Controversial Rev. Wright bulletins surface

[DeepModem Mom]

CNN: Controversial Rev. Wright bulletins surface
March 27, 2008
Controversial Rev. Wright bulletins surface

(CNN)—Over the past year, bulletins from Barack Obama’s church have appeared online that included writings from controversial figures like Louis Farrakahn of the Nations of Islam and Hamas leader Mousa Mohammed Marzook.

One of the articles, reprinted on the Web site’s “Pastor’s Page,” was originally printed in the Los Angeles Times as “Hamas stand.” Pastor Wright added a new title, “A Fresh View of the Palestinian Struggle.’ The article defended and justified terrorism and refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist. The LA Times came under fire for giving a platform to an alleged terrorist.

The pages appear to have been removed from the Church’s website.

This week, Obama denounced the articles, telling the Jerusalem Post that the church was “outrageously wrong” in reprinting the pieces. "Hamas is a terrorist organization, responsible for the deaths of many innocents, and dedicated to Israel's destruction,” said the Illinois senator.

Obama’s former minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, also came under fire this week when reports surfaced that he had written an article for Trumpet Magazine, run by his daughters, in which he said that “white supremacy is clearly in charge in America.” The article also quotes him referring to Italians’ “garlic noses,” and characterizing Jesus’ crucifixion as “a public lynching, Italian-style.”

Similar remarks from Rev. Wright prompted Obama’s public address of race last week. Recent polls suggest Obama has recovered politically after that address....

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/03/27/controversial-rev-wright-bulletins-surface/

[peace13]

1. You may be interested in this article as well.

From http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/hillarys-prayer-2.html

When Clinton first came to Washington in 1993, one of her first steps was to join a Bible study group. For the next eight years, she regularly met with a Christian "cell" whose members included Susan Baker, wife of Bush consigliere James Baker; Joanne Kemp, wife of conservative icon Jack Kemp; Eileen Bakke, wife of Dennis Bakke, a leader in the anti-union Christian management movement; and Grace Nelson, the wife of Senator Bill Nelson, a conservative Florida Democrat.

Clinton's prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or "the Family"), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to "spiritual war" on behalf of Christ, many of them recruited at the Fellowship's only public event, the annual National Prayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the group has "made a fetish of being invisible," former Republican Senator William Armstrong has said.) The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God's plan.

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. Best you can do?

a bible study "cell"?

:rofl:

[Cheap_Trick]

6. read this, if you dare

from The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080331/ehrenreich

and Mother Jones
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2007/09/hillary...

>snip<
Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship. Her collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from that connection. "A lot of evangelicals would see that as just cynical exploitation," says the Reverend Rob Schenck, a former leader of the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue who now ministers to decision makers in Washington. "I don't....there is a real good that is infected in people when they are around Jesus talk, and open Bibles, and prayer."

>snip<

Clinton's prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or "the Family"), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to "spiritual war" on behalf of Christ, many of them recruited at the Fellowship's only public event, the annual National Prayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the group has "made a fetish of being invisible," former Republican Senator William Armstrong has said.) The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God's plan.

>snip<

The Fellowship's long-term goal is "a leadership led by God—leaders of all levels of society who direct projects as they are led by the spirit." According to the Fellowship's archives, the spirit has in the past led its members in Congress to increase U.S. support for the Duvalier regime in Haiti and the Park dictatorship in South Korea. The Fellowship's God-led men have also included General Suharto of Indonesia; Honduran general and death squad organizer Gustavo Alvarez Martinez; a Deutsche Bank official disgraced by financial ties to Hitler; and dictator Siad Barre of Somalia, plus a list of other generals and dictators. Clinton, says Schenck, has become a regular visitor to Coe's Arlington, Virginia, headquarters, a former convent where Coe provides members of Congress with sex-segregated housing and spiritual guidance.

>snip<

Throughout her time at the White House, Clinton writes in Living History, she took solace from "daily scriptures" sent to her by her Fellowship prayer cell, along with Coe's assurances that she was right where God wanted her. (Clinton's sense of divine guidance has been noted by others: Bishop Richard Wilke, who presided over the United Methodist Church of Arkansas during her years in Little Rock, told us, "If I asked Hillary, 'What does the Lord want you to do?' she would say, 'I think I'm called by the Lord to be in public service at whatever level he wants me.'")

>snip<

These days, Clinton has graduated from the political wives' group into what may be Coe's most elite cell, the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast. Though weighted Republican, the breakfast—regularly attended by about 40 members—is a bipartisan opportunity for politicians to burnish their reputations, giving Clinton the chance to profess her faith with men such as Brownback as well as the twin terrors of Oklahoma, James Inhofe and Tom Coburn, and, until recently, former Senator George Allen (R-Va.). Democrats in the group include Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor, who told us that the separation of church and state has gone too far; Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) is also a regular.

>snip<

Clinton has championed federal funding of faith-based social services, which she embraced years before George W. Bush did; Marci Hamilton, author of God vs. the Gavel, says that the Clintons' approach to faith-based initiatives "set the stage for Bush." Clinton has also long supported the Defense of Marriage Act, a measure that has become a purity test for any candidate wishing to avoid war with the Christian right.

>snip<

Sean Hannity has called Obama's church a "cult," but that term applies far more aptly to Clinton's "Family," which is organized into "cells"--their term--and operates sex-segregated group homes for young people in northern Virginia. In 2002, Sharlet joined The Family's home for young men, forswearing sex, drugs and alcohol, and participating in endless discussions of Jesus and power. He wasn't undercover; he used his own name and admitted to being a writer. But he wasn't completely out of danger either. When he went outdoors one night to make a cell phone call, he was followed. He still gets calls from Family associates asking him to meet them in diners--alone.

>snip<

At the heart of The Family's American branch is a collection of powerful right-wing politicos, who include, or have included, Sam Brownback, Ed Meese, John Ashcroft, James Inhofe and Rick Santorum. They get to use The Family's spacious estate on the Potomac, The Cedars, which is maintained by young men in Family group homes and where meals are served by The Family's young women's group. And, at The Family's frequent prayer gatherings, they get powerful jolts of spiritual refreshment, tailored to the already powerful.

>snip<

Furthermore, The Family takes credit for some of Clinton's rightward legislative tendencies, including her support for a law guaranteeing "religious freedom" in the workplace, such as for pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions and police officers who refuse to guard abortion clinics.

>snip<

Sharlet generously attributes Clinton's involvement to the under-appreciated depth of her religiosity, but he himself struggles to define The Family's theological underpinnings. The Family avoids the word Christian but worships Jesus, though not the Jesus who promised the earth to the "meek." They believe that, in mass societies, it's only the elites who matter, the political leaders who can build God's "dominion" on earth. Insofar as The Family has a consistent philosophy, it's all about power--cultivating it, building it and networking it together into ever-stronger units, or "cells." "We work with power where we can," Doug Coe has said, and "build new power where we can't."


She's a bigger fundie nut job than Bush.

[The_Casual_Observer]

7. !

:rofl:

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[bob-vaught]

12. On Obama and Wright

Obama recently excused Wright's comments by complaining that
only about 30 seoonds of Wright's statements are
controversial, and therefore don't represent the totality of
what Wright is really all about. Uh.. nice spin. That is no
less silly than saying, " Mel Gibson's controversial
statements are blown out of proportion, after all, Mel's
anti-semitic statements are just a few things that he said
over the course of his lifetime." or how about this
one... "The Grand Wizard of the KKK has probably spent at
least as much time talking about football as he does making
racist comments, so lets not blow a few questionable things
out of proportion." If that sounds ridiculous to you,
your right. No less ridiculous was Obama's spin that Wright
only made a FEW controversial, anti-Semitic and racist
statements. I mean, it was only a FEW racist statements right?
But we wouldn't want to be accused of just focusing on the
negative.     

[noamnety]

3. I bet this is completely unbiased reporting from CNN

"The article defended and justified terrorism"

Hmmmm.

[MethuenProgressive]

4. Pastor Wright: Jesus’ crucifixion was “a public lynching, Italian-style.”

Jesus.

[doc03]

5. I must admit this Rev. Wright stuff bothers me

I just can't bring myself to vote for a man that would sit and listen to him for 17 years. I have heard all the arguments, from he was never present when Rev. Wright said those things to he doesn't agree with everything he said. I and let me tell you most people I have talked to say they don't trust him. As of now I can't bring myself to vote for him and that goes for a lot of other people. When I first heard Obama I liked what he said and he seemed to rise above the race issue, but I just can't bring myself to believe him when he attended that church and listened to Rev. Wright for 17 years.

[bob-vaught]

11. Obama's spin on Rev. Wright

The mainstream media may be missing some important points
regarding Rev. Wright's controversial statements and Obama's
responses.

Just two days ago, Obama said that Wright's statements had
been blown out of proportion. Obama stated that his opponents
had taken just a few statements by Wright and condensed them
into 30 seconds of tape, and were, therefore, not indicative
of Wright's overall beliefs. 

Huh? Is Obama not intellectually capable of understanding how
ridiculous this sounds. This is no less ignorant than saying,
"Mel Gibson's controversial statements are blown out of
proportion, after all, Mel's anti-semitic statements are just
a few things that he said over the course of his
lifetime." Does Obama think we are supposed to start
overlooking Wright's statements simply because Wright only
made them a couple of times? Who does Obama think he is
kidding? By Obama's reasoning, almost anyone's racist comments
could be overlooked as long as the racist spends the majority
of his time talking about the weather, what color of drapes
goes well with a brown carpet, and which team is most likely
to win the NCAA basketball championship. In other words, just
keep the racist comments to a bare minimum and everything is
fine.

Moreover, it isn't as though anyone had to go through hundreds
of hours of video to find Rev. Wright's controversial
statements. The statements were on a DVD that was being sold
at the church! ... clearly an indication that Rev. Wright and
his congregation (including Barak and Michelle Obama) were
proud of their racist beliefs. Not only did Wright say that
the government had created the HIV virus explicitly for the
purpose of killing blacks, he advertised these sort of
comments openly and proudly. But hey, we certainly wouldn't
want to take anything out of context (laugh).

Worse, Obama's own spin regarding the situation isn't
consistent. Less than 24 hours after Obama excused Rev. Wright
by saying a few comments were condensed into 30 seconds, he
NOW says that, had Rev. Wright not left the church, that he
(Obama) would have left. Wow, well that certainly is an easy
thing to say. In a period of just 24 hours, Obama has gone
from making to excuses for Wright, in effect saying that the
Reverend's comments were taken out of context, to now saying,
in effect, that there was no excuse and that he would have
left the church if Wright were still there. Now we are all
confused (laugh). We thought Obama didn't think Wright's
statements were particular offensive. Otherwise, why would
Obama complain that Wright's few controversial statements were
only about 30 seconds out of an entire DVD of material? If
Obama thought Wright's statements were taken out of context,
then why would Obama need to leave the church (had Wright
stayed). So, which is it Obama? Is Obama not intellectually
capable of seeing his own contradictions, made only 24 hours
apart?               

[mac2]

13. And he has a right to say it.

But not be part of a campaign for President.