OKAY.....

[Frau_Blucher]

I hear what you're saying 100% SB and don't disagree with your opinions about the status quo and that the prejudices are real. But by our statements alone, I think you're actually being the MOST prejudiced person here within this thread. You're assuming that the sole source of peoples' cynicism about Hillary's style or sincerity is SOLELY blind prejudice. Your completely presumptive statements don't allow for the very real possibility that Hillary's leadership style leaves a cynical impression on some people. If they're not buying it, you can't just fight their perceived prejudice with another prejudice. Where are you at then besides the other side of a pole from someone? You instantly reached for the easiest fucking excuse out there, and guess what, that's going to make her detractors now doubly cynical.

She IS the first woman in serious contention. He IS the first black man in serious contention. No one wants to hear sob stories about oppression and prejudice. A smart leader (and his/her supporters) would know how to change the game to their favor in some other way. I never said you were off topic - I said I didn't think you made a [i]relevant[/i] point. I also thought I made it abundantly clear that I didn't agree with BMG either by indirectly quoting her text. I'm not trying to disrespect either of you - just saying "okay, so what now?"

[MARV]

[quote][i]Originally posted by Blir[/i]
<br>I hear what you're saying 100% SB and don't disagree with your opinions about the status quo and that the prejudices are real. But by our statements alone, I think you're actually being the MOST prejudiced person here within this thread. You're assuming that the sole source of peoples' cynicism about Hillary's style or sincerity is SOLELY blind prejudice. Your completely presumptive statements don't allow for the very real possibility that Hillary's leadership style leaves a cynical impression on some people. If they're not buying it, you can't just fight their perceived prejudice with another prejudice. Where are you at then besides the other side of a pole from someone? You instantly reached for the easiest fucking excuse out there, and guess what, that's going to make her detractors now doubly cynical.

She IS the first woman in serious contention. He IS the first black man in serious contention. No one wants to hear sob stories about oppression and prejudice. A smart leader (and his/her supporters) would know how to change the game to their favor in some other way. I never said you were off topic - I said I didn't think you made a [i]relevant[/i] point. I also thought I made it abundantly clear that I didn't agree with BMG either by indirectly quoting her text. I'm not trying to disrespect either of you - just saying "okay, so what now?"
[/quote]

Yer darn tootin', Blir. But hey, keep going Shov-a-duv-bum. I love it [8D] Nothing like a good, superficial argument. Like lambs sticking their necks out for the slaughter [}:)]

But anyway, Hillary's turning out to be a good politician with plays like this right out of the Karl Rove handbook. You see what she did to the Obama Man? A week before the crucial Ohio and Texas primaries too. You go girl:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080225/ap_ ... bama_photo

P.S. I hope you don't think I'm hating on Billary because she's a woman. Here in NY we have women in all types of positions of authority and it's all good. And I can assure you that anyone who cries under NORMAL WORKPLACE PRESSURE will get the boot be they man or woman. Billary is smart enough to know that but she's also smart enough to know that acting out the helpless, sensitive woman will inspire the pathos she needs to get you to vote for her. While I'm sure she thanks you for playing along, I don't think either of you are looking at the bigger picture. Or rather, maybe she's just desperate after having lost the last eleven primaries in a row.

I couldn't give a rat's if the president was black, white, man, woman, straight, gay or whatever. To make this a gender issue mildly insults me but hey, what it says about you is much bigger.

[Frau_Blucher]

[quote][i]Originally posted by marvymarv[/i]
<br>Yer darn tootin', Blir. But hey, keep going Shov-a-duv-bum. I love it [8D] Nothing like a good, superficial argument. Like lambs sticking their necks out for the slaughter [}:)][/quote]
Dude, I'm trying to argue about having a point and THIS is what you harp in with?! WTF? [B)]

[shovelbum]

[quote][i]Originally posted by i_like_lectric_motors[/i]
<br>[quote][i]Originally posted by shovelbum[/i]
Ever had a woman think that you were "asking for it" just because of how you were dressed, or that because of how you were dressed you got what you had coming to you?

[/quote]

Quite a few times, actually.



[/quote]

Yeah, well that's what you get when you walk out in public in your thong, man. [:D]

"Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal." ~Robert Heinlein

[MARV]

[quote][i]Originally posted by Blir[/i]
<br>[quote][i]Originally posted by marvymarv[/i]
<br>Yer darn tootin', Blir. But hey, keep going Shov-a-duv-bum. I love it [8D] Nothing like a good, superficial argument. Like lambs sticking their necks out for the slaughter [}:)][/quote]
Dude, I'm trying to argue about having a point and THIS is what you harp in with?! WTF? [B)]
[/quote]

I guess you missed my point that her pointlessness is her own Achilles Heel? Hopefully SHE got the point.

Last time I try to help the underdog if I have to go up against the likes of you [|)]

[SwampThing]

From the article Marv posted...
[quote]Obama is a member of the United Church of Christ and says he has never been a Muslim, but false rumors about Islamic ties are circulating on the Internet.
[/quote] Don't we have a member here that was circulating such information??? LOL!

<font size="1"></font>

[i_like_lectric_motors]

[quote][i]Originally posted by SwampThing[/i]
<br>From the article Marv posted...
[quote]Obama is a member of the United Church of Christ and says he has never been a Muslim, but false rumors about Islamic ties are circulating on the Internet.
[/quote] Don't we have a member here that was circulating such information??? LOL!

<font size="1"></font>
[/quote]

We did, didn't we? Thing is, being a UCC member is really not that much better.

[hexicon]

[quote][i]Originally posted by i_like_lectric_motors[/i]
<br>[quote][i]Originally posted by SwampThing[/i]
<br>From the article Marv posted...
[quote]Obama is a member of the United Church of Christ and says he has never been a Muslim, but false rumors about Islamic ties are circulating on the Internet.
[/quote] Don't we have a member here that was circulating such information??? LOL!

<font size="1"></font>
[/quote]

We did, didn't we? Thing is, being a UCC member is really not that much better.

[/quote]
I don't understand the relation of Obama's Trinity United Church of Christ with the liberal mainstream Protestant United Church of Christ (which was formed from the merger of some Congregational churches with other groups). Its tenets merit investigation.

[i_like_lectric_motors]

I'm guessing they're a sub-cult of the real UCC?

Here's the link to his church's "about us" page:

http://www.tucc.org/about.htm

"We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian... Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain "true to our native land," the mother continent, the cradle of civilization."

Very scary shit.

[hexicon]

Yeah, I know as an atheist I should have equal disregard for all religions, but there are religions that are rooted in cultural and historical traditions, and then there is crazy-ass made-up bullshit. In this case, scary crazy-ass made-up bullshit.

[KYYX4ever]

I'm tired of all the stupid pundits spinning their heads and words around the whole stupid race 'n' gender issues. Who the heck cares (well, except for some backwards, ignorant racists out there in woods ).
But I think that Obama's and Clinton's similarities on many issues is what gives them fertile ground upon which to foist this upon us. There's a lot more to Obama than people realize ( listed on his website, for example). But still, folks are stuck in this media-driven Race 'n' Gender division. People are hungering for more substance. But the media, curiously, is not giving it to us. They're mired in all this BS.[xx(]

[Bitter Almonds]

[quote][i]Originally posted by shovelbum[/i]
<br>Trust me, Blir, I am doing a lot more than whining.

"Perceived" prejudices? No, they're real. Anyone ever ask you if you were going to put your kids in daycare during a job interview? Ever had a college counselor tell you that you're lucky because your wife has a good job so you should just go home and raise your kids? Ever had a car salesman show you the visor mirror of a car you were thinking of buying? Ever had a woman think that you were "asking for it" just because of how you were dressed, or that because of how you were dressed you got what you had coming to you? Ever realized that everytime you walk into a dark parking lot you're on guard? These experiences wouldn't occur if we didn't live in a misogynistic culture. It permeates our society so much that we're not even aware of it in most cases.[/quote]

<p align="justify">You mean the way some people think you're a high school drop out on the govt. dole with kids from different teenage mothers with a criminal history who happens to be in this country illegally? To add insult to injury, you get gang signs thrown out at you because you - of all other people out there - would surely recognise exactly what they mean. Guess what? Almost every person out there can dish out some sob story. We live in a cesspit of different kinds of people. If you have not lived in the third world with the rest of those radical jizzlamist subhumans or under strict catholicism, you have no idea what a real fucked-up, misogynistic culture is like. Be grateful you have the chances afforded to you for an education, for a job, to make your own life decisions - hell, to buy your own goddamn Hummer! - etc. Boo-fuckin'-hoo. Deal with it.

[Frau_Blucher]

[quote][i]Originally posted by hexicon[/i]
<br>Yeah, I know as an atheist I should have equal disregard for all religions, but there are religions that are rooted in cultural and historical traditions, and then there is crazy-ass made-up bullshit. In this case, scary crazy-ass made-up bullshit.
[/quote]
Heh, how did I miss these posts last night?! Just thinking aloud here...

I think at least one thing you and motors are on to is that there's no question this is going to be a very interesting topic and hot potato for Obama. Having said that, I don't know how significant the distinction is between "crazy-ass made-up bullshit" and "[i]scary[/i] crazy-ass made-up bullshit" other than the former being older and whiter and the latter being newer and blacker. [;)]

And I'm sure this discussion is eventually going to go down our favorite route...drumroll please...tadah!...MORAL EQUIVALENCE! [8D]

The TUCC stuff certainly gives me pause, but at the same time hasn't overly concerned me yet. Maybe I'm naive or maybe I'm not threatened by groups looking to improve themselves through ethnocentric tenets - this is a pretty pervasive thing after all, from Irish-American Clubs to Polish Churches. It makes complete sense to me that a black politician in Chicago is going to belong to the biggest Afro-centric church in the city (and for that matter, the biggest UCC period).

Insert moral equivalency argument [i]here[/i]: it's no stroke of genius to now say that if whites had such white-centric assertions that we'd be flamed as racists. True of course...mostly. I agree with probably most sensible folks that [i]in an ideal world[/i] we shouldn't have these distinctions. We all know it's not an ideal world. Whites (men) still hold the most power. It further seems that most of the white-centric groups that have gotten negative publicity have been ones that promote things like the consolidation of that power or the exclusion or separation of other groups.

Blacks don't have the power in the US, and I don't see the TUCC having exclusion as part of its fundamental tenets. I totally see the moral equivalency argument, I totally understand the rationale behind it, but simply don't agree that it's a truly equivalent argument. Best case scenario is that the TUCC is trying to strengthen and instill positive elements of their cultural values into their primary constituency. If you rail against black drug-addled single welfare moms and abandoning convict dads (to be completely stereotyping), it's hard to argue this mission. Worst case scenario is that this is a not-so-subtle subversion to bring about an Afro-centric overthrow of our society. If you know the power structure of the US, you can't sincerely be worried about that.

This topic is so not new. Minority ethnocentric groups have always existed, and I read once that they always go through a predictable evolution in their politics, from uprising or protest to looking to achieve empowerment to eventual empowerment and then sort of a "poly-centric" dissolution into the power base (and then probably the ironic desire to consolidate that power of course!). The Irish went through it in their riots of the 1800s to their ethno-centric political associations of the early 1900s, and now they're hard to discriminate from the regular power-base.

Blacks probably had their protest stage primarily in the 1960s. About now is probably their empowerment stage. It seems that the TUCC's original tenets however came about during the protest stage of evolution, thus the seeming disconnect to today's sensibilities. They would obviously do well to start moving toward more poly-centric sensibilities, and I wouldn't be surprised if they do. Even aside from all this, I don't think Obama is defined just by his church any more than Kennedy was. He has also distanced himself from them somewhat - he didn't allow their admittedly nutty pastor to deliver his candidacy invocation and he condemned the church's magazine giving an award to Louis Farrakhan.

It'll all be a minefield for sure though!

[KYYX4ever]

Some good points, Blir, esp. the one about how different groups go through "predictable evolution" as they rise up in society and its norms.

Maybe the only reason we know of Obama's "religious" affiliation is that he has had to defend himself against claims that he is a Muslim (which he is not) ? Otherwise, is he really defined by this church, TUCC ? (* goes off to look at tucc info *)

[Frau_Blucher]

[quote][i]Originally posted by KYYX4ever[/i]
<br>Maybe the only reason we know of Obama's "religious" affiliation is that he has had to defend himself against claims that he is a Muslim (which he is not) ? Otherwise, is he really defined by this church, TUCC ? (* goes off to look at tucc info *)
[/quote]
I actually think they're separate issues. I think the Muslim thing is a subversion, but I can see people having real concerns about the TUCC depending on your POV.