McCain's "Spiritual Guide": America was "Founded, in Part, to See Islam Destroyed"

Leslie Richards wrote:

<quoted text>
That's very interesting to me. I would like to learn more about this. Can you provide a link that?

Good gosh...don't you know how to Google? Just type in Haggee & McCain and you will get plenty of links to back this up.

Is this the same guy who called pope the Anti-Christ?

Does he expect Pennsylvania to vote for him when 70% are Catholics?

I don't know if our country was founded with some desire to destroy Islam... that sounds pretty made up....

But it's not a bad policy to adopt now!!!

...stupid non-bbc code site....lol.

Race and Politics.
The summarization that “less educated white voters hurt Obama” is quite honest and on point. There is something brewing. That statement is one of the most recent euphemisms that I’ve read. When a person reads this statement, the inference that I take away from it is that the journalist wants to say that “bigots and racist will hurt Obama.” It appears to be, the “good ole boy” mentality of racism that is hard at work, plain and simple, or just another attempt by whites to disenfranchise minorities by any means necessary. Either way it’s enough to make a decent, moral person sick to their stomach. Hasn’t that been the history of this great country of ours? America has a history of discrediting African American leaders. This is the same ole politics of the past. Obama is persecuted in the media through “Guilt by association.” McCain however does not receive the same persecution in the media for his associations. There is a double standard.
Are less educated white voters more likely to not support Obama because of their ignorance, lack of education, racism or fear that minorities are getting ahead of them? If so, what is the basis of their fear? Is it just hatred? Are white with more education more likely to support Obama because of their higher education, or ideology? Are less educated Republicans not likely to support Obama? Are more educated Republicans more likely to support Obama? The answer is a resounding NO! In my opinion Republicans are only supporting Obama now so that they can sledge hammer this sharp wedge between the American people in November.

Race and Politics.
Isn’t it the GOP’s historical stance that the “liberal” Democratic Party is the party of whites that feel sorry for impoverished blacks and display compassion through spending tax dollars for social programs? This ideology, and attitude have dominated the Republican Party for decades now. Of course the rhetoric or euphemisms are disguised in such terms as “He’ll be tough on crime.” Which when processed in the minds of the voter means “He’ll lock up the bad guys.” Which when further processed means,“He’ll lock up the black guys.” Or “He’ll cut taxes” which when processed in the mind of the voter means “He’s going to let me keep more of my money” which in turn means there will be less taxes to spend on social programs. These are just two examples of the most common euphemisms or code language used in politics.
“Race” is the most important issue that “we the people” of these United States must finally begin to have an open and honest discussion about. We must take this issue on head on, no matter how painful it may be for some. Just what is brewing we will soon all find out.

It’s all about race.
Bill Moyers is one of the worlds most respected journalist. Here is the transcript from Bill Moyers Journal.
May 2, 2008
BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the Journal.
I once asked a reporter back from Vietnam, "Who's telling the truth over there?" "Everyone, he said. "Everyone sees what's happening through the lens of their own experience." That's how people see Jeremiah Wright. In my conversation with him on this broadcast a week ago and in his dramatic public appearances since, he revealed himself to be far more complex than the sound bites that propelled him onto the public stage. Over 2000 of you have written me about him, and your opinions vary widely. Some sting: "Jeremiah Wright is nothing more than a race-hustling, American hating radical," one viewer wrote. A "nut case," said another. Others were far more were sympathetic to him.
Many of you have asked for some rational explanation for Wright's transition from reasonable conversation to shocking anger at the National Press Club. A psychologist might pull back some of the layers and see this complicated man more clearly, but I'm not a psychologist. Many black preachers I've known — scholarly, smart, and gentle in person — uncorked fire and brimstone in the pulpit. Of course I've known many white preachers like that, too.
But where I grew up in the south, before the civil rights movement, the pulpit was a safe place for black men to express anger for which they would have been punished anywhere else; a safe place for the fierce thunder of dignity denied, justice delayed. I think I would have been angry if my ancestors had been transported thousands of miles in the hellish hole of a slave ship, then sold at auction, humiliated, whipped, and lynched. Or if my great-great grandfather had been but three-fifths of a person in a constitution that proclaimed, "We the people." Or if my own parents had been subjected to the racial vitriol of Jim Crow, Strom Thurmond, Bull Connor, and Jesse Helms. Even so, the anger of black preachers I've known and heard about and reported on was, for them, very personal and cathartic.

Examiner wrote:

Is this the same guy who called pope the Anti-Christ?
Does he expect Pennsylvania to vote for him when 70% are Catholics?

Yes, he called the Catholic church a cult and a whor*. It won't let me type the whole word...means prostitute.

It’s all about race. Continued.
Bill Moyers is one of the worlds most respected journalist. Here is the transcript from Bill Moyers Journal.
May 2, 2008
BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the Journal.
That's not how Jeremiah Wright came across in those sound bites or in his defiant performances this week. What white America is hearing in his most inflammatory words is an attack on the America they cherish and that many of their sons have died for in battle ? forgetting that black Americans have fought and bled beside them, and that Wright himself has a record of honored service in the Navy. Hardly anyone took the "chickens come home to roost" remark to convey the message that intervention in the political battles of other nations is sure to bring retaliation in some form, which is not to justify the particular savagery of 9/11 but to understand that actions have consequences. My friend Bernard Weisberger, the historian, says, yes, people are understandably seething with indignation over Wright's absurd charge that the United States deliberately brought an HIV epidemic into being. But it is a fact, he says, that within living memory the U.S. Public Health Service conducted a study that deliberately deceived black men with syphilis into believing that they were being treated, while actually letting them die for the sake of a scientific test. Does this excuse Wright's anger? His exaggerations or distortions? You'll have to decide or yourself. At least it helps me to understand the why of them.
But in this multimedia age the pulpit isn't only available on Sunday mornings. There's round the clock media — the beast whose hunger is never satisfied, especially for the fast food with emotional content. So the preacher starts with rational discussion and after much prodding throws more and more gasoline on the fire that will eventually consume everything it touches. He had help — people who for their own reasons set out to conflate the man in the pulpit who wasn't running for president with the man in the pew who was.

It’s all about race. Continued.
Bill Moyers is one of the worlds most respected journalist. Here is the transcript from Bill Moyers Journal.
May 2, 2008
BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the Journal.
Behold the double standard: John McCain sought out the endorsement of John Hagee, the war-mongering Catholic-bashing Texas preacher who said the people of New Orleans got what they deserved for their sins. But no one suggests McCain shares Hagee's delusions, or thinks AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality. Pat Robertson called for the assassination of a foreign head of state and asked God to remove Supreme Court justices, yet he remains a force in the Republican religious right. After 9/11 Jerry Falwell said the attack was God's judgment on America for having been driven out of our schools and the public square, but when McCain goes after the endorsement of the preacher he once condemned as an agent of intolerance, the press gives him a pass.
Jon Stewart recently played a tape from the Nixon White House in which Billy Graham talks in the oval office about how he has friends who are Jewish, but he knows in his heart that they are undermining America. This is crazy; this is wrong -- white preachers are given leeway in politics that others aren't.
Which means it is all about race, isn't it? Wright's offensive opinions and inflammatory appearances are judged differently. He doesn't fire a shot in anger, put a noose around anyone's neck, call for insurrection, or plant a bomb in a church with children in Sunday school. What he does is to speak his mind in a language and style that unsettle some people, and says some things so outlandish and ill-advised that he finally leaves Obama no choice but to end their friendship. We are often exposed us to the corroding acid of the politics of personal destruction, but I've never seen anything like this ? this wrenching break between pastor and parishioner before our very eyes. Both men no doubt will carry the grief to their graves. All the rest of us should hang our heads in shame for letting it come to this in America, where the gluttony of the non-stop media grinder consumes us all and prevents an honest conversation on race. It is the price we are paying for failing to heed the great historian Jacob Burckhardt, who said "beware the terrible simplifiers".

Leslie Richards wrote:

<quoted text>
This clip seems to show a speaking event where Hagee has just introduced McCain. Trying to make the case that the words used by McCain in this clip makes his relationship with Hagee the same as Obama's relationship with Wright is ridiculous.
If there's more to the story, and McCain IS that close to Hagee, let's see it.
On top of it all, Hagee, in this clip, is attacking the Muslim population that is bent on wiping out non-muslims. Hagee is not insinuating in any way that any part of America is responsible for purposefully trying to oppress or destroy another part of America.
If Hagee does that as part of his church ministry, let's see it.
Let's just keep it real...

the funny thing about this topic is how far apart people's beliefs are. for example, it sounds to me like you don't agree with anything rev wright had to say. some other people agree with what he said, but don't think a candidate should. I agree with a majority of what he said and I think that obama should have stood by him and his right to his opinions. Hagee thinks that god punished new orleans for having a gay pride parade, is that really better? I mean, I know that it is different, but is it better?

jenny623 wrote:

Why are we judging these candidates by their spiritual advisors, who will surely be forgotten. Bush prayed with Billy Graham, and that was his spiritual advisor. I happen to like Billy Graham, but a lot of this is for show and it stops once they gain the whitehouse. These advisors hope the door doesn't hit them where the sun doesn't shine. They don't remain in a prominent position. I don't care who Obama, McCain or even Bush for that matter listens to for spiritual advice. When it comes to the whitehouse, congress has the last word.

thats the truth that the news wants us to forget. congress ultimately has control.

Ahh yes, the nattering nabobs of the nativity come home to roost upon the shoulders of the conservatives who have tolerated fundamentalist, racist and hate filled unamerican right wing preachers for decades.

Billy Graham was an anti semite.

Pat Robertson was a segregationist, a racist, a fundamentalcase whackjob who wanted to unite the holyland to bring about the end of the world.

Hagee is as bad or worse and Reverand Wright is an amateur compared to these other guys.

Fundamentalism be it Muslim or Christian is the real enemy of America and freedom.

Real Voice of Reason wrote:

It’s all about race. Continued.
Bill Moyers is one of the worlds most respected journalist. Here is the transcript from Bill Moyers Journal.
May 2, 2008
BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the Journal.
Behold the double standard: John McCain sought out the endorsement of John Hagee, the war-mongering Catholic-bashing Texas preacher who said the people of New Orleans got what they deserved for their sins. But no one suggests McCain shares Hagee's delusions, or thinks AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality. Pat Robertson called for the assassination of a foreign head of state and asked God to remove Supreme Court justices, yet he remains a force in the Republican religious right. After 9/11 Jerry Falwell said the attack was God's judgment on America for having been driven out of our schools and the public square, but when McCain goes after the endorsement of the preacher he once condemned as an agent of intolerance, the press gives him a pass.
Jon Stewart recently played a tape from the Nixon White House in which Billy Graham talks in the oval office about how he has friends who are Jewish, but he knows in his heart that they are undermining America. This is crazy; this is wrong -- white preachers are given leeway in politics that others aren't.
Which means it is all about race, isn't it? Wright's offensive opinions and inflammatory appearances are judged differently. He doesn't fire a shot in anger, put a noose around anyone's neck, call for insurrection, or plant a bomb in a church with children in Sunday school. What he does is to speak his mind in a language and style that unsettle some people, and says some things so outlandish and ill-advised that he finally leaves Obama no choice but to end their friendship. We are often exposed us to the corroding acid of the politics of personal destruction, but I've never seen anything like this ? this wrenching break between pastor and parishioner before our very eyes. Both men no doubt will carry the grief to their graves. All the rest of us should hang our heads in shame for letting it come to this in America, where the gluttony of the non-stop media grinder consumes us all and prevents an honest conversation on race. It is the price we are paying for failing to heed the great historian Jacob Burckhardt, who said "beware the terrible simplifiers".

Great post.

I agree, they all should leave. We don't want themm....any of them

Billy wrote:

I agree, they all should leave. We don't want themm....any of them

you should go with them

That's exactly it, I bet you shut your mouth when your citys are reloaded with Soldiers fresh from war.

It's easy to talk crap when your the big monkeys

But the rest of the Gorillas will be home soon enough. 11 bang bang

bryts wrote:

I don't know if our country was founded with some desire to destroy Islam... that sounds pretty made up....
But it's not a bad policy to adopt now!!!

Bingo!

left of Limbaugh wrote:

Ahh yes, the nattering nabobs of the nativity come home to roost upon the shoulders of the conservatives who have tolerated fundamentalist, racist and hate filled unamerican right wing preachers for decades.
Billy Graham was an anti semite.
Pat Robertson was a segregationist, a racist, a fundamentalcase whackjob who wanted to unite the holyland to bring about the end of the world.
Hagee is as bad or worse and Reverand Wright is an amateur compared to these other guys.
Fundamentalism be it Muslim or Christian is the real enemy of America and freedom.

You left out fundamentalist atheists. They suck as bad if not worse than the other fundamentalist.

The Fundie-Nuts are worse than anyone Obama knows.

These idiots like Hagee want total nuclear war (they call it Armageddon) so that all their dead bodies will float up to Heaven and play tiddly-winks with 'Jaysus' for eternity.