The Drudge Report this morning led off with a link to audio of Barack Obama on WBEZ, A Chicago Public Radio station. And this time, candidate Obama was not eight years old when the bomb went off.
Speaking at a call-in radio show in 2001, you can hear Senator Obama say things that should profoundly shock any American – or at least those who have not taken the time to dig deeply enough into this man’s beliefs and affiliations.
Abandon all Hope, Ye Who Enter Here:
Barack Obama, in 2001:
“You know, if you look at the victories and failures of the Civil Rights movement, and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples. So that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at a lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it, I’d be okay, but the Supreme Court never entered into the issues of re-distribution of wealth, and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.
“And uh, to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution – at least as it’s been interpreted, and Warren Court interpreted it in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties: [it] says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.
“And that hasn’t shifted, and one of the, I think, the tragedies of the Civil Rights movement was because the Civil Rights movement became so court-focused, uh, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change. And in some ways we still suffer from that.”
A caller then helpfully asks:
“The gentleman made the point that the Warren Court wasn’t terribly radical. My question is (with economic changes)… my question is, is it too late for that kind of reparative work, economically, and is that the appropriate place for reparative economic work to change place?”
Obama replies:
“You know, I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. The institution just isn’t structured that way. [snip] You start getting into all sorts of separation of powers issues, you know, in terms of the court monitoring or engaging in a process that essentially is administrative and takes a lot of time. You know, the court is just not very good at it, and politically, it’s just very hard to legitimize opinions from the court in that regard.
So I think that, although you can craft theoretical justifications for it, legally, you know, I think any three of us sitting here could come up with a rationale for bringing about economic change through the courts.”
I am at a complete loss as to how 50% of America can fall for this guy’s bullshit. There can be only one explanation. Half of America, the left half, has a mental disorder. You morons deserve what he does to you, but I sure as fuck don’t. I’m smart enough to see through this man’s lying ass and can see the writing on the wall. I shouldn’t have to suffer because half of you are morons with a mental disorder.
Here’s an interesting tidbit:
A speechwriter for Obama, Edwards, and Clinton on why she’s voting McCain.
Since I started writing speeches more than ten years ago, I have always believed in the Democratic Party. Not anymore. Not after the election of 2008. This transformation has been swift and complete and since I’m a woman writing in the election of 2008, “very emotional.”
When I entered this campaign, it was at the 2006 Edwards staff Christmas party. My nametag read “Millie Worker.” When former Senator John Edwards read it, he laughed and said, “That makes you like my parent.” He went on to say, “Would you please come down to Chapel Hill so we can talk about what’s coming up.” I sat in John and Elizabeth’s living room for two and half hours. I left North Carolina, energized about politics for the first time in months.
I didn’t hear from anyone for three weeks.
She has a lot more to say about it. Go read it over at The Daily Beast.
And from FOX, this nice little gem:
The Barack Obama We Hardly Know
Monday , October 27, 2008
By John R. Lott Jr.
Is Barack Obama a socialist? A Marxist? It is hard to believe that question could even be seriously asked of a major party political candidate.
Nevertheless, there have been a few times that voters have gotten a glimpse of Obama in unguarded moments. Glimmers that remind me of the left-wing academic whom I ran into a number of times while we were both at the University of Chicago Law School.
— When Charlie Gibson asked Obama in April why he supported higher capital gains taxes, even if that meant less government revenue and thus less money to give to those Obama wants to help, Obama didn’t challenge Gibson’s claim. Instead he said: “I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness.”
— In the middle of October, when speaking to “Joe the Plumber,” Obama justified higher taxes this way:
“It is not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everyone who is behind you, that they have a chance for success too. I think that when you spread the wealth around, it is good for everyone.”
— A bombshell was released this weekend when a copy of an interview by Obama on WBEZ-FM, Chicago Public Radio, from 2001 was found (bold italics added):
“The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society … and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused, I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that. … I think that you can craft legal theoretical justifications for it legally, any three of us here could come up with a rational for bringing about economic change through the courts.”
Class warfare rhetoric is one thing. But as Obama’s comments to Charlie Gibson indicate, Obama disapproves of the very notion that people should be successful. Why is making the wealthy poorer “fairness,” even when the poor also get less money? The goal is not to help the poor, it’s to keep the wealthy from getting too much. It is apparently better that everyone be poorer than it is to have everyone have more money but a greater dispersion of income.
Victor Davis Hansen has a good article over at Pajamas Media:
Reflections of a Campaign Now Past (Almost)
Here are ten random thoughts on this depressing campaign that I have not see discussed much in the media.
1. Advice on McCain: stay focused on the economy; on socialism; on the effort to redistribute income by taxing some at rates (aggregate federal, state, payroll, and Medicare taxes) at 65% while half the taxpayers are to be excused from federal income taxes. Reiterate Obama’s own past support for redistribution and spreading the wealth, and why such a worldview is the touchstone that explains all the creepy associations from Chicago, the boards and foundations, and the church. What they all have in common is a belief that the United States is an unjust country and that a powerful state must intervene to take from some to give to others in a way that transcends the progressive income tax. That was the theme of Rev. Wright’s sermons on the evil on black middle-classness that won him a 10,000 sq. ft mansion and the subtext of Dreams From My Father and Audacity of Hope that likewise earned the Obamas a stately mansion. Socialism pays!
2. Throughout this campaign one has wondered why McCain did not rhetorically offer up scenarios in which he asked what would have been the media reaction had he had friends like Ayers, Khalidi, Wright, or Pfleger?
He did that yesterday in connection to Khalidi, not elegantly, but nonetheless in a way that made one think that the media would have gone ballistic—e.g., envision McCain going to a dinner honoring some right-wing anti-Semitic activist, who was an associate of Yasser Arafat, damning the United States and Israel? And imagine as well an associate of McCain, who was a former abortion clinic bomber, emailing and phoning the senator until 2005? And imagine McCain sitting in a church for twenty years, as his white racist pastor deplored the growing multiracial nature of the United States, and McCain fending off charges that he could not remember such sermons—despite being married in the church, having his children baptized there, and using such a pastor’s clichés for the title of his book—and assuring the Chicago Sun-Times that he attended services promptly at 11 AM each Sunday.
Truth, Lies and In Between 