Media Excuse Obama’s False Advertising
AIM Report | By Cliff Kincaid | July 1, 2008
As the campaign moves ahead, there will be some superficial criticism by the media of Obama’s claims about himself and his legislative record, such as we saw in the treatment of this ad.
What
happens when the “fact-checkers” don’t check facts and the “watchdogs” don’t
watch? Consider the case of those who claim to be watching politicians for lies
and deceptions and pretend to analyze Senator Barack Obama’s new patriotic
“Country I Love” television ad, airing in 18 states.
The Annenberg
Political Fact Check, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the
University of Pennsylvania, and Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz
have written analyses of the Obama ad. But they are as flawed as the ad itself.
The Obama TV ad
purports to describe his upbringing and legislative accomplishments but ignores
his childhood mentor, Communist Frank Marshall Davis. While Obama associates
Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn looked to Havana
and Hanoi for their inspiration and guidance, Davis loved the old Soviet Union
and refused to answer questions under oath about his Communist Party
membership. He was a Stalinist.
Overall, there is a
pattern of people who hate America
showing up at critical junctions in Obama’s life and career to influence and
advise him. But he wants us to believe that somehow American “values” have been
instilled in him. By whom?
By airing his
patriotic ad, Obama is trying to suggest that whatever associations he had with
these and other anti-American figures, and whatever mysterious circumstances he
may have been raised or trained in, he still managed to somehow become a loyal
American. But how is this possible? Which pro-American political figures had
any influence at all on his life and career? Would he please name some?
A reasonable
interpretation of this ad, based on what we know about Obama so far, would have
to conclude that it is the most deceptive commercial ever to air in the history
of politics. It is designed to mask the fact that Obama, with all of his
baggage, could not by any reasonable standard get a federal security clearance.
But our media don’t have the basic integrity to point this out.
Here is the ad text:
“America is a country
of strong families and strong values. My life’s been blessed by both. I was
raised by a single mom and my grandparents. We didn’t have much money, but they
taught me values straight from the Kansas
heartland where they grew up. Accountability and self-reliance. Love of
country. Working hard without making excuses. Treating your neighbor as you’d
like to be treated. It’s what guided me as I worked my way up taking jobs and
loans to make it through college. It’s what led me to pass up Wall Street jobs
and go to Chicago
instead, helping neighborhoods devastated when steel plants closed. That’s why
I passed laws moving people from welfare to work, cut taxes for working
families and extended health care for wounded troops who’d been neglected. I
approved this message because I’ll never forget those values, and if I have the
honor of taking the oath of office as president, it will be with a deep and
abiding faith in the country I love.”
It is airing in the following states: Alaska,
Colorado, Florida,
Georgia, Iowa,
Indiana, Michigan,
Missouri, Montana,
Nevada, New Hampshire,
New Mexico, North
Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Virginia
Another Cover-Up
The Obama ad, which also touts his alleged legislative accomplishments,
is curious for another reason. It ignores his costly pro-U.N. Global Poverty
Act, now on the verge of full Senate passage.
The reason for the
omission is obvious: Obama’s campaign understands that the bill, which commits
the United States
to spending more foreign aid money on the rest of the world, is not popular
with the American people and would make him look like an anti-American
globalist and socialist. This perception has to be avoided at all costs.
“America is a
country of strong families and strong values,” Obama declares in the ad. “My
life’s been blessed by both. I was raised by a single mom and my grandparents.
We didn’t have much money, but they taught me values straight from the Kansas heartland where
they grew up.”
In fact, his white
grandfather helped raise Obama by selecting Frank Marshall Davis, a black
communist writer and poet, as a father-figure and role model while he was
growing up in Hawaii.
His values, passed on to Obama, were those of a communist agent who pledged
allegiance to Stalin. Among other things, as Obama himself admits in his book,
“Frank” told him that blacks had a reason to hate whites and that he should not
believe that [expletive deleted] about the American way of life. Davis was an influence
over Obama during the years 1975-1979. His “poetry” is viciously anti-American
and pro-Soviet. And yet Obama listened to it growing up.
All of this has been well-documented in numerous articles by Accuracy
in Media, based on information in Obama’s book, Dreams From My Father; books
by and about Davis; and interviews with
and speeches by those who had information about Davis’s role in raising Obama. Congressional
investigations named Davis
as a key member of the Communist Party USA involved in a Soviet network that
also included actor Paul Robeson and labor leader Harry Bridges.
The Davis
Connection
Professor Paul Kengor
makes the essential point that the role of Davis in influencing Obama has to be taken
into account.
“Davis and his
comrades worked to undermine genuine liberal causes because of their lock-step
subservience to the Comintern and the USSR,” he notes. “Modern liberals
need to understand, for example, how the American communist movement, including
men like Davis, flip-flopped on issues as grave as Nazism and World War II based
entirely on whether Hitler was signing a non-aggression pact with Stalin or
invading Stalin’s Soviet Union. The disgusting about-face by CPUSA on this
matter was unforgivable. And what a shame that liberal college professors don’t
teach this to their students. Liberals also need to know how their friends
inside government were used by communists who sought victory for Mao Tse-Tung
in China in 1949, which would lead to the single greatest concentration of
corpses in human history: 60-70 million dead Chinese from 1957 to 1969.”
Does Obama understand
the dangers of communism and socialism? It is not reassuring to consider that
Obama obviously doesn’t want the public to know that his childhood mentor was a
Stalinist member of a communist network in Hawaii. His “Country I Love” TV ad ignores
it. But that’s why we are supposed to have outside “fact-checkers,” media
watchdogs, and the media themselves.
Nevertheless, the
Annenberg Political Fact Check project declares that Obama’s “description of
his upbringing and work history are accurate.” It claims, “The basic details
that Obama provides about his family are correct. His books and various news
reports confirm that Obama was raised in Hawaii
by his mother and grandparents, who were transplants from Kansas…”
Books and various
reports? That seems rather vague. In fact, his book, Dreams From My Father, confirms that a mysterious “Frank” was a mentor, and that he was a significant
influence over Obama after his father had abandoned the family. And this
“Frank,” as we now know, was Frank Marshall Davis. But the folks at “Fact
Check” pretend not to know. Perhaps they didn’t take the time to examine the
facts. This project includes personnel formerly with CNN, Time magazine, and
public broadcasting. But a more serious examination of their backgrounds
reveals that some of the staffers have had affiliations with liberal causes,
personalities, and candidates such as Common Cause, Bill Moyers, the AFL-CIO,
and Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark.
Is there a left-wing
bent here that has tainted their research?
The Post Gets It Wrong
The veteran Washington
Post reporter, Howard Kurtz, takes a slightly different tack. He declares that
the core message of the Obama 60-second spot “is designed to neutralize
perceptions that Sen. Barack Obama is less than patriotic, in the wake of his
earlier decision to forgo a flag pin and his wife’s comment about not having
been really proud of her country before now.” Yes, that’s part of it.
He adds, “The images
of his mother and grandparents with Obama as a child serve a biographical
function for viewers who are not that familiar with his life story, while also
illustrating the values ‘accountability and self-reliance’ that he wants to
make part of his campaign message.”
A “biographical
function?” Then what about Davis?
What about associating with communist terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine
Dohrn and anti-American preacher Jeremiah Wright? What about a pattern of
associations with communists and socialists that runs from Hawaii
to Occidental College
to Columbia University
to Chicago?
This is where the ad completely fails to tell the truth.
Going beyond the
biographical information, Obama claims legislative accomplishments. “That’s why
I passed laws moving people from welfare to work, cut taxes for working
families and extended health care for wounded troops who’d been neglected,” the
ad shows Obama saying.
Kurtz counters: “Obama
sponsored or co-sponsored but did not ‘pass’ the welfare and tax measures but
does not mention that these were in the Illinois legislature in 1997 and 2000.
He sponsored congressional measures that helped hospitalized veterans, but in a
relatively minor way: extending beyond 90 days the period in which they can
receive free meals and free phone calls to family members.”
The Annenberg Fact
Check project has similar criticisms of Obama’s claims about his legislative
accomplishments.
The $845 Billion Bill
It’s true that Obama has inflated or “polished” his resumé. But
what about his notorious Global Poverty Act? Why doesn’t Obama mention that?
And why wasn’t this glaring omission mentioned by Kurtz and the Annenberg Fact
Check group?
On February 13, Obama issued a press release hailing the passage of
this bill by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Since it has already
passed the House, it awaits a full Senate vote. So why wouldn’t Obama highlight
this bill in his patriotic TV ad? The
answer lies in the extreme pro-U.N. nature of the bill.
The bill (S. 2433)
requires the president to develop a strategy using “international
organizations” to implement the Millennium Development Goal of the United
Nations to reduce poverty. It still includes an official reference to the
“Millennium Development Goals” established by the United Nations Millennium
Declaration of the U.N. General Assembly Resolution in 2000.
The bill does not
attach a dollar figure and does not need to because that is contained in the
2002 so-called “Monterrey
Consensus,” which grew out of the 2000 Millennium Declaration. The Millennium
Declaration, which was issued in 2000, specifically called for a “Financing for
Development” conference, which was held in 2002 in Monterrey,
Mexico, and produced the “Monterrey Consensus.” The
whole purpose of this event was to force countries to spend more money on
foreign aid.
The “Monterrey
Consensus” document coming out of the conference committed nations to spending
0.7 percent of Gross National Product (GNP) on official development assistance
(ODA), otherwise known as foreign aid. It says, specifically, that “We
recognize that a substantial increase in ODA and other resources will be
required if developing countries are to achieve the internationally agreed
development goals and objectives, including those contained in the Millennium
Declaration.” It then goes on to call for “concrete efforts towards the target
of 0.7 percent” of GNP as ODA. It also proposes “innovative sources of finance”
to pay for the increased foreign aid. That is a reference to global taxes.
Our estimate, based
on information in a column by Jeffrey Sachs of the U.N.’s Millennium Project,
is that the cost is $845 billion over 13 years.
“We are short by $65
billion each year, which may seem like a vast sum, but it represents just 0.5%
of our GNP,” says Sachs. Therefore, over a 13-year period, from 2002, when the
U.N.’s Financing for Development conference was held, to the target year of
2015, when the U.S.
is expected to meet the Millennium Development Goals, this amounts to $845
billion. Remember: this figure is based on their estimates of what the U.S. owes.
Obama and his media
backers have been whining for months that AIM somehow misinterpreted the
provisions of his bill. But they have failed to produce a serious rebuttal of
the facts we have presented.
Hiding The Truth
So the question
remains: if the Global Poverty Act is not intended to fleece the American
taxpayers, why wouldn’t Obama highlight the bill as his major legislative
accomplishment in the U.S. Senate? This is a bill, we repeat, which has passed
the House and a key Senate committee and is on the verge of full Senate
passage.
The explanation has
to lie in the fact that they don’t want people to understand that Obama is the
sponsor of a massive foreign aid spending bill that attempts to siphon off
hundreds of billions of dollars from the U.S. Treasury to the rest of the
world, in order to meet U.N. demands.
If the public grasped the nature of the bill and the fact that Obama
was the sponsor in the Senate, they might come to some understanding of the
nature of Obama’s political ideology and why Frank Marshall Davis mattered so
much to him.
So Obama lies about his “values,” while self-described “fact-checkers”
and media “watchdogs” ignore and distort the facts along with him.
This is quickly developing
as the worst case in political history of reporters being in the tank for one
candidate. No wonder former network news star Linda Douglass had the audacity
to become an official spokesman for the senator.
As the campaign moves
ahead, there will be some superficial criticism by the media of Obama’s claims
about himself and his legislative record, such as we saw in the treatment of
this ad, but the really damaging truth about his anti-American background and
record will be sanitized or suppressed. In a preemptive strike, the Obama
campaign has already made it known that any questions about his patriotism,
associations, or far-left ideology will automatically be rejected in advance as
“smears” or “lies.” So the media will probably not even bother to raise any
questions of substance.
Fox
News is the latest to go into the tank for Obama, after owner Rupert Murdoch
declared him a “rock star” and his New York Post endorsed him in the Democratic
primaries.
OBAMA PICKS
NATIONAL SECURITY RISK
If Barack
Obama wanted to dispel doubts about his national security credentials, he
hasn’t done so with the announcement of a new “Senior Working Group on National
Security” that includes Dr. Tony Lake, a former national security adviser to
Bill Clinton. Lake became a laughingstock for
expressing doubts as to whether Alger Hiss, the founder of the United Nations
and a top State Department official, was a communist spy. Lake’s doubts led to
a controversy that caused him to withdraw his nomination as Clinton’s CIA director.
Interestingly, Lake had expressed those doubts on NBC’s “Meet the
Press,” during an interview conducted by the late Tim Russert. It went like
this:
Russert: You’re a
student of history. Do you believe Alger Hiss was a spy?
Lake: I’ve read a couple of books that have certainly
offered a lot of evidence that he may have been. I don’t think it’s conclusive.
Hiss, as most people know, had been convicted of perjury for denying he
was a communist agent and decoded Soviet transcripts later confirmed his guilt.
What does Obama know about this case? Did he personally approve Lake’s addition to his prestigious foreign policy group? Lake could conceivably end up as Obama’s nominee for CIA
director again.
A CIA analysis
notes that Lake was “unlikely to be the
last casualty of the Hiss case.” How
prophetic. It appears that Obama could be another. That is, if we had a media
willing to hold him accountable for the atrocious pick of Lake.
At the same time,
Lake’s appointment to Obama’s foreign policy team should generate more interest
in Obama’s personal involvement in Marxist politics in Hawaii
and Chicago and
lead to questions about what lessons he learned from his childhood mentor,
Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis.
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
Last year, when Lake’s role as a
fundraiser for Obama came to our attention, we urged AIM members to send him a
postcard saying:
Professor Anthony Lake
School of Foreign Service
Georgetown University
Dear Professor:
It has been
reported that you are now backing and raising money for Senator Barack Obama
for president. Since that means you have an influence of some kind on his
thinking, especially in foreign affairs, we would like to know the following:
(1) Do you still
doubt that Alger Hiss was a Soviet spy?
(2) What Is Senator Obama’s position on the question of Hiss’s guilt?
Thank you for your
attention to these matters.
We are still waiting
for answers to these questions.
Other members of
Obama’s Senior Working Group on National Security are former Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright; former Senator David Boren; former Secretary of State
Warren Christopher; Greg Craig, former director of the State Department Office
of Policy Planning; former Secretary of the Navy Richard Danzig; former
Representative Lee Hamilton; former
Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder; former Senator Sam Nunn, former Secretary
of Defense William Perry; former Assistant Secretary of State Susan Rice;
former Representative Tim Roemer; and former Deputy National Security Advisor
Jim Steinberg.
Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of the AIM Report and can be reached at
Certainly it can happen - but
How does a pair of ‘poor’ Kansas grandparents end up in Hawaii with such close ties to someone like Frank Marshall Davis?
That seems pretty unlikely, but it could happen. In order for that to happen, however, it would seem the grandparents would have had to have that kind of philosophy to even come in contact with a man like Davis.
How many ordinary grandparents from Kansas have contact with people of that ilk?
Again, do we really know anything about Obama? Do we truly even know he was born in the US? Has anyone done any real checking into his life and background? It doesn’t seem like they have.
Look at the bright side:
Like Obama, our mainstream media are snakes. Obama is in pursuit of votes, while our MSM are in pursuit of THE hot story. At the mome, “Rock Star” Obama is THE hot story.
Things change.
If McCain doesn’t reveal Obama’s serious flaws and lies between now and November, he’s simply too stupid to be president, so we’ll have to hope for Obama to be caught in a motel room with a small boy a la Michael Jackson because he’s a clear and present danger to America. An idiot president is preferable to a communist president who wants to collaborate with the UN, while raising taxes and gas prices when middle class Americans are struggling to make ends meet.
On the other hand, THE hot story is very likely to “move on” from “Rock Star” Obama to “UnAmerican” Obama.
In all humility, AIM newsletters aren’t the Drudge Report, ie, read by a huge number of people every day.
However, just what has been already revealed in AIM newsletters is sufficiently substantial to cripple Obama if and when Drudge puts this info “above the fold” at his site, whereupon all hell will break loose. Surely Drudge is aware of all this and is simply waiting for the optimal time to break this HUGE story.
The MSM will be shocked (as if) to learn “the truth” about Obama and come to the cynical “realization” that they have been “had.” That is, they will lie through their teeth and play this story up for all it’s worth…and a communist “Manchurian Candidate” is worth a ton of press coverage…and ratings.
Once upon a time, Bill and Hillary could do no wrong according to the MSM…although this came largely AFTER the Republican Revolution of ‘94 that threatened the left, which would include our MSM. The Despicable Duo got thrown under the bus, too! Obama was simply a better story than Hillary’s multiple personality syndrome and her unhinged hubby/sex addict. What a flop the highly-vaunted Hillary oppo-research attack dogs turned out to be! Is there anything that they DIDN’T miss?
Obama’s bio is something of a mystery to most Americans, so they are spoonfed pap and are happy with the happy-talk “change you hope you can believe in” BS. Being half-white (and the standard black father MIA), he couldn’t even get the “being black” part right! And methinks the candidate doth protest too much: seems like every time the “race card” is played against Obama, HE’S the one dealing the cards!
Obama must maintain his fiction of a life (while America has to tolerate his obnoxious, snotty wife) for about what…four and a half months?
Now, assuming that McCain’s moronic wife, Cindy, was simply mouthing off brainlessly when she announced that McCain won’t go negative (she doesn’t seem like the sharpest knife in the drawer; she’s an ex-model isn’t she?), John has two (maybe three) options (besides shutting his wife up):
1) Pound Obama into the ground, covering him with all the dirt available; or
2) Magically transform himself into a more conservative candidate, eg, go with drilling in ANWR and fixing that unconstitutional campaign finance “reform” bill which he conspired with Russ Feingold to inflict upon our country; and possibly
3) Both
(I would also arrange for Bob Barr to be caught on videotape totally drunk with an obvious floozy to bring his ego trip “campaign” to a roaring halt, possibly ending his political career. When we’ve had a succession of razor-thin majorities in major elections for the last few years, this is *not* the time for Barr to be posturing for attention. A vote for Barr is a vote for Obama, so throw ‘em both under the bus.)
McCain has his moments, but he desperately needs a Peggy Noonan to provide him with some material.
Four and a half months: can Obama hold it together and keep the skeletons in the capacious closet that long?
I don’t think so.
Voxoreason, makes sense.
The only problem I have is with the idea that Obama’s worst association is communist. I think it is far darker than that.
Also, the idea that somehow the media is liberal. They have gone along with this President on so many things he has done.
They refused to question the war. Whether you agree with it. The administration knew it, and certainly the media knew the reasons given were false.
Think about it, the rest of the world knew. The government put out the word that our intelligence was flawed and lacking. That was for domestic consumption only. If our government thought the rest of the world would swallow our intelligence is that bad, they would never have said it. Think about it. We want to tell the world that our intelligence gathering is worthless? I don’t think so.
They have covered up the huge fiasco of suicidal trade deals.
They have ignored the idea of the Superhighway that is slated to cross this country. If it comes to pass as explained, it will be a huge highway, limited access, owned and operated by a Spanish Company. The vehicles can travel from Mexico to Kansas City (in a Mexican facility)before there is any checking of the cargo. With China building deep water ports in Mexico ‘owning’ the Panama Canal, that seems like a recipe for total disaster for the US.
They have ignoed illegal immigration. They pretended it didn’t exist for decades. When it was forced into the open, through the internet, Minutemen, etc., they began loading the news with ‘poor hardworking people’ and ‘Little Maria is on the honor roll’ type things. This is not just major news organizations, this is local hometown corporate-owned news outlets.
The media is not liberal - it is corporate and it is globalist.
They have promoted, covered for, and shilled for Obama forever.
Now that Obama has virtually unlimited campaign funds by his rejection of the public finance limits, the media is rushing to cash in on this multi-hundred-million-dollar bonanza, which they cannot do by being critical of Obama. They will put their bottom line first. Obama is buying this election.
Now that Obama has virtually unlimited funds, by his rejection of the limits of public finance, the media will go after this bonanza by competing with each other to see who can be the least critical of Obama. The bottom line will be more important than journalistic standards of fairness or any attempt to be unbiased in Obama’s favor.
So, what are you smoking? Who and where are your sources for this slander? And, that’s exactly what this is SLANDER.
Ladytexan,
I can’t believe it. Like me, you are now giving a serious thought about communism playing around American politics. Also having some thoughts about Obama as communist.
I myself don’t fully believe yet. Somebody has to dig deeper… whether to verify claims that Obama is a Communist Manchurian candidate.
Not bad at all. Dig more and tell us. Afterall, you are the one most difficult to rebut in this blog.
For J Paulsen: CHECK OUT THE WEBSITE BELOW AND TELL YOUR BELOVED OBAMA TO DISPROVE EVERYTHING IN THERE.
http://www.discoverthenetworks.com
Who knows? May be Obama can give a better explanation. He is expert in flip flopping, right? If he proves that all the accusations in the said website are false…. then I will vote for him. I will dump my pastor and church and join his theocratic government - give my “offerings” in church to him, besides all the taxes he proposes. But if he can do that, don’t you think will disown almost half of the people in Illinois?
Seeker, oh goodness. I just think about things a lot, I hear a lot of things, and if you listen enough, pay attention enough, you will find the reason why something or other was done or said.
Also, I am very cynical about the government. I always look at what happens with the idea of how can this government use something - not in ways that are good for the people. Most people approach things from the opposite end.
Certainly, I think the Communist or at least China, is playing around in our politics.
We know the Chinese army gave contributions to the Clinton Campaign. Do we not think they did the same to all other politicians? They just got smarter and channeled it through untraceable routes - or the media just didn’t report it.
One Civil Rights leader said every time before a march they would make a bet on whether there were more FBI or communist in the marches with them.
Certainly, we would be denying our good sense if we didn’t accept they were in the Vietnam anti-war movement and the hippie movement. Whether you agreed with the war or whether or not you supported the hippies. Both were disruptive things and disruption and chaos is one of the things they use.
I’ve accepted that Obama might be using the communist party to further his goal and they might be using him. I just think he has darker, uglier, more dangerous backers.
I fear China for economic and military reasons, more so than idealeological reasons. That’s possibly not going far enough in thinking. It is just that if we loose this country, to China, to Mexico, to corporate/globalism, or third world poverty - we have lost it. None seems any better than the rest, when you have lived in a free country. We could survive the poverty - perhaps, the others we can’t.
Unless we do something, we have all those things coming our way, and Mexico and China are getting very friendly.
The fact is, however, whatever China’s goal is, we have to admit that this country, since Nixon went to China, has been working to help China be in a position to achieve that goal.
People who are conservative are constantly complaining about Cuba, we must hate them, they are so dangerous because they are communist. Yet, many of those are all for destroying this country’s economy in order to build an economy in China, a very Communist country, that can harm us. Why would any President, any Congress, allow such harm to be done to this country and it’s people in order to build up China?
Perhaps if Obama is a communist and I’m not doubting it, what about all those who have worked so diligently to see that China is going to be capable of walking into this country, or driving in on that superhighway, and taking over? Many of those are supposed to be good conservatives, anti-communist, etc.
I couldn’t access any of the items on the site you gave right now, but I’m going to bookmark it. It looks interesting. Thank you for the link, I appreciate it.
One thing, yes, I agree (from one topic title) that the leftist agenda has hurt the black community. I saw that happen, but it could not have happened without the help of the so called right. At that time, there were more ‘conservatives’ around than ‘liberals’ - yet all these damaging things got put in place.
I think it was designed to keep the black people from fully accessing the freedoms they had been, for far too long, denied. I think it was to build distrust and hatred between the races.
It was an opportunity to insert the tentacles of the federal government into so many aspects where they were not supposed to go, and those tactics have been helped along by all of our elected officials - despite the rhetoric we get from either side.
A better term than communist for what I think people are trying to express here would be anti-Capitalism. Anti-Capitalism is the “feeling” that economics is a zero-sum game and that the more wealth that a corporation or “fat cat” earns, the less there is for everyone else. Anti-Capitalists are all for stealing from the rich to give to the poor: they shout “fairness,” “wealth gap,” and “redistribution of wealth” from the rooftops.
Look around and let your eyes tell you the Truth. Capitalism has dragged mankind from the slums, slavery, and poverty despite the best efforts of governments and collectivists to throw chains and restrictions on Capitalists and steal their hard-earned property.
Capitalism has created more wealth in the United States in the last 200 years alone than has existed in all previous history and all previous cultures and nations combined. If economics is zero-sum, how is this immense CREATION of wealth possible?
Before the Soviet Union collapsed, their people were all living in poverty with the promise that things would get better under the next 5-year plan. Millions of Russians and Soviets starved to death while the thugs in the Kremlin got luxuries and special privileges. Cubans were totally dependent on the Soviets until the 1990s and since then have become poorer and poorer. Venezuela is destroying wealth at an incredible rate. Mexico, since nationalizing Pemex, has seen their oil production and exports tank.
Collectivism is the zero-sum game here, not Capitalism. Collectivism is dehumanizing and evil, but the collectivists are winning the argument because religion has forced people to accept the common basic premise shared by collectivists and religionists; namely altruism.
Altruism holds that Man’s value is measured by his self-sacrifice rather than his ingenuity, intelligence, or productivity. Altruism holds sacrifice, self-injury, and suicide as the “highest moral good.”
How such EVIL can be seen as moral only goes to show the incredible power of the witch doctor and his enforcer Attila.
I am not sure I’m ready to argue that it isn’t - I’ll have to think about it.
Personally, I don’t think it is communism as such, it is just power and greed. Communism, and all other ‘isms’ are just tools to achieve that goal.
It isn’t communism that frightens me as much as business controlling the government - any kind of government.
Personally, I think China would be just as dangerous if it became a democracy tomorrow.
The only reason I mention that China is communist is because of the disconnect people seem to have on the subject. Obama is a communist - he’s bad. Cuba is communist - it’s bad. China is THE communist today - it’s good.
We have people thinking all Muslims are bad and are maniacal killers. They believe this because they have been fighting for centuries and they have caused us problems in recent history.
Yet, those same people seem to be willing to forget that tens of thousands of American soldiers died, supposedly, trying to defeat communism. They forget the millions of people killed in their own countries by communists.
They can’t wait to run to Wal Mart and send their hard earned dollars to China, so China can build weapons to use against us. They can’t wait to re elect, support or defend politicians that have made such sweet deals with China. The same politicians that refuse to protect us from their cheap, shoddy, dangerous, and deadly products. The same ones that seem more than willing to make it easier for China to come into this country unimpeded.
I don’t think I have a problem with capitalism, I do have a problem with what we have in abundance and that is corporations running a government. I’m not sure what that would be called - I call it corporatism? The real answer is greed.
Cliff, Preaching to the choir again? How will these type articles ever get to the liberal/democratic
base? Obama is the media’s golden boy… The election can not possibly be fairly covered by the biased media.
But, hey, thanks for trying…. Joni
At least Kincaid has corrected one bit of disinformation. He previousloy claimed that Davis told Obama that blacks have a RIGHT to hate whites. Now he has corrected himself by saying that Davis told Obama that blacks have REASON to hate whites. There is a world of difference between a reason and a right.
Japan had a REASON to bomb Pearl Harbor, not a right. Al Qaeda had a REASON for 9/11, not a right. Bank robbers have a REASON to rob banks (that’s where the money is), not a right. Blacks had a REASON to hate whites (racism), not a right.
I disagree that blacks have a reason to hate whites - as in all whites - as in whites living today because of racism.
If it is being compared to a bank robbery - as in a financial gain - then yes, I suppose blacks have a reason to hate whites. If they can turn that into financial gain - which the so-called black leaders have managed to do.
But racism today, as a reason to hate all whites - no I don’t buy that.
Believe it or not, most white people spend their time trying to do their jobs, care for their families. They don’t spend their time hating and trying to keep the black man down.
This was during the 1970’s, not today, when racism was much more obvious. Also, no qualification regarding the scope was given: “all whites,” “some whites,” etc.
But perhaps you missed the main point: having a “reason” doesn’t imply “good reason” or any other justification at all. All antisocial behavior may be traced to reasons. Even Jeffrey Dahmer had reasons for his actions.
Few African-Americans today have any REASON to hate all whites, although some have reasons to hate some whites, just as some whites have reasons to hate some blacks.
No African-Americans today have a GOOD REASON or right to hate all whites, although some have good reasons to hate some whites, just as some whites have good reasons to hate some blacks.
Does this make sense?
I did see what you were saying reason vs. right.
The word racism just sets me off sometimes. I’ve seen it used as a club to destroy lives, to stir up hatred among the blacks (to their detriment) and to cause chaos in this country.
It is being used today to attempt to silence any who speak out against illegal immigration.
I apologize for jumping - it’s just a truly harmful word.
Kincaid claims that “Dreams From My Father, confirms that a mysterious “Frank” was a mentor.” Would somebody please tell me what page and paragraph contain his confirmation?
THANKS FOR THIS DATA WHICH CONFIRMS MUCH BUT ADDS MORE TO MY UNDERSTNDING OF OBAMA’S LIFE AND HIS PHILOSPHY, KNOWLEDGE OF AMERICAN IDEALS CONSTITUION, FREE ENTERPRISE AND HISTORY.
I don’t know why we would support the United Nations group as they did not support us in trying to find Osama Bin Laden. The other Senators and Congressmen who are voting to give the U.N. money are out of touch with the Americans they are chosen to represent.
The REAL False Advertising
Discrediting inaccurate AIM radical right Media LIES!
Like many of the right wing lies originating and spreading from this web site AIM, that $845 Billion cost for the Global Poverty Act is an out and out bold faced lie. The bill also was originated in the US House of Representatives by Congressman Adam Smith in 2007, not in the Senate by Obama.
From http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-2433
Based on information from the State Department, CBO estimates that implementing S. 2433 would cost less than $1 million per year, assuming the availability of appropriated funds. Enacting the bill would not affect direct spending or receipts.”
That’s 1 measly million bucks a year and not even a penny for each American tax payer per year. It would take 8,450 years for that Poverty Act to cost Americans $845 Billion…
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_poverty_act
“A number of news outlets have made false reports about this bill and called it Global Poverty Tax. In February 2008, Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media wrote that the Global Poverty Act (S.2433) “would commit the U.S. to spending 0.7 percent of gross national product on foreign aid.” [1] This is not in the bill; the bill does not require any minimum foreign aid spending. The only requirement of the bill is that the President create a plan to address global poverty and it goes on to suggest what areas the plan will cover.[2] Other outlets ran a similar story including WorldNetDaily[3] which cites Kincaid as a source. Both Cliff Kincaid and Accuracy in Media are under investigation for knowingly reporting false information about the Global Poverty Act.”
Discrediting inaccurate AIM radical right Media LIES!
Like many of the right wing lies originating, and spreading from this web site AIM courtesy of it’s #1 prevaricator Kincaid, that $845 Billion cost for the Global Poverty Act is an out and out bold faced lie. The bill was also originated in the US House of Representatives by Congressman Adam Smith in 2007 not in the Senate by Obama.
From http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-2433
Based on information from the State Department, CBO estimates that implementing S. 2433 would cost less than $1 million per year, assuming the availability of appropriated funds. Enacting the bill would not affect direct spending or receipts.”
That’s 1 measly million bucks a year and not even a penny for each American tax payer per year - It would take 8,450 years for that Poverty Act to cost Americans $845 Billion…
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_poverty_act
“A number of news outlets have made false reports about this bill and called it Global Poverty Tax. In February 2008, Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media wrote that the Global Poverty Act (S.2433) “would commit the U.S. to spending 0.7 percent of gross national product on foreign aid.” [1] This is not in the bill; the bill does not require any minimum foreign aid spending. The only requirement of the bill is that the President create a plan to address global poverty and it goes on to suggest what areas the plan will cover.[2] Other outlets ran a similar story including WorldNetDaily[3] which cites Kincaid as a source. Both Cliff Kincaid and Accuracy in Media are under investigation for knowingly reporting false information about the Global Poverty Act.”
What’s up with this report on Secretary of State Rice? I agree, why isn’t the media covering this??
Stephen Drake
August 12, 2008 7:17:00 PM MDT
I’m no conspiracy nut, but you can’t argue with facts. Why isn’t the liberal media all over this????
America’s “Wrath of Khaan” – The Truth About Condoleezza Rice
By J. Richard Hollingsworth
The facts fit together like a well-crafted John LeCarre spy novel. While some Americans speculate that presidential candidate Barrack Hussein Obama may be a “Manchurian Candidate”, a close examination of the facts points in another direction. History has shown us that the biggest threats to governments are often not the leaders themselves, but the confidants and closest advisors to the leaders. Consider these facts about American Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice:
• Her unusual name “Condoleezza”, we are told, is “Italian”. A similar sounding name, Khaandolizhad, is mentioned eighteen times in the Koran, the Muslim Bible. Roughly translated, the name means “(female) servant of Allah”. It is a common name among Muslim women in North Africa. Young Muslim girls with that name often go by the nickname “Khaan” or “Khaandi”, a homonym for “Condi”. Try as I may, I have yet to find a record of an Italian woman named “Condoleezza”.
• No one seems to know the middle name of Dr. Rice. The only information that general searches show is that it may begin with “H”. Tracing back her genealogy, we find several ancestors with the name “Hassan”. Hassan is a North African derivation of the common Middle Eastern name “Hussein”. This is similar to the difference between the English name “Smythe” and the American version “Smith”.
• Dr. Rice has a cousin in Los Angeles who still uses the original version of the surname “Rice”, before it was Americanized decades ago. The cousin, Edward Mustaffa “Rischad”, is a known member of a black Muslim organization in Los Angeles, California. The surname “Rischad” is a shortened version of the North African/Middle Eastern Muslim surname “al-Rischad”. Therefore, using her original names, Dr. Rice would be “Khaandolizhad Hussan al-Rischad”.
• Little is known about the childhood of Condoleezza Rice. Many of the records that would shed some light are not accessible through the Freedom of Information Act. They have been sealed due to Patriot Act restrictions. (Much of the Patriot Act was drafted by Dr. Rice when she was National Security Advisor). It is known however that as a young girl, Condoleezza Rice traveled widely and frequently outside the United States with her parents, often for months at a time. Much of her early schooling took place on foreign soil. She speaks several foreign languages, including Russian and Farsi.
• President George W. Bush had no foreign policy experience upon taking office in 2000 (it should be noted that he had never traveled outside the U.S. prior to his presidency). To remedy this deficiency, a small advisory group was formed to provide intensive education in foreign affairs for Mr. Bush. The group was headed by Dr. Rice. The main topic at most sessions concerned what Dr. Rice called “the growing threat of Iraq”. The threat of Usama bin Laden and al-Qaeda was not discussed.
• Secular Sunni Muslin Saddam Hussein was the sworn enemy of the Shiite Muslim Usama bin Laden.
• Iran was the sworn enemy of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
• In August of 2001 a memo titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside U.S.”, written by then U.S. Chief of Counterterrorism Richard A. Clarke, was presented to the National Security Advisor (NSA), Condoleezza Rice. Dr. Rice never passed the memo on to President George W. Bush, citing later that the memo contained “no actionable intelligence”.
• While all air travel in the US was grounded on 9/11, all US based members of Usama bin Laden’s family were allowed to travel by air out of the country. This exception to the air traffic ban was authorized by the National Security Advisor, Condeleezza Rice.
• After 9/11, Dr. Rice was a major force in convincing President Bush that there must be a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda, and that war with Iraq was an absolute necessity.
Was Dr. Khanndolizhad Hussan al-Rischad AKA Condoleezza Rice in collusion with Usama bin Laden and the government of Iran, with the ultimate goal of influencing the President of the United States to use the greatest fighting force in the history of the world to remove the mortal enemy of both bin Laden and Iran? Just a theory, but one that should not be readily dismissed. And remember, insiders say that the most likely 2012 Republican nominee for President will be Dr. Condoleezza Rice.
J. Richard Hollingsworth is a Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Oxford University. He is a frequent contributor to the weekly London Conservative magazine.
Comment by Sam Daniels — August 12, 2008 @ 1:54 pm
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June 23 at 7:46 am | #1 | Link
What can you expect?
Even a heroic statement “I really didn’t love America until I was deprived of her Company” is now a major bumper to the far left.
Look, the statement means that Anericans should be very thankful to and honor those who suffered and died in defending America’s freedom, because you cannot get there in other parts of the World.
Funny, Memorial Day was not even 2 months ago and NBC desecrated America’s soldiers (especially those who died) just to get a 100 votes in a lousy election day.
So there.