silverwhisper's tags:
the following is a copy & paste of what’s probably the latest installment of the ridiculous fearmongering being disseminated about barack obama.



e-mail:
obama mentioned his church during his appearance with oprah. it's the trinity united church of christ. i found this interesting. in fact, i found it scary!

please read and go to this church's website and read what is written there. it is very alarming.

barack obama is a member of this church and is running for president of the US. if you look at the first page of their website, you will learn that this congregation has a non-negotiable commitment to africa. no where is america even mentioned. notice too, what color you will need to be if you should want to join obama's church... b-l-a-c-k!!! doesn't look like his choice of religion has improved much over his (former?) muslim upbringing.

are you aware that obama's middle name is mohammed? strip away his nice looks, the big smile and smooth talk and what do you get? certainly a racist, as plainly defined by the stated position of his church! and possibly a covert worshiper of the muslim faith, even today. this guy desires to rule over america while his loyalty is totally vested in a black africa!

i cannot believe this has not been all over the TV and newspapers. this is why it is so important to pass this message along to all of our family & friends. to think that obama has even the slightest chance in the run for the presidency, is really scary.

this is the web page for the church barack obama belongs to: http://www.tucc.org/about.htm

analysis:
so he’s a member of a church. i suppose that at least this e-mail’s writer has finally gotten it through his/her/its head that obama’s a christian. i suppose that’s progress?

no where is america even mentioned

because in every church’s mission statement, they talk about how they’re american churches? as if somehow, that’s something that any house of worship needs to address that’s located in this country?

doesn't look like his choice of religion has improved much over his (former?) muslim upbringing.

if you read the mission statement of the church, they say that all people should be brought to god. as far as church mission statements go, that’s pretty good stuff, i would think. hell, they even offer scholarships. do you know of many churches that offer them?

barack obama’s middle name is actually hussein, not mohammed. the writer of this hit piece needs to learn to do research as well as think.

certainly a racist, as plainly defined by the stated position of his church! and possibly a covert worshiper of the muslim faith, even today. this guy desires to rule over america while his loyalty is totally vested in a black africa!

this set of sentences is so offensively stupid it’s quite the hat trick in idiocy…but i’ll try to analyze it anyway…so the church focuses on black americans. is this church somehow unusual in that regard? there’s a need for all manner of churches. if the reverend feels that’s a way to spread the word and do good, well heck, where’s the problem there? “covert worshipper”? i see i was hasty in thinking i thought i saw progress here. and what’s this lunacy about “loyalty”? the writer of this should report to the nearest airlock for use as reactor shielding, in the words of a game i once played.

i cannot believe this has not been all over the TV and newspapers. this is why it is so important to pass this message along to all of our family & friends

right right right…because everything you get in your e-mail should of course be accorded significantly more weight than the news you see on TV or online or in the newspaper? and the moment i’m done replying to this nigerian official and his cash flow problems, i’ll make sure i forward this idiocy far & wide!

in sum, the text of this is a hateful and marginally-racist hit piece about barack obama.

my only real questions—because it beggars belief that anyone could seriously believe such idiocy—are:

1. who wrote it?

2. can he/she/it be short-listed for a darwin award? :D

ed

p.s.: here's the snopes link for this particular e-mail, btw. :>

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Comments

  • SeanRenaud said on Jan 11, 2008....
     
    It's worth noting that Stopmediabias agrees with you 100% on this, as I imagine do most sane people
  • silverwhisper said on Jan 11, 2008....
    i honestly never thought there'd come a time that he and i would ever agree 100% on anything political, to be honest! thank you, sean. :>

    ed
  • the_infernal_optimist said on Jan 11, 2008....
    Someone has way too much spare time on his/her hands and not enough gray cells firing to do anything productive for society. Ugh.

    ~Infernal
  • SeanRenaud said on Jan 11, 2008....

    No, somebody has an agenda.  I believe I've seen some of these lies on some of the Conservatives blogs on this site, the parts about Obama refusing to say the pledge and being Muslim as well.

    There is a vast difference between a bored idiot and somebody who understands that something doesn't need to be true in order to be believed.  And once something is believed it can damage a person's credibility and in this case their chances to win an election.

     

  • the_infernal_optimist said on Jan 11, 2008....
    I suppose - it's just so out-there that it seems like a stupid move, not a smart one...or maybe it lends weight to my history professor's favorite saying - "the masses are asses." At least, if "ass" can be taken to mean "blind sheep" in this case.

    ~Infernal
  • harriedpsychmajor said on Jan 11, 2008....
    doesn't look like his choice of religion has improved much over his (former?) muslim upbringing.

    Improve?? Changing from one religion to another, or adjusting your belief system in any way cannot be referred to as an "improvement." So the author believes anything other than Muslim is a trade up?

    I've addressed ethnic identity before. The rebuttal on Snopes mirrors my sentiment exactly. People with their "if this group can be all-black, why can't we have a group that's all-white" argument don't flinch when a specific ethnic group is named.

    As it says...
    "If a white church plainly and proudly pronounced its whiteness, Hannity, [Tucker] Carlson and company would be right. But if it was the Holy Trinity Polish Church on Chicago's North Side, proclaiming its Polishness, who'd care?
    "Remove black and substitute another American ethnic group so that Trinity's Concept No. 6 reads: "Adherence to the Mexican Work Ethic." Does that still sound separatist? Or racist? Of course not. But, if you're insincerely espousing color blindness, while holding the race card up your sleeve, you know you can easily trump African-American ethnic pride every time. "

    In short, this article is ass.
  • SeanRenaud said on Jan 11, 2008....
    The writer is playing on the current fear of radical Islam and saying that Barack's current church is  loyal to Africa.  While this is a lie, it's a similar question to what was asked of JFK being a Catholic.  You have to seriously question his alliegence.  How do you konw that if the Pope told JFK that he had a vision fro God, that the only way to prevent something was for America to declare war on the Middle East and reclaim all of the lands historically owned by Isreal and Judah?  The bottom line is you take his word for it.  But it is a legit fear when somebody belongs to an organized religion like that.
  • Eilan said on Jan 11, 2008....
    Oh, come on, people.  Why let something as trivial as facts get in the way of some good fearmongering?

    I wonder how long it will be before my mom forwards this to me?  :(
  • silverwhisper said on Jan 11, 2008....
    sean: very good point re: agendas in your response to infernal. but you're very much mistaken re: the applicability of the allegiance question. i suspect that mainstream america isn't anywhere near as concerned re: a church that's protestant in some measure due to familiarity.

    harried: yes, that thing is absolutely ass.

    eilan: i think that when she does you should reply to all with just the URL for the snopes article. :>

    ed
  • Eilan said on Jan 11, 2008....
    I just sent her a snopes URL for something else.  Unfortunately, I just realized that I sent it to her work email and she's gone for the weekend.

    She gets a lot of fearmongering shit from her coworkers and she forwards it to me.  I debunk it, she passes the debunkifications along to her coworkers, and everyone proceeds to feel sorry for her because her daughter is demon spawn.

    Facts are fer yellabellies. Apparently.


  • SeanRenaud said on Jan 11, 2008....
    Because protestants don't have a leader.  But in this case they were claiming that the church Obama is in is loyal to Africa (as if Africa were a unified country.
  • silverwhisper said on Jan 11, 2008....
    eilan: my wife's cousin does the same sorta thing. she's gotten to the point where anything from him immediately goes into a folder for (likely) deletion. :>

    sean: actually, i think it's more about familiarity than it is anything else. and yeah, it's obviously crap--there aren't a whole lot of stable governments on that continent short of south africa, it often seems.

    ed
  • TinSoldier said on Jan 11, 2008....
    What, you mean Africa isn't a unified country? Alert the press! When did this happen?

    :D

    I'd bet you that there are probably too many Americans who don't know that.

    Anyway, I'm glad that ed provided some more background than other places that I've read this. I know it's a nasty hit job, but...

    I was a little worried about the message of being "unashamedly black". I'm not big on group identity politics. Well, not strong ones at least -- it's hard to explain. I think that people should be proud of their roots and their culture but not be so proud as to seem exclusionary.

    And that goes for every one, especially in a church environment.

    But watching the video on the church's front page allayed many of my fears. Plus I realize that identity politics are much stronger in other parts of the country (Chicago) than the ones that I've lived in.

    It almost looks like Barack Obama in the video at about 1:47 into it but it's hard to say because it's a bit blurry and he gets obscured.

    And then at the end they have the token white lady talking about how if people disagree with how welcoming and inclusive the church is they should "come and see" her. Heh.

  • Armistead said on Jan 11, 2008....
    Please read this response from the UCC: http://www.ucc.org/news/thomas-denounces-smear-1.html
  • hotaka said on Jan 12, 2008....
    His middle name is Hussein? Well, why not just pick up on that hot little tidbit and run with it. Obama? Osama? Hussein? Gee willakers we could make up a lot of good stuff here. Why not just say his church funds Muslim terrorist groups too? As I am sure his church also supports big oil companies and global warming too. Oh, yes. This man is the Antichrist.
  • FutureGoddess said on Jan 12, 2008....

    Ed - do they still have the "red carpet" ceremony for the Darwin Awards.  I haven't heard about those things in years!  Yeah - this person needs to be given an dis-honorable mention or a runner up prize (If I remember correctly your activities had to result in death to become an actual winner - right?).

     

  • aliendudeintheuk said on Jan 12, 2008....
    I disagree that obama"s a racist.He"s a fine young man who means well for america and a man willin to serve his fatherland.Even if he"s commited to africa i dont see anything wrong in that after all the jewish americans are much commited to the state of Isreal and nobody raises any eyebrow about that.Mister Obama did promise to close the Guantanamo bay in cuba if he were elected president and this i feel is a positive promise becoz the guantanamo bay is now been run like a nazi concentration camp and has now become a huge stain in the civilized world of ours.Even if obama attends a church populated by blk ppl that does not mean that its a racist organisation after all in the state of Idaho there are evangelical churches which allows only whites into their church service and it says whites only .
  • silverwhisper said on Jan 12, 2008....
    TS: seriously, the writer of that piece is just fucking stupid. honestly, who's gonna make a presidential run that belongs to an exclusionary church? i should watch that video but lack the time just now.

    armistead: thank you for posting that. :>

    hotaka: that was some quality snark, sir!

    FG: yes, they do indeed need to result in death, but given the stupidity demonstrated in this, perhaps the writer is so stupid, even autonomic functions aren't guaranteed? :D

    alien: yeah, nobody's taking this thing seriously. i just wanted to dissect it and demonstrate how bad the level of political dialogue is getting in some quarters. :>

    ed
  • fearing said on Jan 12, 2008....
    Don't you just love Snopes Ed?
    Politics I don't. 

    My thoughts...
    - glad to hear it is a Christian church he attends.  I'm a Christian - gotta like that right?

    The part about him attending an all black church kills me.  I live in a small southern town.  99% of our churches are segregated.  They are all - all white or all black.  We attend a church in a larger town 25 minutes from where I live.  Guess what - the preacher is black.  The majority of the congregation is white, the other half is predominantly black, hispanic and several other nationalities.   Sometimes the preacher will look out at the congregation and say "This is what Heaven will look like.". 

    People need to get off the race thing.  It's as silly as disliking someone for hair color.   We need a leader with morals and ethics.

    Do I care if Obama is elected?  No.  It doesn't matter - he could be the best president, he could be the worst.  God is still in control. 
    My 2 cents.
  • lioneljay said on Jan 12, 2008....
    Eilan, I like me some alien spawn. :D

    Frankly, I see Obama's candidacy as a test of America's ability to live up to its own principles. Who among us would say that he disagrees with the Declaration of Independence? And yet how many of us, beneath our breath or sometimes even at the tops of our lungs, claim that this is a Christian nation, a white nation? How many of us have doubts that an African American or even a woman can be elected President? And why is it that such fears are always expressed in terms of "well, the South won't go for it"?

    We still have a long way to go, baby.
  • travelr712 said on Jan 12, 2008....
    i agree this is just another smear piece about a political candidate, but i really don't see much difference in the tactics of this writer than any other media outlet such as, say, fox news. every outlet picks a candidate, taylors their information to make that candidate look good, and every other candidate look bad. it's the way politics are done in every country, throughout history. my guy good, all the other guys bad.
     
    i could be wrong about this, because i haven't done a thorough search on the topic, but as far as i remember, every single president of this country has claimed alliegence to some christian church, be it catholic or protestant. it seems you can't get elected in this country unless you are a christian. that seems to me to be religious bias, in a country who's cornerstone is supposed to be religious freedom. why can't a muslim, or budhist, or any other belief system be recognized as legitimate, if it's not supposed to affect the manor in which the person conducts that office?
     
    as to muslims, most of the billion muslims in the world are very devout, peace loving people who have the same morals and nearly the same doctrins as christians. the ones who are using that label and conducting terrorist activities only use the organizations to find misguided, poverty stricken young people and whip them into a religious ferver to carry out their own agendas. would anyone like a list of american christian organizations who have done the same? the 'terrorist' organizations are no more muslim than james dobson. they are listed as fringe groups in their countries the same way that the branch davidian church is listed as a fringe group in america. just being muslim does not make one a terrorist, and just being a christian does not make one a good person.
  • aliendudeintheuk said on Jan 12, 2008....

    The Klu KLUX Klan (kkk) is a christian terrorist organisation in the southern part of the united states just as Al Qaeda is a terrorist muslim organisation in the middle east and the northern part of Africa .Both groups are occupied by fanatical ppl and  they are all alike in everything they both do.They both bomb and use other violent ways to coerce their opponents so i dont think seein a muslim would make a person to assume that the muslim must be a terrorist.

    They are all terrorist be they Al Qaeda, the KKK and the white pride organistation coz the way they communicate is through violence.

  • ALIENated said on Jan 12, 2008....
    I would prefer to have a god-fearing man as president, but I really doubt it
    matters what religion he is. Unless a candidate can be tied to a radical Muslim
    group, I doubt that even being a Muslim would matter. I do not oppose Obama
    because of his religion (which I figure is mainly for show) or because of his
    race, I oppose him because he is a liberal, liberal Democrat. Thank God more
    and more blacks are moving from the Democrat party (once the same guys that
    attended the KKK meetings and the Mason's meetings) and moving to the
    party that wants to free them from continued servitude and government 
    control. As others have suggested, I would check out things like that email
    on www.snopes.com. They are usually pretty accurate.  
    
  • Expendable said on Jan 12, 2008....

    It'll get worse once the primaries are over and we go into election time.

  • TaintedAtBirth said on Jan 12, 2008....
    It certainly sounds like a hit piece to me.
    If I were to speculate from where it came I would have to point the finger (eventually) back at Hil.

    The Clinton camp is truly brutal in their tactics and I would put nothing beneath her/them.


  • TinSoldier said on Jan 12, 2008....
    Armistead, thank you for that link.
  • crybabylu said on Jan 13, 2008....
    It was absolutely ridiculous. It will probably backfire.
  • silverwhisper said on Jan 14, 2008....
    fearing: "this is what heaven will look like"...i really, really like that! :>

    LJ: honestly, i really have to wonder about the extent to which the electorate seriously looks at race. i'm sure there are honest-to-goodness bigots out there but i'd like to believe they're a very small minority.

    trav: whoa whoa whoa--are you kidding me? respectable media outlets don't proudly proclaim that a candidate is racist nor do they fuel senseless conspiracy theories and that's all that this is. this wasn't written by some respectable media outlet. it was written by someone w/ an ideological axe to grind against barack obama, period.

    aliendude: well, i wouldn't call 'em christian even though they consider themselves so. maybe fringe extremist splinter christian, that i might buy.

    alien: i agree re: snopes, very useful site and one for which i'm routinely grateful. :> btw, i suggested checking these ridiculous things against snopes already, but thank you for seconding that.

    ex: i honestly wonder if that wasn't affiliated with the clinton campaign. we know they've tried to use whispering campaigns against obama in the past.

    tainted: quite frankly, i agree. i think there's a "ends justify the means" mentality at play in that campaign.

    dee: i concur.

    ed

Comment on "fearmongering about barack obama"


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