Obama plagaiarizes speech?

[RobMoney$]

Ruh-Roh Shaggy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M6x1H08aFc)

I understand that every polotician has speech writers and probably only write about 20% of the things they say publicly,
but this still looks pretty embarassing for Obama.

[ToucanSpam]

There's no way to defend that. But I bet the Obama lovers both here and on YouTube will fight hard to defend their golden boy.

[RobMoney$]

It gets better, Barak "Benny Hinn (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lvU-DislkI)" Obama:

Obama stages women fainting at his rallies? (http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=48404)

[RobMoney$]

Obama trying to influence (http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/02/superdelegates.html) Superdelegates with money?

[spacemac9000]

im a clinton fan

:eek:

[kaiser soze]

Welcome to the circus....true democracy is a thing of the past, I've had a sinking suspicion this is a big setup by all parties involved.

[yeahwho]

Yep this is it, it's over for Barack Obama, the Clinton campaign has found him to use other peoples words and phrases in his speeches.

I'm really thinking about supporting Clinton now that she is so original.

Dorkiest scoop ever. Does Hillary Clinton really want to get in a battle over verbiage with Barack Obama? Political suicide.

The Clinton campaign is sputtering exhaust and I can hear it starting to backfire (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/the-wolfson-plagiarism-at_b_87209.html) in an enormous way.

[RobMoney$]

What about the fake "fainting" at his pep-rallies, and what about all that money he's funneling into Superdelegates campaigns?

[Bob]

It gets better, Barak "Benny Hinn (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lvU-DislkI)" Obama:

Obama stages women fainting at his rallies? (http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=48404)

i'm sorry, where are you getting the idea that it's staged?

edit: oh nevermind, i see, it's because he plagiarizes himself each time it happens

a) that doesn't prove anything

b) who cares? is this the best dirt against obama that people can find?

[yeahwho]

The fainting thing is expected at these sort of rallies, the fact that it happens all the time (http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/thebigblog/archives/132054.asp) is neglected by those who do very little research or worse... decide to use these facts as opportunistic propaganda.

Don't be so gullible and think about what, who, where, when and why these sources would bring this up.

[RobMoney$]

Look, I realize the people who post here have most likely made a decision about who they're supporting a long time ago. I just wonder how people would have reacted if these things were being said about Hillary.



I really didn't want to come off as an Obama basher, but I guess it's kind of impossible to post this and not look like that. I learned about this info about Obama and figured I'd post it to see what people here thought.
I'm a life-long Democrat and will support whoever wins the Democratic nomination.

[beastieboysbaby]

I wish I was old enough to vote especially in this campaign. this is a good one

[yeahwho]

Look, I realize the people who post here have most likely made a decision about who they're supporting a long time ago. I just wonder how people would have reacted if these things were being said about Hillary.



I really didn't want to come off as an Obama basher, but I guess it's kind of impossible to post this and not look like that. I learned about this info about Obama and figured I'd post it to see what people here thought.
I'm a life-long Democrat and will support whoever wins the Democratic nomination.
Not trying to come at you, my tone is all fucked up and I'm sorry about it.

The thing is Hillary Clinton's campaign is fucked up because Hillary is fucked up. She went too far in the very beginning by not admitting to her own mistake of voting yes to invade Iraq. This is and will be her crucial mistake in this campaign, no matter about all the rest of it and there are many other flaws with Hillary, not admitting to your own mistake in a major vote that ended up wreaking havoc on earth is fucked up beyond all recognition.

That Obama will admit to his faults and mistakes shows humanity and humbleness. I truly believe him to be the superior candidate just from the way he has handled everything thrown at him with quick responses and no fear of further retaliation.

Obama has a center of levity beyond any candidate I have ever read, heard or experienced in my lifetime. We are very lucky to have someone who has his ability to communicate at this point in time in history.

[King PSYZ]

Obama trying to influence (http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/02/superdelegates.html) Superdelegates with money?


In case you hadn't noticed blogs /= respectible news agencies

With a complete lack of oversight or editorial process, to you know insure that people research articles and don't mislead...

This is reporting POLITICAL ACTION COMMITEE contributions, many of them dating WELL BEFORE EITHER WAS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT! In fact it shows Obama's PAC donated money to Clinton's re-election fund.

This is democrats raising money for each other during the last big senate and house votes.

If nothing else, it shows Hillary is a cheap bitch when it comes to supporting her own party.

[roosta]

bob said it, is this the best dirt people can find on him?

[abcdefz]

I understand he sometimes leaves socks lying around, as well.

[NoFenders]

What's really fantastic about all this school yard fighting, is that it's only a matter of time before they shoot themsleves in the foot. And there's still a lot of time. It wouldn't be the first election the Dems handed to the Republicans, and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be the last.

:cool:

[abcdefz]

I dunno. Obama's savvy enough that he should know not to borrow a line and not credit it, but he's weathering this shit pretty well.

[AceFace]

I wish I was old enough to vote especially in this campaign. this is a good one
awe! cutie pie! whee i was your age, i volunteered to help with a campaign. i couldn't vote, but i worked to try to get my guy in!

ugh don't hold it against me that it was Perot. :p

[saz]

bob said it, is this the best dirt people can find on him?


if you take the time to read the following, you'll see obama for who he really is:



The Audacity Of Hype


AN AUDACIOUS DEFERENCE TO POWER

If the Democrats’ candidate in 2008 is Obama, we can be sure that the right-wing Republican noise machine will denounce the nation’s potential first non-white male president as a dangerous “leftist.” The charge will be absurd, something that will hardly stop numerous people on the portside of the narrow U.S. political spectrum from claiming Obama as a fellow “progressive.” Certain to be encouraged by Obama and his handlers, this confusion will reflect the desperation and myopia that shaky thinking and the limited choices of the U.S. electoral system regularly instill in liberals and some squishy near leftists.

So what sorts of policies and values could one expect from an imagined Obama presidency? There is quite a bit already in Obama’s short national career that has to be placed in the “never mind” category if one is to seriously believe his claim (cautiously advanced in The Audacity of Hope) to be a “progressive” concerned with “social and economic justice” and global peace.

Last August, Obama audaciously told thousands of labor union members at Chicago's Soldier Field that he was "running for president...because of you, not because of folks who are writing big checks." He made a big point of the fact that he "does not take money from corporate lobbyists," unlike business-friendly Hillary Clinton.

He uttered his worker-pleasing words even as his campaign was bending with fierce plutocratic winds fanned by giant global investment firms and corporations that were helping him join leading corporate Democrat Clinton in setting new electoral fundraising records.

Ever wonder why the "progressive" (as he repeatedly describes himself) Obama dances for Wall Street on the (fake) Social Security "crisis" and sounds like Mitt Romney and Rudy Guliani in decrying the specter of "government mandated" universal health care? Curious about why the avowed environmentalist thinks that nuclear power should be considered part of the solution to America's energy crisis and has recently joined Hillary in voting for the extension of the corporate-neoliberal North American Free Trade Agreement to Peru?

FOLLOW THE MONEY

Obama's presidential campaign has received nearly $5 million dollars from securities and investment firms and $866,000 from commercial banks through October of 2007. Obama's top contributor so far is Goldman Sachs (provider of $369,078 to Obama), identified by Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) investigators as "a major proponent of privatizing Social Security as well as legislation that would essentially deregulate the investment banking/securities industry." Eight of Obama's top twenty election investors are securities and investment firms: Goldman Sachs, Lehman Bros. (#2 at $229,090), J.P. Morgan Chase and Co. (# 4 at $216,759), Citadel Investment Group (#7 at 4166,608), UBS AG ($146,150), UBS-America ($106,680), Morgan Stanley ($104,421), and Credit Suisse Group ($92,300). The last two firms are also known to be leading privatization advocates.

Meanwhile, Obama's presidential run has been "assisted" by more than $2 million from the health care sector and nearly $400,000 from the insurance industry through October of 2007. Obama received $708,000 from medical and insurance interests between 2001 and 2006. His wife Michelle, a fellow Harvard Law graduate, was until a recently a Vice President for Community and External Affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals, a position that paid her $273, 618 in 2006.

And Obama's sixth largest contributor is Exelon, the proud Chicago-based owner and operator of more nuclear power plants than any entity on earth.

Go figure.

As for his "lobbyist ban," last August the Los Angeles Times reported that Obama "raised more than $1 million in the first three months of his presidential campaign from law firms and companies that have major lobbying operations in the nation's capital." Campaign finance expert Stephen Weissman observed that this raised troubling questions about the practical relevance of Obama's much-ballyhooed pledge to turn down donations from "federal lobbyists."

Obama's rise to national prominence and presidential viability has in fact depended significantly on PAC and lobbyist money.

To give one example, Obama received $33,000 in the first quarter of 2007 from the Atlanta-based law firm Alston & Bird, which maintains a large lobbying division in Washington. Obama's $33,000 came bundled from a number of "consultants" employed by the firm.

Also deleted from Obama's "ban" are state lobbyists. Obama took $2000 from two Springfield, Illinois lobbyists for Exelon, which spent $500,000 to influence policy in Washington in 2006 and gave $160,000 directly to Obama.

An especially big dent in the armor of Obama's effort to sell himself as the noble repudiator of lobbyist, PAC, and special interest money generally was inflicted in early August of 2007. That's when the Boston Globe published a widely circulated article titled "PACs and Lobbyists Aided Obama's Rise: Data Contrast With His Theme." Globe reporter Scott Helman reviewed campaign finance records to find that a "more complicated truth" lurked "behind Obama\'s campaign rhetoric." (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/08/09/pacs_and_lobbyists_aided_obamas_rise) Obama's rise to national prominence and presidential viability, Helman discovered, depended significantly on PAC and lobbyist money, including large sums from "defense contractors, law firms and the securities and insurance industries" to his own powerful PAC "Hopefund." Of special interest was Helman's determination that Obama was retaining close and lucrative funding relationships with leading Washington-based lobbyists and lobbying firms while technically avoiding direct contributions from those key campaign finance players.

NEVER MIND

When politicians offer nothing, and the people demand nothing, then the powers-that-be are free to continue doing whatever they choose. The death knell of participatory politics can often be a very noisy, celebratory affair - such as we have witnessed in the call-and-response ritual of "Change!" "Hope!" and other exuberant but insubstantial campaign exercises.

After more than four years of observing Obama's descent from vaguely progressive rhetoric to shameless pandering and vapid "Change!" mantra nonsense are we to ignore the facts on the ground stick our heads in the sand and say never mind?

Never mind, for example, that Obama was recently hailed as a “Hamiltonian” believer in “limited government” and “free trade” by Republican New York Times columnist David Brooks, who praises Obama for having “a mentality formed by globalization, not the SDS.” (http://scottwichmann.blogspot.com/2006/11/run-barack-run-by-david-brooks.html) Or that he had to be shamed off the “New Democrat Directory” of the corporate-right Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) by the popular left black Internet magazine Black Commentator.

Never mind that Obama (consistent with Brooks’s description of him) has lent his support to the aptly named Hamilton Project (http://www.brookings.edu/projects/hamiltonproject.aspx), formed by corporate-neoliberal Citigroup chair Robert Rubin (http://www.public.iastate.edu/~tonys/Stiglitz.html)and “other Wall Street Democrats” to counter populist rebellion against corporatist tendencies within the Democratic Party. Or that he lent his politically influential and financially rewarding assistance to neoconservative pro-war Senator Joe Lieberman’s (http://www.boston.com/news/local/connecticut/articles/2006/10/26/lamont_gets_lift_from_obama_lieberman_campaigns_wi th_landrieu/) (“D”-CT) struggle against the Democratic antiwar insurgent Ned Lamont. Or that Obama has supported other “mainstream Democrats” fighting antiwar progressives in primary races. Or that he criticized efforts to enact filibuster proceedings against reactionary Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

Never mind that Obama “dismissively” referred—in a “tone laced with contempt”—to the late progressive and populist U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone as “something of a gadfly.” (http://davidsirota.com/index.php/mr-obama-goes-to-washington) Or that he chose the neoconservative Lieberman to be his “assigned” mentor in the U.S. Senate. Never mind that Obama opposed an amendment to the Bankruptcy Act that would have capped credit card interest rates at 30 percent.

Never mind that Obama voted for a business-friendly “tort reform” bill that rolls back working peoples’ ability to obtain reasonable redress and compensation from misbehaving corporations. Or that Obama claims to oppose the introduction of single-payer national health insurance on the grounds that such a widely supported social-democratic change would lead to employment difficulties for workers in the private insurance industry—at places like Kaiser and Blue Cross Blue Shield. Does Obama support the American scourge of racially disparate mass incarceration on the grounds that it provides work for tens of thousands of prison guards? Should the U.S. maintain the illegal operation of Iraq and pour half its federal budget into “defense” because of all the soldiers and other workers that find employment in imperial wars and the military-industrial complex? Does the “progressive” senator really need to be reminded of the large number of socially useful and healthy alternatives that exist for the investment of human labor power at home and abroad—wetlands preservation, urban ecological retrofitting, drug counseling, teaching, infrastructure building and repair, safe and affordable housing construction, the building of windmills and solar power facilities, etc.?

In an interview with Klein, Obama expressed reservations about a universal health insurance plan recently enacted in Massachusetts, stating his preference for “voluntary” solutions over “government mandates.” The former, he said, is “more consonant with” what he called “the American character”—a position contradicted by regular polling data showing that most Americans support Canadian-style single-payer health insurance.

Never mind that Obama voted to re-authorize the repressive PATRIOT Act. Or that he voted for the appointment of the war criminal Condaleeza Rice to (of all things) Secretary of State. Or that he opposed Senator Russ Feingold’s (D-WI) move to censure the Bush administration after the president was found to have illegally wiretapped U.S. citizens. Or that he shamefully distanced himself from fellow Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin’s forthright criticism of U.S. torture practices at Guantanamo. Or that he refuses to foreswear the use of first-strike nuclear weapons against Iran.

Never mind that he joins victim-blaming Republicans in pointing to poor blacks’ “cultural” issues as the cause of concentrated black poverty (Obama, The Audacity of Hope)—not the multiple, well-documented, and interrelated structures, practices and consequences of externally imposed white dominance and corporate-state capitalism. Or that he claims that blacks have joined the American “socioeconomic mainstream” even as median black household net worth falls to less than eight cents on the median white household dollar.

Never mind Obama’s power-worshipping campaign book “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream” (2006) – the book to which Obama refers reporters asking him for policy specifics behind his often vague statements – refers to the United States’ rapacious, savagely unequal and fundamentally “materialist” capitalist economy as the nation’s “greatest asset.” “Audacity” absurdly praises the “American system of social organization” and “business culture” on the grounds that U.S. capitalism “has encouraged constant innovation, individual initiative and efficient allocation of resources.” It commends “the need to raise money from economic elites to finance elections” for “prevent(ing) Democrats...from straying too far from the center” (http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/05/russell-simmons-speaks-some-truth-on-obama/) and for marginalizing “those within the Democratic Party who tend toward zealotry” and “radical ideas” (like peace and justice). It praises fellow centrist Senator and presidential rival Hillary Clinton (D-NY) for embracing “the virtues of capitalism” and applauds her “recognizably progressive” husband Bill Clinton for showing that “markets and fiscal discipline” and “personal responsibility are needed to combat poverty”– an interesting reflection on the militantly corporate-neoliberal Clinton administration’s efforts to increase poverty by eliminating poor families’ entitlement to public cash assistance and privileging deficit reduction over social spending.

Never mind that “Audacity” also advances a model of health care reform that mocks his claim to support "universal" insurance. Like the Democratic Leadership Council Obama advocates retaining the for-profit nature of American health care, and mandating that poor people pay for it, somehow. His plan is only ‘universal’ in the sense that mandatory auto insurance is universal.

"I believe that U.S. forces are still a part of the solution in Iraq.”
- Barack Obama

Obama’s handlers and supporters place considerable emphasis on the claim that the junior senator from Illinois has voiced a “consistent position against the war” and (by extension) the Middle East. The assertion has some technical accuracy; Obama has publicly questioned the Bush administration’s case for war since the fall of 2002. But serious scrutiny of his “antiwar position” shows that the supposedly “pragmatic” and “non-ideological” Obama speaks in deferential accord with the doctrine of empire. In Obama’s carefully crafted rhetoric, Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) has been a “strategic blunder” on the part of an essentially benevolent nation state. Given his presidential ambitions, it is unthinkable for him to acknowledge the invasion’s status as a great international transgression that is consistent with the United States’ long record of imperial criminality. It is equally unimaginable for him to acknowledge that the war expressed Washington’s drive to deepen its control of strategic petroleum resources—an ambition in direct opposition to the alleged U.S. goals of encouraging Iraqi freedom and exporting democracy.

In a recent address designed to display his foreign policy bona fides, Obama showed his continuing willingness to take seriously the claim that OIL was an effort to “impose democracy” on Iraq, even faulting the Bush administration for acting in Iraq on the basis of unrealistic “dreams of democracy and hopes for a perfect government” (Obama, “A Way Forward in Iraq,” speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs , November 22, 2006).

Consistent with his denial and embrace of Washington’s imperial ambitions, Obama has refused to join genuinely anti-war forces in calling for a rapid and thorough withdrawal of troops and an end to the occupation of Iraq. In a critical November 2005 speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Obama rejected Rep. John Murtha’s (D-PA) call for a rapid redeployment and any notion of a timetable for withdrawal. Obama’s call for “a pragmatic solution to the real war we’re facing in Iraq” included repeated references to the need to “defeat” the “insurgency”—a goal that means continuation of the war.

Obama’s November speech to the CCGA advocates a vaguely timed Iraq “scenario” in which “U.S. forces” might remain in the occupied state for an “extended period of time.” Obama advances a “reduced but active (U.S. military) presence” that “protects logistical supply points” and “American enclaves like the Green Zone” (site of one of the largest and most heavily militarized “embassies” in history) while “sending a clear message to hostile countries like Iran and Syria that we intend to remain a key player in the region.” U.S. troops “remaining in Iraq” will “act as rapid reaction forces to respond to emergencies and go after terrorists.” This is part of what Obama meant when he told a fawning David Brooks that, “the U.S. may have no choice but to slog it out in Iraq.” (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4886)

At one point in his CCGA oration, Obama had the audacity to say the following in support of his claim that U.S. citizens support “victory” in Iraq: “The American people have been extraordinarily resolved. They have seen their sons and daughters killed or wounded in the streets of Fallujah.”

This was a spine-chilling selection of locales. Fallujah was the site for a colossal U.S. war atrocity. Crimes included the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the targeting of ambulances and hospitals, and the practical leveling of an entire city—in April and November 2004. The town was designated for destruction as an example of the awesome state terror promised to those who dared to resist U.S. power. Not surprisingly, Fallujah is a leading symbol of U.S. imperialism in the Arab and Muslim worlds. It is a deeply provocative and insulting place for Obama to choose to highlight American sacrifice and “resolve” in the occupation of Iraq.

It gets worse. Obama has repeatedly voted to spend billions on the illegal invasion since his arrival in the U.S. Senate. He inveighs against the “Tom Hayden wing of the Democratic Party” (http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0712/S00181.htm) and has told congressional Democrats they would be “playing chicken with the troops” (http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-01-obama_N.htm) if they dared to actually (imagine) de-fund the Cheney-Bush “war.”

He voted to confirm as Secretary of State (of all things) the mendacious war criminal Condaleeza Rice, who played a critical role in advancing the preposterous Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) claims Bush used to invade Iraq.

He distanced himself from fellow Illinois U.S. Senator Dick Durbin when Durbin faced vicious right-wing attacks after daring to tell some basic truths about U.S. torture practices in Iraq.

Obama has repeatedly and absurdly claimed that the illegal invasion was launched with the “best of democratic intentions.”

He praises U.S. military personnel for their “unquestioning” “service” in Iraq and (despite numerous U.S. atrocities there) for “doing everything we could ever ask of them.”

His belated calls for withdrawal are hedged by numerous statements indicating that an Obama White House would maintain a significant military presence in and around Iraq for an indefinite period of time. And Obama has refused to support taking a reckless (possibly even nuclear) U.S. military assault on Iran off the table of acceptable U.S. foreign policy options.

Barack Obama reacts to the world's response to imperialism in precisely the same way as his counterparts; he proposes more war. Obama wants to add almost one-hundred thousand new troops to the U.S. military, to alleviate the shortage of manpower that Iraq attrition has wrought. In his speech to the Woodrow Wilson Center, Obama gave away their destination: Waziristan. Obama wants a more aggressive approach to the so-called "war on terror," to take "the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

So what we have in Barack Obama is an alternative War Party, planning an alternative War. He has told us so, and we should believe him. He is no peace candidate, and goes out of his way to prove it.

A DEEPLY CONSERVATIVE MAN

“I believe all of you are as open and willing to listen as anyone else in America. I believe you care about this country and the future we are leaving to the next generation. I believe your work to be a part of building a stronger, more vibrant, and more just America. I think the problem is that no one has asked you to play a part in the project of American renewal.”

- Barack Obama, speaking to the masters of “American” finance capitalism at the headquarters of NASDAQ, Wall Street, New York City, September 17, 2007

STANDING UP AND KNEELING DOWN

Maybe it’s because Barack Obama and his handlers are sensitive to the need to reassure ruling forces that the “first black United States president” will not challenge existing hierarchies. Maybe it’s because he’s bought and paid for by big money. Or maybe it’s because he believes in his “deeply conservative” heart that good Americans show deep respect for their socioeconomic masters. Whatever the explanation it’s hard to imagine ever seeing an avowedly “progressive” political candidate more eager than Obama to display his deep willingness to obsequiously kiss the ring of dominant political and economic authority. For someone who is marching across the country calling on working- and middle-class Americans to “get fired up” and “stand up” for democracy (and for him), Obama sure likes to spend a lot of time groveling before supposed upper-class superiors.

OBAMA INC.

This “new Democrat” Barack Obama is engaged in the exact same “juggling act” as the “old Democrats” i.e. Clinton. He likes to call himself a “progressive” and to identify himself with “the principles of equality,” the “Golden Rule” and the cause of “social justice,” citing as evidence his youthful experience as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago. Still, Obama is a freshly minted millionaire who recently purchased an opulent Georgian Revival Mansion below price at $1.65 million thanks to some help from the felony-indicted political fundraiser and longtime Obama friend and campaign finance pivot man Tony Rezko.

Obama is a company man. He knows the language, the subtle and overt signals, and emits them like a beacon. Ruling circles have gotten the message, and that is why corporate media have made him a contender, and corporate billfolds have financed him. The "skinny kid" made his bones at the Democratic National Convention, in August, 2004, while he was still an Illinois senatorial candidate - a shoo-in against the hopeless and deranged Black Republican Alan Keyes. Obama put all white fears to rest: "There is no white America. There is no black America. There is no Latino America. There is no Asian America. There is only the United States of America." Hallelujah!

The scam of this still-new century enthralls and envelopes the nation, a narrowly-packaged farce in which political twins Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama pretend they are not joined at the hip on every public policy issue that has been allowed to enter the corporate media-vetted discourse: health care, Iraq, trade. Even these points of (non)contention disappear in the din of purely commercial marketing mantras with infinitely malleable meanings: "Change," "Hope," "Reform."

When no real change is offered - when both frontrunners are wedded to a lingering presence in Iraq and to reestablishing U.S. hegemony in the world; when insurance and drug companies are left virtually untouched by duos' tepid forays into broadening health care coverage; and when neither offers a whisper of an idea on halting the corporate-engineered global Race to the Bottom, then it is certain that, although "change" may come, it will be at the direction of the rich who have brought the nation and planet to the very brink of catastrophe.

But then, Obama would never have risen so quickly and remarkably to his current position of dominant media favor and national prominence if he was anything like the egalitarian and democratic “progressive” that some liberals and leftists imagine. In the corporate-crafted and money-dominated swamp that passes for “representative democracy” in the U.S., concentrated economic and imperial power open and close doors in ways that preemptively suffocate populist potential. Big money is not in the business of promoting genuine social justice or democracy activists (so-called “gadflies” like Wellstone, to use Obama’s description).

Understanding public policy as a mechanism for the upward distribution of wealth, it promotes empire and inequality by underwriting the smothering K Street culture and the revolving door that feeds it—not just lobbyists themselves but the entire interconnected world of campaign consultants, public relations agencies, pollsters, and media strategists—without whose favor and assistance serious presidential bids are next to unthinkable.


“For years I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions of society, a little change here, a little change there. Now I feel quite differently. I think you’ve got to have a reconstruction of the entire society...a radical redistribution of political and economic power.”

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., May 1967

[roosta]

so.....wait, he's a politician? :eek:

[yeahwho]

if you take the time to read the following, you'll see obama for who he really is:



The Audacity Of Hype


AN AUDACIOUS DEFERENCE TO POWER

If the Democrats’ candidate in 2008 is Obama, we can be sure that the right-wing Republican noise machine will denounce the nation’s potential first non-white male president as a dangerous “leftist.”
To give one example, Obama received $33,000 in the first quarter of 2007 from the Atlanta-based law fi........, blah, blah, blah[/U]

sazi, once again this is so far off the topic that I'm beginning to think your just basically an "Obama Hater". That is fine and OK, but really that whole article is not shocking to me. Those contributions and his candidacy are working hand in hand to make him the candidate. The more he looks to be the winner the uglier it is going to get. Who writes that stuff? It's obviously an axe to grind piece more than an enlightening read of journalism.

Whole other topic, this one is about whether Obama plagiarizes speeches. Which honestly coming from the Clinton camp is hilarious.

[saz]

so.....wait, he's a politician? :eek:

his record and statements say everything. he's practically a moderate republican beholden to corporate interests, who has zero interest in universal healthcare and progressive politics, nor going after the bush administration and holding them accountable. he also seems to have been dragging his feet on iraq, and both him and hillary couldn't promise that there wouldn't be troops in iraq in 2012. if elected, i doubt that much will change.

the democratic nomination has been nothing more than a high school popularity contest (http://www.alternet.org/story/73727/).


sazi, once again this is so far off the topic that I'm beginning to think your just basically an "Obama Hater".

just how is discussing barack obama in a thread about barack obama being "so far off topic"? so, i'm an "obama hater" because i'm discussing obama in a thread about obama? and, i'm an "obama hater" because i'm pointing out the facts and reality about him? sorry, but it seems to me that you can't take any criticism of him whatsoever.


That is fine and OK, but really that whole article is not shocking to me. Those contributions and his candidacy are working hand in hand to make him the candidate.

that's fine. however, he shouldn't be campaigning as the candidate of "change", considering that he is more of the same: centrist, establishment, pro-business, big money, anti-universal healthcare.


The more he looks to be the winner the uglier it is going to get. Who writes that stuff? It's obviously an axe to grind piece more than an enlightening read of journalism.

well, if you actually bothered to check out the links in that blog, you'd see there are articles from boston.com, punchline magazine, the brookings institution, iowa state university, david sirota, dissident voice, usa today, black agenda report, etc; both progressive sites, and well established and respected news organizations. incidently, david sirota is "a nationally syndicated weekly newspaper columnist for Creators Syndicate. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government and How We Take It Back (Crown 2006). He is also a senior fellow at the Campaign for America's Future and a board member of the Progressive States Network. His second book, The Uprising, is due in the Spring of 2008."


Whole other topic, this one is about whether Obama plagiarizes speeches. Which honestly coming from the Clinton camp is hilarious.

no. some asked about obama, or "dirt", so i obliged.

[yeahwho]

whatever, I'm not biting on it, too easy

[abcdefz]

if you take the time to read the following, you'll see obama for who he really is:



The Audacity Of Hype


AN AUDACIOUS DEFERENCE TO POWER

If the Democrats’ candidate in 2008 is Obama, we can be sure that the right-wing Republican noise machine will denounce the nation’s potential first non-white male president as a dangerous “leftist.” The charge will be absurd, something that will hardly stop numerous people on the portside of the narrow U.S. political spectrum from claiming Obama as a fellow “progressive.” Certain to be encouraged by Obama and his handlers, this confusion will reflect the desperation and myopia that shaky thinking and the limited choices of the U.S. electoral system regularly instill in liberals and some squishy near leftists.

So what sorts of policies and values could one expect from an imagined Obama presidency? There is quite a bit already in Obama’s short national career that has to be placed in the “never mind” category if one is to seriously believe his claim (cautiously advanced in The Audacity of Hope) to be a “progressive” concerned with “social and economic justice” and global peace.

Last August, Obama audaciously told thousands of labor union members at Chicago's Soldier Field that he was "running for president...because of you, not because of folks who are writing big checks." He made a big point of the fact that he "does not take money from corporate lobbyists," unlike business-friendly Hillary Clinton.

He uttered his worker-pleasing words even as his campaign was bending with fierce plutocratic winds fanned by giant global investment firms and corporations that were helping him join leading corporate Democrat Clinton in setting new electoral fundraising records.

Ever wonder why the "progressive" (as he repeatedly describes himself) Obama dances for Wall Street on the (fake) Social Security "crisis" and sounds like Mitt Romney and Rudy Guliani in decrying the specter of "government mandated" universal health care? Curious about why the avowed environmentalist thinks that nuclear power should be considered part of the solution to America's energy crisis and has recently joined Hillary in voting for the extension of the corporate-neoliberal North American Free Trade Agreement to Peru?

FOLLOW THE MONEY

Obama's presidential campaign has received nearly $5 million dollars from securities and investment firms and $866,000 from commercial banks through October of 2007. Obama's top contributor so far is Goldman Sachs (provider of $369,078 to Obama), identified by Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) investigators as "a major proponent of privatizing Social Security as well as legislation that would essentially deregulate the investment banking/securities industry." Eight of Obama's top twenty election investors are securities and investment firms: Goldman Sachs, Lehman Bros. (#2 at $229,090), J.P. Morgan Chase and Co. (# 4 at $216,759), Citadel Investment Group (#7 at 4166,608), UBS AG ($146,150), UBS-America ($106,680), Morgan Stanley ($104,421), and Credit Suisse Group ($92,300). The last two firms are also known to be leading privatization advocates.

Meanwhile, Obama's presidential run has been "assisted" by more than $2 million from the health care sector and nearly $400,000 from the insurance industry through October of 2007. Obama received $708,000 from medical and insurance interests between 2001 and 2006. His wife Michelle, a fellow Harvard Law graduate, was until a recently a Vice President for Community and External Affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals, a position that paid her $273, 618 in 2006.

And Obama's sixth largest contributor is Exelon, the proud Chicago-based owner and operator of more nuclear power plants than any entity on earth.

Go figure.

As for his "lobbyist ban," last August the Los Angeles Times reported that Obama "raised more than $1 million in the first three months of his presidential campaign from law firms and companies that have major lobbying operations in the nation's capital." Campaign finance expert Stephen Weissman observed that this raised troubling questions about the practical relevance of Obama's much-ballyhooed pledge to turn down donations from "federal lobbyists."

Obama's rise to national prominence and presidential viability has in fact depended significantly on PAC and lobbyist money.

To give one example, Obama received $33,000 in the first quarter of 2007 from the Atlanta-based law firm Alston & Bird, which maintains a large lobbying division in Washington. Obama's $33,000 came bundled from a number of "consultants" employed by the firm.

Also deleted from Obama's "ban" are state lobbyists. Obama took $2000 from two Springfield, Illinois lobbyists for Exelon, which spent $500,000 to influence policy in Washington in 2006 and gave $160,000 directly to Obama.

An especially big dent in the armor of Obama's effort to sell himself as the noble repudiator of lobbyist, PAC, and special interest money generally was inflicted in early August of 2007. That's when the Boston Globe published a widely circulated article titled "PACs and Lobbyists Aided Obama's Rise: Data Contrast With His Theme." Globe reporter Scott Helman reviewed campaign finance records to find that a "more complicated truth" lurked "behind Obama\'s campaign rhetoric." (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/08/09/pacs_and_lobbyists_aided_obamas_rise) Obama's rise to national prominence and presidential viability, Helman discovered, depended significantly on PAC and lobbyist money, including large sums from "defense contractors, law firms and the securities and insurance industries" to his own powerful PAC "Hopefund." Of special interest was Helman's determination that Obama was retaining close and lucrative funding relationships with leading Washington-based lobbyists and lobbying firms while technically avoiding direct contributions from those key campaign finance players.

NEVER MIND

When politicians offer nothing, and the people demand nothing, then the powers-that-be are free to continue doing whatever they choose. The death knell of participatory politics can often be a very noisy, celebratory affair - such as we have witnessed in the call-and-response ritual of "Change!" "Hope!" and other exuberant but insubstantial campaign exercises.

After more than four years of observing Obama's descent from vaguely progressive rhetoric to shameless pandering and vapid "Change!" mantra nonsense are we to ignore the facts on the ground stick our heads in the sand and say never mind?

Never mind, for example, that Obama was recently hailed as a “Hamiltonian” believer in “limited government” and “free trade” by Republican New York Times columnist David Brooks, who praises Obama for having “a mentality formed by globalization, not the SDS.” (http://scottwichmann.blogspot.com/2006/11/run-barack-run-by-david-brooks.html) Or that he had to be shamed off the “New Democrat Directory” of the corporate-right Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) by the popular left black Internet magazine Black Commentator.

Never mind that Obama (consistent with Brooks’s description of him) has lent his support to the aptly named Hamilton Project (http://www.brookings.edu/projects/hamiltonproject.aspx), formed by corporate-neoliberal Citigroup chair Robert Rubin (http://www.public.iastate.edu/~tonys/Stiglitz.html)and “other Wall Street Democrats” to counter populist rebellion against corporatist tendencies within the Democratic Party. Or that he lent his politically influential and financially rewarding assistance to neoconservative pro-war Senator Joe Lieberman’s (http://www.boston.com/news/local/connecticut/articles/2006/10/26/lamont_gets_lift_from_obama_lieberman_campaigns_wi th_landrieu/) (“D”-CT) struggle against the Democratic antiwar insurgent Ned Lamont. Or that Obama has supported other “mainstream Democrats” fighting antiwar progressives in primary races. Or that he criticized efforts to enact filibuster proceedings against reactionary Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.

Never mind that Obama “dismissively” referred—in a “tone laced with contempt”—to the late progressive and populist U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone as “something of a gadfly.” (http://davidsirota.com/index.php/mr-obama-goes-to-washington) Or that he chose the neoconservative Lieberman to be his “assigned” mentor in the U.S. Senate. Never mind that Obama opposed an amendment to the Bankruptcy Act that would have capped credit card interest rates at 30 percent.

Never mind that Obama voted for a business-friendly “tort reform” bill that rolls back working peoples’ ability to obtain reasonable redress and compensation from misbehaving corporations. Or that Obama claims to oppose the introduction of single-payer national health insurance on the grounds that such a widely supported social-democratic change would lead to employment difficulties for workers in the private insurance industry—at places like Kaiser and Blue Cross Blue Shield. Does Obama support the American scourge of racially disparate mass incarceration on the grounds that it provides work for tens of thousands of prison guards? Should the U.S. maintain the illegal operation of Iraq and pour half its federal budget into “defense” because of all the soldiers and other workers that find employment in imperial wars and the military-industrial complex? Does the “progressive” senator really need to be reminded of the large number of socially useful and healthy alternatives that exist for the investment of human labor power at home and abroad—wetlands preservation, urban ecological retrofitting, drug counseling, teaching, infrastructure building and repair, safe and affordable housing construction, the building of windmills and solar power facilities, etc.?

In an interview with Klein, Obama expressed reservations about a universal health insurance plan recently enacted in Massachusetts, stating his preference for “voluntary” solutions over “government mandates.” The former, he said, is “more consonant with” what he called “the American character”—a position contradicted by regular polling data showing that most Americans support Canadian-style single-payer health insurance.

Never mind that Obama voted to re-authorize the repressive PATRIOT Act. Or that he voted for the appointment of the war criminal Condaleeza Rice to (of all things) Secretary of State. Or that he opposed Senator Russ Feingold’s (D-WI) move to censure the Bush administration after the president was found to have illegally wiretapped U.S. citizens. Or that he shamefully distanced himself from fellow Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin’s forthright criticism of U.S. torture practices at Guantanamo. Or that he refuses to foreswear the use of first-strike nuclear weapons against Iran.

Never mind that he joins victim-blaming Republicans in pointing to poor blacks’ “cultural” issues as the cause of concentrated black poverty (Obama, The Audacity of Hope)—not the multiple, well-documented, and interrelated structures, practices and consequences of externally imposed white dominance and corporate-state capitalism. Or that he claims that blacks have joined the American “socioeconomic mainstream” even as median black household net worth falls to less than eight cents on the median white household dollar.

Never mind Obama’s power-worshipping campaign book “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream” (2006) – the book to which Obama refers reporters asking him for policy specifics behind his often vague statements – refers to the United States’ rapacious, savagely unequal and fundamentally “materialist” capitalist economy as the nation’s “greatest asset.” “Audacity” absurdly praises the “American system of social organization” and “business culture” on the grounds that U.S. capitalism “has encouraged constant innovation, individual initiative and efficient allocation of resources.” It commends “the need to raise money from economic elites to finance elections” for “prevent(ing) Democrats...from straying too far from the center” (http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/05/russell-simmons-speaks-some-truth-on-obama/) and for marginalizing “those within the Democratic Party who tend toward zealotry” and “radical ideas” (like peace and justice). It praises fellow centrist Senator and presidential rival Hillary Clinton (D-NY) for embracing “the virtues of capitalism” and applauds her “recognizably progressive” husband Bill Clinton for showing that “markets and fiscal discipline” and “personal responsibility are needed to combat poverty”– an interesting reflection on the militantly corporate-neoliberal Clinton administration’s efforts to increase poverty by eliminating poor families’ entitlement to public cash assistance and privileging deficit reduction over social spending.

Never mind that “Audacity” also advances a model of health care reform that mocks his claim to support "universal" insurance. Like the Democratic Leadership Council Obama advocates retaining the for-profit nature of American health care, and mandating that poor people pay for it, somehow. His plan is only ‘universal’ in the sense that mandatory auto insurance is universal.

"I believe that U.S. forces are still a part of the solution in Iraq.”
- Barack Obama

Obama’s handlers and supporters place considerable emphasis on the claim that the junior senator from Illinois has voiced a “consistent position against the war” and (by extension) the Middle East. The assertion has some technical accuracy; Obama has publicly questioned the Bush administration’s case for war since the fall of 2002. But serious scrutiny of his “antiwar position” shows that the supposedly “pragmatic” and “non-ideological” Obama speaks in deferential accord with the doctrine of empire. In Obama’s carefully crafted rhetoric, Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) has been a “strategic blunder” on the part of an essentially benevolent nation state. Given his presidential ambitions, it is unthinkable for him to acknowledge the invasion’s status as a great international transgression that is consistent with the United States’ long record of imperial criminality. It is equally unimaginable for him to acknowledge that the war expressed Washington’s drive to deepen its control of strategic petroleum resources—an ambition in direct opposition to the alleged U.S. goals of encouraging Iraqi freedom and exporting democracy.

In a recent address designed to display his foreign policy bona fides, Obama showed his continuing willingness to take seriously the claim that OIL was an effort to “impose democracy” on Iraq, even faulting the Bush administration for acting in Iraq on the basis of unrealistic “dreams of democracy and hopes for a perfect government” (Obama, “A Way Forward in Iraq,” speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs , November 22, 2006).

Consistent with his denial and embrace of Washington’s imperial ambitions, Obama has refused to join genuinely anti-war forces in calling for a rapid and thorough withdrawal of troops and an end to the occupation of Iraq. In a critical November 2005 speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Obama rejected Rep. John Murtha’s (D-PA) call for a rapid redeployment and any notion of a timetable for withdrawal. Obama’s call for “a pragmatic solution to the real war we’re facing in Iraq” included repeated references to the need to “defeat” the “insurgency”—a goal that means continuation of the war.

Obama’s November speech to the CCGA advocates a vaguely timed Iraq “scenario” in which “U.S. forces” might remain in the occupied state for an “extended period of time.” Obama advances a “reduced but active (U.S. military) presence” that “protects logistical supply points” and “American enclaves like the Green Zone” (site of one of the largest and most heavily militarized “embassies” in history) while “sending a clear message to hostile countries like Iran and Syria that we intend to remain a key player in the region.” U.S. troops “remaining in Iraq” will “act as rapid reaction forces to respond to emergencies and go after terrorists.” This is part of what Obama meant when he told a fawning David Brooks that, “the U.S. may have no choice but to slog it out in Iraq.” (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4886)

At one point in his CCGA oration, Obama had the audacity to say the following in support of his claim that U.S. citizens support “victory” in Iraq: “The American people have been extraordinarily resolved. They have seen their sons and daughters killed or wounded in the streets of Fallujah.”

This was a spine-chilling selection of locales. Fallujah was the site for a colossal U.S. war atrocity. Crimes included the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the targeting of ambulances and hospitals, and the practical leveling of an entire city—in April and November 2004. The town was designated for destruction as an example of the awesome state terror promised to those who dared to resist U.S. power. Not surprisingly, Fallujah is a leading symbol of U.S. imperialism in the Arab and Muslim worlds. It is a deeply provocative and insulting place for Obama to choose to highlight American sacrifice and “resolve” in the occupation of Iraq.

It gets worse. Obama has repeatedly voted to spend billions on the illegal invasion since his arrival in the U.S. Senate. He inveighs against the “Tom Hayden wing of the Democratic Party” (http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0712/S00181.htm) and has told congressional Democrats they would be “playing chicken with the troops” (http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-01-obama_N.htm) if they dared to actually (imagine) de-fund the Cheney-Bush “war.”

He voted to confirm as Secretary of State (of all things) the mendacious war criminal Condaleeza Rice, who played a critical role in advancing the preposterous Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) claims Bush used to invade Iraq.

He distanced himself from fellow Illinois U.S. Senator Dick Durbin when Durbin faced vicious right-wing attacks after daring to tell some basic truths about U.S. torture practices in Iraq.

Obama has repeatedly and absurdly claimed that the illegal invasion was launched with the “best of democratic intentions.”

He praises U.S. military personnel for their “unquestioning” “service” in Iraq and (despite numerous U.S. atrocities there) for “doing everything we could ever ask of them.”

His belated calls for withdrawal are hedged by numerous statements indicating that an Obama White House would maintain a significant military presence in and around Iraq for an indefinite period of time. And Obama has refused to support taking a reckless (possibly even nuclear) U.S. military assault on Iran off the table of acceptable U.S. foreign policy options.

Barack Obama reacts to the world's response to imperialism in precisely the same way as his counterparts; he proposes more war. Obama wants to add almost one-hundred thousand new troops to the U.S. military, to alleviate the shortage of manpower that Iraq attrition has wrought. In his speech to the Woodrow Wilson Center, Obama gave away their destination: Waziristan. Obama wants a more aggressive approach to the so-called "war on terror," to take "the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

So what we have in Barack Obama is an alternative War Party, planning an alternative War. He has told us so, and we should believe him. He is no peace candidate, and goes out of his way to prove it.

A DEEPLY CONSERVATIVE MAN

“I believe all of you are as open and willing to listen as anyone else in America. I believe you care about this country and the future we are leaving to the next generation. I believe your work to be a part of building a stronger, more vibrant, and more just America. I think the problem is that no one has asked you to play a part in the project of American renewal.”

- Barack Obama, speaking to the masters of “American” finance capitalism at the headquarters of NASDAQ, Wall Street, New York City, September 17, 2007

STANDING UP AND KNEELING DOWN

Maybe it’s because Barack Obama and his handlers are sensitive to the need to reassure ruling forces that the “first black United States president” will not challenge existing hierarchies. Maybe it’s because he’s bought and paid for by big money. Or maybe it’s because he believes in his “deeply conservative” heart that good Americans show deep respect for their socioeconomic masters. Whatever the explanation it’s hard to imagine ever seeing an avowedly “progressive” political candidate more eager than Obama to display his deep willingness to obsequiously kiss the ring of dominant political and economic authority. For someone who is marching across the country calling on working- and middle-class Americans to “get fired up” and “stand up” for democracy (and for him), Obama sure likes to spend a lot of time groveling before supposed upper-class superiors.

OBAMA INC.

This “new Democrat” Barack Obama is engaged in the exact same “juggling act” as the “old Democrats” i.e. Clinton. He likes to call himself a “progressive” and to identify himself with “the principles of equality,” the “Golden Rule” and the cause of “social justice,” citing as evidence his youthful experience as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago. Still, Obama is a freshly minted millionaire who recently purchased an opulent Georgian Revival Mansion below price at $1.65 million thanks to some help from the felony-indicted political fundraiser and longtime Obama friend and campaign finance pivot man Tony Rezko.

Obama is a company man. He knows the language, the subtle and overt signals, and emits them like a beacon. Ruling circles have gotten the message, and that is why corporate media have made him a contender, and corporate billfolds have financed him. The "skinny kid" made his bones at the Democratic National Convention, in August, 2004, while he was still an Illinois senatorial candidate - a shoo-in against the hopeless and deranged Black Republican Alan Keyes. Obama put all white fears to rest: "There is no white America. There is no black America. There is no Latino America. There is no Asian America. There is only the United States of America." Hallelujah!

The scam of this still-new century enthralls and envelopes the nation, a narrowly-packaged farce in which political twins Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama pretend they are not joined at the hip on every public policy issue that has been allowed to enter the corporate media-vetted discourse: health care, Iraq, trade. Even these points of (non)contention disappear in the din of purely commercial marketing mantras with infinitely malleable meanings: "Change," "Hope," "Reform."

When no real change is offered - when both frontrunners are wedded to a lingering presence in Iraq and to reestablishing U.S. hegemony in the world; when insurance and drug companies are left virtually untouched by duos' tepid forays into broadening health care coverage; and when neither offers a whisper of an idea on halting the corporate-engineered global Race to the Bottom, then it is certain that, although "change" may come, it will be at the direction of the rich who have brought the nation and planet to the very brink of catastrophe.

But then, Obama would never have risen so quickly and remarkably to his current position of dominant media favor and national prominence if he was anything like the egalitarian and democratic “progressive” that some liberals and leftists imagine. In the corporate-crafted and money-dominated swamp that passes for “representative democracy” in the U.S., concentrated economic and imperial power open and close doors in ways that preemptively suffocate populist potential. Big money is not in the business of promoting genuine social justice or democracy activists (so-called “gadflies” like Wellstone, to use Obama’s description).

Understanding public policy as a mechanism for the upward distribution of wealth, it promotes empire and inequality by underwriting the smothering K Street culture and the revolving door that feeds it—not just lobbyists themselves but the entire interconnected world of campaign consultants, public relations agencies, pollsters, and media strategists—without whose favor and assistance serious presidential bids are next to unthinkable.


“For years I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions of society, a little change here, a little change there. Now I feel quite differently. I think you’ve got to have a reconstruction of the entire society...a radical redistribution of political and economic power.”

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., May 1967



You really need to format that shit. (n)

Or just provide a link or something.

[JohnnyChavello]

Wouldn't incorporating someone else's material into your own post without acknowledging the author lend itself to a charge of plagiarism, let alone copyright infringement?

By the way, the author you failed to adequately attribute seems to have plagiarized the title of her own little screed. From what I can tell, her blog post, which was cut and pasted into this dicussion, was first posted on January 23, 2008 on her online weblog. On December 11, 2006, more than a year earlier, The National Review published an article entitled "The Audacity of Hype" online, crediting authorship to Larry Kudlow. On December 13, 2007, Real Clear Politics published online "Obama: The Audacity of Hype", by Froma Harrop. In fact, "The Audacity of Hype" as a tagline to political opinion blogposts, articles, and essays regarding Barrack Obama has been making the rounds pretty actively since its apparent premiere in The National Review. Coincidence? Maybe, considering the title of his autobiography, but pretty unlikely based on the number of incidences.

Stones and glass houses don't mix. Or something to that effect.

[saz]

who cares. the links provided speak for themselves. the bottom line is that obama shouldn't be proclaiming himself to be some sort of "progressive" who is going to bring about "change". he's a status quo moderate, who favours private enterprise and private healthcare, has a condescending attitude towards the late paul wellstone, seems to admire reagan, is a lobbyist's/wallstreet's dream, and isn't in favour of defunding the war and getting the troops out of iraq.

certainly a lesser evil than mccain though and would be better than bush and his gang of fascists.

[JohnnyChavello]

...the links provided speak for themselves.

Actually, I don't think any of the links are directed toward the author of the original blogpost. They're hyperlinks to other articles.

he's a status quo moderate, who favours private enterprise....

As opposed to state owned means of production? Wouldn't you have to run on the Communist Party ticket to qualify on those grounds?

...seems to admire reagan

Puhhlease.

...and isn't in favour of defunding the war and getting the troops out of iraq.

According to whom? As far as I can tell, all of the current and former Democratic candidates have favored ending the war. How quickly they remove the troops, and whether there will be a complete drawdown is another question, but the real issue is ending the war, no? On this basis, I would assume that a war that no longer exists will also be a war that's been defunded.

[yeahwho]

who cares. the links provided speak for themselves. the bottom line is that obama shouldn't be proclaiming himself to be some sort of "progressive" who is going to bring about "change". he's a status quo moderate, who favours private enterprise and private healthcare, has a condescending attitude towards the late paul wellstone, seems to admire reagan, is a lobbyist's/wallstreet's dream, and isn't in favour of defunding the war and getting the troops out of iraq.

certainly a lesser evil than mccain though and would be better than bush and his gang of fascists.

I like your fight, millions of people care about Barack Obama. I realized early on (http://www.beastieboys.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=84687) that the type of candidate we're going to get in the USofA will not be a liberal. Will not be elected without corporate backing, will not have any of my real interests at hand.

The compromise is what they should call these elections. Barack Obama has many very good people backing him also, people I respect and businesses whose practices make the planet a better place, that is something that goes into my decision making process.

A blanket accusation without any balance is not going to sway anybodies vote that supports Obama. This much is and has been evident ever since the people like myself started to support Barack Obama. If there is a reason to change my mind, name it and write about it. Support the opposition candidate and ask me why I should compromise my current decision.

It's all fucked up, it could be even more all fucked up. I'm just glad it's only this fucked up.

[saz]

Actually, I don't think any of the links are directed toward the author of the original blogpost. They're hyperlinks to other articles.

exactly.


As opposed to state owned means of production? Wouldn't you have to run on the Communist Party ticket to qualify on those grounds?

Puhhlease.

so, every western nation that has universal healthcare is communist?


According to whom? As far as I can tell, all of the current and former Democratic candidates have favored ending the war.

no they haven't. hillary and obama couldn't guarantee that all troops would be out of iraq by 2012.


How quickly they remove the troops, and whether there will be a complete drawdown is another question, but the real issue is ending the war, no?

right, and that involves getting all troops out of iraq and the region. nothing ignites the flames of islamic fundamentalism more than the presence of u.s. troops in the middle east.


On this basis, I would assume that a war that no longer exists will also be a war that's been defunded.

exactly. and the democrats can do this, but they're too spineless.



yeahwho, cynthia mckinney isn't going to be elected president. i was just pointing out who obama really is, for those who asked. anyways, for everything that obama is it would be a hell of a lot better to have him on the world stage, as opposed to any more of this blubbering, blustering, moronic clown and his stupid swagger. i have to admit that having to listen to obama more often than the retarded emperor child would be quite a relief. meanwhile mccain is essentially a corpse (http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o307/don935_photo/Blog/abe_simpson.gif) that can walk and talk, with anger and pander to the nutjob base problems. he's completely clueless in general, and all he seems to rely on in regards to foreign policy is 'more boots on the ground'. cindy mccain looks like a stepford wife with creepy eyes (http://images.politico.com/global/071129_mccain_shen.jpg) that shoot red laser beams.

[ThatGuy]

Every politician is a fuckin liar!! They say whatever it takes to get elected...i don't know if it's to be apart of history or just because they are some kind of power hungry asshole (probably a little of both)! This election year is confusing as fuck! I think the same thing everytime "these are my choices?"!

[RobMoney$]

Hopefully the only thing he copies from Governor Devil Patrick in MA is some of his words.
Patrick ran a campaign very similar to Obama in MA...good rhetoric around change but no specifics and little background in government.
He is off to a very rocky start in MA and his right-hand man was just arrested down in Florida for getting blown by a 15 year old boy in a steam room.

[yeahwho]

The Clinton campaign is sourcing out this information on plagiarizing of speeches. It is/was another moronic move by her campaign and is already old and laughable at best. Pot, kettle, black. Hillary's primary campaign has to be considered one of the most disastrous in recent political history.

I'm waiting for Hillary backers to start coming out of the woodwork and support her on this site. She has had every entitlement handed to her throughout her life, yet for some reason the American people are just not handing her the Oval office.

Why? I have a theory. So far in her political career, Clinton has undertaken two major tasks, overseeing health care reform and running for President. Both have been major disasters.

Yep, she is ready to lead on day one.

And what sort of attack has Obama launched? ......none

[JohnnyChavello]

Bill Clinton, 1992: "The hits that I took in this election are nothing compared to the hits the people of this state and this country have been taking for a long time."

Hillary Clinton, at the conclusion of tonight's Democratic debate, days after her campaign accused Barack Obama of plagiarism, and mere minutes after she discussed it in the very same debate: "You know, the hits I’ve taken in life are nothing compared to what goes on every single day in the lives of people across our country."