"The Audacity Of Hope"

[Neshanic]

That was taken from a sermon by Wright.

Not ever seeing Wright, or even caring about Obama's minister, I had no desire to know about what is a private thing in a sense; a person's way of worshiping and the people they surrounded themselves with at the church they attend.

Is that the same man? Is that the Reverend Wright that gave Obama inspiration? Is it? After watching these sermons, and what he said and the way he said it, I was slack jawed with surprise. This man was the inspiration to Obama?

Are all his sermons like that?

Racism? Are you kidding me? This explains so much about the way Mr. Obama and his wife percieve themselves. This explains everything about how Obama tried to get the ex-gay preacher by us. The Obama's world is a world where everyone is suspect of racism. God knows what they think of gays at that church.

Has anyone been in a church where sermons like these are preached? So much hatred. So much incredible hatred. Is that Christ talking through him?

He obviously was/is very close to Mr. and Ms. Obama.

A very sad and sickening joke is being played out.

[anonymous171]

1. "He obviously was/is very close to Mr. and Ms. Obama."?

Got any evidence for VERY CLOSE?

[Neshanic]

11. I would write a book, and pick my inspiration from a total stranger for the title.

[JoFerret]

17. They drank the blood of strangled kittens at the wedding and

...at the children's baptism.
Hillary made them do it.

[Neshanic]

21. In our little insular DU world, where everyone is smart and funny, this is

found to be a non-starter and just a bump. But when I saw these sermons, I don't shock easy, and these were way out of bounds in their ferocity.

Your surprise is what is going out in a full bore attack that people will judge him on,Joe Schmoe on the street that is told this was his mentor/pastor for twenty years.

[JoFerret]

29. Not sure I follow any of that. However....

....it is my view tat unless Obama is able to distance himself he should not be our nominee for November for he will surely lose. the GOP will slice and dice him to death with a thousand cuts.

This NOT what I want to happen.

He is young and when this frenzy is over he can rise again.

[anamandujano]

34. If he rises again, he won't get any further than Sharpton.

This stuff is a career killer. Who the fuck thought they could sneak it by?

[JoFerret]

46. I disagree. It will take time but he can put this behind him

He's always had much more going for him than Sharpton. Much more.

[greyghost]

23. LOL

[rug]

45. He married them and baptized their children.

Over the past 20 years.

[cali]

2. OK, Sara Heartburn.

[Yes We Did]

3. You obviously don't know what you are talking about: Wright on LGBT

Jeremiah Wright, a United Church of Christ pastor in Chicago, told the RCRC audience how he once had been "homophobic" but now accepts that God has created a certain number of animals in each species to be attracted to the same sex. He now asks parents to accept their children's homosexuality and to avoid the example of Saul in the Bible, who Wright believes opposed Jonathan because of a homosexual relationship with David. "Fag hags (meaning women who support homosexual causes) need to rise up and put Homo-bashers in their place," Wright concluded.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=5067677&mesg_id=5067677

Now you can apologize.

[Neshanic]

6. Why should I apologize?

[grantcart]

13. The OP gave himself away when he mentions "ex-gay preacher"

All of those who have been offended by McClurkin are simply lying in wait to pounce. The fact that Rev Wright is progressive on LGBT issues and even employes gays.

[sniffa]

20. Um, that's not true

I'm not waiting to pounce.

[grantcart]

26. have to help me - don't see the relationship between the OP and you.

[sniffa]

63. All of those who have been offended by McClurkin are simply lying in wait to pounce

[JoFerret]

19. THAT is sick and homophobic and sexist religiosity

...what garbage he seems to spew. Jesus wept.

[saracat]

4. Yeah well he also believes that aids is sent to infect the black community.

[wileedog]

8. So obviously Obama must believe that right?

[JoFerret]

22. I would certainly assume he does not

Was he present during any of these "sermons". Did he protest or make objections? I don't know.

Personally I can't imagine being present and acquiescing at such vile stuff but I do not know how Obama reacted.

[gabeana]

5. I guess that is why Obama

has critized black curches for their homophobia. He did this a couple of weeks ago, look it up

[saracat]

12. Yeah that is why he explained he had to get "close " to them, though they disagree. he explained "

most black ministers are homophobic" but he needs their votes. He will get them over to his thinking later but he has to "reach out first". Yeah .Right. That is why he "toured" with MCurkin.

[gabeana]

43. Just like Hilary's Homophob church

[saracat]

52. Not at all.

[gabeana]

54. read this

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

unless you want to chicken out

[saracat]

55. I read it. So she is a Christian? So what? I see nothing about a personal pastor who is a homophobe

And I see nothing that approaches the racism and hatred of Wright.

[gabeana]

60. wow, I don't think you can infer to well

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.


With Santorum, Clinton co-sponsored the Workplace Religious Freedom Act; she didn't back off even after Republican senators such as Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter pulled their names from the bill citing concerns that the measure would protect those refusing to perform key aspects of their jobs—say, pharmacists who won't fill birth control prescriptions, or police officers who won't guard abortion clinics

Liberal rabbi Michael Lerner, whose "politics of meaning" Clinton made famous in a speech early in her White House tenure, sees the senator's ambivalence as both more and less than calculated opportunism. He believes she has genuine sympathy for liberal causes—rights for women, gays, immigrants—but often will not follow through. "There is something in her that pushes her toward caring about others, as long as there's no price to pay. But in politics, there is a price to pay."

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."


You think this group is going to be pro-gay

[barack the house]

7. More speech copying here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3qOi_l1RGY

[ElsewheresDaughter]

9. I agree

[sniffa]

10. The day I "got it"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x5065371

[cali]

15. They don't want to get it, sniffa

they're happy to run around calling AAs racists. They're gleeful about it. They're pigs in shit.

[sniffa]

18. Indeed

That post was pretty much a soul-pouring thread. I really want people to see why I am the way I am in that regard, and I also hope, that someone else just might "get it" even if they haven't had that moment in their own lives yet.

[Neshanic]

16. That's your moment, but not everyone is a racist. I know that is hard

to comprehend, but it is true. You can be white, and liberal, and not be racist.

[obamian]

14. HERE IS THE MP3 of THE SERMON LISTEN NOW

http://mp3.christianity.com/mp3/mp3repos32/MMYSEES/317_60682_JeremiahWright__TheAudacitytoHope82A.32.mp3

(I think this is the same sermon, but this recording is of him delivering it on a different date)

[wileedog]

24. This will never be the scandal that

the Hillary camp hopes it will be.

Why?

Do you really think the MSM has grown the balls to call a black man a racist? I mean beyond the Farrakan and Sharpton stuff, do you really think they want a REAL dialog about how much what Wright said may have just a little bit of fact in it? (even if much of it was crap)

Are they ready to call attention to the fact, and argue it in Middle America, that well, yeah, rich white people HAVE actually pretty much controlled everything up to this point. That Hillary actually probably has never been in an actual cab (at least in the last 30 years), much less have one speed past her.

You really think they are ready to do that?

If the pick up on anything, it will be the "God Damn America" bit, which is easier to digest and they can just point it out as horrible without all the questions that come with it.

But I just don't see the Blitzers and Coopers and Scarboroughs et. al. of the world ready to open the can of worms that truly breaking this into a first class scandal would entail.

The Republicans either for that matter, who for the most part are the "rich white people in control of everything" in the first place.

This went through the news tonight like a fart in the wind. Everyone touched on it, but no one dwelled on it. Lets see if anyone has the nuts to open a REAL debate on race in America.

Doubt it.

[Neshanic]

27. Who cares about Hillary? Who fucking cares? This was a shocking thing to see.

This was his inspiration. That's an eye opener.

[wileedog]

30. So you think

That Obama's opinions mirror Wrights?

[Neshanic]

35. Not in very specific items, but maybe in larger general ways....

this is a very good explaination of his bemusement and being puzzled over the ex-gay episode. Maybe in the larger bigger picture things like this, his need to go to that level, even when being warned before hand, those kinds of things maybe his decisions could of been influenced through what he saw his mentor do over the years.

Michele Obama, that's another story.

[wileedog]

41. You need to be more specific

You said this was shocking and an eye opener.

What about it made you shocked or made you open your eyes to Obama? What actions or words has taken that reinforce your worries? You mention a vague maybe which has nothing really to do with the topic at hand, and then label his wife a racist.

Did this news reinforce your opinion that he was a racist, or is it something completely out of the blue? Because if its the latter, unless you think he is the greatest actor ever, the strong probability is that his association with Wright means nothing.

[Neshanic]

49. If you have to ask what was the first clue that something was amiss

when you watch his sermons, you already have given yourself up as not caring about what the perception of a first time viewer would be.

The reality of this is that people see these sermons. This is the guy that inspired the title of his book.

Racist? Are the Obamas racist? That you would have to ask them in light of the person that inspired them to be a part of his congregation for twenty years.

[wileedog]

58. Dodge and weave

My best friend on this planet, a guy I have known since 3rd grade, is a die hard Republican. We agree on nothing politically, even remotely. He's only lately started to begrudgingly admit that Bush "may not have been that great"

I'd walk into traffic for him and he for me, but I don't agree with a damn thing he believes in.

Again, if you have direct evidence that Obama or his wife is a racist, post it. Otherwise you are assuming guilt by association, and considering the Clinton bedfellows I'm not sure that is a path you want to go down.

[redstate_democrat]

37. Hey. I would LOVE

to have this DEBATE. Maybe we can really have a REAL discussion on RACE IN AMERICA for a CHANGE instead of sweeping everything under the rug. Racism is ALIVE AND WELL and is being played out in REAL TIME on people every day. I would WELCOME this DEBATE.

Didn't Hillary Clinton say that the House of Representatives is being ran like a plantation IN A BLACK CHURCH? Now, if Rev. Wright had said that, I'm sure many of the same people bitching in here about Wright saying rich, white people run America (which is TRUE), would be calling him racist for that.

STEP INTO THE REAL WORLD.

[tishaLA]

40. I'd like that debate too

But I think, after today, that we are far away from engaging in that debate in any meaningful way.

[enid602]

51. good point

Good point. Wright's assertion that America caused 9/11 has been offered by many on this board. His criticism that America imprisons blacks is really not that controversial. These are themes we should be discussing, but there's no point in sidelining the primary to have this debate right now.

[durrrty libby]

25. Pretty fucking awful, ain't it.

[Neshanic]

28. Are you being sarcastic? I can't tell. Let me know.

[KAZ]

31. She's one of your's. Can't you smell?

[Neshanic]

32. That's classy.

[KAZ]

36. I give back what I've been given. Tried classy on GDP once.

Got called a sexist.

[durrrty libby]

33. Dead serious. Wright is despicable and clearly, Obama is dangerous and a Fraud

[Neshanic]

38. Thanks for the reply. It is a very sick joke that's on all of us.

[durrrty libby]

42. The Audacity of Hype

:hi: :toast:

[MadBadger]

39. Um, I think they dont demean gays at that Church. I've read that UCC is not anti-gay at all.

[Neshanic]

47. I would think they would not, but the sermons are unsettling in a way that would

make me uncomfortable, the certainty, the voracity of a certain way he percieves the world and religion. Of course all churches are different.

[stillcool]

44. Did you read the book?

Have you been to the church? Do you have any understanding about Black History in this country? Do you care?

[Neshanic]

48. No, but I have been to a church. The ones that I have been to do not

have that type of sermon. The Minister does not call out the white folk in the sanctuary while making a point.

That's just me.

[stillcool]

50. What "white folk" in the sanctuary

are you talking about? If your 'white' senses are offended by a Preacher, Pastor, Minister, Priest, Rabbi...don't go to the church.

By Michael Hill Baltimore Sun
January 16, 2008

In a statement released by his campaign last night, Obama responded to questions about Wright's comments on Sunday.

"As I've told Reverend Wright, personal attacks such as this have no place in this campaign or our politics, whether they're offered from a platform at a rally or the pulpit of a church," he said.


By JODI KANTOR New York Times
April 30, 2007
“Reverend Wright is a child of the 60s, and he often expresses himself in that language of concern with institutional racism and the struggles the African-American community has gone through,” Mr. Obama said. “He analyzes public events in the context of race. I tend to look at them through the context of social justice and inequality.” (...) Asked if he and Mr. Wright had patched up their differences, Mr. Obama said: “Those are conversations between me and my pastor.”


Remarking an anti-Obama column by Richard Cohen, M.J. rosenberg wrote (at TPM Cafe) January 15, 2008:
Richard Cohen was once a liberal. He often invokes civil rights activists Mickey Schwerner and Andy Goodman (who were murdered in Mississippi along with their African-American friend, James Chaney in 1964). .

Does Cohen not understand that these two Jewish boys died in pursuit of a dream that Barack Obama embodies? Does he think Goodman and Schwerner would want the first viable black candidate for President in our history to be smeared because of something his minister did?

ABC, Good Morning America, 3/13/08:
CHRIS CUOMO: You heard Brian's piece. Given what Reverend Wright has said over the years, much of which would be considered over the line politically, should Senator Obama separate himself from the reverend he calls his "spiritual guide"?

SHAUN CASEY: I think Senator Obama's been very clear that he disagrees with Reverend Wright on a number of the specific issues you've just shown in the story. I think it's unfair to hold any politician to the political views of their particular pastor and I think it's unfair to hold any pastor to the political views of congregants. It's part of the great American tradition that many congregations are composed of folk who have a wide variety of political views. So I don't think Senator Obama really has any more to say than what you showed in that piece.

CUOMO: But is there a responsibility as a candidate for president to associate yourself, certainly as a spiritual advisor, with ideas that are consistent with your campaign? Senator Obama said his campaign is about moving away from divisive politics, from sniping and attacks. And then, to say your spiritual advisor is a man who says America should be damned? That it is to blame for 9-11? That Farrakhan deserves an award for epitomizing greatness? Does that go together?

CASEY: I think he's repudiated that very clearly. If you had any evidence that in fact Senator Obama had embraced those views we would see that in the piece. But the fact that you didn't have any video of Senator Obama embracing those views, in fact he's repudiated those views, I think it's very clear. I mean, it's interesting to me you haven't vetted Hillary Clinton's pastor's sermons, you haven't vetted President Bush's pastor's sermons. You haven't vetted John McCain's pastor's sermons. So, you're not holding them to that standard, which I think is very interesting.

CUOMO: And you believe that what the reverend has said doesn't go beyond the pale of what he preaches in terms of religion, it doesn't deserve any more scrutiny than that? It doesn't have anything to do with politics? This is just the media picking on Senator Obama?

CASEY: No. It's fair to ask those questions. But what you have to accept Senator Obama's answers that he repudiates those specific political views on the three or four issues that you've outlined. And I think you have to take his word for that. It seems to me what you're trying to do is what some of the media tried to do to John Kennedy in 1960, that because he was a Catholic he must embrace certain political views the Catholic church held and he denied those, and he denied those for about a four-year period. And it really wasn't until the actual election itself that the American public understood that he was able to separate himself from some of the political views of his church. I think it's the same dynamic that's going on here.

CUOMO: When people hear what Reverend Wright has to say, they may be concerned that that is the spiritual adviser for Senator Obama. How do you respond to that?

CASEY:

[Neshanic]

53. Listen to the sermon. He says it, not me.

[stillcool]

56. I listened to it...

have no idea what you all find so offensive. Have you ever been to a Baptist Church, or a Black Church?

[geek tragedy]

57. Sorry that stupid white people like you are allergic to

black folks having legitimate grievances.

Goddamn Freeper Hillscum.

[BlackVelvet04]

59. I walked out of a church at 17 because

a vote was taken over whether or not to invite the Black Baptist church to a Christmas gathering. One of the deacons stood up and said he didn't want n***ers in his church. I walked out. Does that mean I have more guts than Obama or I just have stronger convictions?

I left a church that preached hatred toward homosexuals.

No way would I sit in a church and listen to rantings and ravings I didn't agree with for 20 years!

[Neshanic]

62. Yes you have more guts than Obama. You walked out. Good for you.

I did the same visiting a Methodist church of friends. A tirade against the gays began. I got up and left.

[UALRBSofL]

61. I don't really know anything about Rev Wright

But I came up with a list of statements in the book Obama wrote titled after Wrights sermon and it has quite a few racist remarks in them. I'm assuming it reflects quite a bit of what Wright has said in the past in many of his sermons.

[question everything]

64. And this is not simple plagiarism; this is the essence of his whole campaign

his whole aura that caused so many to express their adoration, that caused MSNBC and Newsweek and NBC to feel shivering in their legs (or whatever Matthews said) and to coronate him after Iowa.

All this is as phony as everything he has said, is standing for.

[Neshanic]

65. How does one explain away a book named after a sermon of the man

that was his mentor? How do you pull that one off?

[Coexist]

66. **** would all of you please listen to the actual speech? Here it is: ****

http://mp3.christianity.com/mp3/mp3repos32/MMYSEES/317_60682_JeremiahWright__TheAudacitytoHope82A.32.mp3

As Ben Smith says:

"I hadn't listened to it before, and it's not what you'd expect — there's almost nothing, other than the title, that you hear echoed in Obama's rhetoric. Though Obama borrowed the line, the sermon is actually much more about private despair and hope than about public life, much more Huckabee than Obama, down to the discussion of the "vertical dimension."

With Wright back in the spotlight, it might be worth a listen."