There was an awesome article written for the Slate called “Blind Faith” that really takes Barack Obama (and a bit of McCain) to task over the company they keep. I suggest you all read the article, but here are some of my favorite parts:
“If Barack gets past the primary,” said the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to the New York Times in April of last year, “he might have to publicly distance himself from me. I said it to Barack personally, and he said yeah, that might have to happen.” Pause just for a moment, if only to admire the sheer calculating self-confidence of this. Sen. Obama has long known perfectly well, in other words, that he’d one day have to put some daylight between himself and a bigmouth Farrakhan fan. But he felt he needed his South Side Chicago “base” in the meantime. So he coldly decided to double-cross that bridge when he came to it. And now we are all supposed to marvel at the silky success of the maneuver.
You often hear it said, of some political or other opportunist, that he would sell his own grandmother if it would suit his interests. But you seldom, if ever, see this notorious transaction actually being performed, which is why I am slightly surprised that Obama got away with it so easily. (Yet why do I say I am surprised? He still gets away with absolutely everything.)
Look at the accepted choice of words for the ravings of Jeremiah Wright: controversial, incendiary, inflammatory. These are adjectives that might have been—and were—applied to many eloquent speakers of the early civil rights movement. (In the Washington Post, for Good Friday last, the liberal Catholic apologist E.J. Dionne lamely attempted to stretch this very comparison.) But is it “inflammatory” to say that AIDS and drugs are wrecking the black community because the white power structure wishes it? No. Nor is it “controversial.” It is wicked and stupid and false to say such a thing. And it not unimportantly negates everything that Obama says he stands for by way of advocating dignity and responsibility over the sick cults of paranoia and victimhood.
Now, by way of which vent or orifice is this venom creeping back into our national bloodstream? Where is hatred and tribalism and ignorance most commonly incubated, and from which platform is it most commonly yelled? If you answered “the churches” and “the pulpits,” you got both answers right. The Ku Klux Klan (originally a Protestant identity movement, as many people prefer to forget) and the Nation of Islam (a black sectarian mutation of Quranic teaching) may be weak these days, but bigotry of all sorts is freely available, and openly inculcated into children, by any otherwise unemployable dirtbag who can perform the easy feat of putting Reverend in front of his name. And this clerical vileness has now reached the point of disfiguring the campaigns of both leading candidates for our presidency. If you think Jeremiah Wright is gruesome, wait until you get a load of the next Chicago “Reverend,” one James Meeks, another South Side horror show with a special sideline in the baiting of homosexuals. He, too, has been an Obama supporter, and his church has been an occasional recipient of Obama’s patronage.
Meanwhile, the Republican nominee adorns himself with two further reverends: one named John Hagee, who thinks that the pope is the Antichrist, and another named Rod Parsley, who has declared that the United States has a mission to obliterate Islam. Is it conceivable that such repellent dolts would be allowed into public life if they were not in tax-free clerical garb? How true it is that religion poisons everything.
To have accepted Obama’s smooth apologetics is to have lowered one’s own pre-existing standards for what might constitute a post-racial or a post-racist future. It is to have put that quite sober and realistic hope, meanwhile, into untrustworthy and unscrupulous hands. And it is to have done this, furthermore, in the service of blind faith. Mark my words: This disappointment is only the first of many that are still to come.
Amazing. So, since I’ve already tackled an article on the Rev. Wright, what do we know about all these other men? Let’s start with James Meeks… some background first:
There are new questions being raised today about Barack Obama’s association with another African-American minister And a political figure in Chicago. He is state senator, the Reverend James Meeks of the South Side Baptist Church. Meeks also has direct ties to the Obama campaign. He is an Illinois super delegate. And as of this afternoon, Obama’s own campaign Web site touted his endorsement. But Meeks has also made comments in the past that are outraging people today. He has been criticized by the gay community for calling homosexuality quote, “an evil sickness.” And at the same time, he has engaged in several high profile disputes with the mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley. And once used the “N” word in a sermon while chastising the mayor.
And then from this article:
“We don’t have slave masters, we got mayors,” Meeks said then while preaching. “But they are still the same white people who are presiding over systems where black people are not able to be educated. You got some preachers that are house n——. You got some elected officials that are house n——. Rather than them try and break this up, they’re gonna fight you to protect that white man.”
When confronted in 2006 about his divisive language, Meeks initially defended it.
“The word n—– is not, in the African American community, a bad word,” Meeks said. “It’s a term of endearment and I don’t see it as derogatory or offensive.”
“No one will be offended by it, except an individual it applies to,” he added.
An important part of the truth that Fox News did not report Wednesday night is this: Shortly after Flannery’s story aired two years ago, Rev. Jesse Jackson said it was time to stop using the N-word. And Rev. Meeks announced from his South Side pulpit that he was “retiring” the N-word from his vocabulary.
Obama has such great supporters, doesn’t he? Don’t get me started on Mr. Bill “We should vote what our constituents say… unless my state wasn’t won by Obama” Richardson:
“First, they say the superdelegates should reflect the will of the people of their states. Well, we have Sen. Kennedy and Sen. Kerry saying they’re going to vote for Obama even though Sen. Clinton won by 13 points in Massachusetts. … The voters of New Mexico chose Sen. Clinton. If we follow the Obama line, Bill Richardson should be for Sen. Clinton.”
“Yes, but, Eddie, by half a percent — come on,” Richardson responded, in a reference to the slight margin by which Clinton won New Mexico.
In a February interview with The New York Times, Richardson discussed how superdelegates should vote. “It should reflect the vote of my state, it should represent the vote of my constituency,” he told the newspaper at the time.
So, let’s fly away from Obama and check on the pals that hang with Mr. McCain. First we have John Hagee:
On the September 18, 2006, edition of National Public Radio’s Fresh Air, Hagee stated that Hurricane Katrina was an act of God, punishing New Orleans for “a level of sin that was offensive to God”. He specifically referred to a “homosexual parade” that was held on the date the hurricane struck and that this was proof “of the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans”, even though the Southern Decadence parade was scheduled for the following week and the primary gay neighborhoods, the French Quarter and the Marigny, were spared the flooding and destruction. Another reason for God’s wrath, Hagee claims, was the Bush administration’s pressure on Israel to abandon settlements and the land associated with them. Therefore, God took American land in a “tit for tat” exchange during Hurricane Katrina.
During the same edition, Hagee also discussed Islam, stating that “those who live by the Qur’an have a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews” adding, “it teaches that very clearly”. He then proceeded to characterize the military threat posed by those who follow Islamic scripture: “There are 1.3 billion people who follow the Islamic faith, so if you’re saying there’s only 15 percent that want to come to America or invade Israel to crush it, you’re only talking about 200 million people. That’s far more than Hitler and Japan and Italy and all of the axis powers in World War II had under arms.”
Oh yeah… he seems stable. What did McCain have to say about his endorsement?
“I was pleased to have the endorsement of Pastor John Hagee yesterday.”
Watch it here. Well, I’m glad he’s pleased about it, as I’m scared to death. Now then… two down, one left… Mr. Rod Parsley:
On October 3, 2004, Parsley preached a sermon titled “Uncensored: While Freedom Still Rings,” which was in many ways the mission statement for the Center for Moral Clarity. In the two-part sermon, Parsley expressed opposition to the view that there is a separation of church and state in the U.S. Constitution; same-sex marriage; partial-birth abortion; hate-crimes legislation in California, Canada, and Sweden; sexual orientation themes in children’s books; racism; and poverty.
A few weeks before the 2004 elections in US, Parsley encouraged his congregation and television audience to vote for Ohio’s state constitutional amendment to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. (The amendment passed by a wide margin). He also encouraged citizens of other states with similar marriage amendments on their ballots to vote similarly. He headlined the “Silent No More” tour to register Christian voters.
Parsley supported John Roberts’ nomination for the Supreme Court of the United States. He has personally endorsed the presidential campaign of Republican nominee John McCain. McCain has called Parsley a “spiritual guide.”
Some have also criticised Parsley for his recent book, Silent No More because of the book’s attacks against Islam and the view that the U.S. Constitution provides for a separation of church and state (among other popular social issues), and for his support of faith healing. Parsley has identified Islam as an enemy of the United States and Christianity.
Well, that makes me feel a whole lot better.
So everyone says they don’t want a Clinton in office, but let’s be honest, what surprises could she even have left? We have Obama revealing racist ties daily, McCain wanting to bomb Iran and hanging out with pretty scary people, what does Clinton have that we don’t already know and have moved past? Why would having Hillary Clinton in office be worse than having these two “winners”? Things I just can’t figure out… hopefully over the coming weeks and months Americans will wise up and stop following so blindly to what either their leaders tell them, or what the cult of personality tells them.
