Do You Know Barack Obama?
By JIM MONTANA
jim.montana(at)hotmail.com
Why do Americans love Barack Obama so much? Is it that they truly feel that he is the next great hope for this country? Or is it the fact that they are fascinated by the novelty of having an African American running for President. Obama has been compared to Abraham Lincoln and John F Kennedy, call me a skeptic but there has to be something more than the fact that he manages to say the word change every other sentence. Lets look past the outer exterior and take a long deep look at the man that inspires to be like Kennedy and Lincoln, first there is the issue of funding Obama had this to say about lobbyists:
“I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more than any other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists — and won. They have not funded my campaign, they will not run my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president.”
— Barack Obama, Speech in Des Moines, IA, November 10, 2007
That sounds great and all except here is the truth since 2003 Obama has accepted 1.3 million from PAC contributions and even though it is only 1,000 dollars he has accepted money from lobbyist for this campaign, yet when you fill out you taxes and check that box saying you want to donate $1 or $3 to the presidential campaign fund he refuses that, he refuses the money of the people he is supposed to represent. When it comes to voting Obama has been absent for 43% of the votes this current Congress. While running for the most important job in this nation is important one must also attend to his duties to which he was elected to the position of Senator by the people of Illinois. Barack Obama has shunned the people of Muslim background last week his campaign forbid two women wearing headscarves to sit behind the Senator at an event in case there were pictures or video taken. I was just as angered by the sucker punch this country received on the morning of September 11, 2001 but we cannot judge an entre race based on the actions of a handful of nutcases. Obama touts the mantra of “Change We Can Believe In” yet he shuns members of the Muslim faith. Speaking of faith let’s not forget his Pastor of twenty years Jeremiah Wright and his infamous comments. First were the comments that sparked the controversy:
We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and The Pentagon, and we never batted an eye… and now we are indignant, because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.
There were also the comments from another one of the sermons where Wright stated,
“[The United States] government lied about their belief that all men were created equal. The truth is they believed that all white men were created equal. The truth is they did not even believe that white women were created equal, in creation nor civilization. The government had to pass an amendment to the Constitution to get white women the vote. Then the government had to pass an equal rights amendment to get equal protection under the law for women. The government still thinks a woman has no rights over her own body, and between Uncle Clarence [Thomas], who sexually harassed Anita Hill, and a closeted Klan court, that is a throwback to the 19th century, handpicked by Daddy Bush, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, between Clarence and that stacked court, they are about to undo Roe vs. Wade, just like they are about to un-do affirmative action. The government lied in its founding documents and the government is still lying today. Governments lie.
“The government lied about Pearl Harbor too. They knew the Japanese were going to attack. Governments lie. The government lied\nabout the Gulf of Tonkin. They wanted that resolution to get us in the Vietnam\nWar. Governments lie. The government lied about Nelson Mandela and our CIA\nhelped put him in prison and keep him there for 27 years. The South African government lied on Nelson Mandela. Governments lie.
“The government lied about the Tuskegee experiment. They purposely infected African American men with syphilis. Governments lie. The government lied about bombing Cambodia and Richard Nixon stood in front of the camera, ‘Let me make myself perfectly clear…’ Governments lie. The government lied about the drugs for arms Contra scheme orchestrated by Oliver North, and then the government pardoned all the perpetrators so they could get better jobs in the government. Governments lie… The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. Governments lie. The government lied about a connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein and a connection between 9.11.01 and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Governments lie.
“The government lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq being a threat to the United States peace. And guess what else? If they don’t find them some weapons of mass destruction, they gonna do just like the LAPD, and plant the some weapons of mass destruction. Governments lie.
“And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating her citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains, the government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton field, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into positions of hopelessness and helplessness… The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing God Bless America. No, no, no, not God Bless America. God damn America — that’s in the Bible — for killing innocent people. God damn America, as long as she pretends to act like she is God, and she is supreme. The United States government has failed the vast majority of her citizens of African descent.”
Now after these comments one would think that Obama would have separated himself from this virtual train wreck, but instead he defended his pastors comments and his popularity continually went up, where on the other side of the coin John McCain was almost crucified over comments that John Hagee had made referring to Hurricane Katrina and it being punishment for the city of New Orleans for planning a Gay pride event, more on that at another time. During a speech in Philadelphia titled “A More Perfect Union.” Obama had this to say about his at the time current pastor
“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\u0026#39;s effort to speak out\nagainst 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\nonce 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.”
You are running for the most important job in this country, yes you can disown your family, yes you can disown your pastor and yes you can disown the black community if it means you becoming President of these United States you do what you have to. The point I am trying to make is before you get caught up into the hype of Barack Obama take the time to thoroughly look into his past and ask yourself if this is who you want in the Oval Office.