Imagine if Obama had told the truth.... *gasp*

[atprm]

Imagine if, a week before he dispatched John McCain in November, Barack Obama had stood before the American people and told them what he would actually do.

"My fellow Americans, if you elect me president next Tuesday, I propose to grow our government to unprecedented size, increase federal spending to never-imagined levels and double the debt in our country. I will support $1.3 trillion in new taxes even as our recession deepens. I will take advantage of the crisis to expand federal control of health care, the energy industry, banks, Wall Street and the car business, fire GM's CEO and sign a stimulus bill with nearly 9,000 earmarks.

"I will undo much of Bill Clinton's welfare reform by giving 'tax cuts' to non-taxpayers. I will propose a crushing tax on energy, making it more expensive to drive to work or cook dinner. I will choose men who have not paid their taxes as my key economic advisers and will have no one in my Cabinet who can fairly be called a 'businessman.' I will shrivel the deduction charities count on for over 40 percent of their contributions.

"I will propose an omnipotent czar with the power to regulate, sanction and, ultimately, seize any business we judge could threaten the economy of this country. My Treasury Department will enable $165 million in bonuses to failed financial industry executives, and then I will give that industry an additional trillion-dollar bailout, indebting middle-class Americans to buy their toxic assets. All this I will do in my first two months, before April Fools' Day."

If Barack Obama had said this, he would not today be president. Yet this is the record he will run on in 2012. And this is the record Democrats in Congress will have to defend in 2010.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/31/castellanos.obama.change/index.html

[mikej]

LOL! April Fools!

[atprm]

LOL! April Fools!

yeah, we already know, he can't tell the truth to save his own ass...but I don't find him to be very funny -- joke yes, funny, no.

[mikej]

yeah, we already know, he can't tell the truth to save his own ass...but I don't find him to be very funny -- joke yes, funny, no.

Bush never told the truth about anything.

Name one lie that Obama has said.

[atprm]

Bush never told the truth about anything.

Name one lie that Obama has said.


hmmm troops in Iraq .... getting the dog.... taking care of the auto companies (yet he wants them in bankruptcy) ... the list keeps going.

Can you name 1 truth he has told?

No politician tells the complete truth --- :rolling

But until this sitting jackass took office, I had not seen one take a dive off the deep end so damn fast! It's a new world record.

[SurferGirl]

Obama has told too many lies to even begin listing them now.
If you look through many of the recent threads I'm sure you will find many.
I will come up with a few examples:
He seems to hate our country as much as his wife and preacher do.
He has a far left agenda much like that of William Ayers or worse.
He promised to be bi-partisan and then made it clear that the Republicans
had no say, even though they had better ideas.
He lied about his associations with ACORN.
He arranged things for the public to be upset over 165 million in bonuses and the bus rides and protesters were courtesy of ACORN.
While the nation was focused on that he was up to other things behind the scenes that I'm sure you have read on this board.

[mikej]

The troops are scheduled to leave Iraq. So, it's a couple of months after he originally promised; big deal!

He's getting the dog this month. Did you think that it would be the very first order of business? If so, you're a EDITED.

When did he ever promise to "take care" of the auto industry? Nobody ever held out any hope for Chrysler. GM will survive as will Ford.

[atprm]

The troops are scheduled to leave Iraq. So, it's a couple of months after he originally promised; big deal!

He's getting the dog this month. Did you think that it would be the very first order of business? If so, EDITED BY HIPPIE.

When did he ever promise to "take care" of the auto industry? Nobody ever held out any hope for Chrysler. GM will survive as will Ford.

how about taking a trip to the top of the forums and read the rules before posting? :rules name calling.

Thus far, we have all sat on our fingers and refrained from calling you any TRUTHFUL name that want to spill off our fingertips...and I commend my fellow BBS'ers for their ability to curb the name calling...but, alas, you just can't control yourself huh?

[FauxHoChic]

How about that transparancy thing? No earmarks/pork spending?

[mikej]

Obama has told too many lies to even begin listing them now.
If you look through many of the recent threads I'm sure you will find many.
I will come up with a few examples:
He seems to hate our country as much as his wife and preacher do.
He has a far left agenda much like that of William Ayers or worse.
He promised to be bi-partisan and then made it clear that the Republicans
had no say, even though they had better ideas.
He lied about his associations with ACORN.
He arranged things for the public to be upset over 165 million in bonuses and the bus rides and protesters were courtesy of ACORN.
While the nation was focused on that he was up to other things behind the scenes that I'm sure you have read on this board.

You guys need to make up your minds as to which lies you wish to advance. Obama is an angry black man who hates Whitey! Obama was a 60s radical (when 8 years old)! Obama is a radical Muslim!!

Every word you wrote is complete nonsense.

You make me wonder what is missing in your life to be so very full of venom.

[ahippiechic]

If i have to edited anything else, there will be vacations. Not the good kind.

[SurferGirl]

Much like the liberal media, you have an extremely distorted view of the truth.

[whatever]

boy I hardly get the chance to be on here and we have a "new" Um how shall I put it...........person calling us racist. LOL
DUDE wake up. Or grow up. Just because we don't worship BHO doesn't mean its because of his race. He has proven to be a disappointmnent. These ladies have posted enough sources of things. If you want to look thru them and then dispute them,go for it.
But you can't just make up stuff because you like it. He has lied about sooo many things, alot before he even took office. Again go thru posts. Most (like myself) don't have time to spell it all out to you. :)
There is a thing called self help.

[Jolie Rouge]

Obama is an angry black man who hates Whitey!

No, that was Rev Wright, whom Obama claims as a friend and mentorr without understanding the "message" that was being delievered from his pulpit. We could be charitiable and think that Obama simply dozed thru all those looong Sunday Sermons ?


Obama was a 60s radical (when 8 years old)!

No, he just is a coworker and friend to radical domestic terrorists. He even wrote a favorable blurb for Ayers book ... but I guess he didn't read it nor was aware of the books contents or his friends' history.


Obama is a radical Muslim!!

No, that is the spin the radical left keeps pushing as a "Right Wing Conspiracy Agenda"



You make me wonder what is missing in your life to be so very full of venom.

Most of the "venom" seems to be spewing from your keyboard... take a tums, eat a cookie, review your notes .... ;)

[mikej]

boy I hardly get the chance to be on here and we have a "new" Um how shall I put it...........person calling us racist. LOL
DUDE wake up. Or grow up. Just because we don't worship BHO doesn't mean its because of his race. He has proven to be a disappointmnent. These ladies have posted enough sources of things. If you want to look thru them and then dispute them,go for it.
But you can't just make up stuff because you like it. He has lied about sooo many things, alot before he even took office. Again go thru posts. Most (like myself) don't have time to spell it all out to you. :)
There is a thing called self help.

I am not calling you a racist. I think that Steele was chosen to demonstrate how um "progressive"" the RNC is.

I haven't met anyone yet who worships Obama. I am very surprised that you voted for him. He has done exactly what he outlined in his campaign. I am not disappointed and I voted for him.

[mikej]

No, that was Rev Wright, whom Obama claims as a friend and mentorr without understanding the "message" that was being delievered from his pulpit. We could be charitiable and think that Obama simply dozed thru all those looong Sunday Sermons ?

No, he just is a coworker and friend to radical domestic terrorists. He even wrote a favorable blurb for Ayers book ... but I guess he didn't read it nor was aware of the books contents or his friends' history.

No, that is the spin the radical left keeps pushing as a "Right Wing Conspiracy Agenda"

Most of the "venom" seems to be spewing from your keyboard... take a tums, eat a cookie, review your notes .... ;)

Unfortunately, none of those allegations ever stuck to him. They just made McCain look bad.

No, I do not think that Obama dozed. I know a lot of people with crazy ideas. (I live in a red state) I have walked off in a huff. Frankly, I think it's good to know all kinds of different people.

All the allegations you mentioned have been repeated over and over again and they are utter nonsense. Both Obama and Ayers sat on the board of a non profit together and this makes him a terrorist? They barely know each other.

You have to admit it's nonsense.

[Jolie Rouge]

Both Obama and Ayers sat on the board of a non profit together and this makes him a terrorist?

You are being thick.

Ayers is a terrorist - self proclaimed and proud of it. He even wrote a book about it ... which Obama - who "barely knows him" wrote a blurb for.



They barely know each other.

They worked together, lived in the same neighborhood, Ayers helped him get a sweet deal on his house ... but "they barely knew each other" :rolleyes: Do some research and stop regugitated the pap they are filling your head with ...

May I suggest a start : http://www.bigbigforums.com/news-information/581051-you-dont-need-weatherman-know-candidate-blows.html

[mikej]

You are being thick.

Ayers is a terrorist - self proclaimed and proud of it. He even wrote a book about it ... which Obama - who "barely knows him" wrote a blurb for.




They worked together, lived in the same neighborhood, Ayers helped him get a sweet deal on his house ... but "they barely knew each other" :rolleyes: Do some research and stop regugitated the pap they are filling your head with ...

May I suggest a start : http://www.bigbigforums.com/news-information/581051-you-dont-need-weatherman-know-candidate-blows.html

Thank you for the link to such an unbiased comment. Do you really think that Ayers is actively participating in terrorist activities? Do you think that he is trying to recruit terrorists? If so, where are his minions. Ayers is a well respected professor who is active in Chicago politics. That's all there is to it.

[Jolie Rouge]

Ayers peddling his terrorist memoir, Fugitive Days in 2001. http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Ma...01/No-Regrets/

No Regrets
Marcia Froelke Coburn

At 55, Bill Ayers, the notorious sixties radical, still carries a whiff of that rock 'n' roll decade: the oversize wire-rim glasses that, in a certain light, reveal themselves as bifocals; a backpack over his shoulder—not some streamlined, chic job, but a funky backpack-of-the-people, complete with a photo button of abolitionist John Brown pinned to one strap.

Yet he is also a man of the moment. For example: There is his cell phone, laid casually on the tabletop of this neighborhood Taylor Street coffee shop, and his passion for double skim lattes. In conversation, he has an immediate, engaging presence; he may not have known you long but, his manner suggests, he's already fascinated. Then there is his quick laugh and his tendency to punctuate his comments by a tap on your arm.

Overall, it is not easy to imagine him as part of the Weatherman, a group that during the late sixties and early seventies openly called for revolution in America, led a violent rampaging protest in Chicago, and took credit for numerous bombings around the United States.

One of the Weatherman leaders was Bernardine Dohrn, a smart, magnetic figure who, in part because of her penchant for miniskirts and knee-high boots, was dubbed "La Pasionaria of the Lunatic Left" by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. After a bomb exploded accidentally and killed three of their colleagues, Ayers and Dohrn "hooked up," in the parlance of the day, and, since 1982, they have been married. This—violence, death, and white-hot rhetoric—is his past and Ayers insists he has no regrets. "I acted appropriately in the context of those times," he says. But it's hard to reconcile this quick-witted man with that revolutionary. Today Bill Ayers seems too happy to have ever been so angry.

Ayers, now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, claims to abhor nostalgia ("Nothing is more boring than some old person going on and on about the way things used to be"). But he has been thinking lately about the past—both his and the country's—and soon he will likely be engaged in what he calls "a dialogue" about the sixties, the antiwar movement, and the radical life he led. The spur for this dialogue will be the publication of Fugitive Days (Beacon Press, $24), a memoir Ayers has written about the trajectory of his life, from a pampered son of the Chicago suburbs to a young pacifist to a founder of one of the most radical political organizations in U.S. history.

In the pantheon of radicals of the sixties and seventies, Ayers's place is unique. "He was not as notorious as Bernardine Dohrn," says Don Rose, a political consultant who has written about those times. "But what made Ayers of particular interest then was that he was the son of a captain of industry. Now he's interesting because, of all the farther-out radicals, he has achieved the most scholarly reputation."

Writing the book has been "a daunting task," Ayers says, "because I want to be true to those times. I don't feel nostalgic for the sixties, but there is no doubt in my mind that the events I write about were shaping events, and they provided for me a way of seeing the world that seemed so alive and so resonant that I can't escape it, no matter what I do."

Certainly there are moments when Ayers has the sound of the sixties down pat, like when he tells me, "Imperialism or globalization—I don't have to care what it's called to hate it." And then there are moments when he sounds light-years away from his radical sensibilities, more like an old grump lamenting today's uninformed youth: He tells me a story about going into Starbucks and having the young woman behind the counter mistake his photo pin of John Brown for Walt Whitman. "And when I told her, no, it's John Brown, she said, 'Who is John Brown?'"

But I am struck by another part of that story. What are you doing in a Starbucks? I ask the man who professes to hate globalization. "Oh," he says. "I have an addiction to caffeine."

There you have the complexity of Ayers: a man who once tried to overthrow his country's government and now works for a state university; an opponent of the bourgeoisie who has been married for 20 years; a left-wing radical who loves a good cup of imperialist coffee. Maybe he's always known how to choose his battles. Once one of his sons wanted to hear about how Ayers had been a draft card burner. "Tell me again how you burned your credit card, Pop," his son confusedly asked.

"I'm not that radical," Ayers retorted.

* * *

He grew up in Glen Ellyn, where the grass was literally always greener. His father, Thomas Ayers, was a long-time executive of Commonwealth Edison and served as chairmain from 1973 to 1980. "Nice was crucially important," Bill Ayers writes of his childhood, and it's clear in his memoir that what Ayers has long been running from is not so much the law of the 1960s and 1970s but the upper-middle-class sensibility in which he was raised. He attended Lake Forest Academy, where he was the sole member of the Young Socialists of America; he hated every minute of school there. He liked what he found at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor: freewheeling thought, radicalism, and a passionate desire to stop the war in Vietnam, at almost any cost. Soon he dropped out, joined the Students for a Democratic Society, and became a full-time activist; arrests in demonstrations quickly followed, much to his family's dismay.

One of the more amusing passages in Fugitive Days comes when Ayers recounts a generations-in-conflict conversation when his father counseled caution: "Don't close too many doors to the future," he said. "Don't take too many steps down a one-way street."

"What are you doing to end the war?" I challenged.

"Edison isn't political," he said. "That's not our business. . . . I'd be doubtful about a group calling itself Students for a Democratic Society—this is, after all, a democratic society."

"Well, I'm doubtful about a group calling itself Commonwealth Edison," I said. "There's nothing common about wealth."

He walked out of jail and into his first teaching job, at a daycare center in Ann Arbor. Soon he was the 21-year-old director of the place. It was there he met Diana Oughton, a beautiful and accomplished young woman. They fell in love and attended SDS conventions together. As the war dragged on and U.S. politics became more polarized, some of the war resisters—including Ayers, Oughton, and Dohrn—turned more militant. They started a group called the Weatherman, a name inspired by the Bob Dylan song lyric "You don't need a weatherman / To know which way the wind blows."

In 1969, they decided to "bring the war home" by staging a protest in Chicago during the trial of the "Chicago Eight" radicals accused of conspiring to cross state lines to incite a riot during the 1968 Democratic National Convention here. (Their conviction was later overturned.) "The Days of Rage," as the 1969 protest was called, brought several hundred members of the Weatherman—many of them attired for battle with helmets and weapons—to Lincoln Park. The tear-gassed marches, window smashing, and clashes with police lasted four days, during which 290 militants were arrested and 63 people were injured. Damage to windows, cars, and other property soared to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Around this time, Ayers summed up the Weatherman philosophy as "Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents—that's where it's really at."

"The rhetoric was excessive because the times were excessive," says Ayers. "The war had escalated, so naturally the language escalated. No one thought I meant that literally."

Between 1970 and 1974, the Weatherman took credit for 12 bombings, including one of the United States Capitol and another involving several police cars. The group always emphasized that their targets were property, not people. And, in fact, no one was injured—except, of course, some of the Weatherman's own.

In 1970, a bomb that was apparently being built in a Greenwich Village townhouse, occupied by at least five members of the Weatherman, accidentally exploded—killing three of the group, including Ayers's beloved Diana Oughton. In Fugitive Days, Ayers tries to imagine what happened. Maybe Diana tried to stop the others from their path? Maybe they all drank too much coffee and smoked too many cigarettes?

Maybe Diana saw that this bomb, packed with nails and screws, would have exacted a heavy human toll if it had ever reached its destination—a New Jersey military base. Could she have, in a gesture of sacrifice, crossed the wires herself? "I'll never know what happened," he says. "That's the price I have to pay."

The deaths—and two federal indictments—sent Ayers and his remaining comrades underground. The fugitives eluded the FBI for ten years through a series of constantly changing identities and locations. In one of the most haunting scenes in Fugitive Days, Ayers wanders through remote Midwestern cemeteries, looking for the gravestones of babies who, like them, had been born between 1940 and 1950 but had died shortly thereafter. It was from those headstones that the fugitives would build their new identities. Overall, Ayers figures, he had at least 12 separate aliases while living in 15 different states. The one he used most often was "Joe." Bernardine's favorite was "Rose," and to honor her, Ayers got the rose tattoo he now sports on his forearm.

( continues )

[Jolie Rouge]

In 1980, Ayers and Dohrn turned themselves in. (The first words Ayers's father said to him were, "You need a haircut.") By then they had had two children together, and the bombing conspiracy charge against the couple had been dismissed due to government misconduct.

Dohrn plea-bargained to charges of inciting to mob action and resisting police officers. She was sentenced to three years' probation and a $1,500 fine. Ayers was not charged. Even then he showed a way with words: "Guilty as hell, free as a bird—America is a great country," he said.

The next year, a Weatherman killed a Brink's guard and two state troopers in a bungled armored truck robbery. Kathy Boudin, the daughter of an esteemed New York civil rights lawyer, was sentenced to 20 years to life for her role in the crime; Ayers and Dohrn adopted her infant son. Today Ayers says it was partly because of "[the boy's] questions of who he is and what the background of his mother's life was that [Ayers] started to write this memoir."

* * *
Now, Ayers is a respected name in the field of education; his books, including To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher and A Good Preschool Teacher, are hailed by some as groundbreaking and thoughtful approaches to learning. Certainly they are reactions against the popular theories of the 1950s, which held that students were empty vessels to be filled with knowledge.

"Essentially, you must see the student before you as a locus of energy," he says. "He already has a heart, a soul, a mind, interests, and dreams. You need to help him shape those interests, pursue those dreams." Ayers is distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where two years ago the university named him Senior University Scholar, an award given to outstanding faculty members. He also directs the Center for Youth and Society, an organization that brings an interdisciplinary approach to working with youth—from art education to after-school programs. One of the center's recent efforts was a symposium inspired by the book Racism Explained to My Daughter, by Tahar Ben Jelloun. "We brought together people to discuss how to address racism with kids," says Therese Quinn, associate director of the center. What strikes Quinn about Ayers is "his enthusiasm and optimism," she says. "He is just overwhelmingly generous and supportive."

"Teaching has always been, for me, linked to issues of social justice," he says. "I've never considered it a neutral or passive profession."

In Fugitive Days, Ayers has a personable style that pulls the reader in from the book's start—when he describes the moment he heard about the 1970 Greenwich Village explosion. It is the moment, of course, when his own life figuratively blew apart. "In the beginning, Bill wanted to write about the Vietnam War and why he thought it was wrong," says Helene Atwan, director of Beacon Press, who edited Ayers's book. "But I told him that most Americans now believed that that war was wrong and certainly the people reading a book of memoirs would feel that. I wanted him to concentrate on his personal story."

Except for a few minor polemics along the way, Ayers does—and then some. "He very effectively captures the spirit of the times," says Bernardine Dohrn, who is now a clinical associate professor at Northwestern University School of Law. "He conjures it up and reflects on it."

Like her husband, Dohrn claims she feels no need to escape the legacy of the 1960s and 1970s. "I feel it's always with me. It's taken a long time to achieve a precarious balance about it, where it's not all defining and a cartoon. But this isn't just my problem; it's a generation's problem."

For two radicals once living underground, Ayers and Dohrn have raised three accomplished children: Zayd (named for a fallen Black Liberation soldier and colleague), 24, graduated from Brown University and has an M.F.A. degree in writing from Boston University, where he now teaches; Malik (for Malcolm X), 21, is attending the University of California at San Diego; and Chesa, 20, their adopted son, just finished his sophomore year at Yale University.

Recently, Ayers himself has returned to school as a student for the first time since he earned his Ph.D. in education at Columbia University—thanks to the monetary award he received from UIC as senior university scholar. He periodically commutes to Bennington College for the school's low-residency M.F.A. program in writing, in which he is concentrating on nonfiction. So far, he has studied with essayist Philip Lopate and novelist/memoirist Susan Cheever. "It's exciting and scary and all those good things," he says. "They have been wonderful in helping me find my own voice."

That is not something you would have thought Ayers needed help with. It is a different time, though, and he is a different man. But not completely changed. Talk to him for any length of time and some rhetoric of the past slips into the conversation. "I think there will be another mass political movement," he predicts, "because I believe that the kind of injustice that is built into our world will not go quietly into the night."

But the time-warp moment is over as quickly as it begins. Ayers—totally back in the present moment—pauses to sip his double skim latte, then greets a graduate student who awaits his attention. "These aren't mountain times, these are valley times," he says, acknowledging a change in the culture, the political climate, and maybe even in himself. "But you can still work the vineyard where you are."

----

And in case you missed it, make sure you read John Murtaugh’s piece on how the Weather Underground terrorists tried to kill his family. http://www.city-journal.org/2008/eon0430jm.html

Like the Arizona Republic editorial board put it today: The 60s just won’t go away. http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/0505mon1-05.html

Charming Bombers, But What of Victims?
May 5, 2008; Page A14

Elizabeth Wurtzel ("Obama's Other Radical Friends," op-ed, May 2) can be forgiven her youthful fascination with radical bomber Bernardine Dohrn. We all have ideas at 15 that seem silly from the perspective of middle age. Barack Obama's reported close relationship with Ms. Dohrn and Bill Ayers is much more troubling and raises legitimate questions about his judgment and maturity.

In a 33-year law-enforcement career I had occasion to arrest many charming criminals. One of the most engaging was a California radical, rapist and prison escapee associated with the Symbionese Liberation Army (remember them?) who was living in Louisiana. When, after an intensive undercover investigation, I confronted him with his true name, he stuck out his hand and said "You must have talked to them in Oakland." Indeed I had, and what I learned was chilling.

From all accounts, Mr. Ayers and Ms. Dohrn are equally charming. That does not nullify their crimes. Placing a bomb is one of the most evil of acts because the effects of a bomb are totally indiscriminate and incredibly devastating. Just ask a young Iraq War veteran who will live the rest of his or her life minus body parts. Just ask the families of those killed by Timothy McVeigh in the Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

There is little moral difference between Mr. Ayers and Ms. Dohrn and McVeigh. Timothy McVeigh was simply a less charming individual and a more successful bomber. He received just punishment for his crime.
Mr. Ayers and Ms. Dohrn did not.


Greg Phares
Baton Rouge, La.



http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120995558475566785.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[mikej]

I do not condone terrorism. But, even you have to admit that Ayers is no longer engaging in terrorism.

[Jolie Rouge]

Keep drinking the koolaide ....


:dancing: :dancing: :dancing: :dancing:

[mikej]

Keep drinking the koolaide ....


:dancing: :dancing: :dancing: :dancing:

Enlighten me. Please inform me of William Ayer's current terrorist activities.

[atprm]

take a tums, eat a cookie, review your notes

better ask the sitting jackass first -- find out if he wills you to eat the cookie, ask him how much the tax is on the tums.

can't say much for the notes -- maybe a teleprompter would be be uh, uh, uh... uh more efficient?? (use a big screen plasma -- screw the carbon footprint -- just in case you decide glasses would be in order)

but shouldn't you eat the cookie before you eat the tums? :D

[jeanea33]

The troops are scheduled to leave Iraq. So, it's a couple of months after he originally promised; big deal!

He's getting the dog this month. Did you think that it would be the very first order of business? If so, you're a EDITED.

When did he ever promise to "take care" of the auto industry? Nobody ever held out any hope for Chrysler. GM will survive as will Ford.



He's leaving 50,000 troops in iraq. FYI that means we will not be pulling completely out of iraq.