Sooner Be Blue

Mostly politics, a few current events, a squirt of seltzer down yer pants .. a little blog for my rambles and rants.

2008/6/17

Those sleazy bastards

Tags:
@ 07:06 AM (2 months, 13 days ago)

 

...are still sending lies about Sen. Obama through email.

From his website:

A recent email forward allegedly quotes passages from Senator Obama's
books related to race and religion. The majority of these are
alterations, deliberate manipulations, and in one case, an outright
fabrication, of Obama's words.

EMAIL
From Dreams of My Father: 'I found a solace in nursing a pervasive
sense of grievance and animosity against my mothers race.'

FULL QUOTE
Nothing close to this quote appears in Dreams from My Father

EMAIL
From Dreams of My Father: 'There was something about him that made me
wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.'

FULL QUOTE
"He offered to start me off at ten thousand dollars the first year,
with a two-thousand-dollar travel allowance to buy a car; the salary
would go up if things worked out. After he was gone, I took the long
way home, along the East River promenade, and tried to figure out what
to make of the man. He was smart, I decided. He seemed committed to
his work. Still, there was something about him that made me wary. A
little too sure of himself, maybe. And white--he'd said himself that
that was a problem." [Page 142]

EMAIL
From Dreams of My Father: 'I never emulate white men and brown men
whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the
black man, son of Africa, that I'd packed all the attributes I sought
in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.'

FULL QUOTE
"All my life, I had carried a single image of my father, one that I
had sometimes rebelled against but had never questioned, one that I
had later tried to take as my own. The brilliant scholar, the generous
friend, the upstanding leader--my father had been all those things.
All those things and more, because except for that one brief visit in
Hawaii, he had never been present to foil the image, because I hadn't
seen what perhaps most men see at some point in their lives: their
father's body shrinking, their father's best hopes dashed, their
father's face lined with grief and regret.

Yes, I'd seen weakness in other men--Gramps and his disappointments,
Lolo and his compromise. But these men had become object lessons for
me, men I might love but never emulate, white men and brown men whose
fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black
man, son of Africa, that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in
myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela. And
if later I saw that the black men I knew--Frank or Ray or Will or
Rafiq--fell short of such lofty standards; if I had learned to respect
these men for the struggles they went through, recognizing them as my
own--my father's voice had nevertheless remained untainted, inspiring,
rebuking, granting or withholding approval. You do not work hard
enough, Barry. You must help in your people's struggle. Wake up, black
man!

Now, as I sat in the glow of a single light bulb, rocking slightly on
a hard-backed chair, that image had suddenly vanished. Replaced
by...what? A bitter drunk? An abusive husband? A defeated, lonely
bureaucrat? To think that all my life I had been wrestling with
nothing more than a ghost!" [Page 220]

EMAIL
From Audacity of Hope: 'I will stand with the Muslims should the
political winds shift in an ugly direction.'

FULL QUOTE
"Whenever I appear before immigrant audiences, I can count on some
good-natured ribbing from my staff after my speech; according to them,
my remarks always follow a three-part structure: "I am your friend,"
"[Fill in the home country] has been a cradle of civilization," and
"You embody the American dream." They're right, my message is simple,
for what I've come to understand is that my mere presence before these
newly minted Americans serves notice that they matter, that they are
voters critical to my success and full-fledged citizens deserving of
respect.

Of course, not all my conversations in immigrant communities follow
this easy pattern. In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and
Pakistani Americans, for example, have a more urgent quality, for the
stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from
neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have
been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a
dark underbelly; they need specific assurances that their citizenship
really means something, that America has learned the right lessons
from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will
stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly
direction." [Page 260-261]

Read More...

http://factcheck.barackobama.com/