U kunt Toer vernomen hebben. John Hagee, de verdediger McCain die God zei cre�ërde Orkaan Katrina om New Orleans voor zijn te straffen homoseksuele „zonden.“ Ontmoet goed nu Toer. De Peterselie van de staaf, televangelist megachurch pastor van Ohio dat Islam haat. Volgens David Corn van Moeder Jones, Heeft de Peterselie Christenen aan loonoorlog tegen Islam uitgenodigd, die hij om een „valse godsdienst overweegt te zijn.“ In het verleden, heeft de Peterselie ook tegen de scheiding van kerk en staat, homosexuals, en abortusrechten omheind, het vergelijken van Gepland Ouderschap bij Nazis….[meer]

Een blik in Jeremiah Wright, Geraldine Ferraro en John Hagee, die met de campagnes van Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton en John respectievelijk McCain zijn geassoci�ërd. Slechts is Hagee nog een adivsor.

Video Hoffelijkheid: De Films van BraveNew

Populariteit: 20% [?]

By: Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu

Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights advocate — Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Mpilo Tutu

When we were struggling in South Africa against the vicious racist policies of apartheid, it was exhilarating to proclaim to our people that our God was encountered first not in the peaceful quiet of a sanctuary. No, our God was out there in the rough and tumble of the politics of the day. Our God revealed Himself in the utterly vulgar world of setting a fractious rabble of slaves free. Our God was/is the great liberator God of the Exodus – the paradigmatic event that helped to define God as the God who is never unbiased, but is always biased in favor of the oppressed, the marginalized, the down and outs.

This God in Jesus Christ continued to demonstrate this bias – Jesus companied not with the high and mighty, Archbishops, Presidents, and such like, but with the scum of society, prostitutes, sinners, the despised. This was the God who had an extraordinary identification with the little people – inasmuch as you have done this(clothed the naked,fed the hungry,etc.) staggeringly you have done it as to God. Wow. Our God did not give good advice from a safe distance. No, our God entered the fiery furnace to be there as Immanuel, God with us in our anguish and agony. Our God was not deaf, but heard our cries, was not blind but saw our suffering and would as of old come down to deliver us from our bondage too, so that we would enjoy the glorious liberty of the children of God.

Jeremiah Wright has said really no more than this which falls squarely in the ambit of black theology, black religion to answer the anguished questions of black people suffering under the brutality of white racism. It ultimately seeks reconciliation, but you cannot be reconciled with one who has his boot on your neck to keep you in the gutter. To be reconciled you must stand up right to look the other in the eye.

Black theology and religion seek the liberation of all, oppressor and oppressed, black and white together – as we accomplished it in South Africa for freedom is indivisible. Whites won’t be truly free until blacks are free. Listen to Condeleeza Rice in the Washington Times. Obama is a person of courageous integrity. He could have ingratiated himself to white Americans by repudiating his pastor completely. He did nothing of the sort. That speaks volumes for the man. America will not find peace with itself until you really deal with your history. You need something like a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help you come to terms with your past.

Another Jeremiah, the prophet of old shocked his compatriots when Jerusalem was being besieged by the Chaldeans. He urged his compatriots to desert and join the enemy. What price patriotism.

About The Author: Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Mpilo Tutu was awarded the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to the cause of racial justice in South Africa. He served as the first black African archbishop of Cape Town from 1986 to 1996.

Prior to this role as spiritual leader of the Anglican Church in South Africa, Tutu served as General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches from 1978 to 1985. It was in this position that he became an international voice for the anti-apartheid movement and received the Nobel Prize.

In 1995, South African President Nelson Mandela appointed Archbishop Tutu Chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the body set up to investigate human rights violations under that country’s apartheid governments from 1960 to 1994. Tutu retired from in 1996 and was given the honorary title of Archbishop Emeritus.

Since then, Archbishop Tutu served as a visiting professor and scholar at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the University of North Florida in Jacksonville. He has received numerous awards and has authored two books, No Future Without Forgiveness and God has a Dream.

Tutu continues to write, lecture, and travel the world as an advocate of human rights and social justice. He is currently involved with a number of non-profit organizations working for peace and equality, meeting the needs of disadvantaged children and fighting HIV/AIDS.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Writes: BOB HERBERT

Race is like pornography in the United States — the dirty stories and dirty pictures that everyone professes to hate but no one can resist. But I suspect that even porn addicts get their fill sometimes.

We’ve allowed the entire political process in what is perhaps the most important election in the U.S. since World War II to become thoroughly warped by the histrionics of a loony preacher from the South Side of Chicago.

Most of the electorate understands that the U.S. is in sorry shape, which is why more than 80 percent of poll respondents say we’re on the wrong track. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright has nothing to do with any of that. The idea that his nonsense may shape the outcome of this election is both tragic and absurd…[more]

REFERENCES:

Editorial Reviews: Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire

From Publishers Weekly: In this provocative, scattershot jeremiad, cultural historian Berman (The Twilight of American Culture) likens America to ancient Rome on the brink. On the geopolitical plane, he contends, the United States is a belligerent, overstretched empire, saddled with huge deficits and a hollowed-out economy, vulnerable to terrorist blowback and, worse, collapse if foreign creditors finally pull the plug.

The rot is cultural and spiritual, too: Americans are cold, alienated shopaholics immured in suburban anomie, each encased in a private bubble of iTunes and media noise and indifferent to the public good. Culprits include globalization, technology and, more fundamentally, the individualism and commercialism that is the bedrock of American identity. Because American civilization is a “package deal,” the author considers it impervious to piecemeal reform and, given Americans’ ingrained “stupidity” and willful blindness, unsalvageable.

Berman’s attempts to tie every American dysfunction to an all-encompassing sickness of soul overreaches, leading him to lump together serious issues like poverty and the Abu Ghraib outrages with trivialities like annoying cell phone yakkers or the “freedom fries” phenomenon, which he bemoans as “symbolic of an emptiness at the core.” Often stimulating and insightful in its particulars, his indictment, like the jingoism it abhors, is too sweeping and essentialist to fully capture American reality.

From Booklist: A despairing analyst of contemporary America, Berman continues criticism begun in The Twilight of American Culture (2000). One character crystallizing Berman’s thoughts is President George W. Bush, under whom, according to Berman, the U.S. is incipiently, if not actually, suffering a “presidential dictatorship,” a “de facto Christian theocratic plutocracy.” In that vein, Berman undertakes a wide-ranging condemnation of American economic and foreign policy of the past 50 years, which he believes has propelled America into disastrous decline.

That Berman inveighs against free markets and thinks the cold war was partly a dynamic of the Soviet Union acting defensively infuses this work with a solidly leftist viewpoint. In Berman’s vigorous arrangement of evidence, current events are propelling us upon an irreversibly downward trajectory toward a societal situation resembling the Dark Ages. However, Berman offers no positive ideas to reverse this perceived free fall, making his tome more of an alarm than a solution.– Gilbert Taylor

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Popularity: 22% [?]

Early on in the presidential campaign my loyalties were divided between Governor Bill Richardson and Sen. Barack Obama. Obama was the Young Turk with the gift of eloquence and the message of hope, and Richardson was the seasoned politician with the Mother of all Resumes.

Richardson is supremely qualified to be president, he has a resume that few can match: Governor of New Mexico, Congressman, Chairman of the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Chairman of the Democratic Governors Association in 2005 and 2006, United States Secretary of Energy and United States Ambassador to the United Nations.

But to be honest it wasn’t Richardson’s impressive credentials that captured my interest — it was his ethnicity. Unfortunately, when many Americans see a Latino, they imagine he’s a landscaper, carpenter, field worker or dishwasher. Richardson is an extremely successful Hispanic who has shattered all the stereotypes. I yearned for Richardson to be the next president of the United States because of what it would mean for Hispanics in particular and for race relations in general.

This Latino columnist would have been delighted if Richardson had secured the Democratic nomination. Richardson’s campaign never caught fire, he had the credentials, but he didn’t have the charisma. Americans want a president they can imagine themselves having a beer with. The Average Joe doesn’t care if his accountant is a socially awkward nerd, as long as he is a whiz at solving financial problems. But we want a president who is eloquent, charismatic and likeable.

Richardson didn’t even make an impression in the Hispanic community, probably because of his Anglo surname. I had a hard time convincing some of my friends and family members that Richardson is a Latino. Oh well, I hope Obama considers Richardson as a running mate.

In the Virginia primary I voted for Sen. Barack Obama; and I am doing everything I can to advance his candidacy. One day when I’m in a rest home, I want to be able to tell youngsters who come and visit me that in my own little way, I helped elect the first African American president.

I can understand why Obama has captured the imagination of the American people, — the senator from Illinois represents change and hope. Obama is one of those rare politicians who transcends party affiliations and even race.

But I can especially understand why African Americans are solidly behind Obama. Jim Crow laws, that prohibited blacks from using “whites only” restrooms and other public accommodations were still in place as late as 1965. For an African American who as a youngster was forced to drink from a “colored” drinking fountain, a black president represents a quantum leap forward.

If most blacks had the attitude “I’m for Obama because he’s black, regardless of his stand on the issues”, who are we to say that’s not right? “I’m for Obama because he’s black”, might not be the politically correct posture, but when you have suffered discrimination sometimes you think with your gut.

But it’s important to note that at the start of this long and bitter presidential campaign, Hillary and Obama were splitting the black vote. It wasn’t until Hillary staring losing some contests, that she got desperate and played the race card. Bill Clinton’s infamous race-baiting comments after the South Carolina primary caused, blacks to desert Hillary in droves, and Obama now garners about 90% of the black vote.

It would be a tragedy if the Jeremiah Wright controversy derails Obama’s presidential aspirations. The Whitey-hating Wright is the antithesis of everything that Obama holds dear: Inclusiveness and racial harmony. I hope blue-collar whites will forgive Obama for his mistake in not repudiating Wright months ago, and vote for Obama, the one candidate who can unite Americans of all races.

I still expect Obama to win the Democratic nomination and the general election. When Obama is inaugurated as the next president of the United States, it will be a momentous occasion and a time of rejoicing for African Americans, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, Whites and Americans of all other enthnicities.

A controversial examination of how our political system, despite “get out the vote” rhetoric, works to suppress the vote—especially the votes of African Americans.

“Karl Rove began to impress upon leading Republicans…that…one way to address the party’s electoral problem…was to suppress black and Hispanic turnout—a task that would become far easier if the airwaves were buzzing with news of voter-fraud indictments.”—Harold Meyerson, The Washington Post

Popularity: 23% [?]

Hillary Clinton and surrogates are always quick to assert that she has been vetted fully, and that Barack Obama has not, and that the right-wing Republican Nut-Jobs will inflict withering attacks on him in the general election that he will not survive.

Wrong!

Because all they have is Jeremiah Wright and a handful of crooked freak show attacks — with which to stroke racist fears among whites.

The Clinton’s on the other hand are a ready-made ’smear manufacturing factory’ — bedecked with years of association with more and worse unsavory personal associations?

Here are some supporting documents:

1. What Obama wishes he could say
2. The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy’s Dossier on Hillary Clinton — Why Hillary Should Never Be President
3. Bitter and Angry in Rural Pennsylvania: Obama’s Reality vs. Hillary’s Fantasy — QUOTE: “Prejudice, racism and fear do run rampant in areas like this. People are poor. They are in bad health, overweight from a deep-fried diet, and toothless from the lack of dental care. They are unemployed. They are uneducated. They do cling to their hunting rifles and to their religious beliefs. For many, it is about all that they have. The towns around here are full of decaying, boarded up buildings. People live in rundown old trailers with abandoned cars in the front yard. I have seen people using an old car as a stable, with their goat tied to and living in it. I could drive you by a least three old houses that have Conderate flags in the windows.”
4. Fair Play for False Prophets — Do white right-wing preachers have it easier than black left-wing preachers? Is there a double standard?

Editorial Reviews

Book Description: Here’s your one-stop guide to everything Hillary and her staff don’t want you to know. Written in the style and format of Regnery Publishing’s New York Times bestsellers The Official Handbook of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy and Politically Incorrect GuidesT, the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy Dossier on Hillary Rodham Clinton is full of fresh reporting, devastating quotes, scandalous stories, funny sidebars, and forgotten but telling incidents from Hillary’s past.

From the Inside Flap: Your one-stop guide to everything Hillary and her handlers don’t want you to know

They adore her in Manhattan. They worship her in Hollywood. They idolize her in the liberal media. But out in the real world are those of us see through her lies about her husband, reject her socialist economics, and despise her radical social agenda. We are the members of what Hillary Clinton described as a “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy”-and here at VRWC headquarters, we’ve been keeping a file on her. If you’re one of us, The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy’s Dossier on Hillary Clinton will give you all the ammunition to help end Hillary’s White House dreams once and for all.

It’s all here: the dirty deals, unsavory incidents, insane proposals, revealing comments, and outright flip-flops in Hillary’s past. You’ll also find the complete record of her activities since leaving the White House, and the machinery she already has in place to return to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The VRWC’s Dossier also reveals:

* Hillary’s constantly shifting (and consistently self-serving) stance on the Iraq war

* Her unsavory fundraising activities (including her taste for campaign contributions from foreign sources)

* How she used 9/11 as an opportunity to win large federal grants for her well-heeled corporate campaign donors

* Hillary’s relentless efforts to control the flow of information about her-including her calls to slap speech controls on the Internet

* “There’s no such thing as other people’s children”: Hillary’s relentless and unyielding desire for collectivism and government control

* How Hillary has wasted your money on outrageous New York porkbarrel projects

* Solid evidence that she will revive her plan for nationwide socialist healthcare

* Her plan for the economy: not lower taxes, but more government

* President Hillary would be an unmitigated catastrophe for the United States-one from which our nation might never recover. Stop her now: with The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy’s Dossier on Hillary Clinton.

* How she has consistently supported policies to facilitate amnesty for illegal immigrants
[On this issue I agree with Hillary 100%] — The racist and xenophobic handling of the immigration reform process by the Republicans, calls for a strong stand in opposition by the eventual Democratic nominee.

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Popularity: 24% [?]