Richard

I think you misunderstood Randy. I listed to her whole show, and her point was that she didn’t want any pastors pushing political buttons. She wanted separation of church and state, even in church. She must have said that 30 times, so I can’t believe you didn’t hear her. Her entire point was that she doesn’t like preachers preaching politics on the conservative side, so to be fair, she has to complain when they do it on the left side of the political spectrum. She was just being consistent, and fair.

Otherwise I agree, and think Obama will make a great president. By the way, I agree with much of what Rev. Wright said, but also agree that churches should not be pushing political candidates on their members.

by John R Moffett (79 articles, 14 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 591 comments) on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 7:25:16 AM
 

I disagree with Randi this time.

Preachers have a right to speak from the pulpit.  The problem is usually that they are silent when they should say something.  And the members of the church should feel free to stand up and disagree.

Anyone who cares about their country loves it and god damns it. 

by John Hanks (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 869 comments) on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 10:54:15 AM
 

preaching hate.

Yes, they can preach hatred from the pulpit. But don’t expect not to be judged when politics is preached from the pulpit. We are talking about a church that Obama not just attended but professed the racist preacher to be his life long mentor.

If I professed the head of the KKK was my lifelong mentor would that not bother you? What do you think I would do in the highest office in the free world?

Obama himself is a closet racist. I would not trust him to run a city much less a country.

I would rather have Clinton getting blow jobs in the white house again and trying to cover it up. I would rather have Nixon, Ford, Carter, Regan, Bush senior or the idiot Bush junior for another 8 years.  If you really need a black guy as president, why not a non- black extremist like Powel. He doesn’t like what Bush did to this country either.

by Gallaher (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 497 comments) on Wednesday, March 19, 2008 at 5:58:24 AM
 

Wright Is The Analog to the KKK?

Listen to your own white racism, first, Gallaher.

Of course if someone listened to the KKK all their lives and stood before us to proclaim how much the Grand Wizard meant to him or her we would cringe.  Of course.  Don't be ridiculous.

Pastor Jeremiah Wright spoke the truth.  Have you ever actually lived in a black neighborhood as a white person and then moved to a white neighborhood and experienced that degree of culture shock?

Example: you go to a local chain store in your black neighborhood to buy a gallon of milk.  You see the expiration date is tomorrow.  You look for other gallons, but they are all either tomorrow or the next day.  Damn.

You go to a white neighborhood at the same chain store, and you see that your choices of expiration dates are a week or two into the future.  You buy your milk at the white neighborhood store.

Lesson?  Black people are poor and can drink spoiled milk.  Nevermind the fact that many black people are lactose intolerant and probably won't buy milk in the first place.

And covert little digs like this are scattered throughout our culture.  Against people of all colors not in the political majority in power.

Here stands a man who has the bonafides to unify the races and move this country forward, and all you can think to say is how like the KKK Jerimiah Wright sounds?

Are you out of your goddamned mind?  Who were you really listening to, really?  Was it Jerimiah Wright or was it your own fear of an angry black man?

Even 2,000 years after he had himself hung on a cross, we still crucify him.

by Richard Volaar (15 articles, 0 quicklinks, 58 diaries, 218 comments) on Wednesday, March 19, 2008 at 9:59:14 AM
 

Closet racists

"If I professed the head of the KKK was my lifelong mentor would that not bother you? What do you think I would do in the highest office in the free world?"

You don't have to do that to bother me.  I'm sure you'd act like an idiot in any office.

So if Obama is a closet racist, does that mean he hates whites, or hates blacks?  Either way, you must think he hates his own family.

Powell may oppose what Bush did, but he, like Clinton, helped him do it.

by Gregg Gordon (25 articles, 45 quicklinks, 14 diaries, 184 comments) on Friday, March 21, 2008 at 12:12:21 AM
 

Look up the rules

Churches are not allowed to be politically active. It's all in the rules of being tax exempt. If this preacher is telling people who to vote for, then his church should lose it's tax exemption under the 501(c)(3) rules. Even unincorporated churches can lose their tax exemption for political activity.

by Watching (0 articles, 1 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 313 comments) on Wednesday, March 19, 2008 at 7:48:21 AM
 

All churches should lose their tax exemption!

Whose bright idea was it that the church, a big business, should be tax exempt? They own some of the best real estate and with few exceptions, they are very vocal about politics. This is not kosher and it should stop. Why should we bear the burden for their properties? If they had to pay taxes like everybody else, wouldn't that make it easier for us? Or maybe we all should be exempt from paying property taxes. That would work, too. The government is too bloated and should be cut back drastically. Then maybe we could get our representatives to do their jobs and defend and protect the Constitution. Impeach, damn it and lets take our country back!

by Caronome (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 193 comments) on Wednesday, March 19, 2008 at 8:27:14 AM
 

There Are No Rules, Watching

Haven't you been paying attention these last seven years?  The Constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper, according to our own President.

When Reverend Hagee loses his tax exempt status, along with those of his ilk, then we can go after pastors of every color who work with the urban poor for over 40 years and inform them that political speech from the pulpit is verbotten.

Black people are easy and fun to pick on, aren't they, Watching?

How in the holy hell do you think Christianity was formed in the first place?  Do you think we always had a church that just sprung up on hallowed ground and all the pretty pagans were so taken by our sad story that they gave us some land, patted us on the head and let the good little Christians have their very own empire?

There was a period of well over two hundred years where Christianity was just a bunch of peace-loving "hippies" dreaming up peace, love and understanding in a neighborhood where people showed up specifically to kick the living shit out of one another (Palestine).  Politics was considered unclean and too earthbound to be of serious concern to these airy-fairy folks.

You wanna know where all this presumed unity and transcendence left the early Christians?

Try this one on for size...it really, really happened.  And it was not an isolated incident.

A woman who professed her Christianity as her truth was strapped to a iron-grated chair on top of a pile of dry kindling and wood.  Inside of a stadium of cheering Romans.  She is asked if she is willing to renounce her Christianity.  She refuses.

Her children are dragged out in front of her, a little boy and a little girl.  The woman pulls against her straps in vain.  She begins to weep and sob, praying to her imaginary god in the clouds.  The crowd laughs and the ringmaster scoffs.  He draws out of his broadsword shining and gleaming in the noon day sun.  He makes certain the reflection of the hot, italian sun hits her in the eyes.  The crowd falls silent and breathes a breath of disbelief.

The ringmaster asks the woman, again, who her god is and if he loves her more than Rome, if he is greater than Rome herself?

Bawling, the woman begs for the lives of her children, she proclaims that her beliefs are true for her and to please show her children the mercy not shown to her.  Her inquistor draws the sword to the neck of her little girl.  The woman begins to shake in her chair in torment, struggling against her straps with every ounce of strength left in her body.

Her inquisitor draws the sword to the neck of her little boy.  Not for your only son you proclaim your allegiance to Rome?

She confesses that she cannot.  But she begs for the lives her children, now shaking in terror and crying out to their mommy.

The guards light the fire beneath the woman and the crowd gasps.  Vendors call out to the crowd to sell their wares and for pieces of the cooked flesh of the Christian.  A Roman guard yells out that he would like a thigh.

The children watch in horror and trembling misery as they watch their mother struggle against her straps, trying hard not to sit on the iron chair now hot with the flames of the fire set to consume her.

Her inquisitor asks her again to renounce her faith.  Barely conscious, she begs for the lives of her children.

The inquistor draws his sword back and disembowels her son before her eyes.  She raises in her chair and nearly lifts the chair off the pyre.

The last thing the dying Christian woman sees is her little girl clutching her throat as the blood pours out of her neck.  The crowd cheers and yells, begging for more.  It is Saturday and today is a double feature.  The gladiators will be up next.  But first, the barbeque.

You'd think that this would only happen once, but hers was a poor Christian family of asthetes and no one really cared. 

For nearly two hundred years no one gave two shits about these people.

Having seen entirely too much of this miserable cruelty, a few of the more influential Christians rise up on their honches and plan their takeover.  It takes close to fifty years but, finally, they find Constantine.  And the early Christian Church lies down with the harlot and then marries spiritual teaching with politics, forging a new religion.  Some call it Christianity, but, over time, it becomes a 2,000 year old lie.

So you want to piss and moan because a black man who saw his family, friends or neighborhoods hanging by their necks from trees in the South spews a few epithets from a pulpit to keep the consciousness of an increasingly deprived and ignorant laiety awake and remembering that people were murdered in the 1960's fighting for an end to a Civil War that was supposed to have been over 100 years before.

I don't know what your rules say, but mine say, "enough is truly enough."

by Richard Volaar (15 articles, 0 quicklinks, 58 diaries, 218 comments) on Wednesday, March 19, 2008 at 10:39:50 AM
 

From the IRS website

To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual. In addition, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of it's activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates." 

If a white preacher were doing the same, they should lose their status as well. Be careful who you paint with your racist brush. 

by Watching (0 articles, 1 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 313 comments) on Wednesday, March 19, 2008 at 12:03:29 PM
 

From the IRS website

To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual. In addition, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of it's activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates." 

If a white preacher were doing the same, they should lose their status as well. Be careful who you paint with your racist brush. 

by Watching (0 articles, 1 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 313 comments) on Wednesday, March 19, 2008 at 12:08:13 PM
 

Nope. If You're White And Actually Believe...

...you're not the least bit racist, you're deceiving yourself.  You don't need Bill or Hillary to do it for you. 

Or, perhaps because you deceive yourself, you can bother to listen to either of the two hillbilly gangsters.

Read the code again.  It takes more than preaching from a pulpit to lose your 501 (c) 3 status.  It takes a substantial commitment on the part of the church to a particular campaign before the IRS would even bother to engage. 

And, by far and above, white evangelical preachers engage in this kind of campaigning than anyone else.

As far as your racism goes, unless you grew up in a black neighborhood as a white person, you don't have a friggin' clue whether you're racist or not.  Take the test from the link under Leigh Solomon's article.  G'head.

by Richard Volaar (15 articles, 0 quicklinks, 58 diaries, 218 comments) on Wednesday, March 19, 2008 at 4:08:06 PM
 

Huh!

How can you both support what Jeremiah Wright said and say Obama is a "real leader"?  Read Obama's speech.  He doesn't agree with you that what Wright said is true.  He thinks Wright has got it all wrong, and America is a near-perfect country with just a few minor blemishes to clean up.  His portrait of Wright is a patronizing one saying that Wright is a great guy but his mind is stuck in the distant past leading him to make all sorts of crazy statements.

Endemic white racism?  Not in America, according to Obama.  What's the problem in the Middle East?  It's all the result of those extremist Muslims, according to Obama.  Israel can do no wrong, because they're our ally.  Heck, even Bush is better than Obama on these issues.

by Bill Samuel (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 193 comments) on Wednesday, March 19, 2008 at 9:33:14 AM
 

Welcome to the Abyss, Bill

We have been driven so far apart from one another by this hellish administration, that any leader has to be larger than life with one foot in each camp.

Patronizing?  You've been listening to TV too long and are too programmed to believe in a reality beyond the one created by a few keywords.

What Obama did was draw a distinction between the things we say and the things we do.  Words are sometimes poorly chosen.  Talk is sometimes cheap.  Especially when you are directing your comments to a crowd of people numbed out by drugs, television and the distant memory spoken of in history books that were barely read, much less understood.

Of course Jeremiah Wright was over the top.  Black people, in general, tend to be highly emotional and passionate in their beliefs.

That's what made them excellent nurturers for our children in the south and the first on the front lines for all of our wars.  You see, as bad as it can sometimes be in the US, as hypocritical as our culture can sometimes behave, we have some of the best-fed poor people in the world.  To be downtrodden in the United States is to be a member of the sparse middle class in Mexico.

Obama at his best can see the whole picture, pull out what is right and take steps to make irrelevant the things which makes us small, petty and less than constructive.

Be grateful that the black people in your neighborhood, or state, are still reeling from the sadness of Katrina and are not the well-fed, better-educated and socially conscious blacks from my old neighborhood.  They would have the strength to hunt you down and beat you senseless.

Say what you want to about black people, white folks.  At least you know where you stand with them.  When they come after you to hurt you, you know it's because they're angry at you over your injury of them.

When white people come after you, you have no friggin' clue what the deal is.  Do they want your job?  Do they want a skin for their wall at work?  Do they want to grand-stand in front of their friends to show how powerful and strong they are?  Or did you actually do something wrong?

When white people come after black people, it's because they need a suspect to parade in front of the cameras, they need a scapegoat for the consequences of their own damn wrong-headed, Anglo-Saxon thinking.

by Richard Volaar (15 articles, 0 quicklinks, 58 diaries, 218 comments) on Wednesday, March 19, 2008 at 11:23:04 AM
 

Media destruction of Barack Obama

Hard to imagine that anyone who listened to Barack's speech in its entirety, and was intelligent enough to understand it, could possibly go along with the media's misrepresentation of the man.  For the first time, we have an extremely gifted man running for the thankless job of president of the United States.  He has refused to slander his opponent, even though there is plenty of material out there to use.  I can't help likening Obama's situation to that of our Jesus Christ.  Jesus preached love, caring, and doing for others, rather than spreading hate, and gaining riches.  We all know what those jealous of his spreading gospel did to him.  The Romans could not allow someone to undermine their power.

Such a shame that anyone would deliberately destroy Barack's unity message, by playing those videos.  This will ultimately end up by furthering the damage already created by the seven disastrous years of the Bush dictatorship, by possibly destroying the one chance we have of being governed by someone of Barack's brilliance.  Reminds me of that old saying -  "throwing pearls before swine".  All we can do is hope that most of the pearls are picked up by those intelligent enough to see what we are being offered by Senator Barack Obama.  

S 

by lucydavis (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 90 comments) on Thursday, March 20, 2008 at 9:00:36 AM
 

Barack vs Hillary

We're waiting for Hillary to announce that she will be on the McCain ticket.  What a combination that will be - McCain/Clinton.  No wonder McCain has been so determined not to state whom his running mate will be.  Our hundred year war coming up in a hurry. 

by lucydavis (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 90 comments) on Thursday, March 20, 2008 at 9:09:13 AM
 

The Gettysburg Address

Don't forget that most of the respected newspapers of the day found Lincoln's address at Gettysburg a variety of adjectives that had nothing to do with its final place in history.

Nevertheless, your point is concerning.

We need to unwind Murtha.  Outside of Barak's purview. 

Hillary is affiliated with "The Family" a right-wing Bible-studying group of Washington insiders (like Rick "Man on Dog" Santorum and others).

Hillary actually has much, much more to be concerned about with respect to her religious affiliations than Barak ever thought of having.

by Richard Volaar (15 articles, 0 quicklinks, 58 diaries, 218 comments) on Thursday, March 20, 2008 at 2:00:32 PM
 

IMHO

Obama hit that ball so far out of the park, they'll still be chasing it in November.

I think it will stand with the Emancipation Proclamation, the Brown decision, and King's "I Have a Dream" speech as one of the main turning points in America's racial story.  But I thought of the Gettysburg Address analogy too.  It's funny watching these pundits -- most of whom have never entered a black person's house, never have had a conversation with a black person except the chosen few allowed in their elite schools and newsrooms, never been to a black church except to hear a political speech -- judge someone of Obama's experience on whether he cleared their bar of how to talk about race.

But make no mistake -- this campaign is going to be all about race.  His opponents have no chance otherwise.  What else are they going to run on?  The economy?  The war?  So we're going to see if, along with black folks, there's a large enough minority of white folks who are ready to put all this ugly stuff in the past.  It will be interesting.

by Gregg Gordon (25 articles, 45 quicklinks, 14 diaries, 184 comments) on Friday, March 21, 2008 at 12:34:16 AM