RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Barack Hussein Obama in '08?

Quote:

---

Uschi said:
Bitch, I AM black! Yo! Yo yo yo! Word!

---

Barack Obama's two years in the Senate have taken him around the world, from Russia to Iraq to Kenya _ an itinerary more costly to taxpayers than any other senator who took office with him.

The Illinois Democrat's travels in 2005 and 2006 cost taxpayers nearly $28,000 as he studied nuclear proliferation, AIDS, Middle Eastern violence and more.

Eight other freshmen senators took office in 2005, and about $19,200 was the most anyone spent for government-paid travel, according to reports filed with the Senate Office of Public Records.

Obama's journeys are unusual for such a junior senator

Quote:

---

Uschi said:
Either Obama wasted the money or he was educating himself first-hand on international issues.

---

Quote:

---

Pig Iron said:
He could be seeing how the previous monies were being spent... but I doubt it...

---

And while most memoirs place their authors at the center of events, critics of "Dreams From My Father" say it is unfair in omitting the others who were responsible for the successes of the asbestos campaign, an event that Obama portrays as central to his maturation as a political leader. For example, [Hazel Johnson, a longtime Altgeld resident who worked with Obama] is not mentioned, and no character in the book appears to resemble her, even though she was already a prominent Altgeld activist and her presence in the anti-asbestos effort is confirmed by interviews and news accounts at the time.

Today, Johnson, now 72, is particularly disturbed that Obama's memoir portrayed the tenants as meek and confused, highlighting one parent who was illiterate. Johnson had been quoted on many occasions in the press by the time she met Obama. She had persuaded city officials to request the tests that found hazardous materials in local drinking water.

"Why would he paint us as so pathetic?" asked Cheryl Johnson, Hazel's daughter, who now runs the Altgeld group her mother founded. "Isn't a memoir supposed to be accurate?"

Checks from Hollywood's A-list stars such as George Clooney, Eddie Murphy and Barbra Streisand added up to a one-night take of $1.3 million for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Obama spoke to a star-studded audience at a closed-door fundraiser in Beverly Hills arranged by three of the industry's biggest names — DreamWorks studio founders Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen.

He told an audience that included Spielberg, Oscar nominee Eddie Murphy, actress Jennifer Anniston and singer Jackson Browne that they have "enormous power" that comes with "enormous responsibility" because of their impact on American culture.

"Don't sell yourselves short," he said in a 25-minute address. "You are the storytellers of our age."

Tickets were $2,300, the maximum individual donation to a federal campaign, or $4,600 for a couple. A later, private dinner at Geffen's home is being held for fundraisers who brought in at least $46,000 for the evening.

Quote:

---

PJP said:
after that event Obamas and Clintons top aides got into a heated war of words....plus David Geffen fueled the fires bashing Clinton's camp...I'm surprised G hasn't posted it yet....must be busy at court today.

---

Quote:

---

the G-man said:...

I remember a few weeks ago, speculating that Clinton was behind the stories outing Obama as a "former Muslim" and MEM seemingly disbelieving that such a thing (Clintons 'smearing' Obama) could be happening. Now I see that the considers it all "part of the process."

---

Always amusing to see your take on previous posts G. As I said back then, Clinton will fight tough but I saw that particular bit of "speculation" just a bunch of conservatives with very little credability saying Clinton was really the one behind all their "speculation". It was around the same time I think virtually the same group made up the story that Obama went to a terrorist school. You helped peddle that bit of missinformation around too.

Quote:

---

thedoctor said:
I read the shit about this yesterday in the news. The Clinton camp says they don't want to get into a mudslinging campaign and just talk issues, but then they say that Obama should give all the money back because of what Geffen said about her. I like that Obama's camp mentioned that the Clintons had no problem with Geffen when he was raising them money and getting to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom at the White House. And this is just the beginning of the campaign, folks. The Dems are just fighting amongst themselves. The Republicans haven't even geared up their mudslinging.

---

Quote:

---

PJP said:
Dude. He's not secretly a muslim......he is a fucking Muslim. Are you comfortable with that?

---

Quote:

---

...I was not raised in a religious household. My maternal grandparents, who hailed from Kansas, had been steeped in Baptist and Methodist teachings as children, but religious faith never really took root in their hearts. My mother's own experiences as a bookish, sensitive child growing up in small towns in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas only reinforced this inherited skepticism. [...] My father was almost entirely absent from my childhood, having been divorced from my mother when I was 2 years old; in any event, although my father had been raised a Muslim, by the time he met my mother he was a confirmed atheist, thinking religion to be so much superstition.


Obama writes that his religious convictions formed during his twenties, when, as a community organizer working with local churches, he came to understand "the power of the African American religious tradition to spur social change":


It was because of these newfound understandings–that religious commitment did not require me to suspend critical thinking, disengage from the battle for economic and social justice, or otherwise retreat from the world that I knew and loved–that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ one day and be baptized. It came about as a choice and not an epiphany; the questions I had did not magically disappear. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side of Chicago, I felt God's spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.[121]

---

Quote:

---

the G-man said:
As noted above, some of his friends tell a different story, that he was, in fact, a Muslim until he "converted" around the time of his marriage.

---

Quote:

---

PJP said:
Fair enough MEM. I never read that other stuff about him and I never knew he converted. I will say that sometimes people convert simply for the sake of marriage and don't really mean it. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt but I suspect the truth lies somewhere inbetween you and G-Man.

With that said I am starting to dislike Obama for things other than his middle name.

---

Quote:

---

Matter-eater Man said:
Obama has been associated with the United Church of Christ

---

Quote:

---

the G-man said:
Obama's church may have more in common with the Jesse Jackson/Al Sharpton wing of Christianity than one might have hoped:

Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain "true to our native land," the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. God has superintended our pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism. It is God who gives us the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people, and as a congregation. We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a Black worship service and ministries which address the Black Community.

Trinity United Church of Christ adopted the Black Value System written by the Manford Byrd Recognition Committee chaired by Vallmer Jordan in 1981. We believe in the following 12 precepts and covenantal statements. These Black Ethics must be taught and exemplified in homes, churches, nurseries and schools, wherever Blacks are gathered [including]

Pledge allegiance to all Black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System

A congregation with a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO AFRICA.

Uh, how about a committment to "colorblind" leadership and a non-negotiable commitment to the United States?

The article also has a link to a recent sermon from its pastor, Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., which recites a laundry list of political, not religious, themes, including:

"the painful truth of who we are and where it is we are in this racist United States of America!"

"600,000 dead Iraqi civilians who are dead for no reason other than greed and ego"

"The President who is “staying the course” and sending 1,500 more troops to their death"

"the torture of Abu Ghraib, the complete destructions of cities like Fallujah"

"the larger “war on terror” [has] been based on lies, half-truths and distortions to serve the agenda of the United States imperialism"

"the 3,000 homeless who are still living or displaced in the real life game called 'New Orleans'"

"white arrogance"

You know, its funny, but that speech has so little to do with Christ, or Christianity, it could almost be a speech by, dare I say, an Islamic Iman instead of a preacher.

In any event, I can't believe that no one is jumping on the mixing here of church and state.

---

Quote:

---

... A February 6 Chicago Tribune article reported that "conservative critics have seized on Trinity's 12-point Black Value System, especially the portion relating to 'middleclassness,' as evidence that Obama is a divisive candidate who rejects mainstream American values and is primarily focused on the black community." Carlson pointed to the "disavowal of the pursuit of 'middleclassness' " in the church's tenets, calling the church's mission a "racially exclusive theology" and "a theology that ministers to one group of people, based on race." Carlson claimed that Trinity's theology is "racially exclusive" and "wrong," adding that "it's hard to call that Christianity."
Carlson also stated that Trinity's "Black Value System" "calls for congregants to be 'soldiers for black freedom.' " In fact, Trinity encourages parishioners to be "soldiers for Black freedom and the dignity of all humankind [emphasis added]." The Tribune said that the church's "value system" was adopted in 1981 to hold "black Christians accountable for taking care of their own and for continuing to fight oppression." Further, the Tribune reported that according to Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University, "the 'disavowal of the pursuit of middleclassness' is simply an argument against materialism and the pursuit of the American standard of wealth. Many white Christian churches also preach against materialism."

---