Mind Set

Who in the world but a self centered egotist would ever consider a baby "punishment"?

I'll tell you, BHO doesn't send shivers up my leg, he sends shivers down my spine....

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/03/30/the-obligatory-punished-with-a-baby-post/

Oh Please - Don't Throw Me In That Briar Patch

It seem to me that the smartest possible choice for the Dems is to run Algore for reelection. I mean he won the first time he ran, didn't he? Shouldn't he win again?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/30/wuspols130.xml

Serious Business

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4vadl_fitna-the-movie-dutch-official-rele_news

The Cruel World

Oh oh, even Slate Magazine has a Sir Hillary Death Watch.

Pity, I was so looking forward to the national dialog about Madam President Sir Hillary....

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120663639483768965.html?mod=todays_columnists

Make sure you read GI Joe's comments from Afghanistan, they're a hoot.

Commies, One and All

Sir Hillary and B-HO two peas in a pod? Who didn't know that?

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/03/27/change-you-can-xerox-obama-lifts-a-line-from-hillary/

There's A Pattern Here

It's beginning to look as if there is something fundamentally wrong with the whole HO campaign.
What to make of this:
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/03/26/obama-adviser-war-the-fault-of-american-jews/

The fish stinketh from the head down.

Cold Water

So you like BHO, eh? Why? Maybe you should tell Pastor Manning.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=khuu-RhOBDU

Barak EUGENE Obama

He don't like you to use his real middle moniker. Maybe he should change it to Eugene:

Ken Blackwell - Columnist for the New York Sun It's an amazing time to be alive in America. We're in a year of firsts in this presidential election: the first viable woman candidate; the first viable African-American candidate; and, a candidate who is the first front running freedom fighter over 70. The next president of America will be a first. We won't truly be in an election of firsts, however, until we judge every candidate by where they stand. We won't arrive where we should be until we no longer talk about skin color or gender. Now that Barack Obama steps to the front of the Democratic field, we need to stop talking about his race, and start talking about his policies and his politics. The reality is this: Though the Democrats will not have a nominee until August, unless Hillary Clinton drops out, Mr. Obama is now the front runner, and it's time America takes a closer and deeper look at him. Some pundits are calling him the next John F. Kennedy. He's not. He's the next George McGovern. And it's time people learned the facts. Because the truth is that Mr. Obama is the single most liberal senator in the entire U.S. Senate. He is more liberal than Ted Kennedy, Bernie Sanders, or Mrs. Clinton. Never in my life have I seen a presidential front runner whose rhetoric is so far removed from his record. Walter Mondale promised to raise our taxes, and he lost. George McGovern promised military weakness, and he lost. Michael Dukakis promised a liberal domestic agenda, and he lost. Yet Mr. Obama is promising all those things, and he's not behind in the polls. Why? Because the press has dealt with him as if he were in a beauty pageant. Mr. Obama talks about getting past party, getting past red and blue, to lead the United States of America. But let's look at the more defined strokes of who he is underneath this superficial "beauty." Start with national security, since the president's most important duties are as commander-in-chief. Over the summer, Mr. Obama talked about invading Pakistan, a nation armed with nuclear weapons; meeting without preconditions with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who vows to destroy Israel and create another Holocaust; and Kim Jong Il, who is murdering and starving his people, but emphasized that the nuclear option was off the table against terrorists - something no president has ever taken off the table since we created nuclear weapons in the 1940s. Even Democrats who have worked in national security condemned all of those remarks. Mr. Obama is a foreign-policy novice who would put our national security at risk. Next, consider economic policy. For all its faults, our health care system is the strongest in the world. And free trade agreements, created by Bill Clinton as well as President Bush, have made more goods more affordable so that even people of modest means can live a life that no one imagined a generation ago. Yet Mr. Obama promises to raise taxes on "the rich." How to fix Social Security? Raise taxes. How to fix Medicare? Raise taxes. Prescription drugs? Raise taxes. Free college? Raise taxes. Socialize medicine? Raise taxes. His solution to everything is to have government take it over. Big Brother on steroids, funded by your paycheck. Finally, look at the social issues. Mr. Obama had the audacity to open a stadium rally by saying, "All praise and glory to God!" but says that Christian leaders speaking for life and marriage have "hijacked" - Christianity. He is pro-partial birth abortion, and promises to appoint Supreme Court justices who will rule any restriction on it unconstitutional. He espouses the abortion views of Margaret Sanger, one of the early advocates of racial cleansing. His spiritual leaders endorse homosexual marriage, and he is moving in that direction. In Illinois, he refused to vote against a statewide ban - on all handguns in the state. These are radical left, Hollywood, and San Francisco values, not Middle America values. The real Mr. Obama is an easy target for the general election. Mrs. Clinton is a far tougher opponent. But Mr. Obama could win if people don't start looking behind his veneer and flowery speeches. His vision of "bringing America together" means saying that those who disagree with his agenda for America are hijackers or warmongers. Uniting the country means adopting his liberal agenda and abandoning any conflicting beliefs . But right now everyone is talking about how eloquent of a speaker he is and yes they're talking about his race. Those should never be the factors on which we base our choice for president. Mr. Obama's radical agenda sets him far outside the American mainstream, to the left of Mrs. Clinton. It's time to talk about the real Barack Obama. In an election of firsts, let's first make sure we elect the person who is qualified to be our president in a nuclear age during a global civilizational war. Subject: Kind of scary, wouldn't you think Remember--God is good, and is in time, on time--every time. According to The Book of Revelations the anti-Christ is: The anti-Christ will be a man, in his 40s, of MUSLIM descent, who will deceive the nations with persuasive language, and have a MASSIVE Christ-like appeal....the prophecy says that people will flock to him and he will promise false hope and world peace, and when he is in power, will destroy everything. Is it OBAMA?? I STRONGLY URGE each one of you to repost this as many times as you can! Each opportunity that you have to send it to a friend or media outlet...do it! If you think I am crazy..Im sorry but I refuse to take a chance on the "unknown" candidate

Sir Hillary: A Right Wing Whacko?

I am not sure how far this writer's tongue was in her cheek, but it is pathetic if it's an attempt to make Sir Hillary more appealing to the religious right. Via Hot Air:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080331/ehrenreich

Quotes From Washington

Hey, I'm never too big to steal something good. From Miss Beth's Victory Dance, here some some quotes from Washington, Booker T. Washington.....

BT


Below are quotes of Booker T. Washington. Emphasis is mine.

No greater injury can be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to this or that race he will be advanced in life regardless of his own merits or efforts.

Most leaders spend time trying to get others to think highly of them, when instead they should try to get their people to think more highly of themselves. It’s wonderful when the people believe in their leader. It’s more wonderful when the leader believes in their people!


You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.


No greater injury can be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to this or that race he will be advanced in life regardless of his own merits or efforts.


Character, not circumstances, makes the man


I believe that any man's life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement, if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day, and as nearly as possible reaching the high water mark of pure and useful living.


"At that institution I got my first taste of what it meant to live a life of unselfishness, my first knowledge of the fact that the happiest individuals are those who do the most to make others useful and happy."


"As I look back now over that part of our struggle, I am glad that we had it. I am glad that we endured all those discomforts and inconveniences. I am glad that our students had to dig out the place for their kitchen and dining room. I am glad that out first boarding-place was in that dismal, ill-lighted, and damp basement. Had we started in a fine, attractive, convenient room, I fear we would have "lost our heads" and become "stuck up".It means a great deal, I think, to start off on a foundation which one has made for one's self."


"With God's help, I believe that I have completely rid myself of any ill feeling toward the Southern white man for any wrong that he may have inflicted upon my race. I am made to feel just as happy now when I am rendering service to Southern white men as when the service is rendered to a member of my own race. I pity from the bottom of my heart any Individual who is unfortunate as to get into the habit of holding race prejudice.


"The older I grow, the more I am convinced that there is no education which one can get from books and costly apparatus that is equal to that which can be gotten from contact with great men and women."


"I have great faith in the power and influence of facts. It is seldom that anything is permanently gained by holding back a fact."


There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs. There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don’t want the patient to get well.

Fundamental Misunderstanding/Bad Sir Hillary v. BHO

Re The Speech.

It occurs to me after reading the text again, and reading some of the critiques again, that BHO either doesn't understand the Constitution or is counting on the ignorance of the many who are all sweaty with passion over the 'vision' his speech stirred up in them.

Our Constitution does not discriminate. Contrary to his prime assertion, it is complete. It does not give permission to discriminate against anyone because of color, race, religion or sex. He said it's incomplete. Think of that my friends, "incomplete". Would he change it to accommodate Rev Wright's views? How would he change the Constitution to eliminate the racial divide he finds in America?

A brilliant speech would have said our constitution guarantees us all a swing at the ball. The impediments that government have put up that keep any of us from knocking the ball out of the park should be torn down. Let us tear them down together and give everyone of the chance to succeed or fail through our own effort and talent.

But no, he'll mandate success for some, I guess. Heaven help him if he tries to put it in the Constitution.

Follow up question: Sir Hillary's releasing some papers today. Do you think she sees the publicity accorded BHO over the chink in his armor and is hoping to get a little of her own by creating some controversy of her own, or does she think this will be the cache she needs to claim 'experience'?

The Speech

In case you missed it on Drudge.

Can any one tell me how this is not a step backwards? I feel like I'm back in the sixties. All we need is a few "Power to the people" black fists stabbing the air and some doped up hippies yelling "Up the establishment!" and we'll be there.

BT

“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild.”

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American – and yes, conservative – notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I’d like to leave you with today – a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King’s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”

“I’m here because of Ashley.” By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.





END

**VIDEO**

All About Race

I read 'the speech' on Drudge.

So now the curtain has been lowered, and we can see B HO's running against the KKK of racist AmeriKa.

BTW has anyone reminded B HO that like his Granny, Jessie Jackson has said that he is relieved when he turns to find the footsteps of a man behind him in the night belong to a white man?

When B HO loses, we will hear how it was a vote for racism.

Clever guy, this B HO....

Liar

Well,

B HO makes it up as he goes along, just like the rest of the liar class.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/warner-todd-huston/2008/03/16/contrary-claims-obama-very-close-racist-preacher-wright

Like I said, the only change he represents is color.

Teach Your Children Well

This election could well be a metaphor for that old CSN&Y song. Those who were not taught so well will be mindlessly voting for someone who they think will make them feel good. Those who were well taught will see the tripe in the campaign speeches, hold their noses and vote in a way that will forestall our march to socialism for a few more years.

Sadly, Liberals have taught our children well - my generations elders would never allow the disrespect and language used by kids today who know they only have to scream loudly to get any adult arrested. In the Liberal mindset taught in today's schools no one has the right to tell anyone else what is right or wrong, so little boys can get bjs from little girls in school and tell adults who object to f.o. with impunity.

Of course, there's still time to teach our children well. Home schooling and this:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/JackieGingrichCushman/2008/03/16/success_in_the_classroom_one_teachable_moment_at_a_time?page=2

The Anti Christ?

or just an Anti American?








From Kateri's blog

Same Old Thing

I think I'm getting the whole B HUSSEIN O "Hope for change" or "Change for Hope" deal he's pimping.

It's really no different than any other common ordinary political corruption (his wife getting a 100% plus pay raise after the hospital she works for gets a huge government grant, for example). It's just that B HO hopes you and I won't notice how corrupt he is (like this: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-obama-rezkomar15,0,2968927.story), and will continue to treat him as the messiah, sent here to wash away our sin of slavery.

The only "Change" is the ethnicity of the crook.

The Great Uniter

I'm rethinking my choice for prexy.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/LarryElder/2008/03/13/can_obama_bring_us_together_yes,_he_can!?page=2

Open Minded Liberals

Another Liberal has come to his senses.

Sadly, the Liberals he left behind still don't see how they violate what liberalism is all about: Change.

Just read this paragraph from today's Patriot Post:

Predictably, some of Mamet’s former colleagues and devotees among the ever-tolerant and inclusive ranks of mindless tin men, were quick to condemn Mamet for his changing views: “How sad that an intelligent person like David would write such a simplistic, downright infantile article filled with stereotypes and lacking any substantive insight whatsoever.” “Does this mean that you’ve given up on democracy and thrown in with the authoritarians?” “I had no idea Mamet could be so shallow.” “Mr. Mamet is now simply brain dead.” “I’m saddened to learn David is either a liar or a fool or both.” “Mamet is a political ignoramus who hides his frustration by lashing out at an imagined ‘liberalism’.”

Notably, many of his Lefty critics mentioned Mamet’s faith: “Our old friend Mamet is perhaps too rich and too Jewish.” And more to the point: “It’s been apparent for quite some time that Mamet is a Zionist. This screed is just additional evidence.”

For his part, however, Mamet’s essay is courageous. He joins a long list of Leftists who have moved right, including such notables as David Horowitz, Chris Hitchens, Norm Podhoretz, Irving Kristol, Nat Hentoff, Marvin Olasky, Bernard Goldberg and Evan Sayet—all of whom are persona non grata among their old colleagues.

There are also many Democrats who courageously switched political allegiance and became outspoken conservatives, including Charlton Heston, Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Bill Bennett, Phil Gramm, Ben Nighthorse Campbell and Richard Shelby.

Of course, a onetime Democrat also became the 20th century’s greatest champion of conservative philosophy: Ronald Wilson Reagan.

President Reagan said, “I did not leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me.” To the millions of Americans who followed him to the Republican Party, he said, “I know what it’s like to pull the Republican lever for the first time, because I used to be a Democrat myself, and I can tell you it only hurts for a minute, and then it feels great.”

And a footnote: I can list countless Americans who have moved from the ideological Left to the Right, but I am hard pressed to name a single established conservative who has moved Left.

Law Of Unintended Consequences

The above cited law could just as easily be labeled, "Government Mandated Changes To Market Forces

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2008/03/12/big_corn_and_ethanol_hoax

Question for ya liberal weenies

Ahh, the good old days. Remember when the trolls were bragging about how the mere thought of the dems running things was causing the boom? Remeber how we were all asking them to tells what changes they were going to bring?

Let's go to the video tape:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Bruce Palmer
Date: Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 10:51 AM
Subject: FW: Change
To: Bruce Palmer

Lest you forget!!!

In just one year

December 2006

1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;
2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;
3) the unemployment rate was 4.5%.

Since voting in a Democratic Congress in 2006 we've
seen:
1) Consumer confidence plummet;
2) the cost of regular gasoline soar to over $3 a gallon;
3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase);
4) American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity value
evaporate (stock and mutual fund losses);
5) Americans have seen their home equity drop by
$1.2 trillion dollars;
6) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.

America voted for change in 2006, and we got it!

What changes will Sir Hillary or Barry HUSSEIN Obomba bring to us? They gonna undo the changes the Dem Congress made? Or they gonna make it worse?

Ill wait, but I bet none of you trolls will have a cogent answer....

Word!

From Dave Tapper's ABC blog.

Yah know, the truth is the truth, no matter who speaks it....

Clinton-backer Ferraro: Obama Where He Is Because He's Black

March 11, 2008 7:30 AM

Clinton campaign finance committee member, former vice presidential candidate, and former Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, D-NY, told the Daily Breeze of Torrance, Ca., that, "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

Of Clinton, Ferraro said that the press "has been uniquely hard on her. It's been a very sexist media. Some just don't like her. The others have gotten caught up in the Obama campaign."

"I was reading an article that said young Republicans are out there campaigning for Obama because they believe he's going to be able to put an end to partisanship. Dear God! Anyone that has worked in the Congress knows that for over 200 years this country has had partisanship - that's the way our country is."

Yikes!

h/t to Mike Allen

- jpt

Socialized Medicine

Walter Williams should be President. Here he says what I have been saying since helmet laws were first debated. ABATE should hire Walter!

From The Patriot Post:

“The fact that an obese person becomes ill, or a cyclist has an accident, and becomes a burden on taxpayers who must bear the expense of taking care of him, is not a problem of liberty. It’s a problem of socialism where one person is forced to take care of another. There is no moral argument that justifies using the coercive powers of government to force one person to bear the expense of taking care of another... Forcing one person to bear the burden of health care costs for another is not only a moral question but a major threat to personal liberty. Think about all the behaviors and lifestyles that can lead to illness and increase the burden on taxpayers. A daily salt intake exceeding 6 grams can lead to hypertension. A high-fat diet and high alcohol intake can also lead to diabetes. A sedentary lifestyle can lead to several costly diseases such as hypertension, diabetes and heart failure. There are many other behaviors that lead to a greater health care burden, but my question is how much control over your life you are willing to give government in the name of reducing these costs? Would you want government to regulate how much salt you use? What about government deciding how much fat and alcohol you consume? There are immense beneficial health effects of a daily 30-minute aerobic exercise. Would you support government-mandated exercise? You might argue that it’s none of government’s business how much fat, salt or alcohol a person consumes, even if it has adverse health care cost implications. I’d ask: Wouldn’t the same reasoning apply to helmet laws and proposed obesity laws?” —Walter Williams

Rat Bastads

Ok, I'm trying to live the OC dream, not because I have some kind of "I'm
> > better than you" attitude. Here is where my kids and grandkids are. Here
> > is warmer than the Pacific Northwest where the horses, cats, pine, cedar,
> > and alder trees, chickens, weeds, and mold give my lovely and talented
> > Dorothy agony. Here is where rich people buy expensive things, like fast,
> > fancy cars, and where, if you sell that stuff, you should be able live quite
> > comfortably.
> >
> > Well, excuse me for complaining, but it turns out I am one of America's
> > rich. I can't afford a house here, so I rent. I can't afford a nice car,
> > so I ride a Harley (my gas bill was $35 last month) to work, the wife an old
> > Mountaineer (just in case she needs to pick up the kids from school). I
> > don't charge anything so I have no credit card debt.
> >
> > But the cost of living here is a bitch. Our goal was to add enough to the
> > IRA to keep from having to add money to the tax withholding the two
> > socialist, money grubbing, spendthrift, tax wasting shit eating GOVERNMENT
> > bastards take from me every year.
> >
> > It didn't happen. To keep from using our credit cards, we had to spend
> > all our money just to live.
> >
> > Today, I had my taxes done. I made less money than last year, but the
> > government wants more. Last year, I was able to pay them and still have
> > some money left in savings.
> >
> > This year, they want more than I have in savings.
> >
> > That's right, to pay my taxes, I have to go in debt. I don't have enough
> > deductions to itemize, so I have to pay the ATM, the flat tax for all of you
> > who think the Fair Tax is a bad idea. And it is $6,000 more than the
> > government forced to give them as a tax free loan last year. Between last
> > year's burden and this year's burden, the government has busted me. Oh, and
> > I made too much to qualify for the rebate.
> >
> > I am here to testify, brothers and sisters, that I totally understand why
> > people take up arms against their governments.
> >
> > I am one pissed off tax payer.

Walk Your Dog, Get Down To Business

What with lefties escalating the differences between philosophies to a more violent level (reminds me of the wild and whacky 60s all over again, you might want to consider sticking one of these in your back pocket:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D99NHb6B03s

Culture Of Death

Remember this guy, he's behind the thinking that a new born has no more right to live than one in the womb.

But, think about what this means for the infirm?

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/avi/shafran_life.php3

God help us.

MLK - Conservative.

I don't know why Republicans have let Liberals co opt Dr. King. He was very conservative in his views.

Here's his daughter with more evidence to that effect:

(from http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=68669)

The niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., has used an appearance at a Black History Month event in Washington, DC, to reject the claim that her famous uncle supported abortion rights for women.

Dr. Alveda King says although her uncle -- the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. -- accepted an award from Planned Parenthood in 1966, the abortion group had a "hidden agenda" at the time. "I don't want anybody to be confused by thinking that Dr. King could condone the violent death of the little babies, and the violent consequences that women suffer," King clarifies. "I'm post-abortive myself. I've suffered ... and it was a secret in my family for too long. And so now we’re here today to speak out on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves. Abortion is a racist, genocidal act."

King was one of several black pro-life leaders who met in Washington yesterday to celebrate their ethnicity and decry abortion and its disproportionate effect on blacks. And during a news conference at the Family Research Council, Dr. Johnny Hunter, president of the Life Education and Resource Network, predicted that at some point in America abortion would be abolished, just like slavery and Jim Crow laws.

"The way of the wicked does not last forever, and that's why we get to celebrate Black History Month," says Hunter. "Because all throughout black history [there have] been blacks who have taken a stand no matter where the people were when they got here. By the time they left this earth, we were a little bit better off."

Hunter declared that in merely three days time in America, the abortion industry "kills more blacks than the KKK ever lynched."