian. His schtick seemed to us to be one who is trendy, not penetrating.
As you may have surmised from prior posts of mine, I eventually left the Society of Jesus. Not long afterwards I had changed my mind about using Marxism for any serious analysis of society because of both the fatal intellectual flaws in its method AND because of the huge amount of evidence I was beginning to appreciate regarding socialism’s failure.
There is one “liberation theologian” who I would not really consider to be one of that type whose work I do consider to be serious and rigorous. And it is not wedded at all to Marxist analysis in any definitive way. His thinking is systematic and I think faithful to the Thomistic tradition. His name is Juan Luis Segundo, S.J. Sorry that I’m partial to a Jesuit. Can’t help it. His best work, in my opinion, is called “Faith and Ideologies.” I liked it because it is philosophically serious, systematic, and is rather practical. He would say that if Marxist analysis is flawed, then don’t use it. Use other tools.
I still like Pope John Paul II’s encyclical, “Laborem Exercens.” It is a critique of both socialism and capitalism, from inside the long tradition of Catholic social teaching. It affirms the right to the private ownership of businesses, and yet also affirms the right of workers to collectively bargain their compensation. It calls for the faithful to discover ways in which labor can participate in ownership and have a stake in the business. Repeatedly, it admonishes reductionistic thinking on both sides of the divide. Above all it affirms that human beings are not means to an end, but are ends in themselves. They are not merely props for the state or the corporations. The worth and dignity of the human being impose a moral demand that the state and the business world simply cannot ignore. This encyclical, at the time, was a great help to the Solidarity Movement in Poland. And it should have been given more study in Harvey Cox’s office.
There are a myriad of interesting issues which attend this phenomenon, but I’ve digressed far from the topic of this thread.
I find that I agree with the article that appeared at the americanthinker.com today on Sen. Obama’s response to the criticism and controversy surrounding his pastor. I believe Sen. Obama is indeed dissimulating, and because of that even more red flags are raised about his fitness for the office he aspires to. He cannot but have at least known about and agreed with much of what his pastor believes in. Otherwise, why remain a parishoner of that church? His denials are unconvincing.
Obama is lying. Full stop. About Wright (20 years’ close association); about Rezko (17 years’ close association).
Just like Bill Clinton lied when he told the whopper about trying marijuana but “I didn’t inhale.”
Someone should tell the oleaginous senator that he can’t have his cake and sit in it, too.
Obama is famous for his vague platitudes, and for his lack of a solid record on which to base an evaluation of what he would be like as President. As the picture of Obama comes more clearly into focus, it appears that this fuzziness is no accident. Obama’s defense is always that he’s the man who wasn’t there. And I, for one, wish I wish he’d stay away.
Brilliant analysis!!!
“tone deaf”. May be, Asperger Syndrome?
Or other variety of High Functioning Autism? In that case, he may be sincere in his claim “not being there”.
“Yo, Dawg, it was okay, but you’re kinda pitchy on the important notes. I’m not feeling it, and frankly, at this point, you should be bringing your best game.”
/A.I.
Beautiful essay! Your framing with the Mearns (I had thought it was Edward Lear, but no!) is an inspiration. 🙂
The new question that’s emerged from this is, “who hate their country” and “who loves their country”
This is going to be very interesting.
Remember Obama saying, “We’re going to keep on praising together. I am confident that we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth.”
“The Dems have a liar running against a crooked liar.”
Obama’s lying, that’s for sure.
Check Gateway Pundit:
“BUSTED… Obama Knew Wright Was Wrong Last Year”
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/03/busted-obama-knew-about-wrongness-of.html
Am I the only one who is frankly terrified by the fact that there’s a very good chance the next President of the United States will be a man who sincerely hates this country and everyone in it?
We’ve survived inept administrations, corrupt administrations, even well-meaning but misguided administrations. But will we survive — literally survive — a deliberately malignant administration?
Barack Obama is the perfect apotheosis of liberal insanity. They really do hate us all. They really do want to see this country beaten, humiliated, impoverished, and wrecked. And now they’ve found the man for the job.
How can we stop this madness?
Here is a report on Obama in law school.
Obama has not changed his MO. The perpetual outsider, trying hard to fit in, trying hard not to offend anyone, Obama tries to be everything to everybody.
Obama isn’t the first politician to try to be everything to everybody. Bob Dylan sang about it in I Shall Be Free
But like many politicians, Obama is trying to tell us he isn’t one of those politicians. As for myself, I recall my downstate Illinois grandfather, who had good reasons for his lifelong distrust of Chicago machine politicians. Obama is one of them. Jimmy Carter is another politician who told us he wasn’t like those politicians. I made the mistake of voting for Carter the first time around. I will not make such a mistake again.
BO, change you can take to the bank….
I can’t keep up with everything these days, but I’m guessing that Austin Hill isn’t scamming on this on Townhall…
From:
Townhall.com
Marxism, American Christians, And Election 2008
By Austin Hill
Sunday, March 16, 2008
“To put it more succinctly, there is nothing “moral” about Obama’s plan to tax capital (not just earnings or profits or interest income, but, yes, he wants to now tax money in the bank), and there is no virtue in Hillary’s proposed governmental take-over of the automotive industry…”
Obama’s black father left at the age of two.
While Obama’s white mother raised him, ‘became an anthropologist, wrote a dissertation on peasant blacksmithing in Java, worked for the Ford Foundation, championed women’s work and helped bring microcredit to the world’s poor’.
So, when he says he repudiates the pastor we know he really hated his white heritage, because of his white mother’s poor parenting, or ethics, the fact that she hung around? Oh, whatever. Let the Hannity and Limbaugh wannabes figure it out.
Based on earlier posts here, heir Obama is on his way to being the next Fuehrer. Yeah, it all makes sense, now that I think about it.
The advice I would give to young people who are consciously or unconsciously dabbling in variants of Marxist thought or Liberation Theology themes is the same advice I would give to Barack Obama. I learned this truth the hard way, slogging through ten years of my young adulthood trying to find a way to strain the totalitarianism out of Marxism and make it compatible with freedom and progress: IT CANNOT BE DONE.
Socialism does not create utopia, the reign of God, or the new moral man. It creates the opposite of those. The evidence of history is overwhelming, and it certainly is not the case that if “we get it right next time it will work.” If you look at what people are like in socialist countries or formerly socialist countries you are going to see just as much vice and sociopathology as in the non-socialist world. Most people are narrow and selfish, and they have to struggle most of their lives to learn how to be generous to others. It does not come easy. You cannot force people to be virtuous. People have to choose to be generous and compassionate, otherwise if not chosen how can it be virtue?
Also, if anyone does any fair amount of reading into the genesis of what can go wrong with the human personality and mind, you will clearly discover that, while much of criminality and heartlessness have their roots in childhood experience, there is a fair amount of it out there that does not arise from this. Bad things happen at the genetic level, so that what you get to the neurons and synapses in the brain you have a configuration for a sociopath. These people spread tremendous suffering and havoc throughout their lives. How can there be a utopia on earth when you have these fatal flaws that are WAY BEYOND our control? Not to mention all the other defects at the gene and protein levels that are beyond our control. There is something cosmic about this. This dimension was never meant to be our permanent home. And I don’t know the reason why evil exists, it just does. Therefore, socialism as the utopia and promised reign of God is a delusion.
I would say all this to Sen. Obama. Not sure it would make an impression, but I would try. I know I’ve gone far more deeply into socialist thought and theory than he’s ever gone, even more than his mother did.
Our energies are better spent improving our own lives and, when possible, for others too. It just stuns me that people like Obama can go way past the age where I left Leftist thinking and still cling to the socialist delusions of utopia.
Fredjr ,
sorry it took you so long. there are many contradictions in the situation. though one of the biggest was that marx like many of his time, were so brain numb that they couldnt imagine others inventing more… right now we cant believe that this method is sustainable (it is.. the money from china and others as economies rather enemies will make space affordable… like cell phones are afordable now when in the past party phones were de rigour)
from economic disconnect, to reversing darwin for a part of the population, to which groups get clipped in their breeding modifications through changing the human perceptual landscape.
let me touch on that since many psychiatrists may not see whats happening.
a person in natural settings will have a mind model that is in tune with the lenadscape they live in. the system takes in all informaiton to make that model.
change the payouts from whats natural (better does better and replaces lesser over time), and its akin to chaning the landscape. if you reverse this you can imagine the landscape and what effects it will have.
in this case, what is the effect of taking from those who have to give to those that dont? it promotes those that cant handle money and would natuarlly be on the genetic outs in the population naturally over time (having less children), they will be the incompetent masses who cant take care of themselves and have to earn their keep.
just as making gays come out of the closet will do what? if its genetic, or the proclivity is.. then they are no longer mating with heterosexuals, and so not having kids, and the demographics would say eventual extinction from the populaiton.
you can find so many things wrong with marx, then you can look and find that so many things were changed not having to do with marx, but more to do with unleashing those who are sociopathic. the sociopaths are revolting against the more modern refined emotional humans with self control, more cooperation, and merit of abilty.
Healthy society marginalize sociopaths, dysfunctional society puts them in positions of power. That is what democracy is about: in any other setting the leaders would be sociopaths, often “dear leaders”, worshipped and idolized, and this exactly what they want to be.
As for hopes that outing of homosexuals can make this behavior extinct, they are futile. Everybody who watched breeding colonies of apes in captivity or in wild knows that this behavior is a part of males struggle for dominance, genetically ingrained and ritualized. Apes have no shame in this, but this continues for millenia. In humans this is a part of original sin, like any other kind of sin, from evolutionist perspective; nature will not put end to this, and culture can only marginalize it, not get rid of it.
Just an old fashioned politician who wants to be all things to all people? Or, as Trimegistus fears, something far more sinister. Is there a historic precedent handy where the underclass and the elite ally against their own country?
“Is there a historic precedent handy where the underclass and the elite ally against their own country?”
Yes, there is. In ancient Greek town-states this was called demagogery, and often it worked. Demagogs usually belong to elite or make their claim with a tacit approval of some fraction of elite. That is why ancient democracies were so unstable and prone to treason. Republics like Rome or Florence, with their cult of patriotism and supremacy of law, were much more robust.
People have a psychological need to believe in something that cannot be proven to exist. Denied God, people become either paralyzed with fear, or seize upon any tiny scraps of doubt and try to build a new religion from them, eventually growing a cult that, instead of being answerable to God, is answerable to the cult leader. Unlike God, the cult leader exists as an external entity, who can give commands that must be obeyed, lest one be set adrift again in the flood of fear.
Classical religion has been dismissed for too long by scientists too focused on facts to care about our need for fantasy. Now our fantasies are supplied by con artists who demand, and receive, power over those same scientists, and their goal is to destroy any science that doesn’t integrate with the fantasies they build.
Everyone wants to be the Second Coming of Jesus, and just as the first one, it will come to war between all the would-be prophets of God.
Not to worry – Obama will be assassinated by an ‘Islamist’ – a lone nutcase.
Although it will actually be orchestrated by the Mossad just as 9/11 was orchestrated by zionist infilitrators in the U.S government and from Israel itself…
[Note from neoneocon: methinks this is a message from one of our old troll friends. Or perhaps from a new one. I leave it up merely as an example of the genre.]
Great analyses, Fred and ArtfulDodger.
I always ask those asserting (usually implicitly) Marx’s labor theory of value if a pothold filled with a teaspoon is more valuable than one filled with a skiploader. The consumer only cares about the result, not the effort that went into generating it. Pfft! That was the intellectual underpinning of Marx’s analysis evaporating.
A critical point, as discussed above, is the nature of man. If man’s shortcomings do not come entirely from environment, then Marxism is doomed to totalitarianism. If man following his self-interest is part of human nature (duh), then the only way to get him to put the collective before himself is through coercion. He must be watched, or put in fear that he might be being watched, at all times.
Voila! The only way to do that is through secret police and/olr a network of informants.
For that reason alone, I don’t think it’s possible to wring the totalitarianism out of Marx.
Thanks for the history lesson, Sergey. Right now I have a very bad feeling about the future of the USA. “A Republic….if you can keep it”, said Ben Franklin.
Gee, it’s enlightening to be told that one is, by being a Christian, that one is intellectually febrile and stuck in an infantilism. Any other reductionisms out there to lay on us?
3 explanations for his “not knowing”.
1. dishonesty
2. stupidity
3. naivety
None of those very good qualities for a presidential candidate.
By the way, there’s another ending for the verse:
He wasn’t there again today.
He must be with the CIA.
Make of it what you will.
If man following his self-interest is part of human nature (duh), then the only way to get him to put the collective before himself is through coercion. He must be watched, or put in fear that he might be being watched, at all times.
Voila! The only way to do that is through secret police and/olr a network of informants.
bees are a model to look at. all the drones work for the collective becasue the drones are forbidden from having children.
in our case, the idea of the future is that the children of the drones go to state school. therefore the system appears biologically the same as teh bees as no drone knows who is its brothers or sisters and so cant play family favorites.
invitro fertilization and growing babies out of body would create that underclass that could be convinced that they are nothing because the upper class made them, and the upper class are gods, as they make life..
of course sonys robotics would be able to do thei same wituot such 20th century horrors visited in the 21st century. but rembmer the ideology was created befoer anyone could invision artificial life.
they had to conceive of life made artifiial, so that life appears to be artifical and the product of man.
ever listen to the tapes of aliens from other worlds recorded by seti?
you dont… i would think that no life gets past the point where the weak and on the out, is equalized with mass weaponry, to destroy the strong and then be left with what? a throwback situation where everything degrades.
if we are an average of that. then you can literally say that there was only 200 years of radio noise in the last 15 billion before it went dead.