If Obama were a white man

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  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    There is a right way to do something and a wrong way.

    If you were out there posting the date from every day of the war and the number dead (May 13, 2006: 11 Dead) no one could legally object.

    But to see proof that some families of deceased soldiers feel strongly enough about the use of their names to initiate lawsuits and request that the names be removed, and do it anyway, is wrong.

    I've shown much proof that this is indeed the case, but you don't seem to care, what matters is YOUR project, not the feelings or rights of these families.

    The Portland Project is not unique, there are many similar projects happening across the country. Most are being done by pronounced "Anti-War" groups. Some apparently are doing the SAME EXACT THING and trying to present it as nothing more than a "tribute".

    Posting deceased soldiers names after the end of a war is a tribute.

    Posting their names during the war is political.

    To say that you're doing the SAME EXACT THING as Anti-War groups around the country but that YOU'RE doing it for all the right reasons is a stretch.

    I support anyone's right to protest.

    I support the deceased soldiers families rights to have say over when and for what cause their relatives names are used.

    To not care enough about these families to take this into consideration is selfish, not selfless.

    I think the sacrafices that these soldiers made, and the respect they should be given, is certainly worth the cost of a postage stamp to get permission from their families to use their names.

    Here is a link to a fraction of other "political antiwar" groups who are using soldiers names illegal and with out permission:
    http://www.militarycity.com/valor/honor.html
    http://heroesmemorial.blogspot.com/
    http://www.iraqwarheroes.org/
    http://www.arng.army.mil/Lists/InMemoriam/AllItems.aspx
    http://livinglegendteam.blogspot.com/
    http://www.patriotguard.org/

    You should write them with your concerns. I will be interested to hear their replies.

    Nancy has spoken to many of the families of people who have died in Iraq. They have all thanked her. They have hugged her. They have helped her. If some day, some family member asks that their name not be used, she will deal with that. But since your concerns stem from unconstitutional laws that will never be enforced and your desire to piss me off, she will continue to ignore your concerns. Which I will try to do as well.

    Yesterday I wrote my impressions of Obama's Philadelphia Speech on Race. I would much rather talk about that than this distraction.

    The difference between the links you posted and the Names Project is that none of the links above are associated with Anti-War protesting.

    Instead of spending your time trying to belittle me for having an opinion you don't agree with, maybe you should ask those Anti-War(Chalk4Peace, etc.) websites that have you listed under their umbrella to remove your name if indeed that is not the sentiment of your intent.

    If your wife feels that by me criticizing the names project it was somehow a personal attack on her, please pass on apologies as that was not my intent.

    If you feel that ANYONE who criticizes the Names Project is making a personal attack I'll suggest you're either mistaken or too thin skinned.

    I only know about the project because you posted about it here....on multiple occasions.....I'm sure you did so not expecting anyone to disagree with it's concept. You were wrong.

    Finally, I'll assume that my posting of another persons views, who viewed your site, and came to the same conclusion I did, means you'll be buying your own chalk this month.

    I fully intended on sending it and folks who have dealt with me here know I am a man of my word.....the fact that you challenged me with an offer to keep the money, and I delivered, means we agree to call this quits and move forward.

    So you are ok with exploiting people as long as the exploiting is done by people who agree with you!?!?!??! These laws you support, they say that anyone can use the name of dead soldiers unless they are antiwar?

    I like my blog roll. I like peace. I will keep chalkforpeace. I like veterans and I like people who serve so I will keep MilitaryCity and the veterans sites also.

    As I said do what you want with the money, it's your money. Yes, Haz viewed my site and came to the same conclusion you did. My challenge was for anyone who had seen the project not the blog.

    I have no problem with your opinions when they are honest and based on facts.

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    It's funny, I didn't know that chalk4peace had linked to us. I saw it when I first did google searches for sidewalk chalk art. I thought it was a cute idea, kids making art on the sidewalk with chalk, and linked to it even though the web site was static and out of date. The site looks much better now, they have a link to my blog but I don't think they have ever sent me a hit.

    The funny thing is that reading your poorly informed rants someone would think that chalk4peace is an antiwar group bent on destroying America. It's not, it is a government and corporate funded youth art project. From their mission statement:
    CHALK4PEACE is not encouraged as an anti-war demonstration; rather, it is a creative presentation for young artists of all ages utilizing the theme of Peace.

    To quote you, chalk4peace, get familiar.

  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts

    So you are ok with exploiting people as long as the exploiting is done by people who agree with you!?!?!??! These laws you support, they say that anyone can use the name of dead soldiers unless they are antiwar?

    I like my blog roll. I like peace. I will keep chalkforpeace. I like veterans and I like people who serve so I will keep MilitaryCity and the veterans sites also.

    As I said do what you want with the money, it's your money. Yes, Haz viewed my site and came to the same conclusion you did. My challenge was for anyone who had seen the project on the blog.

    I have no problem with your opinions when they are honest and based on facts.

    No, I'm not for exploiting anyone. As the laws that I've referred to read, you can't use someone's name without their authorization for anything commercial or political.

    After searching the internet I came to the conclusion that the names project was a political statement. Knowing your personal political views, and you were the only representitive of this project I knew of personally, just enforced that conclusion.

    Sites or groups that have no ties to Anti-War(or any) politics are, in my opinion, not using these names for anything commercial or political.

    Listing the names of musicians on a site about the greatest musicians of all-time is one thing.

    Listing those same names under the banner of a political group, for the purpose of sending a political message, is something entirely different.

    Did you read the link I posted about the similar "tribute" in Louisiana where they removed all but 12 of the soldiers names because of pressure from families?

    If so, how do you rationalize the difference between that and what you are doing??

    And just to make one thing clear, throughout this discussion not only were my opinions honest, I posted MANY examples of where people ranging from lawmakers to soldiers widows shared those same opinions.

  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
    It's funny, I didn't know that chalk4peace had linked to us. I saw it when I first did google searches for sidewalk chalk art. I thought it was a cute idea, kids making art on the sidewalk with chalk, and linked to it even though the web site was static and out of date. The site looks much better now, they have a link to my blog but I don't think they have ever sent me a hit.

    The funny thing is that reading your poorly informed rants someone would think that chalk4peace is an antiwar group bent on destroying America. It's not, it is a government and corporate funded youth art project. From their mission statement:
    CHALK4PEACE is not encouraged as an anti-war demonstration; rather, it is a creative presentation for young artists of all ages utilizing the theme of Peace.

    To quote you, chalk4peace, get familiar.

    Not only did I get familar, I read the sites of each of the 40+ groups listed under their umbrella of "members".

  • VitaminVitamin 631 Posts
    And thanks for the props from everyone.

    Let me preface this by giving you my theory on race and American big media. Every now and again, there is a story that is seized on by the major networks about something in Black America that absolutely lights the hair of most whites on fire. The classic example is the crack epidemic, which was covered in the 1980s through like 24 hours on crack street as a black problem. A recent example is the Michael Vick dog fighting story. People who watched the Wire for example knew that this kind of thing went on. People in the south may have known about it. But to millions of white people this was like professional black athletes torture dogs and bet on it, can you believe that shit?!?!? And please, I know that most African Americans don't participate in dog fighting. This is not my point. It is a fact of culture to lots of blacks, it's a shocking can you believe this goes on in my country story to most whites.

    Ditto for Black Liberation Theology. The kinds of excerpted words form Jeremiah Wright's speech are not reflective of the majority of preachers in black communities, but they are also not shocking. It's a debate that raged for most of the 20th century. From Booker and WEB to Malcolm and Martin. Burn the house down or take it over. We are all the richer, I think, that MLK prevailed in the end. But most Whites were blissfully ignorant of this dialectic. Feel me?

    Okay. Obama emerges in the middle of this. Anyone with a brain knows the man does not agree with his pastor on chickens coming home to roost, or AMERIKKKA. Everyone knows this man is not Al Sharpton. He embodies something on a national scale we've never seen before. But . . . those words from Jeremiah Wright, just a few days after 9-11, and then replayed at a moment when the nation is digesting the idea that he could be the first black president, create a Michael Vick like seizure among many whites. For the white voters Obama needs in a general election, there is an initial shock that something like this was said by a pastor in their country. Didn't that end with Angela Davis?

    This comes to the speech. Brilliant! He managed to explain this kind of divide which keeps coming up. He explained why Wright's liberation nonsense was wrong, but he did not participate in the ritual denounce and reject political crap. He reminded us of his humanity and in the process of our humanity.

    I might actually vote for him. I don't know. If he doesn't mean what he says about the war, I vote for him. He probably loses most of you if he ends up defending the elected government of Baghdad and staying there long enough to make new elections possible. But that's where it is for me.

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    And thanks for the props from everyone.

    Let me preface this by giving you my theory on race and American big media. Every now and again, there is a story that is seized on by the major networks about something in Black America that absolutely lights the hair of most whites on fire. The classic example is the crack epidemic, which was covered in the 1980s through like 24 hours on crack street as a black problem. A recent example is the Michael Vick dog fighting story. People who watched the Wire for example knew that this kind of thing went on. People in the south may have known about it. But to millions of white people this was like professional black athletes torture dogs and bet on it, can you believe that shit?!?!? And please, I know that most African Americans don't participate in dog fighting. This is not my point. It is a fact of culture to lots of blacks, it's a shocking can you believe this goes on in my country story to most whites.

    Ditto for Black Liberation Theology. The kinds of excerpted words form Jeremiah Wright's speech are not reflective of the majority of preachers in black communities, but they are also not shocking. It's a debate that raged for most of the 20th century. From Booker and WEB to Malcolm and Martin. Burn the house down or take it over. We are all the richer, I think, that MLK prevailed in the end. But most Whites were blissfully ignorant of this dialectic. Feel me?

    Okay. Obama emerges in the middle of this. Anyone with a brain knows the man does not agree with his pastor on chickens coming home to roost, or AMERIKKKA. Everyone knows this man is not Al Sharpton. He embodies something on a national scale we've never seen before. But . . . those words from Jeremiah Wright, just a few days after 9-11, and then replayed at a moment when the nation is digesting the idea that he could be the first black president, create a Michael Vick like seizure among many whites. For the white voters Obama needs in a general election, there is an initial shock that something like this was said by a pastor in their country. Didn't that end with Angela Davis?

    This comes to the speech. Brilliant! He managed to explain this kind of divide which keeps coming up. He explained why Wright's liberation nonsense was wrong, but he did not participate in the ritual denounce and reject political crap. He reminded us of his humanity and in the process of our humanity.

    I might actually vote for him. I don't know. If he doesn't mean what he says about the war, I vote for him. He probably loses most of you if he ends up defending the elected government of Baghdad and staying there long enough to make new elections possible. But that's where it is for me.

    Thanks, good to hear from you.

    I was depressed when Luck pointed out that the media was not going to foster a race discussion. It's not what the media does. But then I realized it is much more important for people to have this converstation in their lives. I have with my white family and friends, and with all you all. I'll be interested to see if I can make that circle wider.

  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
    Vitamin....great post....we need you here more often.

  • luckluck 4,077 Posts
    I was depressed when Luck pointed out that the media was not going to foster a race discussion. It's not what the media does. But then I realized it is much more important for people to have this converstation in their lives. I have with my white family and friends, and with all you all. I'll be interested to see if I can make that circle wider.

    Right. It's not an either-media-or-nothing matter. I only mean to reflect the natural inefficacy of the American press. The tide of race-hate in this country reverses when individual people experience the world around them with open eyes, make correct personal choices on that basis, and pass the sentiment on to others. It's a social sea change that cannot be aired or legislated into being. In a way,


  • luckluck 4,077 Posts
    Interestingly enough, here is the pertinent text from Dr. Wright's "9/11 sermon."

    ???I heard Ambassador Peck on an interview yesterday did anybody else see or hear him? He was on FOX News, this is a white man, and he was upsetting the FOX News commentators to no end, he pointed out, a white man, an ambassador, he pointed out that what Malcolm X said when he was silenced by Elijah Mohammad was in fact true, he said Americas chickens, are coming home to roost.???

    ???We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, Arikara, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism.

    ???We took Africans away from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism.

    ???We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel.

    ???We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenage and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard working fathers.

    ???We bombed Qaddafi???s home, and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash your children???s head against the rock.

    ???We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hard working people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing that they???d never get back home.

    ???We bombed Hiroshima. We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye.

    ???Kids playing in the playground. Mothers picking up children after school. Civilians, not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day.

    ???We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff that we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America???s chickens are coming home to roost.

    ???Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that y???all, not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said the people we have wounded don???t have the military capability we have. But they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them. And we need to come to grips with that.???

    ...as transcribed by Roland Martin here on the Anderson Cooper blog. There's not a whole lot to quibble about there, and the "chickens coming home to roost" comment that Wright was so lambasted for was actually a quote from Edward Peck, ex-US Iraq Ambassador and deputy director of President Reagan???s terrorism task force. Ah, the power of spin.

  • PlantweedPlantweed 394 Posts
    Name a country that wasn't taken by force.

  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
    The Wright quote that seemed to be getting the most play down here was the one about the Government developing AIDS/HIV in a lab to wipe out people of color.

  • Jonny_PaycheckJonny_Paycheck 17,825 Posts
    Ironically, out of all the Wright soundbytes, the AIDS conspiracy is the one most commonly shared, even across racial lines.

  • luckluck 4,077 Posts
    The Wright quote that seemed to be getting the most play down here was the one about the Government developing AIDS/HIV in a lab to wipe out people of color.

    Well, the man has said some things that are patently indefensible - if not downright appalling - and leagues beyond irresponsible considering that he is a leader in and of his community. I'm just trying to point out that although the man is a well-known holder of fringe beliefs, he's occasionally on point. A man's life and life's work cannot reasonably be boiled down to 3 minutes on YouTube. This is duality of which Barack Obama accurately speaks when he describes his former pastor.

  • VitaminVitamin 631 Posts
    The Wright quote that seemed to be getting the most play down here was the one about the Government developing AIDS/HIV in a lab to wipe out people of color.

    Well, the man has said some things that are patently indefensible - if not downright appalling - and leagues beyond irresponsible considering that he is a leader in and of his community. I'm just trying to point out that although the man is a well-known holder of fringe beliefs, he's occasionally on point. A man's life and life's work cannot reasonably be boiled down to 3 minutes on YouTube. This is duality of which Barack Obama accurately speaks when he describes his former pastor.


    Well the whole litany of charges derived from Ambassador Peck, a scourge to our diplomatic class, is what I find so offensive. Peck is not some establishment guy. He's a radical and a whore, who has lent his services to some of the worst regimes on the planet. This isn't about the Native Americans, Hiroshima or slavery. It's about moral equivalency. And Wright obviously thinks we are no better than the beheaders and bus bombers in Qaeda. Obama on the other hand says precisely because our republic has changed and corrected past sins is one reason why America is morally superior. In my opinion Obama distinguished himself from Wright. If Obama did not draw that line between him and his pastor, he would be disqualified from being president. You can't be the commander and chief of the armed services if you think that our military is no better than al Qaeda. it doesn't matter if the person saying it is Mumia Abu Jamal or Tom Hayden.
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