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September 11th, 2001--A Decade of Greiving and War Intertwined (KingShamus)

On September 11th 2001, ordinary Americans were caught in the horror of al-Qaeda's monstrous sadism.  The victims of the 9/11 attacks were a more or less random sampling of people from a broad spectrum of life in the States.  While none of them could've known that they would be murdered by pure human evil that day, many men and women rose up and became America's first heroes in the war against radical Islam.

One of them was Betty Ong.

The 45-year-old flight attendant was on American Airline Flight 11, the first of two that crashed into the World Trade Center. During the hijacking, Ong hid in the back galley, picked up a crew phone and bravely called the airline reservation desk.

"The cockpit is not answering their phone," Ong said during the hijacking. "There's somebody stabbed in business class and we can't breathe...somebody's got mace or something."

The call lasted 23 minutes. Ong spoke calmly, giving important details of the chaotic last moments.

The 9/11 Commission declared Ong a hero.

Indeed.

Here is the phone call she placed--in the midst of the hijacking, with murder surrounding her and in danger of being killed by terrorists--telling authorities what was happening on her flight.

 

And then this valiant woman was gone.

What did the 9/11 attacks cost us?  We can talk about the trillion dollars that simply evaporated from the American economy in a single morning.  The destruction of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon was meant to be a symbolic demolition of the United States' economic and military dominance.  But as important as these things are, they pale in comparison to the human price America paid on that day. 

Think about the hopes and dreams of the three thousand people who died on that day.  What did Betty Ong want for her life?  Was she saving for a house or new car?  Did she want to get married?  Were children in her plans?  Did she have career aspirations? These are questions that seem so banal, at least for the living.  Tragically, they cannot be answered when it comes to Ms. Ong--or anyone else who died because of Osama bin Laden's perverse ideology. 

Three thousand people are no longer with us, which means three thousand sets of families and friends were victimized on September 11th.  Those people who had a connection to the 9/11 victims not only had a part of their lives ripped away from them, but they had a part of their future destroyed as well; the weddings that didn't happen, the children that won't be born, the birthdays that have become a time of mourning.  When seen from that perspective, the 9/11 attacks take on an almost unthinkably barbaric and inhuman dimension.

It was Osama bin Laden and his followers who decided to make war against us in this fashion.  It was bin Laden, one of the most extreme adherents of a religion that has trouble reconciling itself to democracy, human rights, free market economics and the rest of modern civilization, that elected to use large scale terrorism on the United States.  America did not seek out this fight.  The fight was brought right into our home.  We had no choice but to bring war upon bin Laden and all those that would stand with him.  We have no choice but to continue to fight against all who follow in al-Qaeda's path. 

On this day, we should mourn.  We should mourn for those who had loved ones taken from them.  We should mourn for our country and all that it lost on that day.  But we should also celebrate the men and women that gave their lives in order to save us.  We almost never think of our neighbors and coworkers as potential heroes.  As it turns out, the 9/11 attacks showed us that America is full of people who will rise in the face of unimaginable danger to help others. 

At one of the darkest moments in this country's history, there were many like Betty Ong who put themselves in harm's way in order to do the right thing.  During the worst attack on America's soil, there were citizens that sacrificed their own lives in order to save the lives of others.  These folks were not sports icons, blowhard politicians or members of the celebrity class.  Our fallen 9/11 heroes were in fact ordinary Americans who were placed into unspeakable situations and performed extraordinary feats of selfless bravery.

On this day of sadness and pain, we should leave some room in our hearts for wonder.  Hopefully we never stop marvelling at the feats of our fallen champions from September 11th.  The valorous dead deserves our remembrance and our reverence.  We owe them far more than we can ever repay.

Update I:  Robert Stacy McCain shares his rememberences of 9/11.  He also knows who the real enemy is. 

Update II:  Manhattan Infidel posts a poignant piece about his 9/11.  The Infidel speaks a hard but necessary truth:

What happened that day makes me angry. It still makes me angry. To call Islam Medieval is an insult to the middle ages. Islam is pre-medieval. It is stone age. It is barbaric.

Read the whole thing.

Update III:  Karen Howes of the terrific Eastern Right has this to say:

May we always continue to be Americans.

Amen, Karen.  Amen.

Update IV:  Matt of the Conservative Hideout has some thoughts about American unity. 

Update V:  Chris Wysocki of WyBlog reminds us that we still need patriots.

Update VI:  Edge of the Sandbox is annoyed at Muslim imams getting invited to places they don't really belong.  Preach on, sister.

Update VII:  The Crack Emcee gives us the enduring strength of George W. Bush.  He kept us safe and we ended up hating him for it.

Update VIII:  David Wong of Cracked.com tells the story of how "Loose Change" poisoned the 9/11 tragedy.

Update IX:  Right Hand Man of the superb Sentry Journal talks about heart.

Update X:  Angel of Woman Honor Thyself honors those taken from us on 9/11 with a heart-wrenching piece.

Update XI:  CG Hill takes a look at his September 13th 2001 reaction and fisks it.

Hamas Don't Like It

Predictably, Hamas fumes at the killing rocking of Osama bin Laden's casbah.

"We regard this as a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood," Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip, told reporters.

Though he noted doctrinal differences between bin Laden's al Qaeda and Hamas, Haniyeh said: "We condemn the assassination and the killing of an Arab holy warrior. We ask God to offer him mercy with the true believers and the martyrs."

Wait a minute!  I thought that it was the goal of every Muslim to kill a bunch of infidels in life and be taken down by them in death.  Why doesn't Hamas realize that the United States military did Osama a favor, according to their own beliefs?

You'd think they'd be thanking us.

(Thanks to Jihad Watch)

Osama bin Laden Finds Out Who's in Charge

The villain of September 11, 2001 has gone to his reward—courtesy of the United States military, specifically US Navy SEALS—while he sat in a Pakistani mansion rather that in an Afghani cave.  Of course, there are reports of it everywhere.

President Obama’s announcement regarding the demise of bin Laden had its usual allotment of first-person singular references, but, for a change, it struck the right tone.  Former President Bush responded as well.

Early this morning, there was celebration outside of the White House gates, reminiscent of the celebration that occurred in the Palestinian Territories in response to 9/11.  One of my Facebook friends compared the celebrations, noting that we two peoples are not that different after all.  Well, he’s right.  All people fall short of the glory of God.

But there is this:  Osama bin Laden continuously attacked US entities outside of the physical country and twice inside of it.  His most successful attacks, in terms of body count, were the synchronized attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the attack for which United Airlines Flight 93 was meant.  He planned them and carried them out because of the god he believed in and served.

Our military had no such motive.  All we wanted to do was to neutralize a threat to our country, personalized in the man who declared war on it in the 1990s in the name of Islam.  And while I question the appropriateness (and the spontaneity) of the mass celebration of our sworn enemy’s demise, it cannot be said that Osama bin Laden was killed in the name of the God of Jews and Christians—not that this will matter to bin Laden’s like-minded co-religionists.

Speaking of them, one wonders how this victory—and it is a victory—will play out in the Muslim world.

Anyway, congratulations to Presidents Obama and Bush, and, most importantly, congratulations to the men of our United States Armed Forces.

UPDATE:  This was inevitable.

Of Japan and New Orleans: Honor, Shame and Identity

A great deal of commentary and comments has been generated which compares the horrendous situation in Japan to New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  Observers note that while New Orleans residents—and even police officers—took disaster’s opportunity to loot businesses and homes, the Japanese survivors of the 9.0 earthquake and the resultant tsunami have absolutely abstained from such behavior.  People who know far more about Japan than I have concluded that the absence of such behavior is due to Japan’s singular, nearly undiluted culture—a thousand-year long tradition in which honor is the only thing one has and the loss of which is the greatest loss imaginable.

This makes sense.  After all, most material things that are lost can be accrued again relatively quickly while one is still living.  Lost honor, however, is very tough to regain and is, sometimes, gone forever.

Some of the comments have bordered on the racialist—that the Japanese don’t loot because it’s not in their racial make-up and that others—namely blacks—do so because it is part of our racial make-up.  Leaving aside the insult, I think the difference goes deeper than that, even deeper than the concept of lost honor.  There’s something that the Japanese understand which all too many black and other Americans used to understand but now do not: that what one does in public and how one treats his/her neighbor(s) affects not only the individuals involved but also the entire community.  This concept applies to local communities and to the larger community; the nation.  Not understanding that is the downside of individualism.  (Of course, honor-shame cultures have their downsides as well; Japan has a very high rate of suicide.)

I submit that Katrina’s New Orleans was a manifestation of a people—namely black people—who have voluntarily given up their honor and their sense of shame.  They have abandoned themselves.

Black Americans—specifically, the descendants of American slavery--are the most American of Americans; I said this before and I’m certainly not the first to make this observation.  Unlike all other immigrants to America, our ancestors were forcibly cut off from all of the totems of their various West African tribes: names, languages, family structures, belief systems.  These things have buoyed all other ethnic groups—including recent African immigrants—in their sojourn to this country and all of them had the choice to hold onto the elements of their cultures that fit into the American ideal and discard those which were incompatible.  American slaves were granted no such luxury.  Our ancestors were emptied of their identities and re-created in the image of what America had for them.  And, up until roughly fifty years ago, much of that image was molded by oppression and scorn. 

However, most black Americans held on tightly to the universal totems of personal and communal honor: love of God, family, love of community, industriousness, self-reliance--all of which also flow and follow from America’s founding document.  (That America strayed away from those principles with respect to black Americans isn’t the point, that those principles even existed is. And, with those concrete principles in hand, black Americans were able to point to them and say to other Americans, “live up to your—to our-- principles.”)  

We may stem from Africa, but we are not of Africa—not even me.  Our character and (sub)culture are wholly American and, largely, our American ancestors fashioned these for themselves--appropriating most of the good things which America had to offer and which largely insulated them from the bad.  That is the inheritance which all too many of us have repudiated.

What we saw in New Orleans after Katrina was a microcosm of the character disintegration of this most American of Americans.  It wasn’t born of DNA nor of the historical effects of slavery; it was born of the wholesale abandonment of a character tried and refined by fire and of the principles which held black Americans together in prior times of adversity. 

If mother and father don’t love child enough to at least try to create the most tried and true environment for the nurturing of that child, it follows that neither mother, nor father, nor child will love and respect neighbors or community.  We declined en masse the prescriptions and proscriptions of God regarding the family and allowed government to usurp the place of the head of the family--the husband/father/leader/protector. We abandoned the identity which our forebears shaped for us and put chaos in its place.  And when disaster strikes, it’s every man and woman for self.  Multiply that times a few million.

 In short, the average Japanese person loves his (Japanese) neighbor and does not covet that which belongs to that neighbor.  It’s part of their culture—their belief system.  And they’ve held to that system without Judaism or Christianity being a significant part of their society.  They know who they are and from whence they’ve come. 

When are we going to remember who we are?

Helping Japan:

Soldier's Angels

 

The West's Reaction To Islam (KingShamus)

Daniel Pipes ponders the notion of an Islam compatible with democracy.

Just as Christianity became part of the democratic process, so can Islam. This transformation will surely be wrenching and require time. The evolution of the Catholic Church from a reactionary force in the medieval period into a democratic one today, an evolution not entirely over, has been taking place for 700 years. When an institution based in Rome took so long, why should a religion from Mecca, replete with its uniquely problematic scriptures, move faster or with less contention?

Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing.  Pipes breaks down some of the massive hurdles Islam has to leap over in order to embrace democratic ideals.

A point Pipes doesn't touch on is how the modern Western world has treated the various Islamist movements it has run into over the last 50 years.  Since Sayyid Qutb gave birth to the modern jihadist movement, elements of the West have been bombarded by various facets of Islamic violence.  Whether it has come in the form of stateless entities like al-Qaeda, belligerent theocratic governments or a combination of the two is beside the point. 

So how have the elites in America reacted to the decades-long aggression of expansionist Islam?  Accomodation, moral equivalence and feckless dhimmitude.  Among other pathetic reactions.  Then we wonder why Islam continues to pick on us. 

Non-Muslims can't do much to reform to Islam.  As Pipes notes, that kind of wrenching cultural shift takes a long time.  Democratization is not something the West will be capable of accelerating very much. 

But that doesn't mean the West has to lay down and accept terrorist Islam's deranged premises about the separation of church and state, the role of women, property rights or religious pluralism.  Nor does it have to tolerate the violent acts of murder and mayhem the Qutbist keep throwing at us.  Instead of that, the West could decide to tell Islam--through words and deeds--that certain things won't be tolerated.  Like honor killings, imposition of sharia, the crushing of religious minorities or female circumsicion.

Would that turn Islam into a religion that welcomes democratic reform?  Probably not.  But it would probably be better than the subtle message of approval some in the West insist on sending to Islam. 

Dangerous Women (Updated: Cowan is a Liberal)

A Vermont man shot his television set after watching as Bristol Palin, daughter of Former Governor and former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin (R-AK) lived to dance another day on the television program Dancing With the Stars.

[Sixty-seven year old Steve] Cowan “jumped up and swore, saying something to the effect of “the  —-ing politics.”The complaint added,  ”Steven was upset that a political figure’s daughter was dancing on this particular show when Steven did not think she was a good dancer.”

I keep saying that the unhinged hatred that Leftists have for Bristol and her mother is spiritually-induced, from the bad side-- which is why it's illogical--and here's what it's about: abortion.

The label "pro-choice" is pure BS; most of its proponents should properly be labeled 'pro-abortion.'  And for those who have successful convinced all too many women that abortion isn't really murder; for those who have fooled women of the "wrong genetic sort" into believing that they aren't doing the elites' bidding when they cut off their succeeding generations, Sarah and Bristol Palin are two of the most dangerous women in America. 

Both Palins chose to let their children live under two of the "adverse" circumstances which are usually used to justify abortion.  By doing so, the two set examples for other women and may plant the idea in other women that they need not murder their own children under similar circumstances.  This is why the Palins often cause a full-blown, foaming, freak-out in many of those who adhere to Leftist ideology or who have been brain-washed by it, even when something as inconsequential as winning favor on a reality show is the subject at hand. (Then there are the women who are still playing out their high school-engendered neuroses, but that's a separate issue.)

I bet this Cowan has marched in a pro-"choice" rally or two, probably because his wife nagged him into doing it.  

A spiritual battle? Yes.  The force of evil--Satan--wants us all destroyed and those who justify the murder of the unborn are merely his tools. This is why the pro-abortionists are so rabid about those who defend innocent life. "Noooo, don't take away my right to commit genocide again myself, you brute!!!!" 

To Leftists, Sarah and Bristol Palin made the "wrong" choice--life--and for that, the morally bankrupt must demonize them, inverting wrong and right as such people--and their Father--are wont to do.  That this genius only hurt his TV is something for which to be thankful.

(Thanks to Cubachi who's also posting over at Hot Air)

UPDATE: Thanks to Booker Rising for the link to this post and for the many others.  And it's always...erm...interesting when one of Shay's guests drops in for a visit. ;)

UPDATE: In the comments below, a un-medicated visitor freaks out as well:

Negress, what fornicating evidence do you have that Steven Cowan or anyone else who disagreed with the Dancing With the Stars, finals decision is a leftist?

Well, I did say that this murderer of TVs was either a Leftist or indoctrinated by lefist ideology (as almost all of us are).  As it turns out, my first conclusion was correct.

Larry Ziemer, a fellow town supervisor, said he has known Cowan for about 20 years.

"I have nothing but good things to say about Steve," Ziemer said. "It was totally out of character for this to occur. He just does an excellent job on the town board and in his private working life."

Ziemer said Cowan is a talented carpenter and is well-respected in the area. Ziemer said he had never heard Cowan speak ill of Sarah Palin or her family before.

“He and I agree pretty much on politics,” Ziemer said. “We would probably lean both to the liberal side.”

The unhingement was a big clue--both with Cowan and my charming guest.

Information and Reformation

After I posted Discover the Networks’ “The Muslim Brotherhood’s Strategic Goal for North America” on my Facebook page, one of my friends--a friend in real life--pointed out that Christianity has history of conquest and forced conversion as well.

I don’t mean to pick on my friend, but I felt it necessary to reiterate my response here (edited):

[In order for an individual to examine the tenets of his/her faith], one must look at the foundational work establishing that faith.

Before the Bible was made available to the everyday Christian, the Church leadership--meaning the Catholic Church--dispensed doctrine interpreted in whatever manner it saw fit.  After Johannes Gutenberg, the Bible was made available to all who could read it.  It is no accident that Christianity was radically transformed and Reformed after that.

The same is happening to Islam with respect its adherents and its doctrines.

One of the Founders of these two religions commanded his followers to love God with all one's heart, soul, strength and mind and to love one's neighbor as self; the other commanded his followers to convert non-believers at the point of the sword or make them pay the unbelievers' tax.

As each set of followers have become more and more familiar with the foundational doctrines of the two sets of religious belief, they have begun to behave more and more in accordance to those doctrines: one set has become less totalitarian almost to the point of zero and the other more aggressive and violent.

The Bible and the Koran are objective documents with historical contexts readily available in this information age.  It is up to the individual to make himself/herself familiar enough with both--if desired--in order to come to a cogent conclusion.

My friend mentions the genocides committed in the name of Jesus. Of course, the crimes of the prior millennium’s Christian missionaries are well-known and acknowledged:

Christian missionaries of Europe fell into error and sin back when they were bent on converting the natives of all lands--not by the act and desire of leading others to Christ, but by making Christianity about something other than Him, His Sacrifice, Resurrection and the purpose thereof.  The missionaries bound up Christ in themselves and their own ethnicity.

[Edited also.  I can’t help myself.]

Those crimes do not take anything away from the quality of the Gospel; they only speak to the quality of the human beings preaching it.  Again, were such missionaries following the Bible or ignoring the inconvenient parts when they trampled non-Christian cultures?

This subject reminds me of my assertion that it’s necessary to be able to analyze information rather than simply to gather it.  The will and ability to do this has become essential—not just to "win" an argument, but for personal and national survival.

Keep watch.

Burning Korans, Christians, Respect (KS)

If you haven't been following the story, Terry Jones, the pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center in Florida, has been on the fence about his plans to burn Korans on September 11th.  It's been an on-again/off-again deal for the last several days.  Jones has said that he will call off the book burning if the Ground Zero Mosque is moved to a different location, but so far there has been no real assurance that this will happen.  Jones has not been terribly definitive here, so the Koran Kebab may or may not be on like Voltron.

I'll be honest.  At first I thought Jones was just some kook with an axe to grind.  He's probably not the most media-savvy dude.  But what he has done is open up a conversation that many members of our Big Media-Big Government complex would rather us not talk about--ever. 

From President Obama to Fareed Zakaria to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, most of the swells in America want to brush aside the question of Islam in our society.  For a host of reasons, they just need this topic to go away.  What Terry Jones has done is force our 'betters' to address something they really would rather avoid.

Here's the funny thing about America in the Age of Jihadi Terrorism:  Since 9/11/01, we've gone from righteous anger and forceful military retribution against violent Islamic extremists to bowing before Muslim kings and scraping in deference to elements of the faith in order to keep them from committing violent acts against us or our allies.

How did we get to this utterly incoherent mindset?  Ace points out something interesting here:

On that point -- this very good (as usual) essay by Christopher Hitchens. There he notes we have demanded that every other religion be "domesticated," which, dogged metaphor aside, means that we have demanded that other religions fall into compliance with civil law -- even where (as with Christian Science) the illegal aspect of the religion is a truly important part of the religion.

And yet we don't similarly insist on this with Islam. Islam is apparently a special religion in that it trumps civil law.

Again, another badge of Islam's supremacy over other religions -- and all governments -- which is precisely what they're killing for.

Bingo.

Why does Islam always get the kid glove treatment?  What makes them so special that they can never-EVER-be offended?  How is it that when the immature spoiled brat that is Islam gets a skinned knee, Western governments race to kiss the Muslim boo-boo in order to quell any possible terrorist temper-tantrums?

There are no other religions in American (or Western) society that receive this type of deference.  None.  Except the one that kills, rapes and tortures in order to meet its goals.  No other faith gets this laissez-faire treatment--except the one that is determined to use our Constitution as a wedge against us and put sharia law into it's place.  Truly amazing.

When Ace says that other religions in America have been domesticated, he's exactly right.  Christianity doesn't demand much from the US government.  It certainly doesn't scream for scriptural laws to be put into the federal code.  Oh sure, there might be some churches that are down with some theocratic leanings, but these are few and far between.  The same can be said for Jews, Hindus and Buddhists.  The theocrats in all these faiths are pretty much isolated.

Moreover, we should be quite happy to have the non-Islamic creeds domesticated.  The 'live and let live' attitude within American religious life has contributed to a basically quiet civil society.  This relatively peaceful domestic order is threatened now, and it isn't because the followers of Jesus are barking for the Old Testament to be the sole source of our laws.   

Islam stands alone in the religious fabric of the United States.  Islam refuses to bend, even one iota, before the agreed-upon civil system of American life.  It will not defer at all to the domestication that all other faiths in the US have gone through. 

And...really...why should Islam have to come to heel?  They've seen our weakness.  At any moment of religious discomfort, there are useful idiot infidels ready to defend Islam from the sort of slights that other faiths go through on a daily basis.  More importantly, the useful idiot infidels are always willing to go on offense for Islam, using slurs like 'unpatriotic', 'anti-American' or 'bigot' for those who are merely concerned that Islam is slowly but surely becoming the de facto state religion of America.  If a group is against the spread of sharia, the useful idiot infidels will call that person a racist, thereby providing a layer of insulation for Islam against outside criticism. 

Muslims intent on using the faith as a political tool can see the exact genus and species of spineless pathetic wimps we have for leaders.  That means that until they are confronted and made to join the rest of the religions in America, they will continue to act like the pushy, snarling, overindulged, petulant teenage jerks that they are.  It's that simple.  

So Terry Jones and the Dove Outreach Center might have picked at a scab other folks would rather stay closed.  Jones' flock might not be the nicest most caring people that ever walked the Earth, but they have forced the rest of us--even the hand-wringing worry-wart Left--to at least get a glimpse at reality.  Pray that the rest of America chooses to stay focused on the real world.

A Reminder of the Other Black Genocide (UPDATE)

In 2008, I posted the following video via YouTube. It had been part of a series which exposed the truth about the Islamic Civilization with special emphasis on the horrors of the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade.  My intent was to counter the exhortations of Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and the like-minded who continue to excoriate America and the rest of Western Civilization for past sins against black African Slaves and Americans of African descent.

The owners of YouTube, however, have blocked the account of John Alembillah Azumah--the man interviewed in the series and the author of the book, The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa: A Quest for Inter-religious Dialogue. One can guess that some people were offended by the series--a state of affairs which often occurs when the truth is told.

This particular copy of the video, entitled "Muslim Black Slavery - Islam Slave History of Black Africa," is now posted at MetaCafe by a third party.

Here's Azumah's preamble:

The success of Mohammedan Islam in deceiving, misinforming, deforming and contorting both history and reality over a period of almost fourteen hundred years has been astounding--that is, until now.

The greatest tragedy about this particular subject is that most of the descendants of African slavery--the black people in the Americas, around the world, as well as among the African blacks--are totally ignorant of the actual facts.

Before we lose the concentration of our visitors, I would like to make the following statement and then prove it: that the worst, most inhumane and most diabolical of the black African Slave Trade was initiated, refined, perpetrated and implemented by the Mohammedan Arabs and, later, aided and abetted by the black converts to Mohammedan Islam.

I predict that, as usual, the two subcultures--those of denial of facts and of Political Correctness--will attack us without once disproving a single statement and/or conclusion that we make.

And here are some pertinent excerpts:

While the European involvement in the African Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade to the Americas lasted for just over three centuries, the Arab involvement in the African Slave Trade has lasted fourteen centuries and, in some parts of the Mohammedan world, is still continuing to this day.

(...)

It should also be noted that black slaves were castrated based on the assumption that the blacks had an ungovernable sexual appetite.

(...)

A comparison of the Islamic Slave Trade to the American Slave Trade reveals some extremely interesting contrasts.

While two out of every three slaves shipped across the Atlantic were men, the proportions were reversed in the Islamic Slave Trade: two women for every man were enslaved by the Muslims.

While the mortality rate of slaves being transported across the Atlantic was as high as ten percent, the percentage of slaves dying in transit in the Trans-Sahara[n] and East African Slave market was a staggering eighty to ninety percent.

(...)

While many children were born to slaves in the Americas--the millions of their descendants are citizens in Brazil and the United States of today--very few descendants of the slaves that ended up in the Middle East survived.

While most slaves who went to the Americas could marry and have families, most of the male slaves destined for the Middle East were castrated and most of the children born to the women were killed at birth.

Azumah pronounces the denial of the facts concerning the on-going Islamic Slave Trade as 'obscene.'

To those whose male ancestors survived American Slavery long enough to ensure that the former would be alive in the twenty-first century and, therefore, be able to refer to me as a House Negro for suspecting the motives of the putative builders of the "Ground Zero" Mosque, I feel pity.

That pity is mixed with a sense of astonishment, however, at this conclusion: that so many black people are so well indoctrinated with perpetual anger at the sins of America's past, that they would ignore the more egregious sins of Islam's present and desired future.  Hurling epithets and pretending that the opponents of the "Ground Zero" Mosque want to stifle freedom of religion is a lot easier than gathering the pertinent facts, connecting them, analyzing them and coming to a cogent conclusion, it seems.

On the other hand, perhaps such people have indeed concluded that Islam would like to expand its decimation of those of African descent--with black men being the special and specified targets for annihilation.  Perhaps the slinging of epithets, etc. is merely a smokescreen--an insurance for the future.  Such people will be able to say to their future masters, "see? I stood up for the Ummah against that infidel, Ochieng."

Maybe such people are merely trying to protect their own testicles--such as they are.

Enslave a man's mind and the rest of him--including his testicles-- will follow; no more need for physical chains.

UPDATE: John Alembillah Azumah's bonafides: he is the Director of the Centre for Islamic Studies at the London School of Theology.  I would imagine that he has competent security and, no doubt, he is in need of our prayers.

On Love,Taking a Stand, and Clear Vision (UPDATE)

After you give your life to God, when He commands you to stand, you have no choice.

--Glenn Beck

It was a joy and a privilege to watch Glenn Beck, Marcus Lutrell, Alveda King, Bishop Harry Jackson, and hundreds of thousands of others as they stood to remind the government that our rights are a free gift from God and that no man or government of men may insert its being in between that providential connection.  Like all who love liberty, I would have found it a blessing to have attended, but other responsibilities took precedence.

However, during my morning reading and prayer, it “occurred” to me—again--to ask God what His will is for my life.  I wanted to know what I was or wasn’t doing that is against His will.  Was there something I needed to do more of?  Had I failed to say ‘how high’ when God told me to jump?  Every person still breathing has an assigned mission, whether it be great or small.

After admitting publically that I had had an abortion, I received many compliments for my courage and honesty, but I felt neither courageous nor particularly honest.  It wasn’t false humility; it was simply a feeling that there was more—as if there was something else I needed to face.  And there was.

The accolades I received for that admission were watered down by a very sobering state of affairs in my life.  The one person from whom I needed love and support has, because of my confession, repeatedly ridiculed me for it--seeming to want to induce shame in me for being so public.  The irony contained therein is that, prior to my admission, I had avoided blogging about abortion due to the shame I had felt for doing away with my own child.  Admitting it publicly was an attempt to free myself from that shame and it was done in the hope that at least one young woman reading would realize that she did not have to be the fool that I had been.

Abortion was my greatest shame and, though my eternal guilt has been washed away by the acceptance of Jesus Christ as my Savior, its earthly effects have been extremely painful, spiritually and emotionally—the consciousness of sin and the regret at committing a form of suicide. 

The interesting part is this: when God opens your eyes, your spiritual vision is 20-20.  The person who wants me to feel shame for my admission once claimed to love me.  But, my being continues to be shaped by God and when He says, “Stand,” I have no choice.  And what I’ve had to face is this: anyone who would ridicule me and attempt to provoke shame from me for my obedience to the Lord cannot possibly love me.

Even more interesting is the realization that when you are doing what you know is morally correct in the sight of God—when you take a stand in the name of Jesus Christ—any chastisement you receive is an indication that you are on the right path.  Additionally, the source of that chastisement will give you a clear window into the soul of that source.  Be sure to pray for that soul, however.

In Glenn Beck’s decidedly pastoral address on the Mall in Washington, DC, the emphasis was on Restoring Honor.  The primary recipient of our honor as individual human beings is to God and is simply outlined in Mark 12:30-31; each human being is commanded to love God with an entire heart, and with full mental power and to love one’s neighbor as self.  Love is the variant of honor that should constantly pour from our being—the highest type of honor.

For the longest time, I did not understand what it meant to love God, this incorporeal being.  But how does one love a sentient earthly being?  We communicate.  We talk to that person and, most importantly, we listen to them and when we do this, we trust that the communication consists of truth—we extend good faith to our beloved.  (And we show love by rejoicing in our beloved’s happiness and comforting him in his pain.  And we never, never, never ridicule our beloved when he reveals his soul.)

With God, loving Him has an extra component, of course.  Since He’s omnipotent and omniscient, we show our love to Him by doing what He commands and trusting that the commandments of a loving God are meant for good.  We extend to God the ultimate in Good Faith.

After talking to Him (praying in the name of Jesus Christ) and listening to Him (reading the Word), we do what He puts in our hearts, in spite of any earthly consequences.  We take a stand.

So my eyes are open and my vision is clear.  I will continue to stand for the unborn and the murdered.

And I will remember that true love is (Holy) spiritual.

UPDATE: Though the story seems sad, I feel set free; very happy and peaceful. Peace is what I prayed for.  It's a great birthday gift.

                                                                                                                                                                     

Christian Terrorism? Moral Equivalence? Get A Grip (King Shamus)

I want to look at something the preeminent jerkweed of our time, Mike Bloomberg, belched out the other day in reference to the Ground Zero Mosque:

"Every time they pass the basket in your church and you throw a buck in, [do you want someone to] run over and say, 'OK, now where do you come from, who are your parents, where'd you get this money?' . . . A handful of people ought to be ashamed of themselves."  

Not only is this a classless little smear on the part of Nurse Bloomie, it's got a whiff of our old friend, Moral Equivalence.  Because nothing gives a liberal a rock hard boner more than negatively comparing Christianity to Islam.

But hey, why not indulge Mayor Mike's magnificent retardation for a moment?

What would it take to make Christianity the moral equivalent to Islam?

There would have to be groups of Christians that call for violent acts in the name of Jesus.  It could not just be the rare lone gunman-type with a Bible stuffed into his drawers and a raging desire to kill people for Christ wilding out.  You'd need to have densely populated structures incorporated for the purpose of fomenting Jesus-inspired terror.  These organizations would be populated by leaders that call for Christians to use terror to spread Christianity.  The power of Christ would compel the members of these religious groups to do violence to other humans.

Ideally, the Christian terrorists in our scenario should be internationalist in scope.  These Super Splodey Jesus Freaks should have sleeper cells and quasi-independent franchises in places like Jakarta, Mumbai, Fallujah, Jerusalem, Aden, London, Paris, Philadelphia and Toronto.  All of them should be vocal about the supremacy of the Christian faith and how Jesus commands them to acts of violence.  Along with the multinational flavor of these groups, there should be members of Christian governments that covertly sponsor our hypothetical Christian terrorists.

There would also have to be a long history of Christian terrorism in the 20th and 21st centuries.  We're talking about elements of the Kooky Christian Thrill Kill Cult carrying out acts of terror over the course of many decades.   As before, these atrocities should be happening all over the world.

Finally, there would have to poll after poll showing rank and file Christian opinion was ambiguous-if not supportive-over the use of terrorism to spread the word of Christ.  Leaders of the Genocidal Jesus Peeps should be supported by disturbing pluralities of Christians. 

Do any of these hypotheticals exist in the real world?  Not even close.  Not even within a light-year.  But still the lefty thumbsuckers just have to make their moral equivalence arguments/slime jobs.

The truth of the matter is that our Muslim friends have a serious existential problem.  Their religion has been infected by vicious life-hating cancers.  The faith desperately needs to kill these tumors before it's too late.  Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists cannot do this for them.  We can support reformers and decry the back-asswards types within Islam, but in the end it's up to them to figure out how to exist peacefully within a multi-religious world.

There are Muslims of good faith who want to see real positive change.

In fact here's one now, talking about the Ground Zero Mosque: 

“This is not a humble Islamic statement. A mosque such as this is actually a political structure that casts a shadow over a cemetery, over hallowed ground. 9/11 was the beginning of a kinetic war, it is not an opportunity for cultural exchange. It was the beginning of a conflict with those who want to destroy our way of life,” Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, told The Daily Caller.

  “I am in no way looking to infringe on First Amendment issues. I approach this as a Muslim that is dedicated to reform,” he said.

Jasser sees the danger inherent in the Ground Zero Mosque.  He also realizes the need for a peace-loving tolerant renaissance within Islam.  Because he's accepted some hard truths about his faith, he doesn't engage in bullshit moral equivalence.  

We have more than enough head-in-the-sand unrealists like Mike Bloomberg.

The Muslim religion...and the rest of us...desperately need more clear-eyed people like Zuhdi Jasser.

Beacon (Update: What Bill Whittle Said)

Pretty much all who follow the news regularly—and many who don’t—know about the controversy surrounding the proposed construction of a Mosque near the site of what used to be the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.

The backers of this project and many others –including the mayor of New York--have cast the intent as a “freedom of religion” issue.

The opponents of the project—which are many—cast it mostly in emotional terms; I’m with them, but those terms, by their very nature, allow themselves to be argued down.

However, there is one reason to be against it—one which sets itself above all the others, one which is existential and practical rather than emotional. 

A “Victory Mosque” set in the shadow of Ground Zero will be just that: a symbol of victory for the Islamists at the site of one of the greatest body counts in the name of Allah.  And the existence of such symbols will invite more attempts at military conquest from the Soldiers of Allah.

Go on about the First Amendment and about misinterpretations of the phrase ‘hallowed ground.’  Keep pretending that blocking the construction of this particular mosque is somehow preventing New York Muslims from freely exercising their religion—as if permission to build a church or a synagogue anywhere in NYC would automatically be granted.  But know this: our enemies will take our notions of “fairness” and explode it in our faces; not just in Afghanistan or Iraq, but right here on the Hallowed Ground which stretches from sea to shining sea.

By the way, if we infidels aren’t quickly jumping to convert to Islam, to die or to become dhimmis, are we violating the First Amendment?  Just wondering.  Because that would be the full flowering of the free exercise of Islam.

Lots of First Amendment violations in that, don’t you think?

UPDATE: Confirmation.

The Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC) is urging the Cordoba House Initiative to abandon its proposed Ground-Zero Mosque in New York in the face of outrage expressed by large segments of the American population calling the proposal an act of 'fitna' or mischief.

In a letter to Imam Faisal Rauf that will be delivered on Tuesday, August 10 by MCC’s board member Raheel Raza, the MCC says, “Many Muslims suspect that the idea behind the Ground Zero mosque is meant to be a deliberate provocation, to thumb our noses at the 'infidel.' We believe the proposal has been made in bad faith and, in Islamic parlance, is creating  'fitna,' meaning 'mischief-making,' an act clearly forbidden in the Qur’an.”

(Thanks to The Anchoress)

UPDATE:

(Thanks to Instapundit)

Scarred Souls: More About Abortion

The Confession I posted on June 9, 2010 couldn't just stand as is was, mainly since it was an answer to a specific question, "Should Black Women Stop Getting Abortions."

Of course all women should stop having abortions.  But since the question singled out black women, and since that conversation is between two black American women, myself and Jessica Ann Mitchell, and since we find the state of the black American family in near death, I felt it necessary to tailor my further response to black Americans.

The first part of my response has already been publicized here, but I posted the following originally in a Facebook note. For that reason, I will only post here what I deem to be the second part of the answer.  There might be a little preaching.  That's an essential part of me.  He's a part of me.

British Clown Fears Fatwah (King Shamus)

I don't know who Rory Bremner is. I do know that he seems spooked.

Bremner was discussing the future of satire with David Frost on Frost on Satire, a BBC documentary. “The greatest danger now is that one of the toughest issues of our time is religion,” says Bremner, as quoted in the Daily Telegraph. He says that, when he’s writing a sketch about Islam, “I’m writing a line and I think, ‘If this goes down badly, I’m writing my own death warrant there.’ Because there are people who will say, ‘Not only do I not think that’s funny but I’m going to kill you’ – and that’s chilling.”

Bremner cites the case of a Danish cartoonist, who isn’t named in the Telegrapharticle, but is likely to be Kurt Westergaard, who drew a cartoon of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban. His life changed after that and other cartoons appeared in Jyllands-Posten, and Muslims reacted with violence.

“If you’re a Danish cartoonist and you work in a Western tradition, people don’t take that too seriously,” Bremner tells Frost in the interview, to be aired Thursday.

“Suddenly you’re confronted by a group of people who are fundamentalist and extreme and they say, ‘We’re going to kill you because of what you have said or drawn.’ Where does satire go from there, because we like to be brave but not foolish.”

This may seem like a very small nit to pick with Islam. After all, we're talking about one yappy performer expressing nervousness over making fun of a religion. Aren't there larger issues-the Israel/Gaza situation, the threat of Iranian nukes, the ongoing Afghan War-that we could be dealing with? All these issues touch on the question of Islam and it's interactions with the West to one degree or another and they seem more pressing than some British jokester's jitters.

I agree that the foreign conundrums involving Islam are dire. In some cases, these are civilizational questions we face. What kind of world will it be when Iran gets the bomb? What lengths must Israel go to in order to ensure it's existence? What if America loses the war against the Taliban? Clearly, these are not mundane policy decisions here, but truly deep concerns.

But none of these issues-as deadly serious as they are-lap so directly upon our shores as the way Islam is practiced within Western nations. Rory Bremner may be one guy, but his reaction to the potential actions of Muslims is to avoid making fun of them. Why does he do this? Because he fears the very real possibility that he will be physically attacked by a Muslim who has taken offense to Bremner's act.

Wrap your mind around that sad state of affiars for a while.

For every cultural relativist out there who wallows in multi-culti feel goodisms, consider the absurdity of extremist Presbyterians kicking the crap out of a comedian who pokes fun at Christians. No matter how much one strains to find a case that fits that general description, one simply can't be found. It doesn't exist, except in the minds of lefty handwringers that kvetch about the oft-feared yet somehow never-occurring anti Islamic backlash coming from psychotic Christian racist teabaggers.  Meanwhile, as the Muslim-coddlers worry over non-existent Jesus Freak violence, out in the real world members of the Islamic faith continue to use gangster style threats to cow people into submission and fear. 

Remember when liberals complained that Bush's domestic surveillance programs were creating a chilling effect on free speech? It was bullshit of course, but now we have real actual-factual proof that freedom of expression is being severely curtailed in England.  Not by the government of course, but by followers of Islam.  Where are the leftists beating their chests and writing 10,000 word treatises on the chilling effect on free speech Muslims are creating in Great Britain?

Truth be told, the stifling of criticism of Islam is an existential threat to the West.  It might not be as dramatic as a shooting war or foreign policy brinkmanship.  However, it affects the general population-both liberals and conservatives-of the Western nations.  More importantly, it's probably going to take all facets of the political spectrum pulling together to turn the tide of this new-fangled form of dhimmitude.

Rory Bremner is yet another canary in the coal mine, warning us of the decay that is happening to our culture.  Will we mobilize ourselves in time to win?  

UPDATE (baldilocks): King Shamus has permission to call me PC.

Thoughts on the Anniversary of D-Day

¹Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee:

 ²And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:

 ³And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

Genesis 12:1-3 (KJV)

Isn’t it interesting that Europe finds itself in financial straits and that some on the continent are lamenting the gradual incursion of Islam in very many of its countries?

From reading Carroll Quigley’s Tragedy and Hope (I read it years before Glenn Beck recommended it), I discovered what a death toll World War One had taken on the population of its European participants.  Present-day protesters against the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would have committed serial seppuku over the type of casualties taken in any single battle of the Great War—the great numbers of dead being caused by contemporaneous weapons combined with American Civil War-era tactics.  Then there were the civilian casualties.  Overwhelming to ponder at the time, no doubt, but small potatoes compared to what was to come a few years after the “War to End All Wars.”

Europeans murdered each other thoroughly in that war, in World War Two, in between the wars and afterward. They did so via gas chambers, ovens, starvation and government prison camps and most of them viciously turned on the Jews using the means stated.  Because of that--and abortion--there have not been enough indigenous Europeans left to reproduce and, thereby, fund the welfare states in which they so desperately believe and which are become their undoing.  So they had to invite in immigrants from Africa and Asia--mostly Muslim.

And therein lies the interesting part.  Murdered Jews—the monetary experts and culture of Europe--who would have reproduced to populate a far stronger and more admirable Europe, IMO--have been replaced by those who hate both Jews and non-Muslim white Europeans and who reproduce at a far greater rate than do their hosts.  And the kicker is that the white post-Christian Europeans invited in their would-be conquerors.

The children and grandchildren of those who coveted Jewish possessions will soon be in a struggle with those who simultaneously claim that there was no Holocaust and who long to perpetrate the next one.  No, hatred doesn't have to make sense.

That struggle will be over possession of a land which is covered with the ashes of the Jews.

You don't think God doesn't keep his promises?  Think again.

Weapon of War

Some time ago, I had a dream. 

Before I explain what type of dream it was, I should mention that my dreams are very vivid—almost like being awake; like short visits to worlds yet unexplored.  Sometimes, I can remember them immediately upon waking, but they will usually be forgotten if I fail to write them down.  (As an aside, I think that the ability to remember one’s dreams goes hand-in-hand with having a well-developed imagination—something essential to a novelist.)

My subconscious will even, on occasion, incorporate sounds from the waking world and build a dream around it if the sound isn't loud and piercing enough to disrupt my sleep.  Such was the case when Dan Gillerman's melodious, accented baritone memorably penetrated my dreams as it wafted from my television.  In that dream, the voice seemed to be emanating from the throat of the man whom I loved and who seemed to pontificate about a war with Gaza.

However, for the dream mentioned at the beginning of this essay, there was never any need to write the details, and, whenever I reconsider it, it always looms large and has capital letters: The Dream.

At first, The Dream was a nightmare—the only nightmare ever in my nearly fifty years.  I couldn’t see anything at first; I could only feel—and the feeling in question was pure terror.  I’ve never come close to being that afraid when awake and I hope that I never do. 

There was something--a living thing—in the room with me.  What was it?  Evil itself is the only way to describe this entity.

I lay on a floor, curled up in a ball like a potato bug and unable to move.  My eyes—my dream-eyes—were slammed shut for fear of seeing the thing.  It seemed to menace my back, crackling the skin of it.  In the manner which dreams unfold, I could “see” pieces of skin fall from my back; then my flesh would reintegrate and the process would start again.

I wanted to uncurl and turn to face the being, but fear stopped me.  I could feel my chest heaving; it seemed as though the mere sight of the Thing of Evil would stop my heart forever.

Then I cried out to God and He answered, reminding me that He had not given me the spirit of fear; that the particular emotion had a different source.  This reassurance seemed to slow my breath and un-paralyze my body.  I stood up and opened my eyes but I still wasn’t quite able to face the Creature. “Stretch out your arms,” He said.  I did so and opened my right hand.  In it was a sword or a handgun[i] (they seemed interchangeable) and, as is so in myth and in fantasy, my weapon had a given name.

Its name was “the Word of God.”

So, with weapon in hand, I “screwed my courage to the sticking-place” and turned to face my enemy, steeling myself to view its ugly face.

It was gone.

*****

Weeks later, I was sitting in church and very much awake. 

My pastor--learned in the languages of the Bible, Hebrew, Aramaic and Koine Greek—was expounding on the two Greek terms for "word of God."  One is a term with which most English-speakers are familiar—logos.  The other, however, is one I had heard before but had no idea what it meant until my pastor began to expound upon it: rhema [ii]. The difference?  People far more theologically learned than I are still discussing it but the difference seems to be in scope.  A rhema is more of a short aphorism, rather than a long sermon or the Word in its entirety, and it is intended to counter the Adversary quickly when he’s trying to induce doubt and/or fear.  For example, Jesus Christ used a quick succession of rhema on Satan when the latter tried to induce doubt about God the Father.

In short, when you hear preachers talk about “a word from God,” most of the time they are talking about a rhema. 

“What does this have to do with your dream,” I hear you ask.  My mouth literally dropped open when my pastor mentioned the other definition of rhema….

The Sword of the Spirit[iii].

Whenever I feel anxious about anything, I think of this dream.

(Cross-posted at The Professional Black Writer)

---

[i] I own three handguns in the waking world.  When people ask what they are for, I grin at the strange looks prompted by the answer: “for goblins.”

[ii] James Strong, The Strongest Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2001),1641

[iii] Strong,1626

*****
Nashville Flood on Twitter

Operation High Ground

Standing

Today, the Panty Bomber--Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab--will stand before a US District court in Detroit and be arraigned like a common criminal instead of standing before a military tribunal and being adjudicated like the enemy combatant that he is.  Given the planned criminal trial for 9/11 planner Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, this isn't a surprise, however.

Leaving that aside, I must commend a group of protesters who plan on protesting in front of that court building: a group of Muslims who are indeed asserting that Abdulmutallab did not act in their name—something I suggested.

"We're telling the terrorists we're Americans. If you want to kill Americans come kill us," [Majed Moughni] said.

"We're going to send you back to the caves of Afghanistan because you don't belong in a civilized society.

May God protect those people.

Choose Whom to Serve (UPDATED)

Ralph Peters is past livid.  I know for a fact that he’s not alone.

On Christmas Day, an Islamist fanatic tried to blow up an airplane whose passengers were mostly Christians. And we helped.

Our government gets no thanks for preventing a tragedy. Only the bomber's ineptitude preserved the lives of nearly 300 innocents.

(…)

Contrast our political correctness with [failed Panty Bomber Umar] Abdulmutallab's choice of Christmas for his intended massacre. Our troops stand down on Muslim holidays. A captive terrorist merely has to claim that a soldier dog-eared a Koran, and it's courts-martial all around.

We proclaim that the terrorists "don't represent Islam." OK, whom do they represent? The Franciscans? We don't get to decide what's Islam and what isn't. Muslims do. And far too many of them approve of violent jihad.

It gets worse. Instead of focusing on the religious zeal and inspiration of our enemies and how such motivations change the game, our "terrorism experts" agonize over whether such beasts as Abdulmutallab or Maj. Hasan, the Fort Hood assassin for Allah, are really members of al Qaeda or not.

As a Sunday Post editorial pointed out, al Qaeda's far more than a formal organization; it's an idea, a cause. If a terrorist says he's al Qaeda, he is, even if he doesn't have a union card from Jihadi Local 632.

We're dealing with a global Muslim movement, not a Masons' lodge.

I had to restrain myself from quoting Peters’ entire polemic.

If the jihadis like Abdulmutallab and Hasan and Hakim Mujahid Muhammad do not represent the essence of Islam, if the behavior of these charmers is not exemplary of how a devout Muslim should act, then where are the American Muslims who would repudiate the actions of their co-religionists?  Are they too afraid of how the murderers among them will react?  Or are they merely assenting silently and biding their time?

One thing is for sure: our present government leadership most certainly is too afraid to act/react forcefully and effectively to discourage jihadist attacks. Some say that is due to George W. Bush’s assertion that Islam is a “Religion of Peace.” Poppycock.  The 43^rd President could have asserted that Islam was the religion of ham sandwiches and it would not have mattered.  What mattered is what he did in the aftermath of the Islamic jihadi attacks of September 11, 2001: he (re)acted aggressively and forcefully to a homeland attack from an enemy.  Say what you want about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Big Boys in the Islamic terror circles—like Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri--were not expecting such a reaction.   

Bullies expect cowering from their targets and the terror kings had American citizens and their leaders down for wimps.  And actually, they were partially correct about both groups, though the ratio of balls to no-balls differs between the two groups.  They just “happened” to perpetrate 9/11 at a time when the leadership was strong and not willing back away from a gauntlet thrown down. 

We went to war--perhaps not against Islam, but against Islamists, who, naturally, subscribe to the tenets of Islam.  And in the minds of very many Muslims, no fine lines of distinction existed as to with whom/what American was at war.  To them we were and are at war with their religion.  Even so, you may recall that several leaders of Islamic countries responded to that show of strength by communicating a hearty “no thanks” to being on the receiving end of American wrath. 

That response was instructive: who cares if one's adversaries get angry?  As long as they realize that the drawbacks of attacking the Great Satan outweigh the benefits. 

But now, with the jihadi drawback-benefit analysis having being revised since January 20, 2009 and with the level of cowardice existing in the American leadership moving toward the higher end and with the very top of that leadership concentrating on apologizing for that strength, it appears that the portion of American citizenry in possession of courage and, most especially, in possession of faith, must fill up the breach of action and reaction.  Those who serve in our military are already doing their part.  So what are the rest of us going to do? 

Specifically, what are you Americans who happen to be Muslim going to do?  My religion teaches us not to be afraid of those who can kill the body.  As a matter of fact, the Bible says that the spirit of fear is not from God at all.  I think all most of us would like to see is a Not-in-Our-Name sort of movement from you, Americans who happen to be Muslim.  Are you too afraid of your jihadi brethren? What does your religion say about fear?

We’re waiting.

Sort of Off-Topic: After Fort Hood, my American dad said that if he were in any position of responsibility at the federal level, he’d profile anyone with a "funny" name. Keep in mind this is coming from a guy whose step-daughter’s surname is Kenyan Luo in origin and whose biological daughters have Arabic given names. He said that if he didn’t know us, he’d profile the hell out of us. LOL

We laugh but it’s logical…and serious. 

And I'll say this because I can: too bad the Funny Name Profiling didn't start two years ago.

UPDATE:  And right on cue, Anwar al Awlaki, the American-born Muslim cleric based in Yemen, who is thought to have mentored the incipient jihadism of Major Nidal Malik Hasan, claims to have blessed the Panty Bomber plot.  Personally, I think that Awlaki is merely floor-showing for his boys—these terrorists are such peacocks—but one would think that he would rather keep his mouth shut since this particular plot fizzled.

Then again, Awlawi is carving out a spot in the minds of those prone to fear, so his tactic is understandable.

(Thanks to Allahpundit)

Clearing Up a Misconception

Christianity is not about changing yourself to make God happy. It’s about allowing God to change you. It’s 90% him and 10% you.

--Steve Graham, A New Creation...

He who has an eye, let him read.

What It's All About

Tonight, when President Obama is giving his speech on Afghanistan, the classic A Charlie Brown Christmas will be preempted. In the episode, Linus gives one of the greatest televised speeches ever. Listen, watch and remember because many--including one formerly friendly blogger--consider this hate speech. And soon, such speech will be banned if we are not vigilant.

Living Water

Sometimes I feel a little bad about pointing out flaws in the USA all the time, even though that's the nature of a blog composed of American political topics.  So it is a personal pledge--and a prayer--that I must remember to have gratitude for the many blessings which God has given to me.  And those blessings are indeed from God and are the benefit of His Grace.  Otherwise this day is merely the designated turkey-consumption day and nothing more.

Check this out: have we in First World ever considered how blessed we are to have one "simple" thing?

Sometimes when I am washing dishes or taking a hot shower, I reflect on something that even the poor have in this country: hot and cold running water.  I don't know if having one parent who is from the Third World makes me think about this more or not.  I do know that it's one of the reasons I'm happy to be an American.

(One can probably guess that guys and some girls who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan are more acutely aware of the total awesomeness of a hot shower as well.  Speaking of them: Let’s Say Thanks.)

Lack of fresh flowing hot and cold water has spread death in many cultures, so this issue is not trivial.  So today, when I'm washing the Thanksgiving Day dishes by hand, I will be grateful.  I pray that you who are reading find something for which to thank God as well.

Water Wells for Africa

A Different Kind of Ice Cream

There use to be a mosque near my home, but the adherents have since move their digs to Crenshaw Boulevard. 

The congregants were all black and but I’m not sure if they were Black Muslims (Explanation: back in the day, the distinction “Black Muslim” indicated that the persons under discussion belonged to the Nation of Islam and therefore subscribed to the ideology set forth by Elijah Muhammad—an ideology considered an anathema to other Muslims.  These days, the term merely means a Muslim who is black, that is, they may be NOI adherents or they may not be. I make the distinction to indicate that I did not see anything other than black people coming and going from that mosque, but that's not a surprising thing in South Central Los Angeles and, therefore, no indication of whether the mosque belonged to NOI or not.)

A number of years ago, four perhaps, something occurred that, up until a few weeks ago, I've thought about every now and then.  However, since the terror attack on Fort Hood and the revelations regarding the prior behavior of its perpetrator, I have been thinking of that four-year-old something nearly every day.

At midday, I was in the back of the house in my office—blogging, of course.  At some point, a noise entered my consciousness.  It was a voice, a tinned one and, as I listened I became aware of three things: that the voice was male, that it was coming out of a bullhorn and that it was repeating the same phrase over and over again.  However, I could not make out the words at first.

As the volume decreased, I originally thought that the origin of the voice had moved on.  But it had only gone around the block a few times.  Finally, the origin of the voice came back around on my street and, apparently, the driver decided to park for a few minutes almost directly in front of my house. The unintelligible phrase was being repeated once more.  And once again.

Finally I got up from in front of my computer, went to the front of the house, peered through the blinds of the large picture window in the living room and…froze.

The voice was coming from speakers attached to the type of truck that is sometimes used by ice cream vendors. The truck was spotlessly clean and gleaming white except for the design on the side: the huge blood-red star-and-crescent symbol of Islam.

The occupant had been exhorting the residents of this neighborhood using a two-sentence phrase, most of which I have blocked out of my memory.  But I do remember one part and, really, it’s the only relevant part.  The occupant was advising us to…

“Embrace Islam.” 

By the time I gained the presence of mind to grab a camera, the gleaming white truck had moved on.  I haven't seen it since.

From the time that it came to light the Major Nidal Malik Hasan basically warned the FBI and the Army of what he was--if not of what he was about to do—I’ve been thinking of that “ice cream” truck and what that particular vendor was selling.  Aren't Jihadis required to warn their infidel foes and invite them to convert before any attack?

“Embrace Islam,” he said.  Left unspoken was the alternative.

UPDATE: Robert Spencer says that it's called a dawah truck.

UPDATE:  Welcome, AboveTopSecret.com denizens.  Two things: 1) Those who know me know that I don't believe in subtlety except as a writing style and 2) I'm not a guy.

Check Your Premises

If there is such a thing as a 'moderate Muslim'--a term used often by the everyday press--and a 'moderate Muslim' is a good thing to be, is it good or bad to be and extreme Muslim or even a regular, normal everyday Muslim?  And after it is determined whether it is good or bad to be an extreme Muslim or a normal Muslim, it would be nice to know why either is good or bad.

Put this another way: if being a Muslim is good then why be a moderate one?

Conundrum

When you live in a country which holds freedom of religion as one of its founding principles, what do you do about adherents to a religion whose founder exhorted the faithful to impose that religion on others at the point of a sword?

Or at the muzzle of a gun?

Or at the flashpoint of a weapon of mass destruction?

Answer: when their freedom of religion threatens your country's survival, you do what you have to do to make sure the country survives. 

We're not there--yet.  But some people want us there.  And I believe that one of them sits in the Oval Office.

UPDATE:  Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood Shooter, tried to contact al Qaeda months ago and the FBI knew about it.  Hasan also attended the same mosque and at the same time as two of the 9/11 hijackers.

I suppose that it is mere coincidence that this mosque, Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, VA, nurtured jihad so fervent in at least three of its congregants, that they felt compelled to produce such high body counts for Allah.

(Thanks to Stacy McCain and Hot Air)

Lucking Out

Two people have recommended the book The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene to me. So I did what seemed logical when two are in agreement about a book: I went ahead and ordered it from Amazon yesterday and it shipped a few hours after I did so. (I had read the book partially but I had checked the book out of the library.  And because I’m usually reading a minimum of two books simultaneously, I didn’t get to read it before I had to take the book back.)

One of the proponents of the book--Tamon Pearson, a Facebook friend--called the following law ‘the most memorable’ for him: “Avoid the unhappy and the unlucky.” Am I intrigued by this caution? You bet.  But, at the same time, the admonition seems almost redundant.

As a Christian, I try to stay away from certain words; words that indicate a life ruled by chance; words which imply that that any force has power over the power of God—words like ‘lucky,’ ‘fortunate’ ‘unfortunate,’ even words like ‘coincidence.’  I stay away from those words because they indicate disbelief, doubt and/or non-belief in the identity and character of the God of the Bible.

But thinking about the word ‘unlucky’ and joining it to the concept of unhappiness, those who are “unlucky” seem to be those who believe that nothing good will happen to them.  As a result, usually, nothing does and even when they "luck up" and something good does happen to them, they find some flaw in that good thing and complain about it.

There are those who believe that things will never turn out all right.   In other words, there are those who have little to no faith in God and, therefore, such people don’t believe that God loves them, wants them to be happy *and* has the power to make that happen.  

Now I’m not saying that God is going to let even those who consistently have faith in Him have anything and everything that they want, because God knows that not everything that an individual wants is necessarily going to be good for that individual.  But those who are “unlucky” can’t even take pleasure in getting lucky (if you’ll pardon the expression).  No.  The "unlucky" will remain under that dark cloud, refuse to be moved and, as a result, the unholy union of unluckiness and unhappiness is joined together.  

Further, the "unlucky" often have removed themselves from the Providence of God, either by omission or commission.  Rather than being “unlucky” what such people are subject to are the forces of Chaos.  They are outside of the Order that God provides which means, as the saying goes, feces will happen to that person.  So this leads us back to the law which Tamon found so remarkable: if you know an Unhappy-Unlucky person, you want to stay far away from them because you don’t want feces to happen to you merely because of proximity.

Conversely, those of us who believe in God’s Providence, who believe in the Bible’s promises, who believe in the power of God, are always “lucky,” are always “fortunate” and are, therefore, always “happy” even in sorrow, because the one thing that we know and are always happy about is that our souls are saved—that everything will come out alright in the end for us.  We have our Blessed Assurance in Jesus Christ.  

And ultimately, if we have faith, things are going to turn out alright not just in the end but while we are trying to get to the end.

My pastor, learned in the languages of the Bible—ancient Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic--taught us that the word for ‘power’in Greek when discussing God’s power is ‘dynamis,’ obviously the origin of the words ‘dynamite’ and ‘dynamic’—the agent and description of radical change. It is the type of change that certain earthly politicians can’t begin to fathom. God can change things; like your “luck”—but only if you ask and believe that it will happen.

(‘Power’ Reference: Strong’s Strongest Concordance 1411)

"COINCIDENTALLY": Went to the barber shop today. When one of the other barbers--not mine--noticed that I was reading Prayers for the Assassin, he remarked: "You should read this book 48 Laws of Power...." Boom!

Pope and POTUS

President Obama paid his respects to the Russian versions of Bergen and McCarthy and caused a small stir at the G8 by appearing to ogle the backside of a young Brazilian girl (he didn’t but French President Nicholas Sarkozy definitely did; ah, the French). Now the POTUS is on his way to Ghana after having taken a trip to the Vatican for an audience with Pope Benedict XVI. The two allegedly discussed abortion and embryonic stem cell research—obviously from opposing viewpoints. As an opening salvo, the pope gave the president a book on bioethics.  

One wonders whether the pontiff also slipped a copy of Instruction on Certain Aspects of the Theology of Liberation-–authored by one Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger--to Black Liberation Theology’s most famous adherent. 

An excerpt therefrom: 

...it would be illusory and dangerous to ignore the intimate bond which radically unites them (liberation theologies), and to accept elements of the marxist analysis without recognizing its connections with the (Marxist) ideology, or to enter into the practice of the class-struggle and of its marxist interpretation while failing to see the kind of totalitarian society to which this process slowly leads. 

 (Emphasis mine.)

I wouldn’t doubt that this pope just happened to slip his 1984 repudiation of Liberation Theologies in with the gifts.

Speaking of Defenders of the Faith, my dad—the American one--is on a mission. One might call it a Crusade. Dad—a Methodist pastor—has made it his business to confront other black Christian pastors on their generalized failure to instruct their flocks regarding the evil of abortion and its role in the physical, moral and spiritual destruction of Americans who happen to be black.  Please pray for him.

Idolatry (UPDATED)

Sometimes when you're surfing, you find things that just need posting--a "coincidence," if you like.

Beware of manufacturing a god of your own: a god who is all mercy but not just, a god who is all love but not holy, a god who has a heaven for everybody but a hell for none, a god who can allow good and bad to be side by side in time, but will make no distinction between good and broad in eternity. Such a god is an idol of your own, as truly an idol as any snake or crocodile in an Egyptian temple. The hands of your own fancy and sentimentality have made him. He is not the God of the Bible, and beside the God of the Bible, there is no God at all.

Beware of making selections from your Bible to suit your taste. Dare not to say, ‘I believe this verse, for I like it. I refuse that, for I cannot reconcile it with my views’. Nay! But O man, who art thou that repliest against God? By what right do you talk in this way? Surely it were better to say over EVERY chapter in the word, “Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth”. Ah! If men would do this, they would never deny the unquenchable fire.

J.C. Ryle (1816-1900), Fire, Fire!

(Thanks to Conservative Black Woman)

UPDATE: The "Jesus" described by Liberation Theologies is most certainly an idol, as is the little-g god worshiped by Liberation theologians such as James Cone, prophet of Black Liberation Theology.  Of course we remember Cone's god: the one who will get revenge on the "white enemy."  And of course we remember who BLT's most famous adherent is.

The Tactic of Smear

Obama may have left Black Liberation Theology’s Trinity United Church of “Christ,” but it certainly hasn’t left him.

Obama continued: "And so the only way they [sic] figure they’re going to win this election is if they make you scared of me. So what they’re saying is, ‘Well, we know we’re not very good but you can’t risk electing Obama. You know, he’s new, he’s... doesn’t look like the other presidents on the currency, you know, he’s got a, he’s got a funny name.'

The candidate belonged to a church that subscribed to an ideology of racial vengeance and victory. He may have left the church, but he hasn’t left the racial combat notions behind, not by a long shot. So he must keep Sowing the racial Discord. Fortunately, for him, that isn’t difficult, since the idea that Republicans were the party of racists was planted long before Obama came on the scene.

So no matter how much McCain demonstrates that he is the very opposite of racist, he is at a disadvantage. It’s tough to fight forty years of indoctrination.

Obama’s purpose in keeping up this tactic of racist smearing is twofold: 1) to keep the troops stoked, and 2) to help the nation to forget that he allied himself with a set of racists for twenty years, the truth be damned.

(Thanks to Hot Air)

UPDATE: Ace:

These guys are so horny for someone to call Obama a shiftless darkie they're thisclose to saying it themselves.

I'm trying to be offended. Maybe after I stop laughing.

Did Obama Give Permission to Publish Prayer?

Well how about this? The Israeli newspaper which published Obama's Wailing Wall prayer claims to have done it on his directon.

Ma'ariv issued a response Sunday, saying that "Obama's note was published in Ma'ariv and other international publications following Obama's authorization to make the content of the note public. Obama submitted a copy of the note to media outlets when he left his hotel in Jerusalem.

Ma'ariv added further:

Moreover, since Obama is not Jewish, there is no violation of privacy as there would be for a Jewish person who places a note in the Western Wall.

Is this true? That doesn't sound right.

SIDE NOTE: I tried to get a quote directly from Ma'ariv, but it's published in Hebrew only as far as I can tell.

PREVIOUSLY:

Israeli Newspaper Publishes Obama Wailing Wall Prayer

UPDATE: Allahpundit calls shenanigans with solid reasoning.

(a) I can’t find any English language version of the story at the Ynet website, (b) if they did have it, they might very well have gotten it from the same kid as Ma’ariv, and (c) if [Ma'ariv] had gotten it from the campaign, respecting Obama’s privacy wouldn’t have been a concern.

All true, but none if this excludes the possibility that Obama may have set this up. He has made such calculated moves before.

Israeli Newspaper Publishes Obama Wailing Wall Prayer

While in Israel, Barack Obama, visited The Wailing Wall, which

is thought by Jews to be the most sacred of places, because the temple itself was thought to be the place where God resides on earth. Praying at the Wailing Wall signifies being in the presence of the Divine. Jews from all countries, and as well as tourists of other religious backgrounds, come to pray at the wall, where it is said one immediately has the “ear of god.” [snip]

[Written p]rayers sent in are placed into the cracks of the walls and are called tzetzels.

Obama did so while on his visit, but now an Israeli newspaper is coming under fire for publishing the specifics of the prayer, as well it should.

AP:

The rabbi in charge of the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinovitz, said publishing the note intruded in Obama’s relationship with God.

“The notes placed between the stones of the Western Wall are between a person and his maker. It is forbidden to read them or make any use of them,” he told Army Radio. The publication “damages the Western Wall and damages the personal, deep part of every one of us that we keep to ourselves,” he said.

A conversation between God and one of His creations is a place I wouldn't want to intrude--especially this particular creation.

Maariv published a photograph of the note, which it said had been removed from the wall by a student at a Jewish seminary immediately after Obama left.

As much as I stand against Obama as president, this is shameful behavior.

UPDATE: Donald Sensing provides more history and tells of his trip to the Wailing Wall.

The Anchoress is aghast at the behavior of the newspaper in question, the student and at that of some faith-based entities regarding the topic.

Donald also provides this comment from the Jerusalem Post's Caroline Glick:

This was supposed to be a private benediction, and it was extraordinarily improper for someone to take this prayer and sell it to the media. On the other hand, in the world of paparazzi, the exposure of the prayer was predictable, and Obama apparently constructed the prayer for public consumption. Like everything else about his visit, this was a carefully crafted statement, designed not to ruffle very many feathers. And like this prayer, there was nothing extraordinary about Obama’s visit. As you would expect from a politician, he tried to be all things to all people. And he probably succeeded.

Glick is probably one of the few people brave enough to say what many are thinking. Still it's unseemly to judge the quality of communication between another and God. Let's just hope (and pray) that his prayers are answered in the affirmative.

Black Liberation Theology and White Guilt

No one should feel guilty about any crime they didn't personally commit, but whenever I read a post and a thread like this one regarding white guilt, I wonder whether such people are equally as fervent about distancing themselves from the laudable actions and legacies of our Founding Fathers--or that of the World War Two Generation--as they are about disassociating themselves from the country's distant slave-holding past and not-so-distant oppressive past (45 years ago).

If our good history is relevant to who we, as Americans, are today, then so is our bad history and there's nothing wrong with thinking about and acknowledging the truth about both. Our foundation is composed of both. However, it does not, or rather, it need not follow that blame be cast or guilt be felt as a result of admitting the truth. Think first; feel second, if at all.

Just saying.

Not being perfect, America and Americans have not and do not always reach the bar which we had set for us in the late eighteenth century. However, we should feel proud--not guilty--that our Founding Fathers gave us such a high bar to reach for in the first place. When we fall short we get up and try again. That's our heritage and to have the country wallow in both guilt and blame gives all of us an excuse not to get up.

PRETEND AS THOUGH THERE'S A SEGUE HERE: Christian doctrine maintains that we're all guilty of sin and deserve death and that Jesus Christ died for our crimes. But the doctrine of Black Liberation Theology changes the essential nature of Jesus Christ, holds white persons still culpable for their perceived sins and those of their fathers and--the most important part--ignores Jesus's purpose for being born, being crucified and being resurrected.

The founder of BLT and those who have been taking in by him want to hold onto the power of guilt over white Americans, but can't be brave enough to repudiate Jesus Christ as he actually is. His mercy is inconvenient. So they change him into someone else, a victim who requires earthly vengeance. It's a change--a lie--they can believe in.

Even though the Obamas have left TUCC, they have not refuted their belief in this religion of guilt and blame, this Black Liberation Theology. As a matter of fact Michelle is still selling guilt, white and otherwise, while her mate offers the sufferers of white-guilt the promise of redemption if only they would believe in him.

Do not forget that this is who these folks are.

Sheep

Leah Daughtry, the CEO of the Democrat National Convention is a Black Liberation Theology pastor.

In her positions as [Howard] Dean’s top aid and the convention’s top official, Daughtry, who is 44 years old, is leading the Democratic Party’s new mission to make religious believers — particularly ardent Christian believers — view the party and its candidates as receptive to, and often impelled by, the dictates of faith. She sparked this crusade, both to transfigure the party’s image as predominantly secular and to take enough votes from the Republicans to win this year’s presidential election, in the aftermath of George W. Bush’s 2004 defeat of John Kerry. And in her vocation as a Pentecostal pastor she stands for faith in an extreme form. There is nothing equivocal about her belief. Hers is a religion not only of divine healing but of talking in tongues.

Behind her as she preached, a simple wooden cross hung on a brick wall in the vaulted and sizable sanctuary of the church, which is headed by her father, Herbert Daughtry. A prison convert who served time in his early 20s for armed robbery and passing bad checks, Herbert Daughtry — whose father founded the church and whose grandfather and great-grandfather were also ministers — became the church’s pastor 50 years ago, and today Leah was delivering the sermon as part of an anniversary celebration. Below the sanctuary, in the fellowship hall, a banner for slavery reparations proclaimed, “They Owe Us.” Fliers recounted Herbert Daughtry’s arrest, a few weeks earlier, as he led marchers protesting the not-guilty verdict in the police killing of Sean Bell, an unarmed black man. His ministry has always [sic] combined consuming spirituality with black liberation theology — the theology Jeremiah Wright invoked this spring to defend his controversial sermons — and zealous political activism. Leah holds these forces within her.

Four things:

• Daughtry’s church could not have been a BLT stronghold for 50 years, since BLT’s founder, James Cone, didn’t write the first BLT manual until 1969. The elder Daughtry simply led his flock astray.

• We certainly have religious freedom in this country, but I can’t help but wonder what the response would be if the Republican National Convention hired a pastor from the Christian Identity Movement; that is, another church which uses Christ-coating to (thinly) veil its racial superiority ideology.

• White Liberals must have a Debasement Wish.

• If an apostate church exists, this is it. Everyone seems to be intent on taking Christ’s place on the Cross. What they forget is that he’s not even there anymore.

(Thanks to Hot Air and Conservative Punk)

Over the Side

In the wake of the recent buffoonery displayed and insults hurled at Hillary Clinton by nominally Catholic priest Reverend Michael Pfleger in the pulpit of Trinity United Church of "Christ," CNN reports that Michelle and Barack Obama have formally quit TUCC.

Says Ed Morrissey:

[This] shows Obama’s willingness to throw anyone over the side when the boat starts sinking. That won’t go over very well with his core supporters who have admired his loyalty to TUCC, who excused Wright by pointing out that he had retired, and who bought Obama’s explanation of the “wonderful community” and great works of TUCC. Is that now nothing more than a convenient lie?

Soon the two will behave almost as if they never belonged to the showcase church of Black Liberation Theology--as if the twenty year association never existed. And his apostles will buy it.

Watch and see.

UPDATE: Gateway Pundit watched the press conference and claims that Obama said this:

I will not denounce the church. It is not a church worthy of denouncing.

Now that's what I call a divorce!

INEVITABLE: Not Barack Obama sez:

I did not have spiritual relations with that church......Trinity United.

UPDATE: Always nice to come home to an Instalanche.

High and Low Taste

We Are America: Cassandra counters yet another slanderous statement of those who volunteer to serve--a statement which comes from Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA).

Left in Church: The longterm relationship between Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama by Stanley Kurtz. (Thanks to Iron Mike)

What The Mullahs Are Up To: A mini version of The Persian Puzzle by Roger L. Simon (one that even Obama could understand...maybe).

Is It Just Me? by Mark Philip Alger (no, Mark it's not just you).

Crazy Raspberry Ants coming to get your computer? by Scott Solomon.

Gary Kasparov dodges flying phallus by Ace of Spades (in case you want to practice listening to your Russian language).

The Tehran-Berlin Axis: Iran's Vice Foreign Minister visits the new Germany--with no mention in Germany's media by Matthias Küntzel (Thanks to Davids Medienkritik)

President Bush's Makes Oath to defend Masada and Totalitarianism Screams by Richard Fernandez

LIBRARY FARE:

Still reading: The Vision of the Anointed by Thomas Sowell
Black Theology and Black Power by James Cone

Checked out: Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg

Pins and Crosses (UPDATED: A Counter to the Muslim Rumors?)

Barack Obama has picked up a couple of previously disdained (non-human) tools to wield in the home stretch of the Democrat primaries: flag pins and crosses. (At first, I wondered why he's even bothering. Then I realized that this Christian- and patriot-pandering is for the general election.)

The flag pins came first--in spite of Obama’s affirmatively-expressed decision not to wear one.

The truth is that right after 9/11 I had a pin. Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq war, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security. I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest. Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testament to my patriotism.

Was the reversal cynically made with the West Virginia and Kentucky primaries in mind? Many observers think so, including this one. And it appears that the senator isn’t even trying to hide this.

Nonetheless, in WV, Hillary Clinton beat Obama like…

(A red-headed stepchild?
A runaway slave?

Feel free to suggest any other inflammatory metaphors I can use here.)

Anyway, Clinton beat Obama in the WV primary by 41 percentage points. So Obama brings out the big “gun.”

No subliminal seduction here, as was alleged about that silly Mike Huckabee ad; Obama is overt in his product placement. But will his Leftist constituency cry out in protest at this blatant “Christianism?”

We’ll see.

Look, if Obama wants to use Jesus as a campaign tool, that’s between him and Jesus but could we not pretend that this usage isn't a mere ploy to garner the votes of those in Kentucky who haven’t been paying attention to the senator’s Wright/Black Liberation Theology connections?

The caption reads: “My faith teaches me that I can sit in church and pray all I want, but I won’t be fulfilling God’s will unless I go out and do the Lord’s work.”

Well I guess that depends on who your lord is.

(Thanks to Ed Morrissey and to Memeorandum)

UPDATE: Obama used the Cross tactic in South Carolina. Was it a counter to the Muslim Whisper campaign?

(Thanks to Protein Wisdom)

What I'm Reading, May 7, 2008

I hope that I don't have to explain who James Cone is again.

The copy of the book I have is the only one in the Los Angeles Public Library system and I was surprised to be able to get ahold of it so quickly. One might have thought that, after Jeremiah Wright's publicity tour last weekend people, would want to know more about Black Liberation Theology. But again I have overestimated human curiosity.

The book was originally published in 1969 but has a 1989 preface for that year's edition. In it, the author contends that the language used in the original version would be different than twenty years hence (and one assumes, an additional twenty years after that) to address contemporaneous problems faced by blacks--and to remedy perceived sexism of the author. One also assumes, however, that the basic ideas remain the same: that God is a partisan on the side of the "victims"--in this case, blacks--and that He will ensure that these victims have victory over the white oppressor.

We'll see.

One thing: a very interesting quote attributed to Cone and found on the web is said to appear in this book: "Black Theology is the theological arm of Black Power, and Black Power is the political arm of Black Theology." If it is in this book, the proper references, however, are improper--meaning they're wrong. Anyone have a page number?

Black Liberation Theology: Mainstream Myth

Unlike NRO's John Derbyshire, columnists Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom at did their homework on Black Liberation Theology and the "black church":

Most black churchgoers belong to congregations that are overwhelmingly African-American and are affiliated with one of the historically black religious denominations such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) or the National Baptist Convention. Rev. Wright's Trinity Church, on the other hand, is a predominantly black branch of a white denomination that is not part of "the African-American religious tradition." The United Church of Christ (known until 1957 as the Congregational Church) has a little over a million members; a mere 4 percent of them are black. Fewer than 50,000 blacks in the entire nation worship at a UCC church.

In contrast, 98 percent of the National Baptist Convention's 4 million members are African Americans. Add in black Methodists and Pentecostals, as well as other black Baptists, and the total comes to more than 14 million members of an organized, predominantly African-American church. These churches include a substantial majority of all black adults today. In terms of sheer demographic weight, they clearly represent the "African-American religious tradition"-as Rev. Wright's branch of a overwhelmingly white denomination does not. [SNIP]

Some of these churches are led by figures like Rev. Wright, an adherent of what is called black liberation theology, which rejects racial integration and stresses the experience of black bondage. But not many. C. Eric Lincoln's mid-1980s survey of the leaders of 2,150 black churches found that two-thirds of them said they had not been influenced by "any of the authors and thinkers of black liberation theology." Indeed, 63 percent did not believe that the black church had "a different mission from the white church." A third did not even think it was "important have black figures in [their] Sunday school literature."

I don't think that there was enough outrage at the cravenness of Jeremiah Wright when he held up other black people as his rhetorical shield against criticism of his lunacy. The Thernstroms wonder about this also and suggest that he may have convinced many whites that his beliefs are mainstream among blacks, a concern I share. If someone with Derbyshire's resources can't be bothered to find out this information, what about the average white Joe?

Wright was trying to do some bamboozling of his own. Like those who are trying to hasten a confrontation between Islam and Christianity by spread lies, I believe Wright and like-minded individuals are intentionally trying to stir up enmity between black and white.

Don't be fooled by those who feed on Discord, folks--or by the One who does.

Derbyshire's Wrong

The Corner's John Derbyshire is dazzled by Jeremiah Wright's 'good works' and cites the following passage from the May 3 issue of The Economist:

[Wright] is far more than the blustering buffoon who was on the stage on Monday. He has presided over an increase in the size of his congregation from 87 when he arrived in 1972 to 8,000 today. Trinity is a welfare state in its own right, providing more than 70 welfare programmes for the poor, the unemployed, prisoners, and HIV patients.

Derbyshire's conclusion:

What has been the secret of his success? How did he do all that? By appealing to racial solidarity and pride, that's how. All that stuff that grates on our ears — the "black value system," loyalty to "the African motherland," "white folk's greed drives a world in need," and the rest — was an essential component of the Wright success package. Wright succeeded by tapping in to one of the deepest wells of human emotion and motivation: group solidarity, loyalty to the tribe, the gens.

Anyone want to tell me that Wright would have been just as sensationally successful if he had eschewed all the hate-whitey stuff and preached a message of universalism, color-blindness, and racial reconciliation?

Why, yes I'll tell you that, Mr. Derbyshire, because there are plenty of other Christian pastors who minister to majority black congregations and who have been highly successful at growing their congregations much larger and getting their larger congregations to provide the means with which to conduct such 'good works' without being racist demagogues, such as T.D. Jakes and Charles Blake to name only two off the top of my head--men you haven't heard of just like you hadn't heard of Wright before Obama came along.

Wright was only able to get these programs off the ground with one resource: money. And congregational monies are the life's blood of any church, especially one that want sto provide services other than the primary one: providing overhead for supplicants to hear the Word of God preached and interpreted.

Derbyshire tries to make it appear that the nature and quality of Wright's 'good works' are rare and that black people are more inclined give money to race-baiters. A cursory look at a good half dozen traditional Christian ministers of mega-churches with majority black congregations would have dispelled that notion. But I guess that it's more lucrative to keep those fires of Discord burning.

Taking "Dictation"

Mary Mitchell at the Chicago Sun-Times plays a recognizable game:

There is no institution in the black community more respected than the black church. And the notion that white pundits can dictate what constitutes unacceptable speech in the black church is repulsive to most black people.

This tactic is becoming old—pretending that criticism or disagreement is “dictating.” Mitchell wouldn’t know an actual dictator if Robert Mugabe walked up to her and introduced himself.

Yes, Ms. Mitchell, white pundits and any other pundit in this country can and will criticize what anyone one publicly declares, especially when the declaration is televised. (And since when did PBS studios, the Detroit chapter of the NAACP and the National Press Club or even Trinity United Church of “Christ” become the “black church?”) When any pundits start advocating that Reverend Wright be fined or confined for his words, then it’s time for you to start whining complaining. Not before. And if some black people are “repulsed,” that’s their problem. Grown folks expect criticism; children in adult bodies mistake criticism for being dictated to. "Don't tell me what to do!!! You're not my mama!!!"

As much as I want to see Obama make history by becoming the first black man to be elected president, I don't want to see a warrior like Wright denigrated to prove to white voters that Obama is not a radical.

When Obama denounced Wright's angry words but refused to disown him, it signaled that he understood the sensitive tightrope he is being forced to walk.

His "outrage" over Wright's latest remarks signals something quite different. With the gap narrowing, Obama advisers are obviously scrambling for every white vote.

But really, what more should blacks have to sacrifice? Their dignity?

Frankly, Obama and Wright risk becoming metaphors for the ongoing struggle of blacks to unite politically.

Obama shouldn't have held a press conference to deal with Wright.

He should have been able to pick up the phone.

Sigh.

My boyfriend and I concurred that Obama's nomination will split this country--even if he loses to McCain in the general election. Prior to a few months back, BF had not known about most of the senator's short-comings--my honey's a busy man--and, in spite of being a conservative, he had wanted his sons to see the example of a black man becoming POTUS in order to plant the idea that, perhaps, they could shoot for that goal as well. And he's not the only black man I've heard express this desire.

I think that too many Americans of all races--but especially black Americans--still don't know enough about Obama and, even if they do, are thinking selfishly about him and not thinking strategically.

They're not thinking about the job which Obama is applying for. Hint: not to be an example to anyone's children.

My guy and I talked a lot about the subject, but the bottom line is this: Obama isn't running just to be the president of black America or to be emblematic of black pride. (That he would be the latter is beside the point.) He's not running in order end the "ongoing struggle of blacks to unite politically." (Did you see my eyes roll just now?) He's running to be the leader of all Americans.

People like Mitchell can’t quite wrap their minds around this concept. That’s why she can speak approvingly of Wright, expect Obama to defer to him and expect whites to be silent about it all in the same op-ed.

Along with holding the subconscious notion that Obama should abide by the rules of black solidarity, many black Americans seem to be desperately clinging to Obama as if he’s the last best hope for a black American to become POTUS for the next hundred years. As if, among millions of other Americans who are black, there’s not one person who would be a likely candidate in the next few elections. No one. So “we” have to latch on to this one right now, regardless of what the rest of the country wants, regardless of the sparsity of the man’s political record and regardless of content of this man’s character and the demonstrable quality thereof.

• This man is for pulling out of Iraq and against it.
• This man is against NAFTA and for it.
• He barely knows Tony Resko but has financial dealings with him.
• He barely knows terrorists William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn but has been a guest in their home and has worked with the former.
• His pastor and spiritual adviser for 20 years—the same man who baptized him, performed his marriage ceremony and baptized his children—espouses a human-centered, racial supremacy (per)version of Christianity, but he never knew anything about it. And, suddenly, the man never was his spiritual adviser.

People like Mitchell want you to stop "dictating" to Obama and Wright and want you to roll over in the manner that a dog will do to show subservience to the "tide of history" and, interestingly enough, she wants Obama to do the same for Wright.

Trust me, the phrases “first black American POTUS” and “black pride” will ring hollow in the ears of us all if this Sower of Discord is nominated and it will even more so if he is elected. And only a fool—or a racist--would expect those who love this country to be silent about it.

(Thanks to Omnibus Driver)

View From Under The Bus (UPDATED)

20Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
21Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
--Matthew 7:20-21 (KJV)

Finally, I’ve finished listening to all of the Moyers interview and the batty NAACP address by Barack Obama's pastor of twenty years, Jeremiah Wright. And, in addition, I rewatched that display of ego, half-truths—aka falsehoods--and mundane bad manners from Fox that first ran live yesterday morning. And, of course, I listened to the original sermons which brought the reverend's teachings under large-scale public scrutiny. Could you have put up with Wright’s posturing in the pulpit for twenty years? Confidence and peacockery can be entertaining as long as you know and are consistently reminded of where the focal point is—or, in this case, Who it is.

I heard Wright—the self-proclaimed Christian, preacher of the Word—mention the actions and methods of Jesus Christ and those of some who purport to be his followers. (I also heard him claim that abortion was a right.) But what Wright did not talk about was the purpose of Jesus Christ and of course he wouldn't. Because that’s where Liberation Theologies and mainstream Christianity part company. That's a crucial fork in the road; one leads to Damnation while the other does not. But don’t take my word for it. You decide.

I'll tell you what: I've never heard such a long line of strawmen strung together and wrapped up in the Word of God in my life--someone at another site call it a 'Lie Burrito'--but I only have enough time to address a few items.

Excuse my English (and pardon the pun) but who gives a DAMN about skin color, type of clothing and style of music when it comes to the realm of saving souls and keeping them out of Hell? Why, Wright and BLT’s “founder” James Cone do. As a matter of fact they worship these things instead of the Creator. Wright rightfully claims that Christian missionaries of Europe fell into error and sin back when they were bent on converting the natives of all lands. Not by the act and desire of leading others to Christ, but by making Christianity about something other than Him, His Sacrifice, Resurrection and the purpose thereof. The missionaries bound up Christ in themselves and their own culture. But Wright now is mired that same error while condemning the missionaries for it out of the other side of his mouth. Beams and motes indeed.

Guys like Jeremiah Wright care about self-centric totems of race, culture and vengeance more than they care about leading their flocks down the straight and narrow path. They need these totems to fill the void of self-doubt and that need is filled by navel-gazing religions like Black Liberation Theology and one of its parents, the Nation of Islam. Yes, BLT is a progeny of the NOI, Christianity and Marxism—a bastard child, to be sure. It’s an I-deology all right and Wright has sacrificed the eternal souls of those who believe his lies and are grateful for his good works. He has sacrificed these upon the altar of race and culture. (My own pastor says that God has special plans for shepherds—pastors—who mislead their flocks.)

Wright's megalomania is such that he couldn’t even bring himself to hold his peace for Obama’s sake—that’s one of problems inherent in allying oneself with narcissists—and even had the nerve to be guarded by the Fruit of Islam, Daddy’s the Nation of Islam’s security force.

The most infuriating thing about Wright is his attempt to cover himself using other black people, black Christians, by saying that attacks on him weren’t really about him but about the ‘black church.' And then he wants to fling around epithets like "Uncle Tom."

Let's be clear. Neither blackness, African, American or European origin, American nationality or American allegiance need a defense because such a defense would inherently be just as erroneously-focused as Jeremiah Wright's jeremiad. Ethnic origins aren’t things to be defended, denigrated or repudiated or sworn allegiance to--my own heritage stems from this continent and two other continents--these things simply are; these facts are existential. Nationality is special: it’s existential but can also be voluntarily retained or released. And allegiance to any entity is entirely voluntary, but no one has to prove his/her allegiance to this country as part and parcel of a repudiation of an ethnicity or heritage. Those days went out with FDR.

Here’s what I do come to defend, to stand in defense of: Christianity and Christians who are black. Jeremiah Wright defames both and speaks for neither and little obscure me will not let him use either as fig leaf. Yes, our ancestors in this country and our kinsmen across the water fought to be just as Christian as other Christians—as Christian as our brothers who are white. And many of the latter stood for us and side-by-side with us—not because of us primarily but because of the One Who is Primary. Has that particular battle been won? I say yes, though the war continues. But Wright not only continues to fight the battle, he willfully misunderstands the nature of the War and identity of the Enemy. And by doing that, he becomes the tool of the Enemy. That’s his choice, but not mine and not that of those who focus on the Redemption offered by Christ instead of getting upon the Cross themselves.

To quote myself, there is no “black church.” There is only the Church.

Word to Obama: thanks a lot, "brotha." Nice pastor you have there.

UPDATE: Of course, just as I finish, Obama holds a press conference to distance himself from Wright.

Sorry, Senator. You can't shake off this Tar Baby that easily.

Ms. Malkin live-blogs it.

UPDATE: I'm getting an Everybody-lanche. Thanks. I just try to listen to the Holy Spirit.

BLT (Black Liberation Theology) in Action

UPDATE: I expanded the 'BLT' acronym because at least one reader didn't understand how the title and subject of this post and those of the subsequent one are related. However, at least one did.

During an interview with PBS’s Bill Moyers, retired Trinity United Church of Christ Pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright—Black Liberation Theologian and Senator Barack Obama’s pastor and mentor for two decades—says that his words were twisted when he asserted that God should damn America for its crimes; crimes both real and perceived.

“I felt it was unfair,” Mr. Wright said, according to excerpts of the interview released Thursday. “I felt it was unjust. I felt it was untrue. I felt for those who were doing that, were doing it for some very devious reasons.”

In Mr. Wright’s sermons, he suggested that Americans bore some responsibility for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, saying “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.” He also blamed the government for the spread of AIDS among African-Americans, characterized the United States government as corrupt and referred to the “U.S. of K.K.K. A.”

He did not apologize or back away from his remarks in the interview, instead saying that people wanted to paint him as “some sort of fanatic.”

“It’s to paint me as something — ‘Something’s wrong with me. There’s nothing wrong with this country … for its policies. We’re perfect. Our hands are free. Our hands have no blood on them,’” he said. “That’s not a failure to communicate. The message that is being communicated by the sound bites is exactly what those pushing those sound bites want to communicate.”

When asked what the people who aired the clips “wanted to communicate,” Mr. Wright said, “I think they wanted to communicate that I am unpatriotic, that I am un-American, that I am filled with hate speech, that I have a cult at Trinity United Church of Christ. And by the way, guess who goes to his church, hint, hint, hint? That’s what they wanted to communicate.”

Megalomaniacs—a special species of narcissist--want the right to say and do anything they wish, but will deem any criticism of what they say and do as “unfair” (or "evil," if they have some power over the critic). The criticism is never an honest difference of opinion or a mistake. And of course it is utterly impossible that the words, deeds and/or judgment of the narcissist are ever wrong. EVER. So it must be that those who oppose the narcissists words/deeds/judgment are willfully wrong and, therefore being unfair and unjust.

It is “unfair,” you see, to have a different opinion than Reverend Wright because, in his mind, any idea of his, especially one springing from his religion—a religion specially made for the self-indulgent--falls automatically in the realm of Good. Conversely, any opposing idea--specifically, opposing the idea that America is a whole-scale Oppressor, a Devil according to BLT--falls automatically under the rubric of the Enemy and will be judged as “unfair." (This is also how Left Orthodoxy determines Good and Evil which makes sense, since all Liberation Theologies are born of Marxism. Don't forget, both BLT and the Left are all about earthly justice. But don’t take my word for it.)

Mr. Wright, who has acted as Mr. Obama’s spiritual mentor and retired in February as pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, said that he has never heard Mr. Obama repeat any of his controversial statements.

“Absolutely not,” Mr. Wright said. “I don’t talk to him about politics. And so he had a political event, he goes out as a politician and says what he has to say as a politician. I continue to be a pastor who speaks to the people of God about the things of God.”

Mr. Obama publicly denounced Mr. Wright’s remarks, a reaction Mr. Wright said “went down very simply.”

“He’s a politician, I’m a pastor,” he said. “We speak to two different audiences. And he says what he has to say as a politician. I say what I have to say as a pastor. But they’re two different worlds.”

He added, “I do what I do. He does what politicians do. So that what happened in Philadelphia where he had to respond to the sound bytes, he responded as a politician.”

Did the reverend just admit that he and his former acolyte were performing the “good-cop, bad-cop” routine--one seeming to represent a "post-racial" America while the other asserts the inherent evil of same? I think he did.

These two are trying to run a game on the white-guilt prone part of the Electorate and the Crazy “Uncle” spills the beans! I would say that the jig is up (RIP, Cleavon*), but the reality is…not enough of the Electorate is paying attention. Here's Hoping that will Change.

Fear not.

(Thanks to LGF)

*Faulty reference to Blazing Saddles. The 'jig' gag is from History of the World, Part I.

Thoughts on DC Mass

Very moving.

Why do I like this pope? Because he’s an intellect and he’s got more cojones than a whole lot of so-called men and Christians. He all talk and all action. Because he acknowledges the sins of his church straightforwardly. And I won’t quibble about all the things in which Catholics believe and I, as a Protestant, do not. We Christians are past the Shia-Sunni Discord stage.

And I’m not mad at him getting the rock star treatment during his trip here.

Welcome, Papa

Pope Benedict XVI arrives today in the USA at Andrews AFB, MD where President Bush will meet him. Though he has been here several times, it's his first visit since becoming pope.

I'm looking forward to all of the papal reportage due for the next few days. Though I'm not Catholic and have no plans to convert, there is very much to admire about this pope, this man. And I believe that it's no coincidence that the world has a pope who has done a great deal of research on Liberation Theologies during the same time when an adherent to one of those theologies has a serious shot at becoming the most powerful man on earth.

However, am I the only one who finds it...odd for the pope to be arriving at a US military base?

(Pic courtesy of Getty Images and CNN)

It's the "White" Church that Obama's Talking About (UPDATED)

Mickey Kaus and many others are still trying to make sense of Barack Obama’s defense of the following remarks.

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant [SIC] sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

(Emphasis mine.)

Says Kaus:

It lumps together things Obama wants us to think he thinks are good (religion) with things he undoubtedly thinks are bad (racism, anti-immigrant sentiment). I suppose it's logically possible to say 'these Pennsylvania voters are so bitter and frustrated that they cling to both good things and bad things,." but the implication is that these are all things he thinks are unfortunate and need explaining (because, his context suggests, they prevent voters from doing the right thing and voting for ... him). Yesterday at the CNN "Compassion Forum" Obama said he wasn't disparaging religion because he meant people "cling" to it in a good way! Would that be the same way they "cling" to "antipathy to people who aren't like them"--the very next phrase Obama uttered? Is racism one of those "traditions that are passed on from generation to generation" that "sustains us"? Obama's unfortunate parallelism makes it hard for him to extricate him from the charge that he was dissing rural Pennsylvanians' excess religiosity.

If you think about it, the fact that Obama lumped the perceived religion of the white, rural Pennsylvanian with “antipathy toward those not like them”--that is, racism, bigotry and anti-immigration (sic)--makes perfect sense.* The latter is bad and so is the former—if one is observing from the perspective of Black Liberation Theology.

In Obama’s mind, the religion clung to by the “average poor white Pennsylvanian” is BLT’s demonic “white” Church. The "white" Church is the tool of oppression for all—including poor whites—and should be shaken off just like other social maladies. Just like anti-immigration (sic) and racism. One will note that, in the defense of the earlier remarks, Obama still does not say anything objectively positive about the religion adhered to by the average rural white Pennsylvanian. What he actually says is that government should answer their prayers.

But what is absolutely true is that people don’t feel like they are being listened to.

And so they pray and they count on each other and they count on their families. You know this in your own lives, and what we need is a government that is actually paying attention [to their prayers!]. Government that is fighting for working people day in and day out making sure that we are trying to allow them to live out the American dream.

Never forget where this guy is coming from.

* Apologists for illegal immigration are becoming too confident in leaving out the all-important adjective 'illegal' when discussing the subject.

UPDATE: I'm not sure but I think that this my first Ace-lanche. Be gentle with me.

UPDATE:Good morning/afternoon/evening to Glenn's readers also. Hot Air's too!

UPDATE: Please read Karl's primer on Black Liberation Theology at Protein Wisdom.

Making BLT

By James Cone. It's the narcissism, Stupid!

(Thanks to Cobb)

Good Friday

As my regular readers can tell, I've been a bit busy for the last few days. But even if I hadn't been, I would have found the shear volume (mean in both senses) of response to Barack Obama's revealed racial attitudes overwhelming; too much so to respond with little more than a dumbfounded "WTF?"

The main thing that fascinates me about his attitudes is how they may have been shaped by Black Liberation Theology--an ideology whose outlines have been visible in the black community for the several decades of its existence, but one which is just now showing its face to the outside world via Obama's presidential candidacy.

So I'm reading and reading and reading. And the good thing about that is that, occasionally, one hits the jackpot.

You might recognize the author's name.

And a Good Friday to you all.

Filling the Space

Spengler at Asia Times gives a short overview of the Black Liberation Theology subscribed to by Jeremiah Wright's TUCC and, allegedly, by Barack Obama:

Since Christianity taught the concept of divine election to the Gentiles, every recalcitrant tribe in Christendom has rebelled against Christian universalism, insisting that it is the "Chosen People" of God - French, English, Russian, Germans and even (through the peculiar doctrine of Mormonism) certain Americans. America remains the only really Christian country in the industrial world, precisely because it transcends ethnicity. One finds ethnocentricity only in odd corners of its religious life; one of these is African-American.

During the black-power heyday of the late 1960s, after the murder of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr, the mentors of Wright decided that blacks were the Chosen People. James Cone, the most prominent theologian in the "black liberation" school, teaches that Jesus Christ himself is black. As he explains:

Christ is black therefore not because of some cultural or psychological need of black people, but because and only because Christ really enters into our world where the poor were despised and the black are, disclosing that he is with them enduring humiliation and pain and transforming oppressed slaves into liberating servants.

Theologically, Cone's argument is as silly as the "Aryan Christianity" popular in Nazi Germany, which claimed that Jesus was not a Jew at all but an Aryan Galilean, and that the Aryan race was the "chosen people". Cone, Hopkins and Wright do not propose, of course, to put non-blacks in concentration camps or to conquer the world, but racially-based theology nonetheless is a greased chute to the nether regions.

Spengler writes of Cone's argument about God: that He should be a god who does what humans want, be a Metaphysical Sugar Daddy or He's worthless. Cone isn't exactly by himself in that postulation.

As for Jesus Christ, He is alleged to be the Savior of the Oppressed only--as is so with all types of 'Liberation theology,' a school of belief in which the identity of the Oppressed depends on who's asking. With Black Liberation theology, Jesus is the Savior of the black oppressed--and, from what I can gather, those white persons who are willing give up the "guise of the Oppressor." Let's just say that I have more homework to do.

A cursory conclusion: it is a religion of works (as opposed to faith), of grudge-holding and of promised vengeance for wrongs done--both real and perceived, both individual and collective. But, like Shelby Steele, Spengler wonders whether Obama has merely covered himself with the coating of Black Liberation theology for his own purposes.

Whether Obama takes seriously the doctrines that Wright preaches is another matter. It is possible that Obama does not believe a word of what Wright, Cone and Hopkins teach. Perhaps he merely used the Trinity United Church of Christ as a political stepping-stone. African-American political life is centered around churches, and his election to the Illinois State Senate with the support of Chicago's black political machine required church membership. Trinity United happens to be Chicago's largest and most politically active black church.

[SNIP]

It is possible that because of the Wright affair Obama will suffer for what he pretended to be, rather than for what he really is.

Did the TUCC serve to simply allow Obama to check off “religion” on his particular “self” checklist? It seems to me that he "converted" to it without giving the matter too much thought--became a clay to be molded by humans; by his wife and by Wright. A shape-shifter.

Once people get over the outrage regarding the racism of it all, perhaps more will put together the musings of persons like Steele and Spengler in order to formulate this question: who is Obama really?

His “self” space remains yet unobserved.

(Thanks to One Cosmos)

Hole in His Soul (UPDATE: Interview Excerpt)

Shelby Steele’s 1991 book The Content of Our Character started me on my journey to conservatism. It was what first made me actively consider that being a Liberal or a Democrat were yea/nay choices rather than states of existence which were as fixed as my skin color. So I consider him one of my political fathers and have a tendency to pay attention when I see one of his essays or catch him on TV.

I did read Steele’s A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win--and I got his descriptions of the two personality masks that black people wear around white people and how few people—black or white—appreciate it when a black person takes off his/her mask. However, I didn’t really understand his description of Obama until this Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC)/Jeremiah Wright brouhaha began to heat up.

In January, Peter Robinson interviewed Steele on A Bound Man over at NRO TV’s Uncommon Knowledge. TUCC is discussed in the third part in the five parter, but the whole thing is interesting. Steele pretty much predicted how things have played out and says the same thing that I said here: that Obama's biracial-ness coupled with parental abandonment has wrecked havoc on how he sees himself and how he projects himself to others. Basically, Steele explains why there’s very little ‘there’ there.

An excerpt of that third part is needed to illustrate Steele's point, I think; a transcription of it is forthcoming.

UPDATE: Here are the most perceptive observations of the interview's third part.

SHELBY STEELE: He was abandoned by his African father at the age of two. So in one stroke he lost both a father and a racial identity. So here in this all white household is this little kid who is being held accountable in the world as a black—being raised by a mother who’s white, a grandmother who’s white [and] a grandfather who is white; almost no experience whatsoever with other blacks.

And so, as I talk about in the book, as there’s a longing to know the father in Barack Obama there’s also a longing to know himself as a black; to feel that he belongs, that simple sense that other blacks take for granted, where it’s not a question at all.

For him, it’s a life-long angst. And so he’s driven in that direction and ends up on the Southside of Chicago doing community organizing when he could have gone straight ahead to law school and so forth [after earning an undergrad from Columbia]. [SNIP]

PETER ROBINSON: In any event, from Columbia he could have gone to Wall Street if he wanted to.

SS: He could have gone…and did for a brief moment. And quite, can’t take it. Wants to…this call, it’s there. This need. And so he takes this job at…below minimum wage as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago.

PR: As we have this conversation and as I read A Bound Man, I’m evaluating this man as a candidate. There’s a fascinating story, merely as a matter of character study and what it says about the state of race in the United States; but he’s running for president. So this notion of seeking out a black identity—the way it struck me was understandable and even commendable. Does it strike you the same way? Or is it still too much race? He’s doing something because of race? How do you understand it? How do you evaluate it?

SS: I went through something of it myself. Again [I’m] from that kind of a background. [Steele's father is black and his mother is white. --Ed.] I was lucky [that] I had my father. So…and I grew up in segregation and that will give you a clear sense of identity. (laughs)

PR: He was raised in a white world.

SS: Yeah.

PR: But you were raised in a black world.

SS: An entirely black world.

PR: Alright.

SS: So I didn’t feel the pressure, I don’t think, in the way that he did. But it was there. I’m aware of it. There’s a vulnerability that you have that people can see. As Christopher Hitchens says there, “why is he really black?” So somebody who doesn’t know you can walk up and say, “well you’re not really who you seem to be.” And always along with that goes this suggestion that you’re a phony; that you’re a bit of a fraud because of your birthright…your fate.

So it’s a vulnerability and there’s this desire to resolve it. And that’s, I think, Obama’s compulsion really: to establish himself as an authentic black [and] failing all along.

PR: You write: He goes to the Illinois state legislature, he’s now a member of the United States Senate for the last couple of years. He affiliates himself with a specifically black church in Chicago called Trinity United Church of Christ. You write about it at some length. So, incidentally, does Christopher Hitchens.

Quote--Christopher now: “Run by the sort of minister that the press often guardedly describes as ‘flamboyant,’ this bizarre outfit the church describes itself as” now he’s quoting from their website, “Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian and speaks of a Chosen People whose nature we are allow to assume is afrocentric.” Operative sentence: “Nobody who wants to be taken seriously can possibly be associated with such a sub-standard and shade-oriented place.”

Now there’s a point there. This is a graduate of Columbia and of Harvard Law School who’s going to a place that it’s reasonable to suppose that, in one way or another, is intellectually beneath him. Right?

SS: Absolutely.

PR: So how…do we cut him slack because he needs this? How do you understand that one?

SS: That’s one of the questions that I think the press…he’s been in this what I call ‘White Guilt Bubble’ where they never ask him anything meaningful.

How is it that you go to an afrocentric, Black Nationalist church, where everything is black—morality, "black"; community, "black"; family values, "black"; a church that your mother would not be comfortable in, if she would be welcome at all—how do you reconcile…

Could you stand up in this church and say, “It wasn’t 'blackness' that created Barack Obama. It was the 'midwestern' values of my mother. That’s how it got done. So maybe the people in this church might spend a little more time talking about those values than about 'blackness.'” I don’t think that Obama is likely to do that. But, how does he resolve it? How does he reconcile?

[SNIP]

SS: When you are born as he was, you endure this abandonment and [it] leaves these wounds. And there is going to be—for anybody—an attempt to sort of fill up that void in some way or another.

The only way you can do it is through a thousand little self-betrayals; where you go to that church and you turn a blind eye to the fact that it’s beneath you intellectually, that it subscribes to an ideology that would exclude the loving family that you had. You betray yourself. You get used to self-betrayal as a survival mechanism, as a way of getting through the world, getting through society. And that’s where you pay the price, because when you’re doing that, you’re not developing a self. You’re not individuating.

And there clearly is some of that with Obama—this habit of self-betrayal.

For the first time, I feel a great deal of pity for Obama, along with empathy, of course since I grew up in a kind of a "mirror universe" in relation to his own. (I can't decide which one contains the bearded Spock.)

Be that as it may, Obama's background wouldn't be such a big deal if it didn't seem as though his particular brand of neuroses played out in nearly every relationship that he has--personal and professional. His campaign is the very model of two-facedness and the absence of self which Steele points to. Obama isn't crazy but something more frightening--a vessel to be filled.

What kind of damage could such a president do?

"Inflammatory and Appalling"

...are Wright's statements, according to Senator Obama. Obama will presumably make this assertion this evening to Major Garrett on Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes and on Greta van Susteren's show.

So you'll excuse me while I run some errands now in order to be back home in time to catch that live; not that it will be believable, but it will for sure be memorable.

(Thanks to Hot Air)

UPDATE: Wright, who had a role as a spiritual adviser in the senator's presidential campaign, takes his leave.

Rev. Wright is no longer serving on the African American Religious Leadership Committee.

I'm not familiar with Obama's campaign structure and I find the name of this committee curious. Something labeled for African Americans? Only? In a presidential campaign? A campaign for the US presidency?

This guy...

UPDATE: "Vehemently disagree, strongly condemn, categorically denounce and reject outright." But Jeremiah Wright "prophesied" that this would have to happen.

“If Barack gets past the primary, he might have to publicly distance himself from me,” Mr. Wright said with a shrug. “I said it to Barack personally, and he said yeah, that might have to happen.”

It's a miracle!

One of Obama's Real Problems: Jeremiah Wright

The racist rhetoric espoused by Senator Barack Obama’s pastor of twenty years and spiritual mentor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, has finally come under the large-scale scrutiny that it deserves. Wright, the retired pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, is overt in his condemnation of all things American and white.

The juxtaposition of Wright's words of condemnation for a largely Christian America spoken under a banner containing the name Christ is jarring. Wright’s version of Christ offers not redemption but damnation; damnation of America for her crimes—real and perceived—and damnation for whites as a collective. Rev. Wright’s statements are so inflammatory that one wonders whether he would siphon all of the Caucasian DNA out from himself if he could, to borrow a concept from Malcolm X.

Anyway, since there are so many blogs and news outlets covering this I’ll just point to those which I think provide unique insight to the issues. But first...

Why did it take so long for the MSM and other observers to give this very important issue the scrutiny it deserves? There are two reasons.

1. The race-baiting of the Clintons coupled with the accusations of race baiting by Obama supporters, and,

2. The wild goose chases regarding Obama’s Kenyan Luo heritage, his visit there, his relationship to Raila Odinga, the mind-bogglingly distorted analyses of the origins of the conflict in that country, the ahistorical analyses of how mixed-raced persons have been identified in this country and the Obama-as-Muslim whisper campaign.

Under these headings have all too many commentators been willing to conjure and/or twist facts in order to further the aim of discrediting Obama. They wanted to get to the finish line without running the entire race. (I’ve seen authors write treatise after treatise on the Kenya situation, each postulating that it was some sort of Islam-Christianity death struggle, often accompanied by external scholarly or journalistic links which refuted what was being described. And forget about a link to an actual Kenyan blogger or news source; not unless the source served to affirm the pre-formulated conclusion, which amounted to--never.)

Basically, some of you Cried Wolf on some of Obama’s issues and, in the process, hindered the publicizing of real problems with an Obama candidacy. People get tired of separating the wheat from the chaff. Just be glad that this latest and very real Wolf is egotistical enough to sell his Wolf Tickets on camera.

Now on to Wright. From a 2006 speech at Howard University, here are the basics.

"We've got more black men in prison than there are in college," … "Racism is alive and well. Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run. No black man will ever be considered for president, no matter how hard you run Jesse [Jackson] and no black woman can ever be considered for anything outside what she can give with her body."[SNIP]

"America is still the No. 1 killer in the world. . . . We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns, and the training of professional killers . . . We bombed Cambodia, Iraq and Nicaragua, killing women and children while trying to get public opinion turned against Castro and Ghadhafi . . . We put [Nelson] Mandela in prison and supported apartheid the whole 27 years he was there. We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God." [SNIP]

"We supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-Semitic. . . . We care nothing about human life if the end justifies the means. . . ." [SNIP]

"We started the AIDS virus . . . We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty. . . ."

(That Wright used the pronoun ‘we’ instead of ‘they’ is about the only positive aspect of any of this.)

Shrunken down: Michael Bowen gives an excellent analogy on how some black people have dealt psychologically with racism and the symbolic role that Wright may play for Obama in this area.

If Mitt Romney’s Mormonism was an issue, is Barack Obama’s affiliation with this church and this pastor an issue? Or so asks Kathryn Jean Lopez.

Shay Riley has been to Obama’s church:

I found the church promoted a political agenda - it is definitely a Pan-Africanist church, which in itself is good although that church promotes a socialist version of Pan-Africanism that I don't support - to the exclusion of a spiritual one rooted in biblical teachings. Or as one of my uncles says, Trinity United Church of Christ is an Afrocentric and not a Christocentric (or even an Afrocentric-Christocentric) church. That fact will not help countering the claim that Sen. Obama is "an undercover Muslim" bent on destroying America from within by joining with anti-American forces.

Wright’s rhetoric has inspired Protein Wisdom’s Dan Collins to wax poetic.

Tom Maguire (via Thomas Lifson): “[W]hen does the reconciliation begin? Barack's wife is angry, his minister is foaming, yet we are supposed to elect Barack as Mr. Sunshine and Unity. Why aren't the people closest to him sunny and united?”

Ever the one to dig a little deeper is the Anchoress:

What is going on here is a profound slight-of-hand, or an illusionist’s expert misdirection. You are being told to think you’re seeing one thing, when you’re actually seeing another. Except for the fact that whoever released these tapes has played it, this sermon would not be an example of a “race card” being thrown. It’s a victim card. This is about the Primacy of Victimhood over all else. [SNIP]

[W]hile the victim card appeals to emotions, it tends to noisily set off rage in those who listen and perceive themselves as being identified as the “enemy.” So everyone gets emotional, everyone starts yelling, and no one is listening or making any sense.

The victim card is an odd card to play in a presidential race; victimhood in and of itself seems like a strange theme for either presidential candidate to embrace. “Vote for me; I’m the bigger victim and this qualifies me to…” what, exactly, lead the wailing?

Why can't Obama really distance himself from Wright and TUCC? It'd be like cutting off his arm.

No one - unless they are a brain-dead moron - would sit five minutes under Wright’s racist and anti-American rantings without walking out. Barak has sat there for twenty years. That’s...complicity.

There may be more.

(Thanks to Instapundit, to Hot Air and to Memeorandum)

UPDATE: A 'lanche is always good to come home to. Let's see what's up in the comments.

UPDATE: Say what?

Indeed, it is a lack of understanding of the black church that contributes to the blogosphere’s and MSM’s mistaking Rev. Wright for a hate-monger.

(Emphasis mine.)

This was no mistake, Mr. Miniter, and Wright's assertions come from no church that I recognize. And by the way, there is no "black church." There is only the Church.

What about the 9/11 and HIV stuff?

There isn’t any video of Rev. Wright’s sermons on those topics [sic], but I am prepared to believe he said something along those lines. More than a third of politically active blacks believe that the HIV virus is man-made and most likely spread by the CIA, surveys show. That’s obvious nonsense, but it tells us more about the state of the black community that about Rev. Wright. He is simply echoing their paranoia. Should have risen above it and said the problems of AIDS and drug abuse are self-inflicted? Should he have called on his flock to heal itself through self-discipline and encouraged them every step of the way? Yes. But his church is not the only weak institution in this country, the only citadel that refuses impart hard truths and love toughly. [SNIP]

So don’t blame Rev. Wright. He is simply the victim of ideological disease, doing the best that he can to help others in his somewhat incapacitated state.

A commenter at Pajamas Media answers this nonsense quite effectively:

Your apologia is almost as contemptible as Rev. Wright's comments. So the po' darkies are too (oppressed? weak? slow?) to rise above this kind of garbage? [SNIP]

Giving blacks like Rev. Wright a pass is just another form of bigotry.

That pass is equivalent to treating blacks like children. I, for one, have had enough of it.