Tuesday, October 21, 2008

WHAT an Enigma...Please, please get this information to Obama voters...TRY!

An Enigma Named Barack
by L. A. Sunset

We The People, in order to preserve a more balanced reality, are committed to learning the truth and uncovering the obscurity of a presidential candidate; a man long cloaked in a mysterious veil, and one that we presume hides the truth and distorts the true man who is Barack Obama.

Our opposition to Mr. Obama is not a factor of race, ethnic identity, nor even his place of domicile (i.e., Chicago); it is rather about his past associations, his character, his judgment, and his vision for the future of the United States of America. We believe that these are valid questions and concerns, that the American press has failed to address them in an honest and forthright manner, and that the American people have the right to know the answers to several questions.

Despite rhetoric designed to mislead and misinform the American voter, such as that Barack Obama is a political centrist; that he sincerely wants to change politics inside the beltway; and/or there is hope for a new day under an Obama administration, the issue of his past associations, statements, and activities demand greater scrutiny. We have learned that Mr. Obama’s associations have deep roots within the modern socialist movement, black separatist theology, known ties to anti-Jewish/Pro-Muslim persons, and Chicago-styled machine-politics. We believe that when combined these radical elements present a clear and present danger to American social tradition and every citizen’s quest for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The “A” list of Mr. Obama’s associates includes (but is not limited to):

William Ayers, an unrepentant terrorist, who by his own admission assures us that he did not participate in enough acts of terror to advance his cause properly, has achieve national attention.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose vile condemnations of “white America” entertained Mr. Obama for twenty years.

Rev. Louis Farrakhan (born: Louis Eugene Walcott) who, as the leader of the Nation of Islam is a racist, a black separatist, a homophobe, and an anti-Semite.

Barack Obama joined with Louis Farrakhan and Libyan leader
Muammar al-Gaddafi supporting Raila Odinga in his bid to become president of Kenya. Odinga’s political defeat resulted in Muslim violence, burning churches, murdering 1,000 anti-Odinga voters, and renewed demands for the imposition of Shari’ah Law.

Abongo (Roy) Obama, the brother of Barack, is a former Christian now radical Muslim convert, supporter of Cousin Raila Odinga. Roy Obama wants to institute Shari’ah law, wants Barack Obama to convert back to Islam and, as an American president, adopt anti-Israeli policies.

Moussa Marzook is a member of Hamas and author of the
Hamas Manifesto, first published in the Los Angeles Times and later reprinted and sold by Jeremiah Wright from the vestibule of Trinity United Church of Christ. Mr. Marzook was indicted by the United States government on issues relating to foreign terrorist activities inside the United States of America. Hamas endorsed Barack Obama for the American presidency in April 2008.

Tony Rezko gave financial backing to Barack Obama early in his to-date short-lived political career. Even though Mr. Obama plays down
the association with Mr. Rezko, it is difficult to ignore that the facts prove differently. (See also: Allison Davis, below)

Nadhmi Auchi is linked to Barack Obama through Tony Rezko. He is an Iraqi born billionaire who the U. S. government claims operated as a bagman for Saddam Hussein. He is a London-based financier, one of the world’s richest men. In 2003, he was convicted of fraud involving the “Elf Affair,” Europe’s largest scandal since the end of World War II.

Allison Davis, former employer of Barack Obama, who later closed his law firm and became a partner of Tony Rezko. Davis
assigned Mr. Obama to legal work on behalf of Mr. Rezko.

Rev. James T. Meeks, whom Barack Obama regularly sought for counseling, who served as an Obama delegate at the Democratic Convention and is a long-time political ally, who aided Obama as an influential black supporter, received funding from Tony Rezko. Meeks is known for anti-Jewish and homophobic rhetoric.

Rashid Khalidi, along with William Ayers and Barack Obama, is a former professor at Chicago University. He directs the Palestine Press Agency in Beirut, is an agent of the Arab American Action Network, and according to
a top official of former-President George H. W. Bush and a former CIA intelligence officer, former Weather Underground
leader William Ayers funneled money to Khalidi, who maintains ties with the Palestine Liberation Organization. Khalidi also received $70,000 from the Woods Fund, and held fund-raising events in his home on behalf of Barack Obama.

Barack Obama is a former director of
The Woods Fund, a non-profit organization that, in addition to its interests in “giving a voice to less advantaged people,” helped funnel money to Rashid Khalidi for the Arab American Action Network, which presumably includes Palestinian interests within the United States. The Woods Fund also helps to finance “community organizing, and public policy.”

Created in 1995 to help raise funds to reform Chicago public schools, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge involved William Ayers as a leading founder, who in turn appointed Barack Obama to its board of directors. Mr. Obama served on the board for
six years. According to investigative journalist Stanley Kurtz, writing for the
Wall Street Journal, reforming Chicago public schools is a bid misleading: it was a program designed to radicalize students more than it was to educate them. According to Ayers, “Teachers should be community organizers, dedicated to provoking resistance to American racism and oppression.”


Astute Bloggers has illustrated additional past associations; it is a well-researched expose providing a clear view of what lays just beneath the surface of Obama’s deception. We understand why Mr. Obama would want to play down these associations; we do not understand why the American news media would assist him in doing so. Nevertheless, Astute Bloggers lifts the veil on two well-known groups: The New Party, and the Chicago Democrat Socialists of America. Let's take a closer look.

The New Party is an obscure, lesser-known political group. It practices a political strategy called electoral fusion, which entails placing a political candidate on several lines of the same ballot. An example of how electoral fusion works is located at this page; look for the lead “Vote your values,” two-thirds of the way down on the right-hand side of the page. Once a candidate receives the support of Democratic kingmakers, and if the New Party feels the candidate will serve their socialist cause, they will add the candidate's name more than once in order to gain votes that are more popular. From the above link:
The New Party is an umbrella organization for grassroots political groups working to break the stranglehold that corporate money and corporate media have over our political process.

Our current work and long-term strategy is to change states' election rules to allow fusion voting - a method of voting that allows minor parties to have their own ballot line with which they can either endorse their own candidates or endorse the candidates of other parties. Through fusion, minor parties don't have to always compete in the winner-take-all two party system and can avoid "spoiling" - throwing an election to the most conservative candidate by splitting the votes that might go to two more progressive candidates (ours and another party's).

Not surprisingly, “community organizing” is the bedrock of The New Party; socialist progressivism is their ideology. The Chicago chapter maintains a close relationship to the Associations of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). According to this 1996 publication, Barack Obama is clearly affiliated with The New Party

Illinois: Three NP-members won Democratic primaries last spring and face off against Republican opponents on Election Day: Danny Davis (U.S. House), Barack Obama (State Senate), and Patricia Martin (Cook County Judiciary).

Note: Readers familiar with Chicago politics will recognize the names of former Chicago mayor Danny Davis on that list also.

From this evidence, we begin to understand the role electoral fusion played in Mr. Obama’s rapid rise to political power.

Chicago Democrat Socialists of America pursues socio-political programs implied by the title of their organization, but even this organization is more than meets the eye. Cornel West, while serving as an Honorary Chair to Chicago DSA penned a remarkably revealing essay entitled
Toward a Socialist Theory of Racism. Chicago DSA and Dr. West were particularly interested in Barack Obama because of his New Party affiliation, his success in running for State senator, and the strategies he employed, to wit: “Barack Obama, victor in the 13th State Senate District, encouraged NPers to join in his task forces on Voter Education and Voter Registration.”

Well, so what if Barack Obama peaks the interest of the Chicago DSA? It is important because no one backs a dark-horse candidate unless there is a chance he will win, and/or there is a reasonable expectation for a return of political capital. In an article entitled,
The End of Liberalism socialist author Daniel Cantor wrote, “A massive Times-Mirror poll registered 53% of the public in favor of a ‘major third party,’ so there's no doubt that the soil is fertile. Among the hopeful contenders is the ‘New Party,’ one of a handful of newly forming independent, progressive parties in the country. New Party chapters have backed 93 candidates in nine states over the last eighteen months and won 62 elections.” An index of New Party political propaganda is available, here.

Daniel Cantor, of course, is the executive director of New York’s Working Families Party, another socialist group with chapters in Connecticut and Oregon. He urges socialists, “Vote Your Values.” This would appear to be good advice for everyone with values.

John Nichols writes for The Nation, a politically progressive publication. Nichols is a well-established writer, perhaps best known for ad nausium demands for the impeachment of George W. Bush for war crimes and other frivolous reasons; so much for his credibility.

Taken by themselves, none of these concerns will alter the course of human history. After all, as Americans, we encourage political and social discourse; we value the right of everyone to express an opinion, no matter how insane that opinion may be, and all of us have the right to associate with anyone we choose. Yet it is instructive to note that socialist radicals have completely infiltrated the Democratic Party, and we need no further proof than the inane rhetoric emanating from every Democrat in the House and Senate. The concern expressed in this essay is not that other ideas are unworthy of debate; it is rather that Barack Obama freely decided to associate with dangerously radical and disreputable influences and he now seeks to hide those associations.

Why would he do that? Barack Obama wants to become our next president; he knows that most Americans repudiate Marxist/socialist ideology; he is aware that if most voters begin to see the real Barack Obama, John McCain will win the election. But we believe that Barack Obama has been dishonest with American voters who are capable of thinking. We believe he has taken advantage of Americans voters who are incapable of thinking. We believe that if Mr. Obama stepped up to a microphone and told us what he really believes, he would be lucky to win the post of an Animal Control Specialist.

Honesty, truthfulness, clarity, judgment, motivation, patriotism, and common sense are all important attributes for the office of the President of the United States. We do not believe that Barack Obama has any of these qualities. And, if Mr. Barack Obama has been less than truthful about his associations, what makes anyone think we can trust his campaign promises, his vision for America? The fact is that every man is free to associate with whomever he pleases; but this does not protect any man from judgments about those associations. We believe that the sheer weight of Mr. Obama’s involvement with questionable individuals and organizations will lead a reasonable person to query both his judgment and motivation for nefarious associations.

We the People of the United States, who are also a loose confederation of bloggers, categorically reject Barack Obama for president. He is a radical socialist, he is a black separatist, a racist, he harbors pro-Muslim/Anti-Jewish sentiments and associates, he identifies with homophobes, convicted swindlers, known terrorists, creative financiers, and he has already signaled his willingness to sacrifice National Security for a dialogue with Muslim fanatics.

We cannot vote for this man. We urge you to join us in defeating Barack Obama. So say us one, so say us all.

Participants: Always on Watch; And Rightly So; Big Girl Pants; Cheese In My Shoe; Chuck Thinks Right; Confessions of a Closet Republican; Defending Crusader; Farmer’s Letters; Fore Left; GeeeeeZ; Has Everyone Gone Nuts?; Learn Something Today; Long Range; Palace for a Princess; Papa Frank; Mind of a Misfit; Paleocon Command Center; Political Yin and Yang; Pondering Penguin; Right Truth; Social Sense; The Amboy Times; The Bitten Word; The Crank Files; The Jungle Hut; The Logic Lifeline; The Merry Widow; TSOFAH;

57 comments:

MathewK said...

Most of the Obama worshippers react to info about him that's revealing with contempt and just reject it out of hand. Personally i think they are beyond help and will only learn from being burnt after dabbling with the fire.

His policies and past don't matter, all they care about is, OBAMA!

That's it. Extra strength kool-aid folks.

Average American said...

That "fusion" crap is kinda scary. I hope it doesn't spread to many states. Seeing his name twice on a ballet probably has a psycological effect on an undecided voter.

Anonymous said...

Gerat blog A, nothing seems to stick to this creep. Not as long as the Dems have their blonders on..

Misfit410 said...

The Obama Defense force will be dispatching lawyers soon to deliver a cease and desist order for you to alter the wording on your blog.

You may not refer to him as an Enigma, you must change that to simply Ema so the offending letters no longer stand.

Z said...

misfit...I'd like to refer to him as ENEMA. sorry, but.....when I saw what you wrote, this came up, so to speak!!

LA did a great job....obviously, all of us bloggers 'approve this message' but we need for YOU to GET IT OUT THERE! copy/paste to your Obama fan friends...then DUCK and RUN!!!

Anonymous said...

This is getting wide distribution. I saw it on three other blogs I visited today. Too bad his legions of zombies won't read it.

shoprat said...

All of these facts mean nothing to those who hate the GOP more than they love America.

Rita Loca said...

sigh...you got your 'Ducky' and I have my 'kepler' sigh...

Me, Myself, And I said...

Perhaps the Good General Bowel should advise Obama for the U.S. to pull out of Chicago!

Body count in the last six months:
292 killed (murdered) in Chicago
221 killed in Iraq
Chicago - who runs it?

Senators: Barack Obama and Dick Durbin
Representative: Jesse Jackson Jr.
Illinois Governor: Rod Blogojevich
Illinois House leader: Mike Madigan
Illinois Attorney General: Lisa Madigan (daughter of Mike)
Chicago Mayor: Richard M. Daley (son of Mayor Richard J. Daley)

Anonymous said...

Great job Gang. Vert well done.

Ducky's here said...

221 killed in Iraq? Is that the total crime rate or just the combat losses.

Yeah, it's sad, murder and crime in general are going to take a climb during a recession. Always do. Good 'ol Republicans they mess up people overseas and mess them up at home and their fan base loves it all. Go figure.

Anonymous said...

Is it duck hunting season yet?

shoprat said...

When Nixon left everyone hated the GOP and Ford couldn't turn it around. Jimmy Carter came along and did turn it around. History will repeat itself (again.) Except Obama will make Jimmy Carter look like a genius. In spite of some trolls' mindless optimism, things are going to get much, much worse under Obama. I would not be surprised to see 20% unemployment and even higher inflation. I hope I'm wrong but I wouldn't I don't think I am. I just hope we can undo the damage Obama will inevitably do.

Z said...

Ducky, did you hear how Obama's not releasing the $150 million worth of names? The article lists donors giving $7K several times...most of the monies are exchanged from foreign currency.
you do the math.
As I said in another comment; I thought you were smarter than this.
wake up.
JM....I don't mind Ducky anymore....I did when I thought he was smarter and I should take notice.

Sorry, Ducky, you've obfuscated, not read, not digested and not even cared about SO many facts that I'm seeing you through new eyes. Thanks. I don't mean to be rude of hateful, but I'm REALLY starting to see humor here...a good thing, I guess.

Glad you all like the Blogburst idea of Mustang's..he's THE MAN! And LA did SUCH a great job I hope you all go to his site (see my blogroll) and give him a little love! great stuff...

too bad the left can't see it....

Anonymous said...

Trust me I tried to do this, but I guess I didn't do enough shots.
And thats a first for me.

Tom said...

z - What a list!

Regardless of what Ducky has written, it is character that matters. The content of that character is often revealed by the company one keeps. For me, that is one of the many problems that I have in selecting Senator Obama for the highest office of the land.

Anonymous said...

Great Post Z. A very comprehensive presentation. My kudos to the author's thoroughness.

This presents the left as out from under the radar from where they've operated for years. They obviously now feel emboldened and that the time is ripe for what I'm sure is a long planned, patiently awaited, assault on our Republic.

It's about more than Obama. In fact, I see him as a vehicle for much bigger plans than merely taxing the "rich". He's their front man. Their ticket to legitimacy. They have their eyes on the prize, and they will not stop.

The way I see it is, we have two choices, we can sit by and watch it happen, or we can fight back.

For myself, I've never been good at sitting by and watching when threatened. I choose the alternative.

Pris

Z said...

Dude..sorry, not sure what you meant?

Tom...I had lunch with a friend today; his wife's voting for Obama. I told him to try CHARACTER....nobody's nuts about McCain, we just have to put aside background (because nobody's listening anymore), alliances (nobody CARES?), record, experience, etc. .. realize we only HAVE two choices and decide that character is IT.

I'm totally on your side. When it comes to sheer character, Obama LOSES.

Z said...

Pris, this is a BIG WELL CONTRIVED PLAN. I couldn't agree with you more.

There are forces which think America needs to come to her knees and be humble, apologize to the world and join their mediocrity.

And Obama's right there at the top of that list of believers........

Anybody want to add to that list?

Put the COuncil on Foreign Relations, The Trilateral and the Bildergerg Group on that list. And you'd be SCARED if you saw their members, TRUST me. And I'm NOT a conspiracy theorist.or I wasn't.

Bloviating Zeppelin said...

What you've written in one sole blogpost is more information than ALL THE MEDIA IN THE UNITED STATES has EVER uncovered about Barack Hussein Obama. The media isn't indifferent or non-judgmental about Obama, it's not just NOT curious at all about him, it's completely PARTISAN about him. This one post contains more factual information than ANYTHING the DEM/MSM has EVER printed or said about Obama.

And you're not a "journalist," you're just a "blogger." But I submit you're MORE journalist than 90% of today's "journalists" are.

BZ

Papa Frank said...

Did you hear Joe Biden today throwing a fit and yelling for John McCain to stop looking at the character of Barack Obama and ignore any of his associations and history? Please ignore the man behind the curtain America!!! Sorry Joe -- CHARACTER COUNTS!!!

Papa Frank said...

And we would be judging Obama on his political record and votes IF HE HAD ANY!!!

Papa Frank said...

Or maybe on his executive experience -- oh wait!!! A big zero there as well.

Papa Frank said...

Or we could base it on his being qualified on his birth certificate, doctoral thesis, school grades, etc.. Well, that is if ANY of these things were released to the public. I read Michelle Obama's thesis -- 100% racist through and through. Every thought she had in it was all based on race.

Papa Frank said...

AAAARRRRGH!!! Wake up from your slumber America and ask important questions and don't stop until they are answered!!! The media WILL NOT do it for you.

Z said...

just wanted to make sure that everyone realizes I DID NOT WRITE THIS..i'm just proud to PUBLISH it...LA SUNSET (on my blogroll wrote it with the help of Mustang!)

be back soon..I'm working! thanks..xxx

Incognito said...

There's no reasoning with them, Z. They have so buried their heads in the sand, they can't see the truth.

Dr. John said...

Hmmm...With connections like this, do you think he could get a security clearance?

LA Sunset said...

Yeah, pretty soon we will hear Iranian state TV broadcasts of crowds chanting "Death To LA". But this has to be made known, along with Obama's vision of a more socialist America. Rest assured we understand that we are already socialist in a lot of areas. But we cannot expect that continuing to move in that direction will solve any of the problems we have. It never has and it never will.

When Reagan cut government spending, cut capital gains taxes, and generally formulated policies which allowed more freedoms in the market place, we got somewhere. We have to resist the calls for a nanny state.

The polls show we are behind, but in my opinion (for what it's worth), they have a lot of skewed polls out there. They have oversampled Democrats and in one poll, they only polled people with cell phones that do not have landlines. The purpose of that particular demographic is puzzling, within itself.

But, polls have historically been wrong. We must try to garner as many votes for McCain, as humanly possible. This is our only chance.

Papa Frank said...

The real lesson of socialism is that if we are all equal then we are all poor and hungry. Let's never forget that.

psi bond said...

mk: These Palin worshipers have taken the extra strength kool-aid who have convinced themselves that all the Obama supporters are stupid for thinking the McCain campaign’s guilt by association drivel is contemptible–––including such prominent fellows as Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Buckley, and Colin Powell.

shoprat: All of these misrepresentations and insinuations that you do not question mean little to those who understand how overzealous propagandists manipulate raw information with alacrity.

Z (as in zealous), what’s comical is your naïve persistence in assuming that the reading you propagate of the Obama smears is the only one conceivably valid, and anyone who does not accede to it is thereby indubitably mentally deficient.

shoprat: I just hope we can undo the damage Obama will inevitably do.

I hope someone can undo the damage to your brain that you’ve inflicted scaring yourself silly.

They will be disappointed who are convinced Obama’s first official act will be the bombing of the Pentagon.

A more clear-headed view:

It is perfectly legitimate to call attention, as McCain has done, to Obama’s lack of conventional national and international policymaking experience. We, too, wish he had more of it. But office-holding is not the only kind of experience relevant to the task of leading a wildly variegated nation. Obama’s immersion in diverse human environments (Hawaii’s racial rainbow, Chicago’s racial cauldron, countercultural New York, middle-class Kansas, predominantly Muslim Indonesia), his years of organizing among the poor, his taste of corporate law and his grounding in public-interest and constitutional law—these, too, are experiences. And his books show that he has wrung from them every drop of insight and breadth of perspective they contained.

The exhaustingly, sometimes infuriatingly long campaign of 2008 (and 2007) has had at least one virtue: it has demonstrated that Obama’s intelligence and steady temperament are not just figments of the writer’s craft. He has made mistakes, to be sure. (His failure to accept McCain’s imaginative proposal for a series of unmediated joint appearances was among them.) But, on the whole, his campaign has been marked by patience, planning, discipline, organization, technological proficiency, and strategic astuteness. Obama has often looked two or three moves ahead, relatively impervious to the permanent hysteria of the hourly news cycle and the cable-news shouters. And when crisis has struck, as it did when the divisive antics of his ex-pastor threatened to bring down his campaign, he has proved equal to the moment, rescuing himself with a speech that not only drew the poison but also demonstrated a profound respect for the electorate. Although his opponents have tried to attack him as a man of “mere” words, Obama has returned eloquence to its essential place in American politics. The choice between experience and eloquence is a false one––something that Lincoln, out of office after a single term in Congress, proved in his own campaign of political and national renewal. Obama’s “mere” speeches on everything from the economy and foreign affairs to race have been at the center of his campaign and its success; if he wins, his eloquence will be central to his ability to govern.

We cannot expect one man to heal every wound, to solve every major crisis of policy. So much of the Presidency, as they say, is a matter of waking up in the morning and trying to drink from a fire hydrant. In the quiet of the Oval Office, the noise of immediate demands can be deafening. And yet Obama has precisely the temperament to shut out the noise when necessary and concentrate on the essential. The election of Obama—a man of mixed ethnicity, at once comfortable in the world and utterly representative of twenty-first-century America—would, at a stroke, reverse our country’s image abroad and refresh its spirit at home. His ascendance to the Presidency would be a symbolic culmination of the civil- and voting-rights acts of the nineteen-sixties and the century-long struggles for equality that preceded them. It could not help but say something encouraging, even exhilarating, about the country, about its dedication to tolerance and inclusiveness, about its fidelity, after all, to the values it proclaims in its textbooks. At a moment of economic calamity, international perplexity, political failure, and battered morale, America needs both uplift and realism, both change and steadiness. It needs a leader temperamentally, intellectually, and emotionally attuned to the complexities of our troubled globe. That leader’s name is Barack Obama.


— The Editors, The New Yorker, October 13, 2008

Z said...

psi bond, what, other than 'mentally deficient' could it POSSIBLY be to ignore the constant reminder of horrid choices throughout one's lifetime of alliances with people like Wright,Ayers, Fleger, Rezko, etc. and the constant lies?
"I lived in Ayers' neighborhood" (yes, and your wives worked together, he threw your first campaign event, he hired you for a foundation, you supported a group like ACORD which uses Ayers' teachings, etc etc."

This is a man who lied again when he said "Yes, I sat 20 years in WRight's church but didn't know he felt like this" This is the kind of lie which I know is ignored for ideological conquest and, therefore, it is not 'zeal' to remind good Americans what kind of man we're dealing with here.

We all know it should be necessary to expose all of these things,. We do not need a man whose campaign is NOT run by him (anyone with half a mind knows that) but by David Axelrod and the pupppetmasters who have cheated the rules to gain $150 million in one month and not have to present WHO's paid that money. We ALL Know MCCain would have had to, in detail.

This is not my 'zeal', this is an attempt to get Americans to realize we are in DEEP trouble for supporting a man who won't cover his heart for the Pledge ('except I do in the Senate'), whose wife is only proud of an America now that it's going her way, a man who has got off on every accusation the media is far too stupid to see what's happening.

You could give me a list of writers an arm long and it wouldn't impress me; I'm not as impressed with celeb writers are you are, psi bond.

I grieve for a country with people who literally can't accept that this hubristic, Greek-Columned liar ("I was inartful in saying that.." "i misspoke"...Gee, that's FUNNY, so did Trent Lott, but.....) has quite different goals than this country than just lowering the taxes on the middle class (which, of course, we all have to wonder about...rough to send $400 billion to Europe and Asia in hopes they'll like us for the gift, if you're not raising taxes.. Rough to understand that raising company taxes creates higher priced products, pushing Americans to buy more and MORE Chinese goods and send jobs overseas.

Oh, I'm so tired of teaching you psi bond.......all the best.

this is just getting silly.

Papa Frank said...

Trolls will never take over geeeeeZ because Z is stronger than the whole lot put together. Their mental incapacity for rational thought puts them at an enormous disadvantage. Carry on blog goddess.

Z said...

Hey, Anonymous? Even if they took over, which they're not (i hold the keys), they're my trolls..! I'm getting used to them and they keep things spicy!

Thanks, Pops...YOU are simply the best. xxxx

(anybody know what happened to the format? I don't like this one...I'm seeing all your comments on a vanilla background and I want them on the white background and different format that was easier to read.....help! I see other blogger blogs haven't changed..??)

psi bond said...

Z: psi bond, what, other than 'mentally deficient' could it POSSIBLY be to ignore the constant reminder of horrid choices throughout one's lifetime of alliances with people like Wright,Ayers, Fleger, Rezko, etc. and the constant lies?

To a sensible person, they are mentally proficient, too, who arrive at an evaluation of Obama’s choices, character, policies, and statements different than the one you devoutly worship as The Absolute Truth–––which the editors of The New Yorker have done and a burgeoning number of high-profile Republicans who support Obama. And they are no less pro-American, Z, notwithstanding Michelle Bachmann (who has lost the financial support of the National Republican Congressional Committee for her McCarthyite claim). Intellectually, it is an indefensible proposition that millions of Americans are mental defectives because they choose to vote for Obama–––or decline to accept as true that Sarah Palin is vice-presidential material.

However, excluding some American voters for being mentally deficient or anti-American is a traditional rightwing thing to do.

The loose, goose-steppin’ band of rightwing bloggers whose juvenile manifesto grandiosely usurps the stature of “We the People of the United States” fails to consider the questionable associations of John McCain. These include but are not limited to:

1) membership in the eighties in a fascist organization whose ostensible purpose was combating communism but which provided a haven for Nazi war criminals and members of rightwing death squads operating in Latin America;

2) being good friends for years with Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) who was indicted for extortion, wire fraud, money laundering and other charges related to a land deal in Arizona;

3) having an unexplained friendship with convicted Watergate felon G. Gordon Liddy (Liddy has described McCain as “a good, personal friend.” McCain has told Liddy he is “proud” of him.), a longtime McCain donor who once plotted to murder a journalist and has openly talked about the best ways to kill government agents;

4) palling around with Sarah Palin who addressed the convention of the Alaska Independence Party (to which her husband belonged), which was founded by a man who wanted Alaska to secede from the United States and who declared he did not want to be buried on American soil;

5) palling around and taking advice from Phil Gramm who condemned America as “a nation of whiners” (he is still unofficially advising McCain and would likely figure in a McCain Cabinet);

6) personally accepting the endorsement of John Hagee (before rejecting it because of political embarrassment), who believes the Pope is the Anti-Christ, and Jews are responsible for their own suffering in history due to their failure to believe correctly, who said “God sent hurricane Katrina to punish the U.S. for its role in helping Israel remove Jewish settlers from the Gaza strip”

7) being friendly with and taking contributions of $1.3 million from Charles Keating, who was at the center of the Keating 5 Scandal (he called on Senators to help him resist regulators in exchange for the money; McCain got the regulators to back off, which subsequently triggered the Savings and Loan Scandal that cost the taxpayer $3.4 billion; Cindy’s dad also had special dealings with Keating);

8) celebrating, in late August, 2006, his 70th birthday aboard a yacht, the Celine Ashley, rented by Raffaello Follieri and his then-movie star girlfriend Anne Hathaway. Follieri, who posed as Vatican chief financial officer in order to win friends and investments, pleaded guilty in a Manhattan district court to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, eight counts of wire fraud and five counts of money laundering. As part of the plea, Follieri admitted to misappropriating at least $2.4 million of investor money and redirecting it to foreign personal bank accounts that were disguised as business accounts;

9) paying $20,000 a month for being a political consultant to Richard Quinn, a neo-Confederate, who was one of the leaders of the state's pro-flag faction. Editor in chief of Southern Partisan, a magazine that published apologias for slavery and sold paraphernalia celebrating the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. McCain describes Quinn as "a man of integrity" who wasn't responsible for what appeared in his own magazine.

10) consorting with Cindy McCain, whose father Jim Hensley was a convicted felon who had ties to the Mafia and whose wealth launched McCain’s political career;

11) winning support from al Qaeda allies: "Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election," said a commentary posted Monday on the extremist Web site al-Hesbah, which is closely linked to the terrorist group. It said the Arizona Republican would continue the "failing march of his predecessor," President Bush. "The idea in the jihadist forums is that McCain would be a faithful 'son of Bush' -- someone they see as a jingoist and a war hawk," said Adam Raisman, a senior analyst for the Site Intelligence Group, which monitors Islamist Web pages. "They think that, to succeed in a war of attrition, they need a leader in Washington like McCain."

12) meeting with, praising, and embracing a U.S. Senator who is widely rumored to have palled around with an unrepentant terrorist.

Separately these facts mean little, but collectively they add up to a helluva hill of chilly beans. On November 4, you must remember this.

Freedomnow said...

Ummm... what in the world do you mean by:

"excluding some American voters for being mentally deficient or anti-American is a traditional rightwing thing to do"

The mentally deficient thing can be interpreted in several different ways, but I'm not sure what you are referring to. This comment is a bit deranged in itself.

Excluding anti-Americans can be prudent in certain circumstances. If someone wants to destroy our government and way of life then there just might be some grounds for that.

Anyway, good luck making any of your dubious accusations stick.

Its beautiful how you complain about the attacks of rightwingers and then refer to them as "goose-steppin’ band of rightwing bloggers".

Orwellian propaganda is the fruit of leftwing activism.

psi bond said...

Ummm... what in the world do you mean by:

"excluding some American voters for being mentally deficient or anti-American is a traditional rightwing thing to do"

Ummm, it’s not so difficult to understand.

The extreme right’s traditional propensity for exclusionist thinking endures in the alacrity with which Americans whose political views displease them are denigrated as being anti-American or mentally deficient. Those whose patriotism or mental competence they must now dispute include such notable Republicans as Colin Powell, Christopher Buckley (William F. Buckley’s son), George Will, David Frum, David Brooks, Christopher Hitchens, Scott McClellan (former Bush press secretary), and the granddaughter of Barry Goldwater, Alison Goldwater Ross, who said of McCain, “I don’t have respect for him,” when voting early for Obama. Even Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate no less, has been branded anti-American. Such latter-day discrimination is driven by the fundamentalist faith that extreme rightwingers have in the inerrancy of their ideology.

In the Orwellian newspeak of the rightwing, the pejorative label ‘anti-American’ is a codeword for ‘traitor’ (‘socialist’ is a codeword for ‘communist’). It doesn’t matter to them that, rationally speaking, it isn’t anti-American for loyal Americans to have a different vision for America.

Joe the Plumber is metaphorically exploited as a codeword for ‘Everyman’, even though Joe’s plumbing is not what it seems. Plumbers for Obama will no doubt come to be seen as traitors who shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the pipes of a “real American”.

Anyway, good luck making any of your dubious accusations stick.

They aren’t dubious accusations. They are just items in a list of documented facts. Rightwingers take similar items concerning Obama and build a web of sinister innuendoes out of them. I am merely demonstrating that two can play that game with little effort.

Its beautiful how you complain about the attacks of rightwingers and then refer to them as "goose-steppin’ band of rightwing bloggers".

My little phrase that has got your goat, ‘now, “goose-steppin’”, was in context a tongue-in-cheek remark that provided a loose rhyme. In your complaint above, you seem to have missed that. Nonetheless, persons in a Palin-McCain crowd inspired by speakers insinuating nasty things to shout words like ‘terrorist’ and ‘traitor’ and perhaps even ‘kill him’ about the Democratic presidential candidate may for some be reminiscent of other rallies held in rightwing regimes of another century.

We enjoy freedom now, but it will not survive if we are made to fear discrimination by rightwing activists for supporting the candidate we believe is best for America.

Freedomnow said...

Sorry PSI, when you write;

“I am merely demonstrating that two can play that game with little effort.”

You are admitting to smears, while there are real concerns about Obama’s past associations.

20 years in a race baiting church and Obama’s initial response was that “his pastor was not controversial” (paraphrased)... He only gave up his hatechurch to further his political ambition. If he never ran for president he would still be a happy member.

If you are not skeptical then you are not a critical thinker.

Whatever Joe the Plummer is, he became a target for the Democratic Party attack machine, even though he gave Obama a fair shake.

The Democratic Party is supposed to be the champion of the working class, but the reality is that it is more interested in populist politics and union money.

For your information I am a city boy and never owned a goat in my life. So when you liberally throw around phrases like “goose-stepping” as you describe your political opponents, you show that you are no better than those you condemn. Yet you say it was only the result of a rhyme, even as you continue to allude to Nazi rallies in comparison to modern day Republican rallies.

That is dishonest.

(And oh... the “kill him” fallacy was a hoax or a product of an overactive imagination as the secret service confirmed.)

psi bond said...

Sorry PSI, when you write;

“I am merely demonstrating that two can play that game with little effort.”

You are admitting to smears, while there are real concerns about Obama’s past associations.

As prominent Republicans desert the reservation, rightwingers are getting desperate. I am feeling sorry for you, ’now.

I am not admitting to smearsl I am admitting to staging a demonstration. I am showing that, although the Obama campaign isn’t relying on innuendoes questioning McCain’s character, I could do that, just like the McCain campaign, its surrogates, and robocalls, that question Obama’s patriotism. The insistent insinuation that Obama shares the thinking of a terrorist is a smear. I made no smear from McCain’s associations with people tied to the Mafia or to swindlers and death squad members, or from his fans among al Qaeda sympathizers. I merely presented these facts. Your pretense that Obama’s associations are a real concern that, as Z divisively pretends, must upset every “real American” is disingenuous at best.

20 years in a race baiting church and Obama’s initial response was that “his pastor was not controversial” (paraphrased)... He only gave up his hatechurch to further his political ambition. If he never ran for president he would still be a happy member.

The rightwing propaganda machine spins selected facts to insinuate those things. He became a member of the church 16 years ago, in 1992. Obama, giving up more lucrative prospects, started his work in Chicago as a community organizer. One of the most prominent players in community improvement in South Chicago was Jeremiah Wright’s church. So, that Obama would come to know and ally himself with the work of Wright’s church was inevitable. Trinity United has given a strong emphasis to the self-help potential of the poor, mostly black population in South Chicago. His political opponents, seeking to smear Obama after he announced for the presidency, have applied the discriminatory terminology of race baiting and anti-Americanism to this boot-strapping emphasis. But Obama’s long association with the church was built on its wide-ranging community-building initiatives. When Wright became intoxicated with himself as an orator in a high-profile way, however, he became a liability to Obama. When John Hagee’s inflammatory words attacking the Pope and claiming that Jews deserved to suffer hit the public airwaves, he became a liability to McCain. McCain then repudiated the endorsement that he had accepted in person.

If you are not skeptical then you are not a critical thinker.

A critical thinker recognizes the frequent distortions of the Wright association as rightwing propaganda based on a single-minded sifting of decontextualized bits of information.

Whatever Joe the Plummer is, he became a target for the Democratic Party attack machine, even though he gave Obama a fair shake.

Joe the Plumber himself admitted that he has no present prospects of making $250,000 a year from buying his boss’s business (which Ohio business records show has total annual revenue of $100,000), which means he misrepresented himself when speaking to Obama. The Republican noise machine, eagerly assisted by Fox News, has put out the story that the Democratic Party attack machine is attacking Mr. S. J. Wurzelbacher, who is nonetheless benefiting from the publicity since he is considering a book contract and a run for Congress from Ohio’s ninth congressional district.

The Democratic Party is supposed to be the champion of the working class, but the reality is that it is more interested in populist politics and union money.

A critical thinker recognizes that assessment as blatant rightwing spin. I doubt you would admit that McCain’s pledge to guarantee everyone’s home mortgage and the campaign’s pandering to Joe Six-Pack, Joe the Plumber, and hockey mums are populist moves designed to win votes.

For your information I am a city boy and never owned a goat in my life. So when you liberally throw around phrases like “goose-stepping” as you describe your political opponents, you show that you are no better than those you condemn. Yet you say it was only the result of a rhyme, even as you continue to allude to Nazi rallies in comparison to modern day Republican rallies.

It was an imaginary goat. For your info, I am no good at goose-steppin’. Rightwingers do it better–––speakin' loosely.

JUST JOKING.

Me you can’t induce
To step on a goose.

That is dishonest.

That is ill-humored–––to accuse one of dishonesty as if:
Having a liberal sense of rhyme
Were a sort of serious crime.

The “goose-steppin’” was a loose, spruce joke, and I did leave out the moose. I did not say ‘Nazi’, but since you alluded to Nazi rallies, it must be what many folks would unsurprisingly think of in such a situation, if it did not bring to mind a lynch mob first.

(And oh... the “kill him” fallacy was a hoax or a product of an overactive imagination as the secret service confirmed.)

Uh oh … it actually is dishonest to pretend that hoax and overactive imagination are the only possibilities to account for the Scranton Times-Tribune report.

What is true is that the Secret Service could only confirm that the report of someone shouting “kill him” is unconfirmed. That is, no one they have interviewed would say they had heard it. (Hence my phrasing when I wrote, “PERHAPS even ‘kill him’”.)

Enjoying freedom now, every rational person is allowed to consider the possibility that no one who attended a Republican rally would want to come forward and cast it in a shocking light. It is called party loyalty.

Freedomnow said...

PSI,

Your snobbishness is rearing its ugly head. How much do you know about me? When you said the following, it was your prejudice speaking:

"As prominent Republicans desert the reservation, rightwingers are getting desperate. I am feeling sorry for you, ’now."

What makes you think that I am a rightwinger? Define what makes me a rightwinger.

There is party loyalty among Republicans just as there is among Democrats. If you must condemn Republicans for being partisan, you must also condemn Democrats for being partisan. This one-sided nonsense can only be defended through intolerance and blindness towards the true reality.

It figures you would cop out. Have you read Trinity’s vision statement? It is directly attributed to James Cone’s racist black supremacist ideology. The race baiting of that church has now been documented. McCain was not a member of Hagee’s church and he only accepted the endorsement of that preacher. Accepting the endorsement is different than spending over 16 years in that preacher’s pews. What was Obama doing, sleeping for 16 years? Even Oprah left that church because she realized how hateful it was. When Obama announced his candidacy he backtracked because he KNEW that his preacher would be an embarrassment and instead of having Wright perform a public prayer he held it in private, hoping to sneak past the inevitable controversy that his preacher would cause. This was despite Obama’s later remark that he didn’t think that his pastor was controversial… an outright lie.

Prejudice runs deep among leftwingers just as some rightwingers struggle with their own prejudices. Despite the fact that during the majority of Obama’s teenagers he was raised by a loving white family, he confesses in his autobiography that he struggled to prevent himself from being prejudiced against whites. Such self-loathing is a hallmark of leftwing politics.

…So you say that rightwingers are “better” at goose-stepping, but that doesn’t explain why the SA brown shirts were so good at it. Hitler had to persecute them in order to satisfy the industrialists and the conservative German military. In effect he actually aligned himself with those more moderate than the SA Socialist extremists. That’s a sorry statement because those comparative ‘moderates’ were really sick.

In Nazi Germany the most effective resistance to Nazi rule came from rightwingers. The Conservative German military launched several assassination attempts against Hitler, one of which wounded him. It is unfortunate that Tom Cruise was chosen to portray Col. Stauffenberg in the upcoming movie “Valkyrie”. This would have been a movie that I could have eagerly anticipated, but Cruise is much too weak of an actor to play such a serious role. Regardless, it will bring to light this heroic story, which was one of many. The German intelligence agency, Abwehr, was the center of the most effective anti-Nazi efforts and under Canaris managed to play both sides of the war. While religion was subjugated by the Nazis there still was considerable dissent and resistance from that quarter. The White Rose movement was inspired by their Catholic faith and the resistance group, “Confessing Church” opposed the Nazis attempt to take over the Protestant Church.

In reality the extreme right is anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. Their leaders such as David Duke and Tom Metzger hate Israel and are against the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq. They share nothing in common with Z or anyone that visits her blog. Your attempts to compare these rightwingers to Nazis rings hollow.

psi bond said...

Your snobbishness is rearing its ugly head. How much do you know about me? When you said the following, it was your prejudice speaking:

"As prominent Republicans desert the reservation, rightwingers are getting desperate. I am feeling sorry for you, ’now."

What makes you think that I am a rightwinger? Define what makes me a rightwinger.

Your extreme defensiveness about critical remarks about rightwingers and your opinions about leftwing policies are clues. It is not snobbishness but rationality that suggests the conclusion that one does not write elaborate defenses of the right if he’s not in sympathy with the right.

You must have a serious reading problem, 'now. For the hypersensitivity driving your reaction to my loosely worded criticism of rightwingers has reared its ugly head, so to speak, seriously distorting your perception. Notwithstanding that 70 years ago many American conservatives had Nazi sympathies, I have made no serious comparisons of Z, her cronies, or other modern American conservatives to Nazis. (They are no more the same than liberals and communists are.)

I have made points regarding your skewed assessment of liberals, populism, and what the Secret Service confirmed about a certain Republican rally, among other things, and you have not responded to them. Your irrelevant screed you offer about Hitler and Tom Cruise appears to be intended to support the false proposition that if someone on the right resists or tries to assassinate a national leader, then that leader cannot also be on the right. Historically, the proposition doesn’t hold up. Another Hindu assassinated Gandhi. And one should note that, although Lee Harvey Oswald was on the left, JFK was nonetheless a liberal.

The theology of James Cone and Trinity United Church of Christ is a reasoned response to the black experience of oppression. As implemented in Trinity United, it is mainly focused on self-help programs for low-income families, which are mostly black. It is an affirmation of the humanity of blacks in the face of white racism. Unfortunately, extreme rightwingers in this election year have vigorously condemned that as a reverse kind of racism so as to denigrate Obama’s candidacy.

In actuality, I define the extreme right differently than you. What you want to describe as the extreme right only represents the right's lunatic fringe, in my taxonomy. The extreme right that figures most significantly in American politics today tenaciously considers all liberals stupid, deluded, or evil, as Z does. They often deny that moderate conservatives are conservatives at all. Extreme rightwingers exhibit a great deal of difficulty recognizing the distinction between opinion and objective truth. They show an inability to comprehend that most liberals are decent hardworking folks whose basic political principles make good sense to many educated, mentally competent individuals. Those on the extreme right are convinced Obama is a Manchurian candidate with beliefs that are anti-white and terrorist sympathizing. They have no doubt that if Obama is elected, America will be “ruined”. And anyone whose opinion is not in accord with that extremist assessment is–––to use one of Z’s favorite words–––silly.

Your attempts to compare these rightwingers to Nazis rings [sic] hollow.

This misconstruing of my words is a ploy only one opposed to liberals can swallow.

Freedomnow said...

Dont be a moron and tell me what I feel.

Your whole basis of defending your arguments are emotional so you are projecting your own defensiveness.

If you are going to assert that I am a rightwinger just based on your emotional interpretation then you are just admitting the weakness of your logic. You should base your conclusions based on relevant facts… what makes me a rightwinger as you accused me of? Do me the honor of stating something concrete or just admit that you assumed more than you know.

There is a reason that you define the extreme right as you do because you want the best of both worlds. To ridicule Republicans with references to Nazis (via comments of “goose-stepping” and “rallies held in rightwing regimes of another century”), while avoiding the pitfalls of the vast differences between the two. They are non-compatible. I see that you have finally stopped your silly Nazi goose-stepping analogies from which you have been forced to backpedal so furiously on. That’s very good, you are progressing.

On the following quote you completely miss my point and attack only a small piece of it completely out of context:

“Your irrelevant screed you offer about Hitler and Tom Cruise appears to be intended to support the false proposition that if someone on the right resists or tries to assassinate a national leader, then that leader cannot also be on the right.”

The Tom Cruise reference was merely an acknowledgement of current events. This statement would be better served by using Col Stauffenberg instead. Anyway, the point is that in Germany the most effective resistance to Hitler came from Conservatives. Politics is a circle in which the farther you go to the right or left, the closer the two become. I see little difference between the extreme right and extreme left. They are both totalitarians and both staunch advocates of intrusive social engineering.

There certainly is white racism in this country, but black racism is much more relevant in this election. About 90% of blacks voted for Obama in the primaries and polls predict a similar ratio in the upcoming election. Unfortunately, Obama spent many years in a church that actively inflamed racial tension and some of his supporters are doing the same.

Your defense of the outdated Black Liberation Theology is disturbing. Perhaps in the 60s such black hatred nonsense could be justified as an understandable reaction of weak-minded people suffering from oppression, but not in the 21st Century. What oppression did Obama suffer from? A loving white family raised him during the bulk of his teenage years. In the 20s and 30s Germany suffered from an unfair and oppressive vengeance wrought by the Allies. That didn’t justify the insanity of Nazism or any other extremism. When you justify extremism due to oppression, you are potentially treading on shaky ground. Martin Luther King provided a much saner answer to the black community’s problems. The wackiness of the Nation of Islam and Black Liberation Theology were irrational responses that have yet to be completely discredited due to mainstream apologists who defend such outdated lunacy. This is the 21st Century!!!

PSI, I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you don’t know much about Black Liberation Theology. Please read up on it and see for yourself how it’s teaching says that it is OK for blacks to hate whites as a whole. There is no situation in which I believe it is OK to teach that racism against another entire race is legitimate.

Z feels the same about John Kerry that she does about Obama. Conservatives are partisan just as liberals are partisan. Liberals despise Condi Rice and she is black. She has been derided with racial overtones by Leftists. Obama came from a radical background as a community organizer for the Gamaliel Foundation, an advocate of the Saul Alinsky’s school of organizing. According to the National Journal Obama has the most liberal voting record of 2007 (in the Senate) so it makes sense that Conservatives strongly oppose him.

Anyway, everything you describe about extreme rightwingers is true of extreme leftwingers.

psi bond said...

Dont [sic] be a moron and tell me what I feel.

Don’t be ridiculous, ’now. I am only noting your obvious political orientation. I base my observation on what I know from experience with rightwingers on political blogs–––namely, bloggers do not spend loads of time defending the rightwing unless they are rightwingers. That such defensiveness as yours about conservatism is usually found among those on the right is not surprising–––not to any one with a rational point of view. You pretend it is a controversial observation because you have dedicated yourself to disputing with little reason whatever I say. As if liberals were wrong about everything–––which is what extreme rightwingers assert.

There is a reason that you define the extreme right as you do because you want the best of both worlds. To ridicule Republicans with references to Nazis (via comments of “goose-stepping” and “rallies held in rightwing regimes of another century”), while avoiding the pitfalls of the vast differences between the two. They are non-compatible. I see that you have finally stopped your silly Nazi goose-stepping analogies from which you have been forced to backpedal so furiously on. That’s very good, you are progressing.

The reason you feel that I define the extreme right as I do is incorrect. Actually, my definition is empirical, derived from observation of rightwingers’ posts in cyberspace. The notion that rightwingers like Z espouse that voters for Obama are mentally deficient and need to be taught if possible to see the “truth” is evidence of their inability to distinguish between their opinions and objective truth. It assumes that those with opposing opinions are deluded or crazy. And, when possible, they must be brought into conformity with the right-thinkin’ “real Americans”.

That is, so to speak, the “weak minded” have to be trained to fall into loose, spruce goose-steppin’ pace with the righteous. JUST JOKING.

The Tom Cruise reference was merely an acknowledgement of current events. This statement would be better served by using Col Stauffenberg instead. Anyway, the point is that in Germany the most effective resistance to Hitler came from Conservatives. Politics is a circle in which the farther you go to the right or left, the closer the two become. I see little difference between the extreme right and extreme left. They are both totalitarians and both staunch advocates of intrusive social engineering.

The fact is the feelings you expressed about Tom Cruise’s acting are irrelevant to the topic under discussion here. So is the Stauffenberg story. What happened seventy years ago in Germany is not necessarily pertinent to what is happening here. In this country, conservatives are no more Nazis than liberals are communists.

I had already guessed it hitherto: You show yourself to be a disciple of Jonah Goldberg. Yes, the lunatic fringes of the left and the right asymptotically approach each other (adjacent if the political spectrum is conceived jn the Goldberger way as circular) with regard to their disrespect for the innate rights of the individual. But, in our context–––21st century America–––the extreme right, in my view, differs for the most part from the extreme left by its predisposition to militarism, its faith in exceptionalism, and its exclusionist outlook.

I do not defend Black Liberation Theology. I only explain it inasmuch as the context warrants. It has helped to improve the situation of dispossessed, low-income blacks as they eventually overcome the legacies of slavery and segregation. This system of thought should become less appealing the more successful it becomes in practice. Hopefully, we are approaching a post-racial era–––an era that will drive all the vestiges of racism in America into the lunatic fringe. It is your snobbery that assumes I haven’t read anything about Black Liberation Theology.

"It is important to make a further distinction here among black hatred, black racism, and Black Power. Black hatred is the black man's strong aversion to white society. No black man living in white America can escape it...But the charge of black racism cannot be reconciled with the facts. While it is true that blacks do hate whites, black hatred is not racism. Racism, according to Webster, is 'the assumption that psychocultural traits and capacities are determined by biological race and that races differ decisively from one another, which is usually coupled with a belief in the inherent superiority of a particular race and its rights to dominance over others.' Where are the examples among blacks in which they sought to assert their right to dominance over others because of a belief in black superiority?...Black Power is an affirmation of the humanity of blacks in spite of white racism. It says that only blacks really know the extent of white oppression, and thus only blacks are prepared to risk all to be free," James Cone wrote.

Calling Black Liberation Theology racism is like calling advocacy of women’s power sexism. It is no accident that the rightwing’s intense interest in denouncing Black Liberation Theology coincides with the candidacy of Barack Obama.

Anyway, everything you describe about extreme rightwingers is true of extreme leftwingers.

Those on the extreme left do not share the faith of many extreme rightwingers in the efficacy of nukes to solve any problems America has with the world. Nor do they share the common notion of rightwingers that Americans are anti-American who don’t accept as Absolute Truth what they believe.

As Mike Huckabee said, “You can love America without hating other Americans–––that’s my view.” It’s my view, too. You can love America without discriminating against some Americans by dividing people into pro-American (or goose-steppin’) and anti-American (or dirty dancing) categories. Each of us has freedom now to move to his own beat.

Freedomnow said...

OK PSI. You said to me,

“ Don’t be ridiculous, ’now. I am only noting your obvious political orientation. I base my observation on what I know from experience with rightwingers on political blogs–––namely, bloggers do not spend loads of time defending the rightwing unless they are rightwingers. That such defensiveness as yours about conservatism is usually found among those on the right is not surprising–––not to any one with a rational point of view.”

You say that I am a rightwinger solely on the basis that I defend them...

That doesn’t necessarily mean that I am a rightwinger does it? All it means is that I defend rightwingers. They are clearly my allies, but that doesn’t mean that I am a righwinger. Since you are avoiding the issues and sticking with guilt by association, why dont we define a rightwinger and compare my beliefs to them?

1) Belief in a strong military or pro-military = Yes, I agree with them on this issue

2) Patriotic = Yes, within the last half decade I went from anti-patriotic to patriotic

3) Anti-Communist = Yes, I have always been anti-Communist. Even as an Anarchist punk rocker for decades I never liked them. See Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia” for why even as a radical leftwinger I despised Communism.

Well… based on the facts above maybe I am a rightwinger, but wait… as I pointed out even Anarchists can be staunchly anti-Communist. And if you asked John Murtha or John Kerry or Hillary Clinton if they were pro-military, patriotic and anti-Communist they would probably answer yes to all those issues. So these are traits that are not limited to rightwingers or that cannot be used to separate between righterwingers and moderate leftwingers.

Then lets define issues that are more specific to rightwingers…

1) Gun Control = I am for it. I believe in a total ban on automatic weapons. Other arms should be strongly regulated.

2) Abortion = I am for it.

3) States Rights = I despise the Electoral College and believe in elections by popular vote. I reject the notion that states should pass laws such as drinking age limits, which should be regulated by the federal government so that the entire country can have consistent regulation. It was only through a campaign of coercion that our states were pushed into adopting the 21 years of age standard. While I see the need for troops to be readily available for disaster aid, I am suspicious of having troops under the command of a governor. Look at the Roman and Persian Empires for my reasons on this issue. At this point there is absolutely no danger of any foul play that can be created by states having a militia (National Guard), but generations from now when this country is in decline there could be problems. I am not a fan of states rights.

4) Big Government = I despise bureaucracy like anyone else, but acknowledge that we need govt. It is silly to be so suspicious of our central government.

5) Taxes = I am for our current system of higher taxes for the rich, but I am disturbed by Obama’s populist rhetoric on the issue and his desire to attack Wall Street. Our country has the 2nd highest corporate taxes and I think that is enough. I am for the current tax system so that puts me against both the Right and the Left on this issue.

6) Welfare System = While there are flaws, I think our welfare system is fantastic and like it just the way it is. Our poor need social programs.

7) Socialized Medicine = This is one point I agree with rightwingers on. Socialized medicine will dramatically increase our tax rate and create a mediocre health care system along the lines of Great Britain and Canada. I have no interest in it, but I do support some moderate aspects of making health care for the poor cheaper. As an inner city youth raised in poverty, I went to neighborhood health clinics for the poor and I believe we need a moderate increase in such services.

8) Homosexual Marriage = I am for it.

9) Religious Right = I am an atheist and I can never remember believing in any God. I find it amusing that Leftists use religion for political activism just like the Right. Such hypocrisy is funny.

10) Immigration Reform = I am for relaxed immigration laws and amnesty for many current immigrants. I believe in fighting illegal immigration through NAFTA and other efforts to build up Central America’s economy, as well as stricter enforcement of labor law. There is anti-NAFTA sentiment from both the Left and the Right, but I am for it.

11) Drugs = I am all for legalization of every recreational drug. Of course there must be strong regulation of hard drugs, which should be sold by the federal government. Licenses should be issued to purchase them. Counseling must be provided to those who apply for them. These programs will be funded by the sale of drugs.

12) Affirmative Action = As a kid I benefited from the school bussing program to integrate our education system. They bussed me to some of the better schools in NYC from a very bad neighborhood. I cannot question the necessity of programs to help minorities. However, I do question those who resort to race baiting in the 21st Century. Race relations have drastically improved since the 70s.

So PSI you must confront your prejudice. When defending your labeling of me as a righwinger you directed this comment towards me:

“You pretend it is a controversial observation because you have dedicated yourself to disputing with little reason whatever I say. As if liberals were wrong about everything–––which is what extreme rightwingers assert.”

This is merely your prejudice speaking. If I thought liberals were wrong about everything I wouldn’t agree with them on most of the issues listed above. Instead I disagree with their tactics, just as I disagree with your tactics.

Your comments about those who call leftwingers mentally deficient are true, but go to Daily Kos or Huffington Post and see what they say about rightwingers. There are two sides of the coin.

The name Jonah Goldberg didn’t ring a bell, but when I looked him up I recognized the book cover for “Liberal Fascism”. I will check out his writing, thanks for the heads up. You should note that I was a strong supporter of Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and according to Wikipedia, Goldberg got his start by bashing Clinton over this stupid affair. I was an Anarchist back then and up to that point I had refused to vote. However, in the 1996 elections I voted for Clinton out of disgust for the Kenneth Starr witch-hunt that started with the Whitewater smear and ended with this desperate attempt to impeach him.

Its amusing that you first say that you don’t defend Black hatred and then go on to defend it. What I did was give you the benefit of the doubt and wrote that maybe you weren’t familiar with its teachings. You merely misrepresented what I wrote, but there is no misrepresenting what you wrote. In your own words:

“Calling Black Liberation Theology racism is like calling advocacy of women’s power sexism. It is no accident that the rightwing’s intense interest in denouncing Black Liberation Theology coincides with the candidacy of Barack Obama.”

As I wrote, Martin Luther King provided a real answer to the problems facing the black community and it wasn’t based on hatred. But James Cone made a career out of justifying black racism against whites as legitimate. This is the politics of hate. He wrote the following:

“All white men are responsible for white oppression. It is much too easy to say, “Racism is not my fault,” or “I am not responsible for the country’s inhumanity to the black man”...But insofar as white do-gooders tolerate and sponsor racism in their educational institutions, their political, economic and social structures, their churches, and in every other aspect of American life, they are directly responsible for racism...Racism is possible because whites are indifferent to suffering and patient with cruelty.”

This is an attack on all whites regardless of their personal beliefs. Tell me that isn’t racist!!!!!!!!

This is the type of justification that was used to excuse the Long Island Railroad massacre. While the murderer was probably mentally deranged, he was the son of a prominent Jamaican businessman and lived a charmed life until his wife divorced him and took his child. He used black rage as an excuse to direct his anger towards whites, even though he never experienced any notable oppression at their hands. Before he dumped his attorneys, they tried to use black rage as a defense. This hate industry struggles to keep alive the racial hatred of our past. It is a sham.

It was only through this election that Obama was forced to cut his connection to his race baiting church. If it wasn’t for the objections to the hatred coming from that church Obama would still be a member. This was the best thing that could of happened to him. He will be a better person for it. I’m tired of accusations that America created AIDS to kill the black man. I’m tired of victimhood as a means of the justification of hating whites and advancing political and clerical careers. Enough!!!

psi bond said...

OK, so you’re really a rightwinger defined more by attitudes and outlook than by particular positions. That is what I guessed. A rightwinger who, like Rudy Giuliani, is for gun control. A rightwinger who, like William F. Buckley, is for legaliztion of recreational drugs. One who, like Tom Ridge, is pro-choice. Not a social conservative but for the most part an economic conservative desiring less bureaucracy (small government). Although, as I have observed, you strongly identify with key rightwing attitudes and talking points, you are apparently willing, like many others, to follow along on the social conservative policies, notwithstanding that many conservatives feel the Christian right is sabotaging the Republican Party. Hence I would guess that, unlike Colin Powell, you are comfortable with the appointment of more rightwing justices to the Supreme Court.

See Arthur Schesinger’s memoirs for why anti-communism is not confined to the right.

Liberals oppose intrusion by government into matters of individual privacy. Like conservatives, anarchists want the intrusiveness of government to be, if not zero, as minimal as is possible. While anarchists believe the state is the enemy, conservatives believe government is the problem, not the solution.

There are no cut-and-dried definitions of what constitutes a rightwinger. Adopting and repeating hostile rightwing propaganda points and catchphrases are tell-tale clues of kinship, though. In any case, where you stand on every political issue that you itemize is not relevant to this discussion. You are making the discussion mainly about you, which is not a discussion that interests me.

As I said, it makes no sense to speak of blacks as being racist, any more than it does to speak of women’s power advocates as sexist. The James Cone quotation you present, one which I have read hitherto, is not about black racism (in your words, “James Cone’s racist black supremacist ideology”). You have excised the latter part of the quote in which Cone expresses the philosophico-theological underpinning for his position. It is as follows:

Karl Jaspers' description of metaphysical guilt is pertinent here. 'There exists among men, because they are men, a solidarity through which each shares responsibility for every injustice and every wrong committed in the world, and especially for crimes that are committed in his presence or of which he cannot be ignorant.'"

I think Cone has an arguable position insofar as white racism against blacks cannot happen unless, regardless of whether or not they hate racism, whites do nothing. His is really a clear call for a radical change in the social norm. Cone wrote it in 1969, and since that time that change has begun and is far advanced: Whites voicing racist attitudes are no longer accepted as politically correct (despite all the whining by rightwingers about political correctness). Such people are not admitted into modern decent society.

It’s a rightwing tactic to brand blacks as racist who resolutely struggle to gain dignity in white society by their own combined efforts. Slickly dismissing their experience of oppression as victimhood is an intolerant rightwing tactic. So is labeling Obama a racist (as does the manifesto by the “We the People” impersonators at the top of this forum). So is pretending the so-called “Long Island Railroad massacre” example (an unsurprising rightwing favorite) is representative of the conduct of blacks–––it’s no more representative than (to speak of current events) the two neo-Nazis apprehended in a plot on Obama’s life are representative of rightwingers. Extreme examples prove nothing significant about the population in general.

By these tactics, many rightwingers typically choose to discredit and vilify society’s victims. There should be a name for this common rightwing predisposition. Repugnantism?

Superpatriotic rightwingers, self-deluded that they are superior by virtue of having attained The Truth, tend to consider Americans who disagree to be anti-American. What’s a nice word for such a bad attitude? Fascist? No. Divisive.

Sanctimonious rightwingers anoint themselves the guardians of moral values, but when they are revealed to have transgressed them, they point across the aisle (or across the blogosphere). What is a word for such behavior? Hypocrite.

psi bond said...

So you name a couple of Conservatives that have a couple of similar beliefs as I do. But none have anything remotely in common with me like all of these points... pro-abortion, pro-gun control, atheist, pro-welfare, pro-higher taxes for the rich, anti-federalist, pro-gay marriage, pro-affirmative action, pro-immigrant reform, etc... You cant find one Conservative, just one... You’re just a propagandist who cant admit that you are wrong.

As I have illustrated, positions on particular issues do not define a rightwinger. Your wholehearted adoption of the conservative outlook and its propaganda and your hostility to liberals make a denial of an ideological tie with conservatism not credible. You say you are pro-abortion but you seemingly have no trouble with the appointment of anti-abortion Supreme Court justices. Speaking of bizarre, that is bizarre. You say you favor higher taxes for the rich, but you oppose Obama, who unlike McCain (2008 version), is for higher taxes for the rich. That is quite bizarre. You say you are an atheist, but you attack Obama, not his opponent, who has said (pandering to those he called "the agents of intolerance" in 2000) that America was founded as a Christian nation. Your preference for a minimal bureaucracy is at odds with your hostility for black churches that seek community improvement by self-help without government aid. You apparently support the Republican ticket although most Republicans do not share your professed views on gun control, gay rights, affirmative action, anti-federalism, etc. It appears that your oft-voiced concentration on what you like to call black racism and your concern for white victims of it are, if not driving your vote, intimately connected with your dismissal of Obama’s candidacy. You seem to tie Obama to aberrations by others of the same race. If this is not the basis of your opposition to Obama, what then?

If James Cone believes black suffering is getting worse, I am unable to contradict him. Not being black, I cannot speak knowledgably about the black experience. The point is not whether Cone acknowledges progress has been made or is impatient with the progress that there is, but that he has an arguable case that the oppression of blacks is the product of collective white indifference. Liberals are willing to admit he may be right, but most rightwingers deny it utterly, apparently feeling it is a criticism of American society that is unacceptable. If you don’t think there is no longer black suffering at the hands of society in America, why do you still support affirmative action?

The right’s segregation of America into pro-America and anti-America regions is not morally equivalent to the disdain many liberals have for the anti-intellectualism and rejection of the validity of science that is endemic in conservatism. A recent case in point is Sarah Palin’s willful ignorance of the value of fruit fly research in molecular biology and in genetics–––a heretical science, it seems. Recent results from studies on some fruit fly species may help scientists understand autism, a disease Palin mentioned in her speech since her nephew has it.

You have no credibility when you talk about two Neo Nazis involved in a plot to kill Obama as "representative of rightwingers". So tell me, what do Neo-Nazis think about Israel? They violently oppose it and call our govt "the Zionist Occupational Govt". That means Republican President George Bush and Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi are both their enemies as the leaders of ZOG. How many times has Neo-Nazi David Duke went [sic] to Syria to denounce Israel and the U.S. occupation of Iraq? Your misrepresentations are nothing but empty lies.

Read it again, 'now:

So is pretending the so-called “Long Island Railroad massacre” example (an unsurprising rightwing favorite) is representative of the conduct of blacks–––it’s no more representative than (to speak of current events) the two neo-Nazis apprehended in a plot on Obama’s life are representative of rightwingers.

Apparently, your defensiveness on behalf of rightwingers is causing your misreading. I did not say the two neo-Nazis are representative of rightwingers. I suggested the contrary–––that they were no more representative of the larger group than a black man who goes on a rampage on a train is representative of blacks.

The two neo-Nazis were reported to have planned a deadly rampage through southern states, beheading fourteen of their victims in a brutal homage to their white supremacist skinhead culture before gunning down Obama, while wearing white tuxedos and top hats. Not goals found on any liberal agendas.

Your calling opinions that you don’t like lies is a trademark of the virulent propaganda strategy of the rightwing

Freedomnow said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Freedomnow said...

Sorry I misread your comment. You really don’t deserve an apology after saying the following, but I will give it to you anyway…

“Your calling opinions that you don’t like lies is a trademark of the virulent propaganda strategy of the rightwing.”

I misread your comment thinking that you were saying that the two skinheads in the plot to kill Obama are representative of rightwingers. That’s my mistake, but it was not an ignorant act of intolerance for your opinion. It was a misunderstanding that resulted from misreading a run-on sentence. Your rambling comment was connected with three dashes and more than one parenthesis. I’m sorry, but it was a difficult read. See the quote:

“It’s a rightwing tactic to brand blacks as racist who resolutely struggle to gain dignity in white society by their own combined efforts. Slickly dismissing their experience of oppression as victimhood is an intolerant rightwing tactic. So is labeling Obama a racist (as does the manifesto by the “We the People” impersonators at the top of this forum). So is pretending the so-called “Long Island Railroad massacre” example (an unsurprising rightwing favorite) is representative of the conduct of blacks–––it’s no more representative than (to speak of current events) the two neo-Nazis apprehended in a plot on Obama’s life are representative of rightwingers. Extreme examples prove nothing significant about the population in general.

If you were actually saying that those Neo-Nazis were representative of rightwingers, it would be an outrageous lie. Even you have to agree with that. So it wasn’t the fact that I just disregard your opinion, it’s the fact that I misunderstood what you wrote. That led me to believe that you were writing the opposite of what you were really trying to say. In this case I simply misunderstood the meaning of a long-winded paragraph. However, you attempt to frame me as someone intolerant of your opinion. That is not true.

Then you claim that I am acting bizarrely when you directed this comment towards me, “You say you are pro-abortion but you seemingly have no trouble with the appointment of anti-abortion Supreme Court justices.”

Republicans make good points on this issue. They seek to protect unborn life. I respect them for it. However, I feel that women have the right to do with their own body as they choose (within reasonable limits, I am not in favor of very late term abortions unless they are special circumstances). If Conservative judges are going to be smeared when applying for the job then I reject such nonsense. They need to be judged based on their qualifications, not their political bias. Now if they are extremists then I could see the point in speaking out against them, but Alito has been much more moderate than Ted Kennedy and all those other blowhards made him out to be.

So you go on to claim the following, “You say you favor higher taxes for the rich, but you oppose Obama, who unlike McCain (2008 version), is for higher taxes for the rich. That is quite bizarre.”

The rich are already taxed at a higher rate than the poor. Obama wants to expand that. If we move into a deep recession that is not a good strategy. I have no problem with a higher tax rate for the rich. We already have one. Get it?

Another point that you made stated, “You say you are an atheist, but you attack Obama, not his opponent, who has said (pandering to those he called "the agents of intolerance" in 2000) that America was founded as a Christian nation.”

Our money says “In God We Trust”. Americans are very religious. Atheists can be very insecure. I don’t care what anyone believes, it doesn’t change who I am. Agnostics are no better. They try to tell me that I cant be an atheist because I cant prove that there is no God or Gods and therefore I don’t know. I can give a rat’s ass what other people say that I should believe. I know what I am and what I believe. I am more concerned about Black Liberation Theology than McCain’s moderate religious beliefs or his alleged pandering to some rightwing religious figures.

You also said, “Your preference for a minimal bureaucracy is at odds with your hostility for black churches that seek community improvement by self-help without government aid.”

Who said that I believe in minimal bureaucracy? I am for a strong central govt and that involves bureaucracy. I’m not crazy about bureaucracy, but it’s a fact of life and I’m over it.

I am against Black Liberation Theology not black churches having independent community projects. They don’t need Liberation Theology to have these programs.

You threw in this one too, “You apparently support the Republican ticket although most Republicans do not share your professed views on gun control, gay rights, affirmative action, anti-federalism, etc. It appears that your oft-voiced concentration on what you like to call black racism and your concern for white victims of it are, if not driving your vote, intimately connected with your dismissal of Obama’s candidacy. You seem to tie Obama to aberrations by others of the same race. If this is not the basis of your opposition to Obama, what then?”

Obama is white and black. In America I couldn't possibly avoid linking him to others of his race. I am more concerned about the fight against fascism than domestic policy. I would have supported anyone who supported the Surge. If they were Communist, Buddhist, Martian or whoever… everyone except for Plutonians, I am racist against them. Hell, they don’t even live on a planet anymore (nice usage of the word “abberation” though).

I liked this question, “If you don’t think there is no longer black suffering at the hands of society in America, why do you still support affirmative action?”

Because as a Latino I benefit from it.

Just because there are many poor blacks doesn’t mean that they are oppressed. Our views of racial prejudice are too firmly rooted in the mid-20th Century. Blacks are poor because their previous generations were poor. Sure you can attribute that to slavery and Jim Crow, but today poor blacks have more opportunities available to them than poor whites do. To reconcile with the past I can live with that, but I must speak up when agitators seek to stir racial prejudice in order to advance their political or clerical careers.

I suppose if Palin declares science to be heresy then I will oppose her on that issue, but all I see is conjecture and fear mongering. She is for adult stem cell research, but against embryonic which kills the embryo. That’s not unreasonable. I see the moral implications of what she is saying, but I still take the immoral stance that its OK to kill the embryos for scientific research.

Its interesting that its OK to denigrate small town people as clinging to guns and religion, but if you compliment small towns, immediately there are accusations of segregation and all kinds of bloated rhetoric.

Palin said, “We believe that the best of America is in the small towns that we get to visit, and in the wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation.”

Oh the horror!!!!!!

Must there be a fake America if the term real America is used? There are no comparisons in this comment. This is a victimless crime. If I hop into my boss’s Porsche and say that it is a real car, that doesn’t mean that I think that all other cars are fake. It’s a common usage of language that denotes a compliment. If I say that Porches are the best that doesn’t mean that I think that Jaguars are not excellent cars.

This is the problem of modern campaigns that can broken down into sound bites. To be fair to Obama I will quote him in context too:

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Of course he was campaigning against Hillary so don’t get all bipartisan on me. Publishing the whole comment does give it a tiny bit more perspective… but it is still really an embarrassing statement. Even in context. It is offensive to those small town folks who are religious. Perhaps they have had hard times only recently, but have always been religious. It is insulting to be grouped with bigots and have your religious belief belittled as something that is the result of bitterness. The same for gun owners.

psi bond said...

Sorry I misread your comment. You really don’t deserve an apology after saying the following, but I will give it to you anyway…

“Your calling opinions that you don’t like lies is a trademark of the virulent propaganda strategy of the rightwing.”

The truth is you did label them lies and doing that is typical of the strategy used by rightwing posters in cyberspace. What I said does not deserve to be called lies.

I misread your comment thinking that you were saying that the two skinheads in the plot to kill Obama are representative of rightwingers. That’s my mistake, but it was not an ignorant act of intolerance for your opinion. It was a misunderstanding that resulted from misreading a run-on sentence. Your rambling comment was connected with three dashes and more than one parenthesis. I’m sorry, but it was a difficult read. See the quote:

“It’s a rightwing tactic to brand blacks as racist who resolutely struggle to gain dignity in white society by their own combined efforts. Slickly dismissing their experience of oppression as victimhood is an intolerant rightwing tactic. So is labeling Obama a racist (as does the manifesto by the “We the People” impersonators at the top of this forum). So is pretending the so-called “Long Island Railroad massacre” example (an unsurprising rightwing favorite) is representative of the conduct of blacks–––it’s no more representative than (to speak of current events) the two neo-Nazis apprehended in a plot on Obama’s life are representative of rightwingers. Extreme examples prove nothing significant about the population in general.

It is untrue that the sentence misread by you is a run-on sentence. The punctuation used to join the two halves is a grammatically proper method of avoiding a run-on sentence. They are joined with a long dash (which is how it appears in my editing software), not three dashes (which is how it appears in the gee whiz forum). (In other forums where I post, it appears as a long dash.) I'm sorry, but your grounds ("three dashes and more than one parenthesis") are not plausible for claiming it is difficult reading ("I’m sorry, but it was a difficult read"). Your bogus excuse for misreading makes it seem more likely to me that it was due rather to misperception spurred by your defensiveness about the right. By the way, it is my practice to always use more than one parenthesis. At the very least, an opening parenthesis and a closing parenthesis are employed.

If you were actually saying that those Neo-Nazis were representative of rightwingers, it would be an outrageous lie.

I emphatically said : Extreme examples prove nothing significant about the population in general. That should be a clue that I did not say what you thought I said.

Even you have to agree with that.

I don’t agree that it would be a lie. It would be a politically incorrect opinion.

So it wasn’t the fact that I just disregard your opinion, it’s the fact that I misunderstood what you wrote.

Then you should not have said it was nothing but "empty lies".

That led me to believe that you were writing the opposite of what you were really trying to say. In this case I simply misunderstood the meaning of a long-winded paragraph. However, you attempt to frame me as someone intolerant of your opinion. That is not true.

I did not frame your reaction as intolerance of my opinion; I framed it as emblematic of a common rightwing strategy. Your long-winded explanation for your little mistake is amusingly noted. The real mistake you made was to call my opinion "lies". Regardless of whether you understood what you were saying, I correctly observed that it is a hallmark of the rightwing to call displeasing opinions lies.

Then you claim that I am acting bizarrely when you directed this comment towards me, “You say you are pro-abortion but you seemingly have no trouble with the appointment of anti-abortion Supreme Court justices.”

Republicans make good points on this issue. They seek to protect unborn life. I respect them for it. However, I feel that women have the right to do with their own body as they choose (within reasonable limits, I am not in favor of very late term abortions unless they are special circumstances). If Conservative judges are going to be smeared when applying for the job then I reject such nonsense. They need to be judged based on their qualifications, not their political bias. Now if they are extremists then I could see the point in speaking out against them, but Alito has been much more moderate than Ted Kennedy and all those other blowhards made him out to be.


Many (including Joseph Biden) believe that judges nominated to the Supreme Court should be considered not only on their judicial temperament and experience, but also on their judicial philosophy. Those with radical philosophies should be rejected (for example, Robert Bork, who denied that the Constitution provides a right of privacy). One with a strong genuine concern about abortion rights should not want to see judges appointed who would reverse the long established law. For a person who is pro-choice not to care about women who would be put in jeopardy by such a reversal is bizarre. We elect a president by examining not only his qualifications but also his philosophical bias on political matters. We should not expect senators to confirm a judicial appointment without examining the candidate's philosophical bias with regard to the Constitution–––especially since the Federalist Society has been grooming jurists (including Roberts and Alito) to have the desired conservative philosophy in the wake of Republican appointments of judges to the Court that turned out to be disappointingly liberal in their decisions.

So you go on to claim the following, “You say you favor higher taxes for the rich, but you oppose Obama, who unlike McCain (2008 version), is for higher taxes for the rich. That is quite bizarre.”

The rich are already taxed at a higher rate than the poor. Obama wants to expand that. If we move into a deep recession that is not a good strategy. I have no problem with a higher tax rate for the rich. We already have one. Get it?


I get your disingenuousness. The rich pay high taxes. Obama wants them to pay somewhat higher taxes, at the level of the Clinton years.

Another point that you made stated, “You say you are an atheist, but you attack Obama, not his opponent, who has said (pandering to those he called "the agents of intolerance" in 2000) that America was founded as a Christian nation.”

Our money says “In God We Trust”. Americans are very religious. Atheists can be very insecure. I don’t care what anyone believes, it doesn’t change who I am. Agnostics are no better. They try to tell me that I cant be an atheist because I cant prove that there is no God or Gods and therefore I don’t know. I can give a rat’s ass what other people say that I should believe. I know what I am and what I believe. I am more concerned about Black Liberation Theology than McCain’s moderate religious beliefs or his alleged pandering to some rightwing religious figures.


Currency we must use that bears the words "In God We Trust" (made the national motto by act of Congress in 1956) is a mid-nineteenth- and twentieth-century vestige of government intrusion on freedom of belief. Some atheists have been crossing out the national motto on paper money. Agnostics have a rational point: Whether there is a god is beyond what can be objectively known; any answer to that question must be subjective. Hence atheists who state that they know there is no god have only their faith for guidance in the matter. Of course, it is their right to believe that. However, those asserting that this country was founded as a Christian nation are imposing a threatening religious interpretation on a nation that was defined as secular in design by the Constitution, which even explicitly prohibits religious tests for public officials. The movement of the religious right to have the United States declared a Christian nation is potentially more harmful to America than the outreach programs of Trinity Untied Church of Christ to ameliorate the lives of low-income families through their own efforts.

You also said, “Your preference for a minimal bureaucracy is at odds with your hostility for black churches that seek community improvement by self-help without government aid.”

Who said that I believe in minimal bureaucracy? I am for a strong central govt and that involves bureaucracy. I’m not crazy about bureaucracy, but it’s a fact of life and I’m over it.


You wrote: "Big Government = I despise bureaucracy like anyone else, but acknowledge that we need govt." A rational person who despises bureaucracy wants to see it reduced in size.

I am against Black Liberation Theology not black churches having independent community projects. They don’t need Liberation Theology to have these programs.

That is what Liberation Theology is mainly about in Wright's church. It is just rightwingers who emphasize other aspects of it to smear Obama's candidacy.

You threw in this one too, “You apparently support the Republican ticket although most Republicans do not share your professed views on gun control, gay rights, affirmative action, anti-federalism, etc. It appears that your oft-voiced concentration on what you like to call black racism and your concern for white victims of it are, if not driving your vote, intimately connected with your dismissal of Obama’s candidacy. You seem to tie Obama to aberrations by others of the same race. If this is not the basis of your opposition to Obama, what then?”

Obama is white and black. In America I couldn't possibly avoid linking him to others of his race. I am more concerned about the fight against fascism than domestic policy. I would have supported anyone who supported the Surge. If they were Communist, Buddhist, Martian or whoever… everyone except for Plutonians, I am racist against them. Hell, they don’t even live on a planet anymore (nice usage of the word “abberation” though).


Those who are biased see Obama only as black.Since Pluto has been officially stripped of planetary status, Plutonians have no standing. If you are most concerned about how the war on terror is fought, it is strange that you haven't mentioned it until now, 'now. It may be that this omission was an aberration.

I liked this question, “If you don’t think there is no longer black suffering at the hands of society in America, why do you still support affirmative action?”

Because as a Latino I benefit from it.
Do you feel affirmative action is necessary for Latinos? Some who are the beneficiaries of affirmative action are opposed to it.

Just because there are many poor blacks doesn’t mean that they are oppressed. Our views of racial prejudice are too firmly rooted in the mid-20th Century. Blacks are poor because their previous generations were poor. Sure you can attribute that to slavery and Jim Crow, but today poor blacks have more opportunities available to them than poor whites do. To reconcile with the past I can live with that, but I must speak up when agitators seek to stir racial prejudice in order to advance their political or clerical careers.

I have not seen the information that shows poor blacks are better off than poor blacks, but it does not mean blacks are not oppressed. You seem to be less troubled by racial injustice that by leaders who address it, advancing their careers in the process. Martin Luther King Jr.(who was both political and clerical) was one of those. To the present day, high unemployment falls disproportionately on blacks.

I suppose if Palin declares science to be heresy then I will oppose her on that issue, but all I see is conjecture and fear mongering. She is for adult stem cell research, but against embryonic which kills the embryo. That’s not unreasonable. I see the moral implications of what she is saying, but I still take the immoral stance that its OK to kill the embryos for scientific research.

She ridicules fruit fly research ("I am not kidding", she said when denouncing the research). In terms of benefits for man, such research has proved fruitful. She said creationism should be taught along with evolution, before she said it shouldn't. She mentioned to a music professor her belief that dinosaurs and humans occupied the earth at the same time. Her beliefs are not unusual for the religious right. She and McCain, if elected, will enforce the immoral stance that those suffering from presently uncurable diseases should not be allowed the hope promised by government-sponsored research on embryonic stem cells, which, if not thus used for the benefit of mankind, will otherwise be disposed of.

Its interesting that its OK to denigrate small town people as clinging to guns and religion, but if you compliment small towns, immediately there are accusations of segregation and all kinds of bloated rhetoric.

Palin said, “We believe that the best of America is in the small towns that we get to visit, and in the wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation.”


A quality cannot exist without its opposite. There is no compliment in praising small towns for being the real America if big cities are not to be considered unwholesome America by contrast. There is no distinction–––“the best of America”–––in singling out some areas as "hard-working, very patriotic, very pro-America" if all areas of America are likewise. If everyone is the best and wins the Nobel Prize, how special is that?

Oh the horror!!!!!!

"The horror, the horror." That is what Kurtz said. The horror when it was picked and amplified by Republican congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who proposed not only that Obama was perhaps anti-American but that the media should investigate Congress to find out which of its members are pro-American and which are anti-American.

Must there be a fake America if the term real America is used? There are no comparisons in this comment. This is a victimless crime. If I hop into my boss’s Porsche and say that it is a real car, that doesn’t mean that I think that all other cars are fake. It’s a common usage of language that denotes a compliment. If I say that Porches are the best that doesn’t mean that I think that Jaguars are not excellent cars.

If there is good, must there be evil ? Saying that a particular behavior is good is to make an implied comparison. Raving that a Porsche is a real car means there exist other (but not necessarily all other) cars which are not of comparable class. With reference to Palin's words, the crime has victims if it turns out there are good hard-working, patriotic, pro-Americans excluded thereby as something other than that. I don't doubt that there are. Exclusionist rightwingers disagree. That is their right as long as they don't propose enacting legislation on the basis of that belief.

This is the problem of modern campaigns that can broken down into sound bites.

It was more than a sound bite. It expressed an unfair belief that, to many rightwingers, is not strange

To be fair to Obama I will quote him in context too:

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Of course he was campaigning against Hillary so don’t get all bipartisan on me. Publishing the whole comment does give it a tiny bit more perspective… but it is still really an embarrassing statement. Even in context. It is offensive to those small town folks who are religious. Perhaps they have had hard times only recently, but have always been religious. It is insulting to be grouped with bigots and have your religious belief belittled as something that is the result of bitterness. The same for gun owners.


Illuminating are the words you left out that immediately precede the ones you quote: “But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns…” This is the frame in which he made the remark that follows about small towns in Pennsylvania. It was not an idle, condescending, élitist criticism, as the sound bite makes it seem. They were made in the context of how people in depressed areas of industrial states who feel betrayed by government can be made to have restored confidence in government.

Religious people are not necessarily bigots: Although this remark from a speech (first reported by Huffington Post), at a fundraiser not open to the public, was not artfully worded, thus enabling rightwingers to insinuate he said as much, Obama did not, in fact, assert that that was true. He did not say that in communities that have had hard times “for 25 years”, people’s religious belief or their clinging to guns was the result of their bitterness. Rather, their understandable bitterness over their dismal employment fate may have had the effect of intensifying those reassuring behaviors. Whether one is bitter or not, reassurance is religion’s function. Apparently, Pennsylvanians have a sense of humor and recognize Obama’s core decency and respect for each individual, since he has a double-digit lead in that state.

However, nowhere in all your verbiage do you explain why you oppose Obama for president, as is plain, or why you favor McCain, if indeed you do. My question remains unanswered. Alas!

Freedomnow said...

That paragraph was poorly written and it is easy to see how it could be misunderstood. You have four different thoughts within its context. Whew... That is a painful read. I apologized for misunderstanding and thats not good enough for you? Your lack of graciousness is a mark of your divisive and partisan outlook.

In the end you have failed to prove that I am a Conservative as you falsely accused. Yet you continue to tell me what I am.

Name one Conservative that has a majority of the beliefs that we discussed that are similar to mine...

Pro-abortion, pro-gun control, atheist, pro-welfare, pro-higher taxes for the rich, anti-federalist, pro-gay marriage, pro-affirmative action, pro-immigrant reform, etc...

You demand to know why I oppose Obama as if I never stated my reasons, which I have sprinkled throughout these comments. Yet you made a false accusation and never answered the question that I posed to you... because you cant.

If you cant name one rightwinger then you really dont have a case.

psi bond said...

That paragraph was poorly written and it is easy to see how it could be misunderstood. You have four different thoughts within its context. Whew... That is a painful read. I apologized for misunderstanding and thats not good enough for you? Your lack of graciousness is a mark of your divisive and partisan outlook.

Paragraphs usually contain several different thoughts. For example, the above quoted paragraph contains five different thoughts.

Your apology was certainly not gracious. You apologized while declaring I did not deserve an apology. Despite what you have said, the sentence that you claim is difficult to read was not a run-on sentence since it was in properly punctuated Standard English–––and, in addition, the following sentence that echoed it was quite clear in contending that extreme examples are not descriptive of the population. All your whining over misreading seems intended to insinuate that I should accept blame for writing something that is “a painful read”–––as though it was really I who owed you an apology. In your long-winded self-justifying process, you evade apologizing for your claim that it was “lies”. Your bogus claim that I show a divisive and partisan outlook by not graciously accepting your ungracious apology is a mark of pugnacity and a tit-for-tat disposition.

Forget your misreading. It is not so important to me. If you apologize without any self-justification for mistakenly calling it “lies”, that will be good enough for me–––I promise to graciously accept that apology.

Your reasons for opposing Obama for president were not directly stated. The only indications that you do oppose him and support McCain that I can recall you giving over the last eight or nine days is your linking Obama to Black Liberation Theology, which he doesn't advocate, and to Colin Ferguson, of whom he most likely doesn’t approve. Correct me if I am wrong about this, but so far you have not mentioned any policies of Obama that you don't like. Nonetheless, I don't demand to know your reasons for opposing Obama. I don't need to know. I'm just curious why you have nothing to say about the actual issues in this campaign.

Perhaps, not being a social conservative, you feel that you should not be classified as a rightwinger. But your strident rightwing attitudes, rhetoric, and tactics are clearly identifiable. Your ardent defense of discriminating between pro-America and anti-America areas of the country does not distinguish you from conservatives. It does distinguish you from liberals, however. Neither do you separate yourself from rightwingers by alleging that a self-affirming theology intended to liberate a community from the debilitating effects of racism is racist. Likewise with respect to your untroubled acceptance of a Supreme Court with a conservative majority. Your willingness to permit the conservative social agenda to prevail makes you a bizarre supporter of the liberal social values that you claim to hold. When you vigorously defend rightwingers while vigorously attacking liberals, as you have done here, it matters little how you classify yourself: Functionally you are a rightwinger, albeit not an up-front one. Persisting in describing yourself otherwise, you don’t have a credible case.

Freedomnow said...

While the paragraph is poorly written I meant to say that the sentence contained more than one thought (four to be exact).

You take my small criticism of that writing to be an attack on you and blow it up to epic proportions. In reality it was merely stated because it explains why I misunderstood what you wrote. If you wrote that paragraph more clearly I would have had no problem understanding your meaning. This is only factual information and was not meant to be nasty or even partisan. I am merely explaining why I misunderstood your writing. I make mistakes all the time. In my last writing I neglected to mention the word “sentence”. I’m not perfect.

But I have never linked Obama to Colin Ferguson. That is a dangerous misrepresentation because you are taking the fact that I used Ferguson in an analogy out of context. I don’t even know if Obama knows who Ferguson is. He probably does, but how can I know for sure?

It is not unreasonable to question why a candidate for our nation's highest office would remain a member of a church for almost two decades when its vision statement is based on Black Liberation Theology. His close relationship with Rev. Wright as his spiritual mentor is not something that can be easily overlooked. Rev. Wright's infamous interview with Bill O'Reilly features Wright jumping up and down demanding that Bill read James Cone (or BLT I cant remember which, or maybe both). Wright considered BLT to be an important part of his theological outlook.

Would a man who wants to assume the nation’s highest office be so dense that after knowing his spiritual mentor for 20 years he was unfamiliar with the fact that his mentor based his theology on BLT? If he knew or didn’t know I would still criticize him on this point.

The problem that you have is that you assign partisan sniping as an attribute belonging to rightwingers, when it is an attribute that describes any bitter partisan.

Democrats call Republicans “traitors” too:

March 24: The Day Bush Was 'Defined' as a Traitor, a Coward and a Creep
http://archive.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=20228

Its interesting that you delve into the politics of fear. You are afraid of the rightwing, but you are barking up the wrong tree. Neo-Conservatives are liberals. They are Rightwing liberals. Compare them to Fascist totalitarians and Communist totalitarians. Islamist fascists, etc… The rightwingers that you should be afraid are these:

George W. Bush, Zionist Double Agent, American Traitor
http://www.texemarrs.com/022006/george_w_bush_zionist_double_agent.htm

This website is from a rightwinger, Texe Marrs, who follows an ideology of anti-Semitism. On the linked page he even has a photoshopped picture to prove that Bush is a Jew.

He is our common enemy…

Bush: “We Worship The Same God”
http://www.texemarrs.com/012004/same_god.htm

See for yourself. Here is a list of his articles:
http://www.texemarrs.com/articles.htm

It is the extreme Left’s inability to see this that concerns me.

I sincerely hope that you are backsliding from this comment…

“I base my observation on what I know from experience with rightwingers on political blogs–––namely, bloggers do not spend loads of time defending the rightwing unless they are rightwingers. That such defensiveness as yours about conservatism is usually found among those on the right is not surprising–––not to any one with a rational point of view. You pretend it is a controversial observation because you have dedicated yourself to disputing with little reason whatever I say. As if liberals were wrong about everything–––which is what extreme rightwingers assert.”

It appears that you might be grudgingly admitting that I am not a Conservative, but you still insist that I am a rightwinger. This is utterly bizarre. You are telling me what I believe. How silly…

psi bond said...

While the paragraph is poorly written I meant to say that the sentence contained more than one thought (four to be exact).

Your statement above about the paragraph (which is not ungrammatical) is an opinion, a self-justifying one. You now blow up the mistake you made misreading one sentence so as to claim it is representative of the whole paragraph. It's noteworthy that you have not misread other sentences that contain more than one clause. Rather, you misread one that if misunderstood can be mistaken for a vicious attack on rightwingers. This circumstance suggests an inbuilt hair-trigger reaction mechanism to such attacks. But forget the misreading. It is of no real importance to me. Much more important is your carelessly labeling as "lies” that which you misunderstand. Unapologetically maintaining that charge is more meaningful. Tellingly, you have nothing at all to say about that, but a lot to say about why your misreading was supposedly unavoidable, in your opinion. Your obvious intent is not to apologize but to prove, however you can, that, despite saying you are not perfect, you are right.

But I have never linked Obama to Colin Ferguson. That is a dangerous misrepresentation because you are taking the fact that I used Ferguson in an analogy out of context. I don’t even know if Obama knows who Ferguson is. He probably does, but how can I know for sure?

You linked Colin Ferguson to a discussion of Black Liberation Theology. And you linked Black Liberation Theology to Barack Obama. But Obama does not agree with it; he does not advocate separation of black communities from white society as a viable approach. Rightwingers often accuse him of not being as smart as he appears because he was a member of such a church for 16 years. Clearly, being a community organizer, he agreed with the spirit of its many community outreach programs, but much of its theology was not in accord with Obama’s ideas. What Wright said on O’Reilly’s show cannot be logically linked to Obama. Obama is not a Black Liberationist; he is a presidential candidate for all Americans, as his appeal demonstrates. Insinuating otherwise is employing the politics of fear.

The problem that you have is that you assign partisan sniping as an attribute belonging to rightwingers, when it is an attribute that describes any bitter partisan.

Your problem is ascribing to me something I don't believe. Partisan sniping can be found among partisans of any stripe. Are you describing yourself as a bitter partisan?

Democrats call Republicans “traitors” too:

Democrats do not call ordinary citizens traitors or contend that whole areas of the country are pro-American as opposed to other areas.

March 24: The Day Bush Was 'Defined' as a Traitor, a Coward and a Creep
http://archive.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=20228


A person calling Bush a traitor for ignoring terrorism before 9/11 is not credible evidence that Democrats characteristically call rightwingers per se traitors. By contrast, rightwingers frequently contend that liberals are traitors by virtue of being liberals. They are not hesitant to brand as anti-American ordinary citizens who support liberal causes.

Its interesting that you delve into the politics of fear. You are afraid of the rightwing, but you are barking up the wrong tree.

It is interesting that you are telling me what I supposedly fear and what I should fear. I don’t fear the rightwing in this country. I said I feel sorry for rightwingers, at which point you went ballistic for the last week or more. Like McCain and his robocalls, you use the politics of fear to insist we should fear Obama.

Neo-Conservatives are liberals. They are Rightwing liberals. Compare them to Fascist totalitarians and Communist totalitarians. Islamist fascists, etc…

Saying that neoconservatives are liberals may be too simplistic. Neoconservativism is generally said to have derived from the anti-Communist liberal left, but its desire for permanent revolution in the world is akin to Trotskyism. According to Wikipedia: “In the United States, neoconservatives [who are interventionists in foreigh policy] align themselves with mainstream conservative values, such as the free market, limited welfare, and traditional cultural values…. According to E. J. Dionne, the nascent neoconservatives were driven by ‘the notion that liberalism’ had failed and ‘no longer knew what it was talking about.’” In other words, neoconservativism is historically antagonistic to its liberal roots. Most of the younger neoconservatives were never on the left. Many converts to neoconservatism came from fear of the challenge that the counterculture was thought to pose to traditional values and moral norms. Some observers claim the neoconservative movement was not separate from traditional American conservatism.

The rightwingers that you should be afraid are these:

George W. Bush, Zionist Double Agent, American Traitor
http://www.texemarrs.com/022006/george_w_bush_zionist_double_agent.htm

This website is from a rightwinger, Texe Marrs, who follows an ideology of anti-Semitism. On the linked page he even has a photoshopped picture to prove that Bush is a Jew.

He is our common enemy…


Most Americans, including me, have never heard of Texe Marrs. He is not someone to get in a sweat about, in my opinion. It may shock you, but I have no fear of him. He is not representative of anything but the lunatic fringe.

Bush: “We Worship The Same God”
http://www.texemarrs.com/012004/same_god.htm

See for yourself. Here is a list of his articles:
http://www.texemarrs.com/articles.htm

It is the extreme Left’s inability to see this that concerns me.


Texe Marrs. self-appointed outer of putative crypto-Jews, is NOT representative of the mainstream. Marrs’s major influence, Prof. Boris Lunachev, told him, "I beg you to never forget, there are Americans and then there are Americans. And some who are American are not American." This is reminiscent of Sarah Palin’s divisive words.

The ideas of Marrs are not worth the attention of serious people. More worthy of one’s attention is the fate of liberal ideals at the hands of a Republican president. Or the fate of conservative ideals at the hands of a Democratic president.

It appears that you might be grudgingly admitting that I am not a Conservative, but you still insist that I am a rightwinger. This is utterly bizarre. You are telling me what I believe. How silly…

According to what you tell me you believe, you are not a social conservative, and, although I have no evidence for this, perhaps you are not a cultural conservative, either. Yet, as far as whom you politically support and vigorously defend (those who generally believe liberals are wrong about everything and are not real Americans) and whom you denounce (Barack Obama and liberals tolerant of the excesses of Black Liberation Theology), you are effectively a rightwinger. Liberals in this country think there is a lot at stake in this election that is essential to the survival of liberal ideals. Avowedly or not, you are their zealous political opponent.

It is quite silly to keep contending that saying how I classify you politically is equivalent to telling you what you believe. It is not.

It is telling you where what you say you believe, taken at face value, fits in my humble perspective.

Even if it’s stuck on liberal habits, a pigeon is still a pigeon–––though it doesn’t know it has been pigeonholed as such.

Freedomnow said...

Youre only kidding yourself about people like Texe Marrs. Most Americans have heard of David Duke or Tom Metzger and they have very similar views. Adolph Hitler was once a radical that was not representative of the German mainstream and many felt that he was not worth the attention of serious people. How mainstream was Timothy McVeigh?

The point that you gloss over is that while you compared rightwingers to goose-steppers and spoke about their rallies in terms that most comfortably apply to Nazis… rightwingers are fundamentally in the opposition of the very people that you compared them to.

I oppose Obama just like you oppose McCain. Your opposition to McCain is probably not the result of the politics of fear, as my opposition to Obama is not, but your rightwinger goose-stepping comments are. This grandstanding is nothing but the PROJECTION of your own tactics.

Once again... The politics of fear… you said:

“Liberals in this country think there is a lot at stake in this election that is essential to the survival of liberal ideals.”

…and what exactly threatens the survival of liberal ideals? This is fearmongering.

Anyway, you continue to stereotype me according to your prejudice. It’s really sad. You say, “Even if it’s stuck on liberal habits, a pigeon is still a pigeon–––though it doesn’t know it has been pigeonholed as such.”

That all depends on who is doing the pigeonholing. As the dictionary defines such pigeonholing; “to treat or classify according to a mental stereotype”. Thanks for nothing.

And then you misrepresent what I say. Obama allied himself with a black nationalist, Rev. Wright. That doesn’t make him a black nationalist. I never said that Obama was a Black Liberationist, but I did say that he uncritically went to a church for almost two decades when it was based on such trash. I question his judgment for doing so. That is not fearmongering. To a certain extent I am tolerant of the “excesses of Black Liberation Theology”, because I do not think it should be illegal nor do I advocate any other legal or physical harm to those who preach it. However, I reserve the right to condemn it for its divisiveness. Once you label someone as fearmongering for criticizing hate speech then you cease to champion liberal ideals.

I feel that those who advocate such nonsense as BLT can be won over to reason if they are convinced. Much like moderate white racialists can be convinced of the error of their ways. Should we equally “tolerate” whites who say that they are not racists, but only proud of their race? No, we should tell them that it is wrong to be racially divisive. Lets drop the double standards.

My point is that partisan politics is the same for either the right or the left. They are both foul, but you continually object to the partisan sniping of rightwingers and neglect that they are no different than their comrades on the left. It’s all a wash…

You say that, “Democrats do not call ordinary citizens traitors”. That is partisan nonsense…

The Democratic Underground states that 64% of their registered users who participated in a poll asking, “Are Republican Voters Traitors?”, voted yes. So the majority feels that ordinary Republican voters are traitors.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1829651

You are just getting deeper into doggie doo…

psi bond said...

Youre only kidding yourself about people like Texe Marrs. Most Americans have heard of David Duke or Tom Metzger and they have very similar views. Adolph Hitler was once a radical that was not representative of the German mainstream and many felt that he was not worth the attention of serious people. How mainstream was Timothy McVeigh?

No rational person kids himself that Texe Marrs or the other two can repeat Hitler’s national electoral success in Obama-Era America.

The point that you gloss over is that while you compared rightwingers to goose-steppers and spoke about their rallies in terms that most comfortably apply to Nazis… rightwingers are fundamentally in the opposition of the very people that you compared them to.

I was JOKING. But, of course, most rightwingers oppose the Nazis in retrospect because they are not like the rightwing fanatics who populate rightwing forums.

I oppose Obama just like you oppose McCain. Your opposition to McCain is probably not the result of the politics of fear, as my opposition to Obama is not, but your rightwinger goose-stepping comments are. This grandstanding is nothing but the PROJECTION of your own tactics.

I was JOKING. My goose-stepping comments were the PROJECTION of my sense of political humor. Many rightwing posters fear Obama as a radical and an actual traitor who will destroy America.

Once again... The politics of fear… you said:

“Liberals in this country think there is a lot at stake in this election that is essential to the survival of liberal ideals.”

…and what exactly threatens the survival of liberal ideals? This is fearmongering.


Not fearmongering, just sober expectation. A conservative Supreme Court threatens things important to liberals. A president beholden to the Christian right could have been expected to do have little sympathy for liberal ideals.

Anyway, you continue to stereotype me according to your prejudice. It’s really sad. You say, “Even if it’s stuck on liberal habits, a pigeon is still a pigeon–––though it doesn’t know it has been pigeonholed as such.”

Not a bigoted stereotyping but a descriptive classification that assigns one a place on the political spectrum, as the taxonomist conceives it. I am not telling you what you believe. I am telling you how I classify what you believe.

That all depends on who is doing the pigeonholing. As the dictionary defines such pigeonholing; “to treat or classify according to a mental stereotype”. Thanks for nothing.

You're welcome. Pigeonholing is a classification based on a set of descriptive determining characteristics. Everyone doesit. Your classification of your political beliefs may differ from mine. Everyone is engaged in pigeonholing perceived entities.

And then you misrepresent what I say. Obama allied himself with a black nationalist, Rev. Wright. That doesn’t make him a black nationalist. I never said that Obama was a Black Liberationist, but I did say that he uncritically went to a church for almost two decades when it was based on such trash. I question his judgment for doing so. That is not fearmongering. To a certain extent I am tolerant of the “excesses of Black Liberation Theology”, because I do not think it should be illegal nor do I advocate any other legal or physical harm to those who preach it. However, I reserve the right to condemn it for its divisiveness. Once you label someone as fearmongering for criticizing hate speech then you cease to champion liberal ideals.

I don't think Obama allied himself with a black nationalist or with a black liberationist by attending a pastor’s church. You misrepresent the relationship, I think. Obama has not espoused the ideas of Black Liberation Theology. It is fearmongering to insinuate that he is a member of a community-based ideology that seems divisive for the country at large. The heavy rightwing push to tie Obama inextricably to Wright's church is an attempt to portray Obama as a far left extremist, a racist radical to be feared in the Oval Office.

I feel that those who advocate such nonsense as BLT can be won over to reason if they are convinced. Much like moderate white racialists can be convinced of the error of their ways. Should we equally “tolerate” whites who say that they are not racists, but only proud of their race? No, we should tell them that it is wrong to be racially divisive. Lets drop the double standards.

I don't think there is a double standard involved. White supremacism is a belief that whites should be proud of their race and should, by god-given right, dominate inferior races. BLT, on the other hand, is a belief in the inherent worth of the black race despite centuries of oppression in American, mostly white, society. It is an extreme response to the extremeness of the black experience in America. Jews have a similar pride in their people, but I would not call them racists, either.

My point is that partisan politics is the same for either the right or the left. They are both foul, but you continually object to the partisan sniping of rightwingers and neglect that they are no different than their comrades on the left. It’s all a wash…

Of course, politics is politics, left or right. They are not necessarily always foul. For instance, I believe, as do most Americans, that Obama ran a cleaner campaign than McCain. I can understand your self-interest in claiming that one side is no better than the other in its partisanship. Nonetheless, my personal observation, which I don't expect you to share, is that, in general, the right is more mean-spirited. Not surprisingly, many on the right will assert the opposite is true, and present their examples.

I don't think you’ll see this reported on Fox, but the McCain campaign has employed robocalls in the Cuban community in South Florida telling them that Fidel Castro has officially endorsed Obama. About 35% of Cuban Americans are supporters of Obama.

You say that, “Democrats do not call ordinary citizens traitors”. That is partisan nonsense…

No, I said, "Democrats do not call ordinary citizens traitors or contend that whole areas of the country are pro-American as opposed to other areas." It is empirically true in general.

The Democratic Underground states that 64% of their registered users who participated in a poll asking, “Are Republican Voters Traitors?”, voted yes. So the majority feels that ordinary Republican voters are traitors.

One rightwinger posted in another forum (on the election of Obama a few hours ago): “We were at War against Neo-Marxists/Islamists, and we're still at War against them, and Treason in that War has just occurred, endorsed by a majority of the Electorate.” So, this poster feels that the majority of Americans are aiding and abetting treason. And thus are traitors.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1829651

The sample size of 96 on a forum visited mostly by people with very strong opinions does not permit reliable conclusions to be drawn about millions of liberals.

You are just getting deeper into doggie doo…

You are stepping into messy stuff when you read amateur polls to suit your own purposes. If you ask members of a very political leftwing forum, "Are Republican Voters Traitors?”, many people may say that they do. But what people are willing to say when prompted and what they do on their own initiative are not comparable things. Unlike many rightwingers, most liberals do not wantonly condemn ordinary Americans as traitors on account of their political affiliations. And neither do they or the candidates that they support make discriminations between "pro-America" and "anti-America" areas of the United States.

Freedomnow said...

I would say that I've wasted my time, but I realize that arguing with Orwellian thought twisters keeps my mind sharp.

Thanks

psi bond said...

I must say that countering arguments of someone like you–––who is fond of making use of barefaced Orwellian tomfoolery–––has kept my mind in good shape for detecting attempted deception.

The out-of-step ending is so abrupt my skin’s goose-bumping.