Campaign fruit has ripened

Some in the media call it a split decision, but on the whole, May 6 was a win for the Obama campaign. Obama won the considerably bigger state by the considerably bigger (14 percentage points) margin, outperforming the polling that had suggested a Clinton surge and compiling a net gain of about 13 pledged delegates.

Since the Iowa primary, there has been this huge story that everyone could see coming like a ripening fruit hanging low in American springtime, [but] few have been willing to write what has now become clear: In the race for the Democratic Party’s nomination, the junior senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, has defeated the inevitable Hillary Clinton. It is one of the greatest upsets in the history of the Democratic Party. … More uncommitted superdelegates are [now] up for grabs than total of the remaining pledged delegates in the states yet to vote. The ground war of this nomination race is over.

With the guilt-by-association argument played out, only the big-state argument is left. This is where the Clinton campaign says that her wins in California and New York primaries show that she is the stronger candidate against McCain. That argument may fly on the street, but it will never work with the well-informed party insiders … . The superdelegates understand that those big states aren’t up for grabs in 2008. Hillary is saying that only she can win California? Dennis Kucinich could beat John McCain in California and New York this year.

With so few states left to vote, the only remaining path to the nomination for Clinton involves the so-called nuclear option, which is a cocktail of Obama character assassination and an insistence on changing the rules to include the votes in the disputed Florida and Michigan primaries. That path involves mutually assured destruction and a generational setback for the Democratic Party. …

Whether Hillary Clinton’s coming exit from the race is graceful or not, focus must turn to the general-election contest that now finally begins to take form. In Raleigh, Obama said of that coming contest: “The question is not what kind of campaign they will run; it’s what kind of campaign we will run.” Obama is calling his supporters, many of them new voters, to a new kind of campaign—and to this point, they have responded.

— Chris Busby
Asheville

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154 thoughts on “Campaign fruit has ripened

  1. entopticon

    Spot on assessment by Chris Busby. At this point, Hillary would need to win every remaining contest by 91% just to catch up, and that is not going to happen, so Barack Obama is clearly the presumptive nominee of the Democratic party.

    A lot of Hillary supporters are going to be disappointed, which is natural because we invest a lot of time, energy, money, and hope in our chosen candidate. Nevertheless, the issues at stake are far, far more important than any one candidate.

    Whether or not Hillary supporters like Barack Obama or not, he is vastly closer to Hillary on the issues than McCain, so the only ethical thing to do is to swallow some pride, put aside any petty vindictiveness, and throw your full support behind the presumptive Democratic nominee.

    Any Democrat that switches to McCain out of spite will have the blood of thousands of lives that will needlessly be lost in the unjust and unnecessary Iraq war on their hands. They will also have the economic catastrophe caused by McCain’s continuation of Bush’s failed economic policies on their conscience.

    It is time for the Democratic party to start throwing their full support to the presumptive nominee for the good of the nation, because the stakes are far to serious to let spite be the the deciding factor.

  2. travelah

    Chris,
    Obama won NC by a smaller margin than he polled just a month prior to the election. He carried over 90% of blacks and a strong majority of urban professionals and students. If you look at WNC as a whole, he lost by wide margins. It is that demographic that can easily haunt the Democrat Party if they nominate the black liberation leftist candidate to the top of their ticket. Farakkan, Wright, Ayers, ACORN and any other baggage to be uncovered when the real campaign begins is quite a gamble for a party that intends to tax the hell out of middle class America. CA, PA, WV, FL and MI are far more representative of middle America than the causus and “intellectual set” that are fueling Obama’s rise.

  3. entopticon

    travelah, your ceaseless race-baiting is pathetic. Your bigotry is disgraceful. Your fear of black boogeymen taking over is laughable.

    I have news for you…. the reason that the “intellectual set,” i.e, the people with the highest level of education overwhelmingly support Obama, is that he is the most intelligent choice by far.

    Your incessant anti-intellectualism only serves to underscore your ignorance. The way to address educational disparities in the US is by increasing educational opportunities and expanding the nature of education, not by stigmatizing being educated.

    Pretty funny that you say that Obama is “quite a gamble.” Perhaps Chad Nesbitt and you could run a betting ring out of your garage.

    By the way, your despicably racist attempts to paint Obama as a fringe leftist were once again negated by the fact that three more former Chairmen of the Securities and Exchange commission joined former Fed Chairmen Paul Voelker in endorsing Obama today.

  4. djresteep

    “Dennis Kucinich could beat John McCain in California and New York this year.”

    Laughing out Loud.

    Honestly, I think Kucinich could beat McCain in a lot of states. The Republicans dont like McCain, and have absolutely no interest in winning this Election. Why would they want to deal with the clean-up for the mess they have created?
    This Presidency is/was planned for the Clitnons, so that the entire nation can be further distracted and divided by 8 more years of partisan name-calling while they all line their pockets while holding hands at the trough of big-business, looting the last remaining wealth of our nation.
    Senator Obama seems to represent a big thorn in their side in the name of participatory democracy. I think this is why Hillary refuses to quit, and why the neo-cons and Limbaugh crowd are spending more time bashing Obama and supporting Ms. Clinton than they are supporting McCain. Nobody in the Current Administration likes McCain. They all want Hillary to win; Partisan Gridlock.
    God, I hope Senator Obama becomes President Obama, but i’m sure there are plenty of tricks in store to make sure that doesnt happen, either by back-room deals from the Clinton camp, or by some patsy’s bullet. It’s a nail-biter, for sure.

  5. travelah

    entop, given your 100% reliance on a constant and unfounded ad hom attack, you have no credibility but you are an excellent example of many Obama activists. Various people are endorsing Obama out of ignorance and he may well be elected. If that is the case, we will have elected the country’s first black liberation leftist in history. That is not race baiting. That is stating the facts.

    Here is an example of what fuels Obama’s mindset for those who might be swayed by entop’s propoganda.
    http://proudblackvoter.blogspot.com/2008/01/register-to-vote-today.html#links

    To state that black voters are not reflecting a race bias in voting is absurd. There are countless blog sites much like this sprouting up championing a black liberation/nationalist mindset that is at the heart of Obama’s “spiritual” quest for the last 20 years.

    Hillary offers far less baggage than this unvetted Obama. Thats just a fact.

  6. travelah

    dj, we will have the same gridlock in this couontry no matter who wins or worse, we will have leftists running both houses of Congress and the Presidency. Fortunately, most of my investments are in hard assets.

  7. entopticon

    djresteep rightly stated, “the neo-cons and Limbaugh crowd are spending more time bashing Obama and supporting Ms. Clinton than they are supporting McCain.”

    Sound familiar travelah? He completely has you pegged.

    Unfounded? My attacks are certainly well founded. How about you provide one single example of your ludicrously unfounded contentiopn that Obama is a black liberationist/nationalist?

    You can’t, because you are just a lying bigot. That is not an ad hominem attack, it is a well founded assessment of your despicable, race-baiting bile. Whether or not you are a white supremacist, you use their rhetoric, so you are a disgrace.

    The existence of blog sites doesn’t prove that a majority of black voters are voting on racial lines and it is both shamefully ignorant and ludicrously bigoted for you to make such a claim.

    Hillary has less baggage than Obama? That may be the most hilarious contention of all. You are a pathetically bigoted joke.

  8. bobaloo

    Hillary offers far less baggage than this unvetted Obama.

    travelah, you can’t possibly be serious.

  9. chris busby

    i am glad to see that this bit of writing has caused such a stir. i would encourage all of you to go to anewdaypost.com for up to the minute interactive news and to see more of what i am working on

  10. djresteep

    Dont mind travelah. He cannot be convinced, and merely appears to spend his time as one of the last hangers-on from Op. Chaos.

    If you are a blog junky, as i am, you will notice the exact same talking points anywhere on the web relating to Clitnon or Obama; “Hillary offers far less baggage than Obama, Obama is a Rascist/Black Supremicist/Leftist Extremist, Hillary represents more of middle America than Obama, Hillary voters won’t vote for Obama” etc etc etc.
    It’s funny because it is all so similar in content (and lack-there-of), consistently spewing the same half-truths and non-truths in glorious non sequitur fashion, without any regard to the actual topic at hand. Interspersed you may still find a few sincere Clinton supporters expressing dismay at the hate-and lie-filled posts from some of their purported allies, but honestly, there aren’t too many out there anymore.
    This travelah person is a good example. He does not seem to actually support Clinton, but merely wants to paint Senator Obama in the light that the Hannity Crew have dictated. Based on viewing other posts of his, and the consistent tone, he would, in all respects, seem to be a fan of Mr. McCain because of the Arizona Senator’s more fiscally conservative posturing (he is still, after all, a Republican, despite his constant criticism of the Bush Administration and the “agents of intolerance” who helped elect him). But since McCain is the one, who, at this point is un-electable (although the Dems may do a good job of changing that for him), he feels it more prudent to spend time trying to add fuel to the fire that is the sibling rivalry of the Left in this country.
    Kudos to him for that, for sure. Don’t feed into it.

  11. travelah

    entop, I am neither a neocon or a Rush fan.

    bobaloo, I am serious. Understand me properely when I say this. I am no fan of Clinton. I cannot stand to listen to her but her faults are pretty well known. Obama brings a dirty ghost out of the closet with each passing week. His black liberation leftist notions have yet to be explored by mainstream media in this primary campaign. The ideas, statements and suggestions made by these absurd people should give cause for anybody to reconsider what they are doing in sending Obama to the White House.

  12. entopticon

    Once again travelah, you prove yourself to be a lying fraud. Once again you have been busted by the fact that you are not able to offer one shred of proof for your asinine fabrication.

    Over and over you make these racist claims about Obama being a black liberation/nationalist blah-blah-blah, because you get your info from racist white supremacist sites that don’t offer a shred of proof either.

    If your going to make such asinine claims, you should be able to cite countless examples, but you weren’t able to cite even one single example, because your ludicrous lies have no truth to them at all. Pathetic.

  13. travelah

    entop, if you are an indication of the character of Obama with your constant personal accusations, then the couontry is in trouble. Go back to sleep under your bridge.

  14. entopticon

    travelah, coming from you that is quite a compliment. Like many Obama supporters, I am sure as heck not going to sit around and politely humor you while you disseminate your shameful, bigoted lies.

    It is completely hilarious that once again, when confronted with the fact that you were caught in a lie because you weren’t able to provide one single shred of evidence for your asinine fabrication, you didn’t even have the courage to admit you were wrong for lying.

    If your specious fabrication had been true, there would have been evidence to base it on, and there is not.

    Apparently you missed the commandment about not bearing false witness because that is EXACTLY what you have done, again and again and again.

    How ironic that you would imply that I am a troll. A net troll is someone who goes to an internet site that has a perspective that they disagree with and tries to stir things up.

    For an example, a racist, homophobe, right wing libertarian that has nothing better to do than troll around a liberal site spewing his bigoted bile. That person would be a troll. If you want to see what one looks like, quickly run to your bathroom and look at the glass panel just above the sink.

  15. bobaloo

    travelah,
    Still, I don’t think any ghosts in his closet could compare to the three car garage of poltergeists Clinton has.

    Seriously, the Wright meme can only be played out as long as there is fresh and relevant material.
    Truly, there are some whose distaste for his relationship with his mentor, whose proven himself to be an egotistical, nouveau black liberationist, will permanently sour their opinion of him. But, you have to admit, he answered it in satisfactory manner to most.
    Let that one go for a while.

    There’s plenty you can disagree with him on ideologically beyond this one subject, right?

  16. travelah

    bobaloo, granted, there is a heavy trunk of garbage in the Clinton garage. You are right, there is much I disagree with Obama on, just about every thought he has. I personally find his explanations regarding Wright to be contrived however, you are also right that this issue can be played only so long if it does not reasonate with the general electorate. It is a key issue with me because I particularly detest the racist implications of that 20 year associaton. In any event, I suspect the American people are in for a very rude awakening at the helm of a leftist agenda that is being falsely portrayed as a uniting coalition.

  17. entopticon

    No travelah, the trucks overhead don’t bother us in our secret leftist lairs, spread out under bridges across the US. The Teamsters are in on our secret plan to take the US over with our leftist, pro-black agenda. That’s why they endorsed Obama, our ring leader.

    Soon we will be announcing that the US has gone completely communist. Our first act will be to start with mandatory interracial, same-gender marriage, and then we move on to phase two, where all the remaining white people will be sent off to live on an Island near Guam.

    You were right all along travelah. We are out to get you with our leftist, black liberationist agenda. bwwwwwah-ha-ha-ha

  18. travelah

    entop .. as long as your mandated mate is green, your species will survive …. go back to sleep.

  19. entopticon

    Now you be nice travelah… Obama put me in charge of the interracial same-gender marriage reassignment program and you are at the top of the list.

    You should see the muscles on the husband I have picked out for you. I hope you are a bottom.

    Harry Potter loves you travelah. He lives under the bridge with us. He’s working on a wonderful black liberationist, communist spell just for you. The leftists are coming for you travelah….

  20. Matt Mercy

    This is pure theater; Democrats and Republicans and “elections”. No one I talk to buys it anymore, and these people are getting fed up with their countrymen’s cowardly subscription to what has become, in essence, insignificant and irrelevant sports team fan rivalries.

    Whoever Chris Busby is, he may as well be a writer for Sports Illustrated. Go play some fantasy football and get the hell out of our way!

  21. entopticon

    Matt Mercy, there is a time I would have agreed with you completely. You are right, there is theater in politics and the system certainly imposes a restricted architecture of consensus reality over the structure of American politics, which often gives the impression that there are choices where there are none.

    That said, none of exist completely outside of that sociopolitical matrix, and for many people the issues are very real, so it is dangerous to treat them as abstractions.

    Teachers who need to get paid more, women who want safe and legal access to decide what to do with their own bodies, and people dependent on public assistance to survive, are all affected by differences between Republicans and Democrats which are very, very real for them.

    I respect anyone’s right to reject the system in favor of a more ethical, enlightened system such as anarchosyndacalism, but personally I see more actual change coming from closer to the center.

    The most significant changes I have seen come not from radical visionaries, who I appreciate greatly, but from incrementalists who fight the day to day real world battles of how to make differences in the the existing system.

    I’m all for implementing proportional representation, which would be a great start towards moving away from the overly simplistic construct of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, but in the meantime, I think it is a grave mistake not to compromise where necessary because the issues at stake are very real.

  22. Gordon Smith

    Blacks vote for Democrats in overwhelming numbers. In November, blacks will vote for Obama again, but not because of race. They will vote for him because the Republican Party refuses to acknowledge in any meaningful way that Martin Luther King’s dream is not yet a reality. You don’t see Alan Keyes pulling in big African-American numbers because, even though he’s black, he doesn’t represent the best interests of that demographic.

    I saw Gladys Knight speak before the Michelle Obama thing. She was classy. She laid out how she’d come to know about Obama and why she felt his policies and his personality were what the country needs. Then she said something along the lines of, “and it makes me so proud to finally get to vote for someone who looks like me.”

    travelah – name even one “black liberation leftist notion” that Barack Obama has.

    travelah – Your guilt-by-association is trickling down all the way to the Mtn. X blog. Because Entopticon supports Obama, and you don’t like Entopticon, it means that you can’t like Obama and that the country is in big trouble.

    That’s crazy.

  23. entopticon

    Gordon, in fairness, travelah hated Obama before I ever posted a single word in support of Obama. Believe it or not, I actually get a remarkable amount of support on mediated national political blogs where I post under another moniker.

    I have already challenged travelah over and over again to name one single example of Obama being a black liberationist, and of course travelah has failed because as we both know, Obama most certainly is not.

    The hypocrisy is particularly heinous in light of travelah’s condemnation of Obama’s spiritual life, since travelah clearly broke the 9th commandment, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”

    It is especially shameful that travelah wasn’t even willing to own up to his lie after being busted on the facts, which is definitely a case of bearing false witness.

    Alan Keyes’ candidacy is indeed a good example to prove that travelah’s racist assumption that black people all vote on ethnicity rather than the issues is certainly wrong.

  24. travelah

    Gordon Smith, you are right that Blacks vote overwhelmingly Democrat regardless of who is running. It’s also true that blacks are now voting overwhelming black between two otherwise indistinguishable candidates.
    Obama has been mentored by one of the more prominent black liberation theology adherents in the country for the past 20 years. These philosophies have been the mainstay of that church and continue to be so today under it’s new pastor. It’s stated beliefs have been entirely “afrocentric” and it’s rhetoric has been consistently racist and leftist. One does not sit under that guidance for 20 years and legitimately claim he doesn’t agree with it’s primary teachings. I am sure you would object to a candidate for public office who has been a follower of Fred Phelps whacked out church organization. In fact we would never hear the end of it. In fact, we are hearing absurd rhetoric and vitriolic hatred expressed towards Southern Baptists and anybody who might attend their services here on this board.
    My distaste for the Democrats near certain leftist nominee has nothing to do with any participant on this board. The latest foreign policy debacle reveals even more regarding why I oppose him. Our enemies are essentially his friends and anybody who is an enemy of Israel is absolutely my enemy. He is an appeaser of terrorists and radical murderers and as such should have no place at the end of our government.
    This is what the Democrat Party has become, an appeaser of terrorist interests and has abandoned a long standing commitment to Israel. That stench of a man, Jimmy Carter, has made it clear as day.

  25. Eli Cohen

    “T”, After reading your last post I am forced to believe you have slipped around the bend. What in gods name is wrong with you? Your rants are are further and further divorced from reality. In the past you at least made arguments that had some logical merit. But now your comments seem made only to provoke a response. Which is by the way, the definition of an opinion board troll. Although I’ve rarely agreed with you in the past, I at least had a little respect for your intellect. But after that last comment about President Carter, I lost all respect for you. I’m concerned that you would refer to him as “That stench of a man”. Of all the recent presidents, he is the most honorable human being (mensch) of the lot. You, on the other hand, are hardly worthy of cleaning his toilet bowl. Please come to your senses and stop this name calling and senseless attacks on Obama. You are not going to change anyone’s mind here with your baseless charges. If you are here solely to provoke, then you are a troll!

  26. entopticon

    travelah, don’t worry, I haven’t lost any respect for you. Your posts are as ignorant and offensively bigoted as ever, so I still have virtually no respect for you or your racist rants against Obama.

    Since you are too cowardly to own up to your lies, even when confronted with the fact that you were not even able to provide one single shred of evidence for your ludicrous fabrications, it is time to set the facts straight.

    Reverend Wright’s church is part of the United Church of Christ, which is predominantly white!

    Wright’s church, the Trinity United Church of Christ of Chicago, has actually been a major force in advocating against black nationalism since the 1930’s! It has literally been one of the core elements of their church.

    It is also outlandishly ironic that you accuse Wright of being unpatriotic since he was a Marine and YOU are the one referring to a US President as a “stench of a man.” Your hypocrisy and lies are pathetic.

    You need to stop relying on right-wing extremist lunatics like Stanley Kurtz for your racist disinformation.

    At least learn the basic facts about Wright’s church and its history of discouraging black nationalism before disseminating your shamefully bigoted garbage:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_united

  27. bobaloo

    Wright’s church, the Trinity United Church of Christ of Chicago, has actually been a major force in advocating against black nationalism since the 1930’s!

    I fail to see how that is possible, since even the Wiki article you use says it was founded in 1961. In the 30’s, your Wiki article states, the contextual backdrop of the church was established by Elijah Muhammed of the radical Nation of Islam, who advocated a separate black state.

    On top of that, I’m sure, Eli and entop, that you both refer to Bush in much more respectful tones, no?

    travelah, leave the black issue alone for crying out loud! Go for policy if you want to attack Obama. You’re really beating a dead horse.

  28. travelah

    entop, wiki is not a reliable source on any controversial subject such as this. It’s entries are created and edited by vested interests and this one reads like a promo piece by an elder of the church. Second, I was raised up as a child attending a United Church of Christ and know specifically what it is. It’s roots go back to 1957 with the merger of several Congregational churches and the Evangelical & Reformed church. Rev. Wright’s organization is an offshoot of that merger. It is interesting to note that the modern apostate UCC is currently engaged in promoting “guilt” seminars regarding Afrocentric awareness efforts. Your facts are shaded.
    http://www.thearda.com/Denoms/Families/Trees/familytree_unitedcoc.asp

    Yes, Wright was a Marine and could not be considered today to be a very honorable one. He has forgotten, with his “God damn America” remarks and his long history of disgust for his country, the fundamental words emblazoned on every Marines heart, “Semper Fidelis”.
    As for Jimmy Carter, I am sure your dear Rev Wright has several choice words for President Bush and by that same manner, I am guessing President Richard Nixon as well as Bush do not sit well with your world view. You see, you are a propagandist and present your thoughts with that aim. It also causes your thoughts to be transparent.

  29. travelah

    bobaloo, you may be right with regard to this discussion. I am sure it will continue in the campaign in any event.
    Obama’s policy intentions are certainly interesting. His objection to the recent appeasement uproar was quite interesting given his intentions to meet with sponsors of world terrorism with no preconditions.

  30. travelah

    Big E, good to see you come out of your slumber. Be assured I post here to offer a view not well represented by the constant whine of myopic leftists who bemoan everything that enables them to utter their incomprehensible mutterings. You don’t agree with my opinions and I suppose it fair to state I do not agree with yours. However, I believe your opinions should be heard. I only wish you would use your intellect to that purpose.

  31. entopticon

    My bad bobaloo, I misspoke in haste. The Trinity Church traces back to Chicago ministers that opposed the black nationalist movement since its formation under Elijah Muhammad in the 1930’s. The Trinity Church actively opposed black nationalism since its inception in 1961.

    Of course, my point remains unchanged; Wright’s Church has actively opposed black nationalism, which has its roots in a cultish offshoot of Islam, from the start.

    Your gotcha point about Bush was seriously misguided and logically flawed. I have never pretended to be a fan of patriotism. I think it’s idiotic. I specifically said that my problem with travelah was his hypocrisy for making such an issue of Wright’s patriotism.

    I think Bush is a war criminal and the single worst enemy of the environment in human history. I can think of plenty of harsh adjectives for such a person, but that doesn’t conflict with my world view because I think patriotism is a dangerous thing.

    I definitely agree with you that travelah should cease his bigoted harping on the Wright issue.

  32. entopticon

    Ahhhhh…. so we finally have proof travelah…. you spent years of your life in Wright’s church, so you are every bit as guilty as Obama!

    It is amusing that the diagram you provided shows no split between Wright’s church and the United Church of Christ, because there is none. It is still a very active, participatory member of the United Church of Christ, which is mostly white, and includes people such as YOU.

    You still don’t get it. I get to blast Bush all I want without being a hypocrite because I am not the one impugning Wright’s patriotism. I’m not the propagandist here, so unlike you I don’t give a hoot about pandering, foolish constructs such as patriotism.

    I could care less if you act unpatriotically, but when you do, by things like calling a President of the US a “stench of a man,” that makes you outlandishly hypocritical because you are the one constantly impugning Obama and Wright’s patriotism.

    What you said about Carter is every bit as bad as anything Wright ever said. Disparaging his long service as a marine is far worse.

    Seriously, it’s like the synaptic connection that prevents normal people from contradicting themselves constantly is snipped in you. Your hypocrisy seems to know no bounds.

    Concerning your remarks about appeasement, you have already given away the fact that you don’t even have any idea what it is. All you do is parrot your pathetic right-wing jingoistic nonsense without even the slightest understanding of the facts.

    Appeasement refers to giving things to the enemy in exchange for peace. Talking to the enemy is not appeasement, and only someone who is completely ignorant of history would claim that it is.

    Bush’s own Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, has advocated talking with Ahmedinejad, as have several other prominent members of the Bush cabinet! Your argument holds no water.

    It was very entertaining to see Chris Matthews eviscerate right-wing radio host Kevin James for the same ignorant mistake that you have made by conflating appeasement with talking. You can see James taken to task for it here:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/15/hardball-shoutfest-matthe_n_102020.html

  33. travelah

    entop, why is it you never get anything correctly? I am not UCC. I am a Wesleyan Arminian today, faith-wise. I was raised in a family that went to the big white steepled Congregationalist church in the middle of town (UCC)in the 1960s. The reason Wright’s church is not shown as a split of the UCC is because his is just one splinter of many and does not constitute a separate denomination. His church is decidedly black with an Afrocentric focus and agenda. To continue to deny that is simply foolish.
    Appeasement is giving an audience to and acquiescing to the agenda of the one appeased. Obama’s gift would be that of granting legitimacy to a rouge. As for the Bush administration talking with Iran, they have laid down conditions to meeting with them. Your leftist candidate goes hat in hand, figuratively speaking, with no preconditions.
    Chris Matthews carries no weight with me either intellectually or as a journalist. Jimmy Carter? He is the first former President in modern times to act as an ambassador in residence for a foreign terrorist organization. He is in two words, a deceived idiot.

  34. entopticon

    travelah, how you cannot see the hypocrisy of your attacks on Carter is beyond me. You are every bit as guilty of unpatriotic behavior as Wright ever was.

    If you had bothered to learn about Obama’s stance first, he doesn’t advocate negotiating with terrorist organizations and he never has. If you had even taken the slightest effort to learn about the issues before blathering on about them you would also know that Obama does say that there would be some preconditions for talks with enemy foreign governments. He’s willing to talk without all of our demands being met, and that is a great thing.

    As far as the hat in hand thing goes, as usual, you just made it up because you are a compulsive liar.

    You were raised in a family that went to a UCC church. I am not wrong, you have a long history with Wright’s church, so clearly you can never be President. Poor travelah.

    I never thought Carter was that great as a President, but he has done more good than you could ever dream of as an ex-President and compared to Bush, he was a stellar President.

  35. travelah

    entop, Obama has stated publically that he would sit down with Iran and other state sponsors of terrorism without any preconditions. Iran is the principle funds support for Hezbollah and Hamas and that makes them a terrorist organization. I realize that is perfectly fine with you but before people vote for your anti-American candidate, they should know more about the guy.
    Carter presided over this economic beast called “stagflation” and attributed it to the American public. We, the public, threw him out of office. Had it not been for Ross Perot in 1992,a Democrat would still not have seen the light of the Oval Office. But don’t you worry. If and when your candidate plops himself down in there, it will not be long before the country will have had it’s fill of another radical Democrat falsely presenting himself as a bridge builder.

  36. djresteep

    travelah, you are spittin some seriously delusional nonsense.

    you may want to consider therapy that goes beyond the xpress blogs.

  37. djresteep

    “entop, wiki is not a reliable source on any controversial subject such as this”

    but, travelah, you cited the very same wiki entry that he was referencing. he only mentioned it in reference to your citing!

    Are you even one person? Are there multiple people posting in your account? Or is there a chance you are mildly schizophrenic?

  38. djresteep

    So, do you support anyone, ‘t’? Or are you only in the “Anyone but the black guy” camp

  39. entopticon

    travelah, Obama was very clear that Iran would have to show certain gestures of good faith, so your argument is semantic and empty once the facts are examined.

    The preconditions he referred to was that as opposed to the Bush policy of not meeting to negotiate unless they other side capitulates to what you were negotiating to before hand, Obama would talk with leaders where necessary.

    Bush breaks his own policy on a frequent basis, when it serves him. Obama’s willingness to meet with nations such as Iran if they take certain steps of good faith is virtually identical to Robert Gates’ position, and you would know that if you didn’t live in a world of right-wing sound bites.

    If you were reading the actual news, you would know that Joe Biden has been eviscerating the Bush administration over this exact point and the Bush administration hasn’t even been able to counter Biden’s attacks because as he put it, “there is no defense for their hypocrisy.”

    Of course, you are right about one thing. Obama is definitely planning a giant leftist pro-black overthrow of the government. We’ll finally get to all be communists and thanks to modern technology we will all be black soon too.

    Start preparing for you mandatory behavioral reconditioning travelah. By February you will be spending 24 hrs a day strapped to a chair in a leftist brainwashing center where your eyes will be pinned open and you will be forced to watch independent films and Michael Moore documentaries all day.

    The leftists are coming to get you with their evil plan. bwwwwahhhh-haaaa-haaaaa-haaaaaaaaaaa

  40. travelah

    dj, pay attention. I did not cite the Wiki article. I spoke from my own knowledge and experience. As for who I support, I suppose I will hold my nose and vote for McCain in November as he is the moderate Democrat in this race. The race of the candidate has no bearing on my decision. It is the policies endorsed and promoted by the candidate that is of concern.

    entop, you clearly are spinning. The following link offers Obama’s view which is quite distant from your own.
    http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/01/america/obama.php
    It is quite clear our enemies are his friends.

  41. tatuaje

    “Here is an example of what fuels Obama’s mindset for those who might be swayed by entop’s propoganda.
    http://proudblackvoter.blogspot.com/2008/01/register-to-vote-today.html#links

    To state that black voters are not reflecting a race bias in voting is absurd. There are countless blog sites much like this sprouting up championing a black liberation/nationalist mindset that is at the heart of Obama’s “spiritual” quest for the last 20 years. ”

    wow…did you even take the time to read the blog that you referenced or did you simply cut & paste the first black voter blog you found? This blog has encouraged black citizens to register to vote and then do so. A quote from the site…”Here’s to Black voters showing up and showing out for whomever their candidate may be.”

    From the blog’s ‘About Me’ page…”Afrosphere – the entire Diaspora of Black bloggers. AAC is a coalition of Afrosphere bloggers who first coalesced around the Jena 6 issue and have since taken actions via the net to bring awareness or to call people to action on various issues including: AIDS and Darfur. MrsG of Mrsgrapevine.com conceived of this Proud Black Voter initiative, and it is also being sponsored by http://www.BlackPerspective.net and http://ElectronicVillage.blogspot.com as a joint venture initiative.”

    travelah, I would say that if you are white and have ANY problems with this blog, you are undeniably racist….

    wow…

  42. William P Miller

    Hillary will prevail. Obama is a lightweight. The presidency isn’t a place for a man to learn on the job. One naive mistake, and the USA could be in grave danger. I mean Obama has said he would talk with anyone without preconditions. That is Jimmy Carter naive, and dangerous. You don’t talk witrh terrorist hacks.

    Senator Hillary Clinton is seasoned and ready to go. She understands the average American, while OObama looks down his elitist nose at us…happy with our guns and religion as we are.

    God bless America. Hillary, you go girl!

  43. djresteep

    McTalking points supplied by Rush Limbaugh and the Good People at WhiteWater.

    If Hillary “prevails”, she will succeed in disenfranchising more voters in this country than even the last two Bush (s)’elections’.

    The only boogeyman I am scared of coming to get me is the CIA. Incidentally, the same organization who created Bin Laden, Iran, Iraq, etc.

    I cant wait for all the blacks to take over and make me their white-girl mascot.

  44. entopticon

    travelah, as tatuaje correctly pointed out, you have pretty strange notions of what evidence is when you post websites. tatuaje proved that you cited a website encouraging black people to vote for ANY candidate as proof that black people are conspiring for Obama! Your bigotry is astonishing.

    If you had bothered to pay attention to the followup debates after the article on negotiations with Iran that you cited was written, you would know how misguided your assertions are.

    You accuse ME of spinning the facts and then you say “It is quite clear our enemies are his friends.” !!!

    Seriously, are you huffing glue when you say this nonsense? The very article that you cited made it perfectly clear that Obama does not approve of Iran’s aid to Shiite militias etc. Obama is on record a thousand times over condemning terrorist organizations, so you are out-and-out LYING. You aren’t just spinning the facts, you are simply making things up as you go along. Pathetic.

    It is as funny as it is sad that you are completely oblivious to how pathetically transparent your obsessive bigotry is.

  45. entopticon

    As usual, William “you go girl” P Miller’s mangling of the facts is matched only by the enormity of his delusional arguments.

    Obama has 3 more years as an elected official than Hillary does, so if anyone wasn’t ready for the job it is her! Yes, much of Obama’s experience was at the state level, but ALL of Bill Clinton’s experience was at the state level, and his state was Arkansas, which has a miniscule fraction of the economy and population of Obama’s state, Illinois. Illinois has one of the world’s largest economies in its own right.

    Apparently William “facts are my enemy” P Miller was too busy spreading lies to stop and pay any attention to the facts because Obama has consistently said that he would NOT negotiate with terrorists.

    Hillary Clinton understands the average American? The same Hillary Clinton who can barely remember how to drive a car because she has gone everywhere in limousines for decades? The same Hillary Clinton worth well over $100 million dollars? The same Hillary Clinton who has $800 k in her joint bank account from her husband’s lobbying deal for the murderous Columbian Government for the trade deal that she supposedly opposes?

    The same Hillary Clinton that when confronted about what to do about eroding support from Southern working class voters at a Camp David meeting said, “Screw ’em. You don’t owe them a thing, Bill. They’re doing nothing for you; you don’t have to do anything for them.”?!?

    Obama, who has been on food stamps, who as opposed to Hillary, worked his way through college, who chose to work for $8k a year working with unemployed steel workers instead of a corporate firm like Hillary, who only recently finished paying off his college loans, is an elitist?

    Shame on you William “I never met a lie I didn’t like” P Miller.

    Fortunately, your delusional belief that Hillary could still win is overwhelmingly crushed by the facts of the matter. The Democratic nomination is a delegate contest. As of tomorrow, Obama will officially be well past the point where no matter what Hillary does, she cannot catch up in delegates.

    Obama has the most pledged delegates, the most contests won, the most popular votes, and the most superdelegates. Despite the wishful proclamations of William “reality is scary” P Miller, Obama will win no matter how you slice it.

    If you are really a Democrat, not just a right-winger promoting Hillary to damage the Democratic Party, and you have any ethics at all, you will throw your full support to Barack Obama for the sake of the issues that the Party stands for.

  46. travelah

    tatuaje, help me understand why you believe that white people who oppose black nationalist propaganda sites are racist themselves. The Jenna, LA episode could not be a better example of radical black activism gone amuck. That one site is just one example of the bias black voters are showing in voting 90% for Obama rather than a candidate who is very similar on the issues and has been supportive for decades on civil rights issues so much so her husband was called the first black President. If you do not see racial bias at work here, then you are either blind or you are ignoring it.
    The liberal left tactic has long been to tar their opposition with falsehoods such as you are doing here. Whites who oppose black nationlist leftist politics must be racist for pointing it out? How do you regard blacks who oppose black nationalist leftist politics? Do you consider them to be uncle toms and a traitor to their race?

  47. djresteep

    The fear-mongering of ‘if you vote for Obama, Muslim extremist boogeymen are going to get you’ is an interesting talking point. Much of Obama’s appeal is that he doesn’t play this card. His constituency, the folks voting for him in the primaries across the country, are people who are SICK AND TIRED of hearing this nonsense from their ‘elected officials.’
    Seeing the Democratic party suck up to this fear-mongering in the last two or three election cycles is what has fostered more disillusionment with our ‘democratic’ process. People like myself are somewhat inspired by the Obama campaign because he represents a slightly more thoughtful discourse on foreign policy. The perceived difference between Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama is that we see her pandering to the Republican/neo-con camp of “America vs. The World”. That stance sickens me, and it apparently sickens a lot of folks.

    Some people, who say they will vote for McCain, still spend hours on the xpress blogs, talking about why Hillary is a better candidate than Obama. Intriguing. If their intent is to make me not vote Obama, they may well be served to know that their tactics only strengthen my resolve to vote Obama. If only to gain such satisfaction when their heads collectively explode when they discover they are now in the minority, political and culturally speaking.

    I cant wait for Obama to turn this country into a Muslim state, with Jane Fonda as secretary of defense, and North Korea as the new Isreal. I want him to be sworn in on the Koran, while chewing on a white baby’s head and screaming “Allah Akbar!!!”

    I even heard Michelle Obama is actually a man, and really only wants to be first lady because she has masculine ambitions.

    Oh, wait, that was what travelah, et al. was saying about Ms. Clinton 16 some years ago.

  48. Eli Cohen

    “T”,I bet if you changed sides you could win this argument. What I’m saying is, you should go visit one of those wingnut sites and post there. You could probably get a more satisfying reaction. (those pinheads would have strokes over the kind of horseshite you throw around)

  49. Dionysis

    “…black voters are showing in voting 90% for Obama rather than a candidate who is very similar on the issues and has been supportive for decades on civil rights issues so much so her husband was called the first black President. If you do not see racial bias at work here, then you are either blind or you are ignoring it.”

    Yoo hoo, this is objective reality come calling once again…racial bias, huh? Darn those pesky facts.

    “Sen. Hillary Clinton has lost a large amount of support among African-Americans, with a majority of black Democrats now supporting Sen. Barack Obama, according to a new poll out Friday.
    Sen. Barack Obama has the support of a majority of black Democrats, a poll found.
    In a national survey by CNN/Opinion Research Corp., 59 percent of black Democrats backed Obama, an Illinois Democrat, for their party’s presidential nomination, with 31 percent supporting Clinton, the senator from New York.
    The 28 point lead for Obama is a major reversal from October, when Clinton held a 24 point lead among black Democrats”

    http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/18/poll.2008/index.html

  50. tatuaje

    “tatuaje, help me understand why you believe that white people who oppose black nationalist propaganda sites are racist themselves.”

    Uhhh….really…where are you getting, from the link to the Proud Black Voter Blog, the “black nationalist propaganda”? I have looked all over that blog, several times now, and can honestly find NOTHING that looks REMOTELY like “black nationalist propaganda”. How can that site possibly be considered evidence of bias on the part of black voters?

    Please, please, please point it out to me….

    because really, you must not have read ANY of that blog STILL….

  51. entopticon

    tatuaje, you will notice that when you call travelah out on the facts, he simply changes the subject and makes up a few new racist lies.

    Apparently, travelah thinks that any politically minded black person that is to the left of Alan Keyes must be out to take over America in a vast, black nationalist, leftist conspiracy. travelah is convinced that Obama is central to that conspiracy, which in actuality only exists in the collective consciousness of scared, paranoid, angry, deceitful, right-wing bigots such as travelah.

  52. William P Miller

    I object to epticon’s labeling of those who disagree with him as being “liars”. It certainly speaks to the level of his kool-aid drinking Obama blind eye partisanship. Epticon, gain some respect for opposing views. Otherwise you come across as a blind partisan. There are plenty of issues to discuss without using the label “liar”. In my opinion, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is clearly a superior candidate to Senator Barack Hussein Obama. She has more gravitas, and more experience as a politician. Plus we get 2 for 1. We get the experience and intelligence of former President William Jefferson Clinton when we go with Hillary.

    You go girl! Back Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton if you believe in “God blress America”.

  53. travelah

    tatuaje, there are two racist flags in this country. One is the Klansman’s confederate battle flag and the other is a flag of colors, red, black and green. Both represent either ignorance or despicable ideologies when used as a rallying cry. If you cannot see the division and racial lines being drawn by blacks who are activists for Obama, then you are blind. That site is only one of many and if it is going to fly under it’s activist colors, it is indeed a black nationalist site. That doesn’t mean I think they have no right to do so. It means I have every right to identify them by the colors they fly.

  54. travelah

    Dionysis, over 90% of blacks voting in NC cast their votes for Obama. Perhaps you need a new poll.

  55. tatuaje

    So that’s your argument? The logo from the site which is a UNIA flag interwoven with an American flag? Once again, that is just simply flawed reasoning. Once more, show me the propaganda from the site. Oh, and the US Postal Service used the UNIA flag on a stamp….were they spreading “propaganda” as well?

    propaganda |?präp??gand?|
    noun
    1 chiefly derogatory information, esp. of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view : he was charged with distributing enemy propaganda.
    • the dissemination of such information as a political strategy : the party’s leaders believed that a long period of education and propaganda would be necessary .

    Figured you must need a little refresher on what the word means…

  56. Dionysis

    “Dionysis, over 90% of blacks voting in NC cast their votes for Obama. Perhaps you need a new poll.”

    Perhaps you need a new brain, hopefully one that contains enough integrity to take the hits when you’re proven wrong, instead of changing the subject, as is your M.O. Nowhere in any of your posts did you specify NC. Your comments were, as always, broad-brushed twaddle. Just like the other day when you whined that McCain’s clergy problem was “manufactured by liberals.” When the right-leaning head of American Catholics was quoted to refute your claim, you simply ignored it and instead tried to make the ridiculous assertion that by quoting him, it was ‘bigoted’ on my part (in fact, I think all religions are superstitious nonsense). Nothing whatsoever to do with the topic. Just a shallow was to dodge and weave away from the fact you consistently have your derriere handed back to you.
    You do serve a purpose, however, which is remind people of just how intellectually bankrupt and fundamentally dishonest rightwingers are.

  57. entopticon

    Now travelah’s true colors are showing as his bigotry has gone off the deep end. It is absolutely astonishing that travelah had the profoundly ignorant, racist audacity to compare the UNIA flag to the flag of the KKK!

    Last I checked, the UNIA flag wasn’t the symbol of a hate group that has burned thousands of white people alive.

    Last I checked, the UNIA flag wasn’t the symbol of a hate group that hung thousands of white men from trees.

    Last I checked, the UNIA flag wasn’t the symbol of a hate group that attacked white children for going to the same school as black children.

    Last I checked, the UNIA flag wasn’t a symbol of a hate group that burned thousands and thousands of crosses on the properties of white people in order to terrorize them.

    Last I checked, the UNIA flag was not connected to any known hate group. The various groups that identify with the flag may have issues about race that are worth questioning, but to equate them with the KKK is beyond contemptible.

    travelah’s astonishing bigotry is absolutely disgraceful

  58. entopticon

    William P Miller, I could care less if it makes you uncomfortable to be called out for your lying, you despicable bigot.

    Barack Obama does not go by his middle name. You and your right-wing extremist cohorts may think you are being subtle when you slip in his middle name to exploit people’s xenophobia, but you are not.

    You are a detestable bigot and I will continue to keep calling you out on your bigotry and shameful lies.

    It is clear that you are either a right-wing extremist posing as a Hillary supporter as part of Operation Chaos to destroy the Democratic Party, or you are ludicrously ignorant because there is nothing Democratic about the issues that you espouse.

    If as you say, guns and religion are your main concerns, you would be a Republican (and we both know that you really are). There is a reason why the NRA is overwhelmingly Republican, and Democrats push a far more secularist agenda than the Republicans.

    You particularly gave yourself away when you accused me for being a partisan for calling you out on your lies about Hillary and Obama. Hillary and Obama are in the same party, genius.

  59. travelah

    tatuaje, if you check with entop’s preferred reference materials, Wiki, you will find that this “flag” is known under several names besides the UNIA flag and serves as more than just one expression. Leave it to a leftist to pervert a post.
    (As for the Post Office being an example of proper management and good decision making , well, not much more needs to be said)

  60. travelah

    entop, you are a great example of an Obama advocate. Keep up the good work. Your black nationalst leftist candidate, Barack Hussein Obama, should be proud of your typical insulting and asinine personal annimosity toward people who think differently than yourself. So much for Democrat diversity!
    The NRA has been around a long time and is made up of gun advocates, Democrat and Republican. You are out of touch with what has constituted the Democrat coalitions for the past several decades.

  61. entopticon

    travelah, the rationalizations for your despicable bigotry get more and more pathetic every day. As usual, you can’t even defend your bigoted lies, you just use diversionary tactics to throw up smoke screens hoping that no one will notice, but we do.

    Unlike the KKK flag, the UNIA flag was not created as a symbol of terror and genocide. For you to equate the two is beyond shameful. You better hope that that wrathful god of yours doesn’t exist travelah, because if he does you are going to be in deep, deep trouble one day.

  62. entopticon

    Once again travelah, you are either profoundly ignorant or shamefully lying if you think the NRA is anywhere remotely close to being equally Democrat and Republican.

    And once again, Obama does not go by his middle name you despicable, race-baiting bigot.

  63. travelah

    entop, the flag the Klan waves around was created as a battle flag during the War Between the States and had nothing to do with terror and genocide. It has honorable beginnings much like the UNIA flag. Both have come to represent something else. … Now give that a leftist twist.

  64. entopticon

    THE FLAG THE KLAN WAVES HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH TERROR AND GENOCIDE?!?!?!!!!

    Seriously, you are a severely twisted lunatic.

  65. travelah

    I wrote:
    entop, the flag the Klan waves around was created as a battle flag during the War Between the States and had nothing to do with terror and genocide. It has honorable beginnings much like the UNIA flag. Both have come to represent something else. … Now give that a leftist twist.

    You wrote:
    THE FLAG THE KLAN WAVES HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH TERROR AND GENOCIDE?!?!?!!!!

    Seriously, you are a severely twisted lunatic.

    I reply:
    … I must be a prophet of some sort.

  66. tatuaje

    Yes that flag has different supporters who give to it different values….which flag doesn’t? And you’re assumption of how that flag is perceived by the creators of the blog show a certain amount of racism. However, once again, please show me where in that blog is this “propaganda” that you speak of…..

    Here is what you wrote, just to refresh your memory…

    “To state that black voters are not reflecting a race bias in voting is absurd. There are countless blog sites much like this sprouting up championing a black liberation/nationalist mindset that is at the heart of Obama’s “spiritual” quest for the last 20 years.”

    SO…once again, you have not pointed out where any of the “propaganda” is. I simply don’t have time for this. Please, point me to the so-called “propaganda” and I will concede defeat, otherwise I will go back to dutifully ignoring you.

  67. travelah

    tatuaje, if you have no time for it, you should be using your time more fruitfully. Here is just one of many … note the use of the phrase “color arousal”. This junk is all over the place ….http://francislholland.blogspot.com/
    According to that crackpot, Hillary is another David Duke.

  68. djresteep

    travelah,

    I just visited the website you mentioned. Spent an hour reading different posts of his. I dont really see anything wrong with it. I think you are out of touch.
    Plus, I got a great link to Immortal Technique’s post about Sean Bell. Thanks.

    I think you are frightened by people who look different than you.

    Good Link. thanks.

  69. entopticon

    travelah, I see that you are not just a Christian apologist, you are a Ku Klux Klan apologist as well. How you live with yourself is beyond me.

    The KKK flag was created AFTER the civil war. Historians debate what the red drop represents, but it was certainly a post Civil War creation. The three main theories are that it represents the blood spilt in the Civil War, the blood of the white race, or the blood of a female victim of black violence (the theory espoused by the Birth of a Nation).

    Whatever the case, it certainly was not a battle flag from the Civil War. The cross was taken from crusader imagery.

    Even if you hadn’t had been wrong, the morality of your argument still was. It may not be a popular notion among right-wing extremists, but the vast majority of black people see the armed insurrection against the government of the United States by rogue states who didn’t want to give up their right to own other human beings as if they were cattle as pure terror and slow but sure genocide.

  70. travelah

    entop, you don’t pay attention well. Are you getting tired? I am referring to the Confederate Battle Flag that has been flown at many divisive meetings. You are talking about something else and in your absolute rush to spite, you are missing the point completely. Even if I hadn’t been wrong, I would be wrong? What a classic piece of work you are LOL.

  71. William P Miller

    A “piece of work”. Your yankee roots are showing travelah. You folks from the NE have been brainwashed about the War Between the States and still believe the lie that that war was about slavery. And that the South was the bad guy and that Lincoln and the yankee army were saviors and the good guy. If you do a little research, you will find that Lincoln was just as slimy as the majority of politicians are. And that that war was started by Lincoln because he wanted a 50% share of the profits of Southern agricultural exports to Europe.

    The Confederate Battle Flag had nothing to do with bigotry or slavery. It was proudly flown in battle by Confederate soldiers against an invading yankee army. My own relatives fought under that flag and I can assure you, and the other ignorant transplants, that they did not have slaves . They fought because a blue-coated yankee army had invaded their states. I am proud to be a Son of a Confederate Veteran. In fact, several of them. Long live the Southern Cross, and those transplants who disrespect it can return home to yankeeland.

  72. entopticon

    travelah, I was talking about the insignia on the Klan’s flag. As I pointed out, the Confederate Flag is certainly seen as a symbol of terror to the vast majority of black Americans as well.

    That is why even though you were wrong in assuming that the confederate flag was the Klan’s flag, you are still ethically wrong for saying that the confederate flag hasn’t been a a symbol of terror for black people since its inception.

    During and after the civil war, it was not uncommon for marauding bands of angry confederate soldiers to randomly kill black people out of anger and frustration.

    Most black people probably didn’t like being owned and whipped either. The confederate flag was a symbol of genocide and terrorism for them from the start, not a harmless icon that was later corrupted.

  73. travelah

    entop, the War Between the States was over and long gone well before I came into this world and I could care less what a few disgruntled persons did in 1867 outside of some poor dunked town in Alabama or Georgia or even New Hampshire. It is irrelevant. The CBF was flown by troops in warfare against an opposing army. To that end I have no issues.
    Now, the colors of black nationalists flown in racial bigotry and defiance, well, not much difference between them and any other racist hate-mongering group that flies the CBF in racial defiance today. A bigot is a bigot, entop. You of all people given your vitriolic comments should be able to relate to that.

  74. tatuaje

    travelah- you never once answered my question…”where is the propaganda?” After many opportunities, you still couldn’t offer an intelligent response….

    Your debating skills are pathetic…

    You are a bigoted moron….

    and….goodbye….

  75. entopticon

    travelah, you missed the point of your own argument. You never gave a single example of how the website that YOU provided was racist or even biased towards Obama.

    The bad news is; you are so steeped in right-wing bigotry that you can’t even see the forest for the trees. Every time your right-wing bigotry is pummeled with logic you vertiginously spin around and offer up a new lie or bigoted rationalization that some other right-wing bigot spoon-fed you.

    The good news is; it’s never too late to change. You have the opportunity to change right now. You have the opportunity to shed every warped perception of the world that the scourge of right-wing propaganda has damaged you with.

    It will take a lot of humility. You will have to question every last paradigmatic assumption about your distorted world view, but if you do, you have a chance of transcending the dark clouds that warp your judgement.

    This is your chance for that epiphanic moment where your entire world collapses in on itself and you say to yourself, “holy @#$!, I am the bad guy.”

    That’s the most profound thing that can happen to you travelah. If you can pull it off the catharsis will flood your whole world with new found understanding. The truths of the world will all start to come together and you will be free of the endless contradictions that constantly plague your diseased world view.

    I know there is not much chance you will have the courage to renounce and reinvent yourself, but I thought I would throw that out there because you can if you want to.

  76. William P Miller

    The Confederate Battle flag is not racist. Only ignorant northern-brain-washed liberals believe the distortions.

    Transplants, get real and STUDY the history and culture here. It is quite different from the propaganda you have been fed up “north”.

    The War Between The States was not fought over slavery, and Lincoln was no statesman.

    If y’all transplants cannot or will not study and appreciate the local culture, you’ll be better off back up north. Of course your ultra-liberal tax policies and immoral values have brought you here to escape. Embrace us or leave us.

  77. robert

    Howdy there, Nam Vet. Finally change your IP?

    Durn Yankee Liberal Swine! Go get ’em!!

  78. entopticon

    William P Miller, I will live wherever I want to live and I sure as hell don’t have to embrace your racist flag. How about this…. if you don’t like it, you can move.

    The apologist arguments that try to deflect the fact that slavery was a very real issue are despicable. It was an armed insurrection against the lawful government of the United States. You quickly forget the flag of the government they were fighting against…. The US flag. Stars and stripes.

    I have news for you, unless you are 100% indigenous American you are a transplant too. Just because our great-great grandads may have killed off the inhabitants of this area a couple hundred years ago, you do not get to lay special claim to this land.

    It is particularly hilarious when people like you complain about ultra-liberal tax policies. It is a fact that the North pays most of the taxes, and the South uses way more than their share of that money. Your hypocrisy is astounding.

    Immoral values? You are one to talk about immoral values, you hypocrite.

  79. cgo

    Wait a minute,…. I may not be as smart as you guys, but what is wrong with a black liberation candidate,.. or a white liberation candidate,.. or a chinese, a Samoan, oran Indian liberation candidate. Wait – I have an idea. How about a human liberation candidate,…Maybe?

  80. travelah

    cgo, there is nothing wrong with it as long as it is not fueled by racial division and a simmering hatred for other races. Jeremiah Wright and Louis Farrakan would be examples of something wrong with it.

  81. Dionysis

    “The War Between The States was not fought over slavery”

    Oh boy. The war may not have exclusively about slavery, but a key element was Lincoln’s desire to contain slavery to those states that already practiced it, and to prevent other states from adopting it (a less grandiose goal than the Northern abolitionists wanted).

    “Transplants, get real and STUDY the history and culture here.

    You know, I was born and raised in the south (including many years living in ‘The Capitol of the Confederacy’), and have heard this mantra about “Southern culture” forever. But aside from geography, the only significant differences between the two regions were (1) agrarian vs. industrial economies and (2) slavery.

    What else constitutes ‘Southern culture’? RC Cola and Moon pies?

  82. entopticon

    For every questionable sentiment from Jerimiah Wright, there are a thousand cases of him saying loving words about people of all races.

    Wright most certainly never said that he hates white people. He has said many, many times over that he most certainly does not hate white people. Many white people in his life have nothing but glowing praise for his kindness and contributions to society.

    travelah is just a bigoted liar. He made it up. Sorry, but it’s true.

  83. travelah

    entop, a persons philosophical worldview is measured over the body of his work and the record of Wright is pretty dastardly. He did not just slip up once in a while. His vitriol has been a long standing pattern and it appears that this odd man had an impact on core constituencies of the Democrat Party.

  84. entopticon

    You are so funny travelah. You rant on endlessly about Wright without any legitimate example that even vaguely compares to the evangelicals that you associate with.

    You try to trivialize Hagee saying that Hitler was god’s hunter, and Katrina was god’s punishment for a gay parade, and that the Catholic Church is “great whore,” and you try to trivialize Rod Parsley’s filthy bigotry, which are both FAR worse than anything Wright ever said, and yet you rant on endlessly about Wright.

    The funniest thing is that you seriously expect anyone to believe that it isn’t because you are a despicable bigot. Sorry travelah, but you are not fooling anybody.

  85. travelah

    entop,
    The early Christian Reformers, to a man, held similar views of the church at Rome. Most confessional Reformed churchmen today continue to hold to that view.
    As for Hagee and Parsley, they are your obsession and not mine nor McCain’s. I am theologically distant from both of them.
    With your incessant need to express such vitriol I can only assume you have personal problems that are interferrng with your ability to engage in respectfull discourse. The moderator of the site has expressed his concerns already.

  86. entopticon

    You miss the whole point travelah. If you weren’t such a severe bigot, you at very least WOULD be obsessing on Hagee and Parsley every bit as much as you do Wright.

    Instead, as usual, you make excuses for them and downplay their vitriol.

    You think the moderator’s comment wasn’t referring to you as well? You really are delusional.

  87. William P Miller

    Southern culture:

    Strangers say hello to each other.
    Neighbors help one another.
    God, church, family, community are the top priorities.
    People are polite to one another in public. Children are raised to call women “ma’am”, and men “sir”.
    The welfare mentality of many northerners is rejected in favor of hard work and self reliance.

    Just a few highlights of Southern culture. The SE does stand out as quite different from the NE, in particular. I have visited New Jersey and NYC many times. It is rare to see any of the Southern values displayed up there. People rarely smile and are serious faced and alienated from one another. High taxing liberalism is like a religion up there. Ironically, the result of that has driven many northerners down here where the taxes are much lower.

    If you look closely at the real history of the War Between The States, you’ll see that it was started primarily over unfair taxation. When Lincoln was elected, he wanted to centralize more power in Washington DC. In an era of states rights and no income tax, his only source of funding was tariff taxes. So he got enough votes in the northern states to enact an increase of 30% (total P) on exports from this country to Europe. The agrarian South was by far the biggest trader with Europe. Corn, Tobacco, cotton and other goods were in demand in Europe. Long story short, the South cried foul and tried to get Lincoln to decrease the increase. Lincoln said no. So the South left the union and started their own country, the Confederate States of America. Fort Sumpner happened because union soldiers refused to get off CSA land. Lincoln used this as an excuse to invade the Southern States. For a great scholarly look at this war, read “The Real Lincoln”. It is a well documented and footnoted history of the war and Lincoln himself. It was written by a tenured history professor at the University of Maryland.

    Barack Obama may be an exciting candidate for some, until you examine his associations, his policies, and his other baggage. He certainly does not represent Southern values. Both John McCain and Hillary Clinton reflect enough Southern values to make either of them electable in the South. And without the South, no one can get elected president. Hum, a great idea just came to me. If Hillary does not get the democrat nomination, she should consider running as John McCain’s running mate. That ticket would be unbeatable.

  88. entopticon

    The main difference between the Confederates and the Nazis: the Nazis at least admitted that they were wrong. The first step to healing is admitting that you are wrong. The reason that the KKK and the vast majority of hate groups still fly the Confederate flag to this day is for that very reason.

    Spin it however you want, but Lincoln never would have been able to wage a successful war if it wasn’t for slavery. If your ancestors were the ones being owned and tortured, you would probably stop with the twisted rationalizations.

    WPM: “The welfare mentality of many northerners is rejected in favor of hard work and self reliance.”

    In reality, the North pays much more of the tax burden, and the South is the beneficiary of much more than their fair share of that money. Essentially, the North pays the South’s bills. Until you stop leaching off the North, it is laughably hypocritical to make such a ridiculous argument.

    Your stereotype characterizations are pretty laughable. Yesterday I went out to eat with two elderly, fundamentalist Christian, multi-generation southerners, as I often do, because they are family. They are good people, but politeness is hardly their forte. They rarely say please and thank you, and left a 10% tip. My wife had to sneak extra cash on the table to bring the tip up to a respectable amount.

    People are people. I’ve lived all over the country, and I’ve certainly found Southerners to be among the rudest drivers anywhere. I’m not sure why the manufacturers even bother to put turn signals on pickup trucks.

  89. William P Miller

    “Your stereotype characterizations are pretty laughable. Yesterday I went out to eat with two elderly, fundamentalist Christian, multi-generation southerners, as I often do, because they are family. They are good people, but politeness is hardly their forte. They rarely say please and thank you, and left a 10% tip. My wife had to sneak extra cash on the table to bring the tip up to a respectable amount.”-Mr E

    Well Mr E, the 2 old church ladies are your relatives, aren’t they? Perhaps that would explain why they are an anomoly. Say friend, you sound bitter. Maybe you should get mote sunshine in your life. Go for a hike. Read a book. Watch the birds. Feed the squirrels. You may want to consider taking a break from your computer and smelling the roses, for a change. At any rate, have a good one Mr E!

  90. entopticon

    Yes, it’s because they are family. That explains it. And you are such a shining beacon of politeness.

    Actually William P Miller, my Northern grandfather was the most down-to-earth, politest human being I have ever known.

    I sound bitter? That is pretty funny coming from someone who spends all of his timing railing about Yankees and leftist conspiracies, but thanks for your concern.

    Hillary Clinton on what to do about declining support from white Southern men at a Camp David meeting in 1995:

    “Screw ‘em. You don’t owe them a thing, Bill. They’re doing nothing for you; you don’t have to do anything for them.”

  91. steve

    “People are polite to one another in public”

    I guess being rude and troll-like on the internet doesnt fall under this jourisdiction, though, eh?

  92. steve

    entop,

    they are insane. Stop giving them a reason to post. hopefully the xpress wont jut post 50 some posts of theirs if there aren’t a bunch of you responses in between, yeah?

  93. entopticon

    “The confederate flag is offensive in many, many ways, as we all know. It’s a symbol of racism and slavery.”

    — John McCain

  94. William P Miller

    My relatives proudly served under the Confederate Battle Flag. It has never been a symbol of racism. Those that think so are just plain ignorant. Including John McCain. My relatives were hill folk subsistance farmers who did not have slaves. They fought against a union army invasion to protect their new country, the CSA, and their homes.

    The big lie that the War Between The States was about slavery was a propagandist ploy used by Lincoln in 1862 to try to keep the English and French from joining the CSA as allies. And to try to rally new northern recruiting. You see, the South kicked the crap out of the union invaders the first 2 years of the war, even though they were outnumbered 2:1. Lincoln got frustrated with his defeats and sought to put a big lie out there. If Lincoln really cared about the black people, he would’ve freed the slaves in the NORTHERN states, like in Kentucky and Kansas.

    Lincoln couldn’t care less about black people’s rights. In fact he was a racist. And a war criminal for purposely targeting civilians, women and children, in the South with Sherman and Sheridan being his henchmen. The union army raped, murdered, and burned it’s way through the South. 20,000 women, children, and elderly men were killed. And that is why Lincoln was executed by John Booth, a Southerner. Too bad Sherman and Sheridan were not executed as well, as they deserved. If Lincoln and these generals had done this today they would’ve been up at the Hague on war crime charges. But since the northern yankees won, they have perpetuated the big lie all these years.

    A good book to read, for those who actually are interested in facts, is “The Real Lincoln”, a scholarly work researched and written by a tenured history professor at the University of Maryland.

    God bless sweet Dixieland!

    As far as the democrat primary race, Hillary isn’t a quitter. She will hang on the sidelines until the really bad stuff about Obama comes out in October. Can anyone say “swift boat”?

  95. entopticon

    WPM: That sort of racist apologia may hold water at your Klan meetings, but a liberal weekly’s website is a pretty odd place for it.

    As you said, Lincoln would not have been able to win the war if the South had stopped buying and selling human beings as work animals. You can whistle Dixie till you turn blue in the face, but nothing can change that fact. No matter what other issues there were, the legalized mass torture, rape, and ownership human beings made the confederates the bad guys.

    “20,000 women, children, and elderly men”? So in other words, an abysmally miniscule fraction of the men, women, children, and infants that were brutally raped, tortured, and murdered by their confederate owners.

    After the war, a common practice of ex-confederate soldiers was to grab random black people and beat them to death or hang them from a tree just for being black. 100 years later the practice was till not entirely eliminated.

  96. Jim Shura

    It’s always seemed very strange to me that people get so attached to the region in which they born that they begin to feel as if they have a stake in defending the idiocies of the past as if it somehow reflected on them.

    Just for the record, the consensus is that Booth ‘assasinated’ Lincoln. Some of his convicted co-conspirators were ‘executed’.

  97. William P Miller

    Mr E, you label anyone who disagrees with you about the northern lies told about the War Between the States as “racist”. You label those who are not koolaid drinkers on Obama as “racist”. You have an obsession with racism don’t you? That may be because you yourself are that way and that is why you project that on others.

    I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you research pictures of the genocide victims up north? The native Americans scalped, hung, and shot by your yankee forefathers? bad things happen everywhere my friend. Basing your argument on a few inhumane instances, is not logically straight at all. Otherwise, you’ll have to strewtch that argument into this “all northerners in the NE are racist because they stole land, hung, scalped, and shot the native Americans as they moved into Massachutesas, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey.”

    Besides, chew on this Mr E. Black tribes in Africa enslaved other tribes who lost battles. When they found there was a mareket for their slaves, they sold them the white shippers. Those shippers were primarily from New York and Boston. Yes, you yankees were complicit in the slave trafficking business. And other blacks sold their own brothers and sisters into slavery.

    The South for the most part is, and was, a superior part of this nation. God-family-church-community, public politeness, hard work, self-reliance all describe the South. Love it, or leave it.

  98. entopticon

    WPM. no I don’t call anyone that disagrees with me a racist, just the people like you who defend racism.

    Actually, I don’t have an obsession with racism, but I studied it intensely at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, which is something that would do you you a whole lot of good because your arguments are shamefully ignorant on issues of race.

    I have never heard a Northerner defend what what done to the American Indians, but if I did, I would take every bit as much of an issue with them. I have every bit as much of a problem with a racist if they are from the N,S, E, or W.

    I completely agree that this land, both North and South, was stolen from Native Americans. A few thousand years might give you ancestral claim to this land. A couple of hundred years doesn’t even come close.

    Sorry, but only the most vile of bigots would refer to slavery as “a few inhumane instances.” Slavery wasn’t a few inhumane instances. It was a mass campaign of torture, rape, terror, and genocide.

    I don’t need to hear you rationalizing slavery because Africans were involved in the slave trade; I can simply go to any white supremacist hate group site for the very same apologia rhetoric.

    The slave trade was primarily run by muslims since long before America was discovered. There is plenty of guilt to go around. That doesn’t change the cold reality of the horrors of American slavery, and the subsequent bigotry of segregation and economic disparities.

  99. William P Miller

    Mr E, I do NOT defend slavery. Not at all. I have attempted to explain to you that the knee-jerk “all Southerners are racist and loved slavery” is flat out wrong. I enummerated the actual causes of the War Between the States to give you a better perspective, rather than operate from your limited, northern history book over-simplification and outright lies about that war. Besides there were slaves in the north. Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, West Virginia to name a few. It is ironic that Lincoln only mentioned the Southern slaves in his emmancipation proclaimation speech. Also, the territorial governor elected in 1860 in Kansas tried to free the slaves there. Lincoln over rode him and told him not to. Read the scholarly work “The Real Lincoln” to gain perspective on these issues. Unless you just want to cling to your prejudiced characatures of this issue. If you are graduate level college educated, I would think you would want to know the facts. If so, research. You can go and read this book for free at Barnes & Noble.

    Push yourself away from your compuiter and go outside and breath the sunshine in. Have a good day mi amigo.

  100. entopticon

    I think you may be assuming a little too much WPM. I actually believe that in many ways. racism is worse in the North.

    I just think that it is very dangerous and misguided to trivialize the role of slavery in the confederate south, and I think black people have every right to be offended by the confederate flag as a symbol of bigotry.

    It is no coincidence that the vast majority of hate groups use the confederate flag to terrorize people of color.

  101. William P Miller

    Mr E, the KKK carries the AMERICAN flag as well. Should we demonize that flag too?

    And I am pleased you can see the racism in the north. i am Southern born and raised, but have lived in several areas of the country in mid-life. I have seen racism all over this country. And, oddly enough, in Los Angeles, much of it is among black people hating Asians. Go figure that one, but that is true. During the Rodney King riots, the hordes of black rioters skipped black owned businesses and burned down the many Korean mom & pop stores in their neighborhoods. I also have heard racist remarks from blacks towards Asians both in LA and in the Army. You would think that a race of people who were the victims of racism themselves would be extra careful not to be that way themselves.

    The great majority of Southerners in the mid 1800s were not slave owners, but were subsistence farmers, as my relatives were. Only the large plantation owners had slaves, primarily because there were not enough workers to bring their crops in. I wonder why people in Missouri and Kansas had slaves? perhaps just out of laziness.

    Just in: Barack Obama’s fund raiser and political fatcat daddy Tony Rezko has been convicted of 16 charges of corruption and bribery. Rezko also “helped” Barack Hussein Obama buy his Hyde Park mansion in Chicago. Could this be the beginning of the end of Obama’s messiah-hood?

  102. entopticon

    WPM: I always think it is funny when KKK members or whoever else has both a confederate flag and a US flag. It’s like flying a Nazi flag and a star of David. The confederate flag was the flag of a terrorist insurrection against the US government.

    The people the terrorists/confederates were killing were fighting under the American flag, under the direction of the President of the United States.. The terrorists/confederates that the US was fighting had a flag of their own, the confederate flag and they were fighting against the government of the United States of America.

    The flag of the people that the armed insurrection were fighting against was the US FLAG. The American Flag may be flown by KKK members who don’t know their history, but by definition, the confederate flag is anti-American.

    As opposed to the confederate flag, the US flag is not used to intimidate people of color.

    It really is a little frightening when you make all sorts of rationalizations for slavery and an armed insurrection against the government of the United States. Are you a member of some sort of white pride group?

    Personally, I think flags are kind of dumb. Flags that yahoos use to intimidate people of color (Nazi and confederate) are particularly dumb.

  103. William P Miller

    Mr E, why do you find it necessary to demonize those you disagree with? I mean it’s laughable, but unnecessary. You’d better make your points if you leave the extreme labels and attempted insults out. The War Between The States was not a terrorist insurrection. And you know it. Following your logic, the French Revolution was a terrorist insurrection, as was the American Revolution.

    The Confederate Battle flag represented the new country created in the SE, the Confederate States of America. Nothing more, nothing less. Just because a racist group flew it does not change that at all. Now the American flag was carried and flown when union army soldiers murdered and raped native Americans. Does that forever sully that flag? Of course not. The Amercian union flag was flown as the union soldier war criminals killed, raped and burned their way through the South at the end of that war. Does that forever sully it? No. Not any more than the New Hamphire state flag is a symbol of hate because of the genocide committed by those yankees against the natives of the area.

    Now, back on subject. Barack hussein Obama is coming undone. His political benefactor has been found guilty of 16 counts of corruption and bribery. Stay truned for further developments.

  104. William P Miller

    Obama’s “Whitewater” by Tom Fritton

    In November, press reports surfaced regarding a questionable land deal between Obama and Antoin “Tony” Rezko, an indicted political fundraiser. The long and the short of it is that Obama approached Rezko with the idea to simultaneously
    purchase adjoining lots in Southside Chicago.
    Rezko obliged. Obama obtained his lot for a reduced price. Rezko later sold a portion of his property to Obama. All of this took place while Rezko was the subject of a federal corruption investigation.

    Political handicappers have begun to assess what
    these revelations might mean to Obama’s presidential aspirations, but personally, I’m not interested in the political fallout. The salient question ought to be what do Obama’s dealings with Rezko tell us, if anything, about Obama’s ethics.
    First, Obama’s dealings with Rezko reveal a politician oblivious to the expectations of at least the appearance of integrity for those in public office. At the time Obama entered into his dubious land deal, it was widely known that Rezko was the subject of a federal investigation for allegedly trying to collect nearly $6 million in kickbacks from government deals. Obama and Rezko have been “friends” since 1990. Obama knew about Rezko’s shady reputation and ought to have avoided the appearance of impropriety.

    Second, Obama’s dealings with Rezko suggest, at
    least, that Obama might be the kind of politician
    willing to peddle his influence. The Chicago Tribune reported that Obama purchased his land for
    $300,000 less than the asking price, while Rezko’s
    wife paid full price for the adjoining lot from the same owner. Did Mrs. Rezko partially subsidize the purchase of Obama’s new home? And what of the
    subsequent sale of a section of the Rezko property to Obama shortly thereafter?

    Press reports that Rezko has raised as much as
    $60,000 in campaign contributions for Obama.
    What has he received in return for his generosity?
    (Such relationships are never one-sided.) New revelations surfaced recently indicating that Rezko was successful in persuading Obama to award a coveted internship with his Senate office to a Rezko business associate. (Incidentally, the business associate, John Armanda, has donated $11,500 to Obama’s campaigns.) Is there more to this story?

    Third, Obama’s dealings with Rezko suggest that
    Obama may be willing to cast aside his professed
    sense of ethics for personal financial gain. Obama, through his dealings with an indicted political fundraiser, was able to purchase his luxurious home at a cut-rate price and expand his property. Obama acknowledged the deal was a mistake, but only after the media made hay of it.
    In 1992, the Clintons came into the White House
    despite evidence of their shady real estate dealings in Arkansas, a scandal known as “Whitewater,” setting the tone for what would be the most corrupt presidency in our nation’s history. Is this Rezko land deal Barack Obama’s Whitewater? Let’s find out sooner than later.

  105. entopticon

    William P Miller… you make it so incredibly hard to take you seriously.

    I don’t demonize anyone that I disagree with, but racist apologists deserve a little demonization.

    The war between the states was absolutely a terrorist insurrection. That’s not even a controversial fact.

    Of course the revolutionary war was a terrorist insurrection by armed militias. In fact, many modern terrorist tactics are directly rooted in their methodology of brutal scare tactics and guerilla attacks on supply routes.

    You asked: “Now the American flag was carried and flown when union army soldiers murdered and raped native Americans. Does that forever sully that flag? ”

    Are you kidding me? Of course it does.

    The confederacy was an armed insurrection against the US government. That makes them a terrorist group. No legitimate scholar on the planet would argue otherwise because it is a quintessential example of terrorism.

    I’m sorry, but your rationalizations are getting as boring as they are ill-conceived.

  106. entopticon

    Your Rezko nonsense is absolutely hysterical. The Rezko trial, where the government had access to all of his records, exonerated Obama 100%!!!

    In fact, over 250 investigations have exonerated Obama. Your arguments are a laughable joke.

  107. travelah

    The Rezko trial did not exonerate Barack Hussein Obama or anybody else associated with that convicted criminal and Obama associate simply because they were not part of the proceedings. The ethics issue for Obama has not yet been settled and to suggest otherwise is to ignore the truth of the matter.

  108. travelah

    There are no legitimate scholars of history that would view the War Between the States as a terrorist insurgency against the United States. There are internet jockeys who would suggest absurdities thinking they win points by demonstrating an astounding lack of understanding of U.S. history. I suppose one could browse the internet and find degreed people who would make the claim but the legitimacy and credibility of such persons would be highly suspect by any reasonable academic standard.

  109. entopticon

    travelah, what do you know about reasonable academic standards? Your ridiculous arguments would get you flunked out of any legitimate university in the nation. Just like Rush Limbaugh.

    It’s laughable that you would even make such an argument because it is as straightforward of an example of a terrorist insurgency as possibly conceivable.

  110. travelah

    It’s laughable that you would even make such an argument because it is (the War Between the States or Civil War) as straightforward of an example of a terrorist insurgency as possibly conceivable.

    What reputable historians can be provided as sources agreeing with that sentiment? Since it is claimed that all legitimate historians hold that view, it should be easy to find a wealth of published material supporting this.

  111. entopticon

    The Confederate Dirty War by Jane Singer
    http://www.amazon.com/Confederate-Dirty-War-Bombings-Assassination/dp/0786419733

    “They echo modern headlines—a shadowy underground organization orchestrating plans to bring down the government; bands of saboteurs slipping in from Canada to attempt coordinated acts of destruction; plans to poison water supplies and spread deadly diseases among the urban populace—but these and similar incidents were part of a Confederate strategy to wreak “terror and consternation” upon the North during the Civil War. Elements within the Confederacy, acting officially or otherwise, developed—and attempted—numerous plans to inflict terror and death upon the Union populace and bring down the government using a variety of unconventional means. These efforts are an overlooked and important aspect of the Confederate strategy during the Civil War.

    This is a history of Confederate efforts to terrorize, demoralize and defeat the North by attacking civilians and the government, using means outside the bounds of conventional warfare. It covers arsonists, “destructionists,” engineers of chemical and biological weapons, bands of mobile operatives, and a variety of other nefarious characters and those who opposed them. Chapters cover prominent events in the campaign, from the efforts of the Sons of Liberty—an underground society allied against the Union and brought down by one heroic spy—to attempts to destroy the White House and “decapitate” the government. Illustrations, photographs and relative documents are included, as is an appendix following the career of Confederate bomber W.S. Duepree, killed while setting one of his own mines. “

  112. travelah

    entop, you were asked to provide a reputable historian, an academic well received of his or her peers (meaning credible). In your haste to scour the internet to find a google item regarding “terrorism” and the “Confederacy” you should have checked out the author or better yet paid attention to the reviews. It would have more appropriate to have read the book before submitting it as some fantastic evidence.

    From one reviewer …. I’m glad Jane Singer is not an academic. If she were, her book probably wouldn’t be so readable. She tells a great story. Terrorist plots during the Civil War; who knew? She uses many previously unpublished primary sources and the book reads like a journal of the saboteurs. Informative and enjoyable.

    It’s too bad the reviewer was not familiar with a proper history of the War but he was certainly right about her not being an academic and should absolutely have been surprised to read her fiction.

    From another reviewer … This is not even good fiction – and worse as “history”
    The reader wonders if Singer did any research at all in what seems to be an effort to divert attention from the scores of Union Army atrocities. Her alleged “war crimes” are complete fantasies. The best example is the tragic “Sultana” disaster, which she alleges was the work of sabotage. Never mind that the war was over by this point, and all investigations proved that…

    More importantly, now that you have presented your latest propaganda piece, how do you jump from covert actions during warfare (conducted by both sides of the conflict)to the sensational perspective that the Civil War was a Confederate terrorist insurgency? How would you define Sherman and Sheridan’s warfare against the civilian populations of Georgia and the Shenandoah Valley? Actions of war? The strategic terrorism of the South? Perhaps it was as most academia acknowledge, aberrations in the midst of war.

    This gall that is so academically inept of your posts borders on sheer incompetence. Could it be said that you are a terrorist because of your political affinity for William Ayers? Perhaps not but if the world revolved around your illicit logic, you should wear the brand. Come back with some substance.

  113. Eli Cohen

    Travelah, anyone but an apologist for the KKK (such as yourself) would view entoptican’s assertions as self evident. “History is simple: a murderous gang of treasonous southern leaders turned their back on the United States of America to defend the enslavement of blacks, for economic, cultural, and racial reasons. It was a catastrophic last stand for a horrid, immoral way of life that may have died out in another short generation because of growing distaste for shackles and whip throughout the western world. The flag was the symbol of the armed rebellion against the very idea of America. It is an icon of the greatest act of treason in our history – an icon made worse by the constant attempts at its resurrection as a legitimate cultural symbol after Reconstruction.”-Tom Watson
    Maybe you should spend your time inciting another succession of the south. It would be a blessing to the rest of the country. The so called blue states pay more taxes, have better schools, are generally better educated and are in much better shape economically. Then you and your ilk could slip into third world status without dragging the rest of the country with you .

  114. William P Miller

    Eli Cohen, you are a brain-washed yankee ignorant on this subject. You just spew and don’t think. What are you? Just a mouthpiece for yankee hate and lying propoganda? Looks that way to me. Give me some actual academic sources to back up your assertions. Let’s get down to brass tacks. Eli, you spout hate for the South, yet have no back up. Put up, or “shut up” as it is said.

    The idea that the NE is somehow superior to the SE is ridiculous. First off, why do so many yankees move here? If the NE was so superior, y’all would stay up there. The fact of the matter is that the NE is a bad place to live. Why? The rampant religion of liberal socialism has caused the following in the NE: impossibly high taxes on the working class-with property taxes so high middle class people cannot afford to buy and own a house.
    Rampant immorality and crime caused by the liberal philosophy in action. ETC, ad naseum.

    Eli, if you are posting from the NE, please stay there if you hate us so much. If you are one of the yankee cowards who cannot live with the results of your ignorant political votes, then GO BACK!

  115. Eli Cohen

    Willie P.
    Not only do I love Obama, I hate guns and god, and love homosexuals and gay marriage!

  116. Eli Cohen

    Willie P., You sound as if you’re ready to put on the the uniform of the confederacy and fight again. Them durn yankees are ah criticizing the south land agin. Git em’ Willy P.

  117. travelah

    Big E, my particular hero of the Civil War was Joshua L. Chamberlain and as a teen I used to tend to the grave site of my great-great grandfather who served under him. Do you have TV reception under the bridge? If you do, maybe you saw Ken Burns piece about him in his Civil War documentary.

  118. entopticon

    travelah, it is pretty amusing how you try to out-crazy WPM. I guess you just can’t stand him outdoing you.

    You really are a never-ending source of entertainment. Instead of consulting academics, you actually quoted a customer named “Fruit Loop” on Amazon.com.

    Jane Singer is a historian who has been cited by the American History Association, the Journal of American History, etc, etc, etc. She works as a consulting Historian for Engel Brothers Media. The HIstory Channel even made a series out of her scholarship:
    http://store.aetv.com/html/product/index.jhtml?id=77276&name=Civil+War+Terror+DVD&giftfinder=true

    You really do crack me up.

    I don’t mean to alarm you, but the confederate army did not have permission from the United States government to kill US soldiers. By any reasonable definition that makes them an armed terrorist insurrection. It is funny even to be having this conversation.

    It seems that maybe they didn’t do such a great job with you in bible college travelah, but don’t give up.

  119. William P Miller

    Mr E said: “travelah, it is pretty amusing how you try to out-crazy WPM. I guess you just can’t stand him outdoing you.”

    Mr E, If Big E lives under a bridge, you must be his troll room mate. You are both nutzo…but very entertaining. Thanks for the show!

    Travelah, I think it’s cool you respect union heroes. Of course there were heroes on that side too. As always, it is the politicians who are mostly responsible for starting unnecessary wars, then the people of the warring regions have to valiantly fight that fight. There were many heroes on both sides. There were also criminals on both sides, a minority usually. In Missouri Cantrell’s Raiders used their CSA uniforms to raise hell and commit crimes. In Sherman’s March To The Sea, war crimes were routinely committed on Southern women, children, and old men by union troops under the orders of Lincoln and Sherman. Most served honorably. But the scum should be remembered as a reminder that wrongs should not be repeated.

  120. travelah

    entop, you have yet to show even the beginnings of a consensus that the War Between the States is viewed by most historians as a terrorist insurrection against the U.S. Face it. You have no basis for such an absurd claim. Come back with some substance.

  121. entopticon

    William P Miller, at least I know that you can’t be travelah, because you occasionally make sense, whereas travelah never lets up on the bizarre nonsense.

    Your Claim that Eli and I are trolls here is absolutely hilarious. If Eli and I were over at Pajamas Media ranting about the virtues of liberalism, we would be trolls.

    This is the liberal weekly’s website. You may have noticed the countless anti-Mumpower cartoons, in fact the countless cartoons that are anti-right-wing on virtually all issues. One would think that might of tipped you off, but somehow you still don’t get it.

    You have been arguing for the virtues of the confederate flag on a liberal weekly’s website, and you call Eli ME trolls?!?! The funniest thing is that you are completely oblivious to your hysterically outlandish hypocrisy.

    That said, I don’t entirely disagree with the rest of your post. Sherman would be tried for war crimes in this day and age, and the politicians on both sides bear a great deal of responsibility.

    As you said, the immoral acts on both sides should be remembered so they aren’t repeated.

  122. entopticon

    travelah, there is nothing to prove. I disagree with the current government of the United States. If I form armed militias and attack US soldiers, that would make me, you, or anyone else who did the same a terrorist insurgent, for better or worse.

    There is no controversy, it is a plain fact. The confederate army broke the law and murdered US soldiers. No matter how you slice it, they did not have permission from the US government to do that.

  123. travelah

    entop, you are engaged in revisionist rhetoric. The Civil war began as a war for independence and the Confederacy failed in that endeavor. It was not a terrorist insurrection. You might consider warfare to be terrorism but then, you would be consistently wrong again.

    I did not expect you couold prove your baseless assertions and again, I was right.

  124. entopticon

    travelah… you never cease to amuse. ALL violent wars for independence are terrorist insurrections. Didn’t they teach you that in bible college?

    Unless the confederacy got permission to break US law and start killing US soldiers, they were a terrorist insurrection. It is hilarious that you would seriously even consider arguing this incontrovertible fact.

  125. William P Miller

    Mr E, terrorism is violence aimed at non-combatants, not soldier against soldier. Can you see the difference here? Currently, Al Queda targets innocent Iraqi civilians. That is terrorism. When the US & Iraqi military engage Al Queda, that is flat out warfare type fighting. And because we kick Al Queda’s butt so thoroughly when they come out of the shadows, perhaps we can understand why they are cowardly terrorists. It’s all they have the balls for. Sherman was a terrorist. Lee was not, because Lee did not target civilians.

    I find it odd that you don’t get any of travelah’s points. He is eloquent, and usually polite. Just because you do not agree with him, or me, doesn’t measn that the opposing point of view is completely baseless, or “bigotted” as you have charged. Dude, lose the vitriol, will you? You points will make more sense if you do.

  126. travelah

    ALL violent wars for independence are terrorist insurrections.

    Aside from the reduncancy, terrorism is not defined by an equivalency with warfare. When allied troops landed on Normandy, they were not engaged in terrorism. Roosevelt’s delcaration of war against the Germans and Janapese were not terroist acts except in the minds of incompetent nincombpoops who insisted on a nuetrality in spite of the danger. So, no, your suggestion is simply an ignorant one. I am sure Mr. Hitler did not grant his permission for the US to enter the war against him.

  127. entopticon

    If the confederacy was a legitimate nation, that would be true travelah, but it most certainly was not. It was an armed insurrection against the government of the United States of America.

    For generations, academics have pointed out that one party’s idea of a terrorist is another party’s idea of a freedom fighter.

    Terrorism: “the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.”

    The confederacy did not have the permission of the United States government to attack them. They used violence against the United States government, therefore, they were terrorists, virtually no different from Al Qaeda in Iraq.

  128. entopticon

    WPM, no, I most certainly will not lose the vitriol when arguing against the despicably racist arguments that you and travelah have been presenting.

    If I wanted to read white supremacist rhetoric rationalizing the confederacy I would just go to a kkk site, not a liberal weekly’s website.

  129. travelah

    The confederacy did not have the permission of the United States government to attack them. They used violence against the United States government, therefore, they were terrorists, virtually no different from Al Qaeda in Iraq.

    That statement has to be preserved as perhaps the most boneheaded statement in the thread.

  130. entopticon

    Only a bigoted fool could be so ignorant that they fail to see that all of the people that we call terrorists see themselves as freedom fighters.

    Al-Qaeda in Iraq don’t call themselves terrorists, but they are, just as the confederates were. The confederates fought against the laws of the United States government using violence, making them no different than the Weathermen or al-Qaeda.

    At least the Weathermen didn’t enslave human beings, brutally raping, torturing, ad murdering them for centuries.

    The people that the confederate soldiers were killing were US soldiers, acting under the laws of the United States of America. They may have felt justified in their unlawful terrorism, but they certainly were not acting within the laws of the US.

  131. William P Miller

    Mr E said: “The confederacy did not have the permission of the United States government
    to attack them. They used violence against the United States government, therefore, they were terrorists, virtually no different from Al Qaeda in Iraq.”

    Mr E, where on earth did you go to college? What country ever has given “permission” to go to war with another country??? I guess the WWII Allies were terrorists then because they didn’t have Adolph hitler’s permission to go to war against him. LOL, you are so entertaining Mr E. Thanks for the laughs old boy.

    Wikipedia defines terrorism as: “Terrorism is “the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion.” In one modern definition of terrorism, it is violence against civilians to achieve political or ideological objectives by creating fear. Most common definitions of terrorism include only those acts which are intended to create fear (terror), are perpetrated for an ideological goal (as opposed to a lone attack), and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants.”

    Mr E, hope it’s not too hot under your bridge tonight! If it is, have Big E getcha some ice to cool your jets. -:)

  132. entopticon

    WPM, I have attended 7 different colleges. Two of them were graduate programs. My Master’s was from an ivy league university, UPenn. How about you?

    Actually, the US does have laws about going to war. I’m surprised you didn’t know that. We broke no US law when we attacked the Nazis. We may have when we attacked Iraq.

    The confederates were not a country. They could have called themselves whatever they wanted, but they did not go through the proper legal channels, obeying the laws of the United States.

    Instead they formed an armed insurrection against the US, which makes them terrorists.

    In order for me to be a troll, I would have to be doing something such as pushing right-wing arguments on a liberal site. That makes you a troll. If this was Pajamas media, I would be the troll. Sorry, but that is an indisputable fact.

  133. entopticon

    travelah, why are you always so curious about my personal life? It seems a little odd.

    I’m interested in a lot of different subjects. So what?

  134. William P Miller

    Travelah said: “Seven colleges and all you got was one Masters? What happened?”

    Right on travelah. You may be a yankee transplant, but as far as I am concerned, you have earned local status.

    Mr E, travelah has a good point. 7 colleges? And all you got was one MA? Sounds a bit fishy to me. Did you get kicked out of a few schools? Or did you “fudge” and “pad” your resume?

    The CSA had as much right as the first US government to declare themselves a nation. The Lincolnites are the bad guy here. And a big lie has been told. The SOB should be blown off Mt Rushmore…for war crimes and corruption.

    On subject…looks like Mr Obama is going to be in hot water for as while. This Rezko scandal has legs, as does the Rev Wright scandal now that he has re-taken his position as “pastor” of his racist church in Chicago. The next few months should be entertaining. -:)

  135. entopticon

    WPM: You are a joke. The facts are the facts. Unlike you and travelah, I don’t lie. No, I did not get kicked out of any schools. I have a lot of interests and I worked for a graduate program at one point. It is pretty pathetic that you asked the question and then criticized the answer.

    They had no more right to declare themselves an independent nation and start killing US Soldiers than you or I do.

    The Rezko story has legs? The trial is over and Obama was exonerated, as he has been by over 250 investigations. If there was something to the story, that would have been the time. It is over because there was never anything to it. Why is it that right-wing extremists are all compulsive liars?

  136. travelah

    Entop, I am guessing based on the content of your posts that you have no clue what you are talking about. Claiming to have gone through seven colleges to get one Masters is not an accomplishment. It is an academic trainwreck demonstrating a lack of discipline and disjointed personal objectives. Of course, it’s your business (except you wish to appeal to this trainwreck as some measure of authority).

    The CSA had as much right as the first US government to declare themselves a nation. The Lincolnites are the bad guy here. And a big lie has been told. The SOB should be blown off Mt Rushmore…for war crimes and corruption.

    This example of your Ivy League education should get an honorable mention in some kind contest.

  137. entopticon

    Oh no travelah, I am an academic trainwreck. What do you care about how many colleges I went to and why I went to them?

    So what if I graduated at the top of my class and received an unprecedented achievement award. So what if I won the department award two years in a row in grad school. I am definitely an academic train wreck with disjointed personal objectives. You are so right.

    Really, they let pretty much anyone into ivy league universities, and only a train wreck would do coursework on a number of different topics out of academic interest. You have me SO pegged travelah. Did they teach you that at bible college?

    The funny thing is, WPM asked me, so I answered. I wasn’t bragging, it’s just a fact. I do think education can count for a lot, but a lot of the smartest people I have ever met never even graduated from high school. Education doesn’t trump knowledge, but it can help.

    The REALLY hilarious thing here is that the quote that you just ragged on was from William P Miller, not me!!

    Bwwwwaaaahhhh-hhaaaaaaaaah-haaaaaaah-haaaaaaah!!

    Good job there travelah. I guess you owe WPM an apology.

    Honestly, sometimes I am convinced you are plant who is just trying to make right-wing extremists look as ridiculous as humanly possible. If that’s really the case, all I can say is bravo on a job well done. You really do have a talent for it.

  138. travelah

    entop, you are right … Mr. Miller’s comment was foolish. Your continuing claims of being an accomplished academic do not seem to match well with your conduct and comments on this board. In any event, what keeps you from working for a living given your advanced studies, constant attention to this board and your declared ability to whup folks who think differently than you? Seriously, are you just sponging off the rest of society by claiming disabilities or are you just an internet “creation”?

  139. entopticon

    travelah, seriously, what’s up with the creepy cyber-stalking, i.e., constantly asking personal questions about my life etc? It’s a little disturbing. I really don’t want to end up in a hole in your basement while you repeatedly mumble “it puts the lotion on.”

    I have more academic accomplishments than some, less than others. There are things that I know a lot about, and things I am a clueless idiot about like anyone else. I do take issue when someone lectures me on things that they clearly know very little about, and I am sure you feel the same way.

    Sponging off society? Where the hell do you get off saying that? I’ve never taken a dime from the government in my life. My medical condition is not very common and currently there is no cure for it. Eventually it will probably kill me if there aren’t advances in the study of RNA, but for now I make the most of it, and I really don’t need you judging me for it, you self-righteous hypocrite.

  140. William P Miller

    Travelah, Mr E was a “professional student”. On whose dime? A bunch of student loans he didn’t pay off because now he is disabled? No wonder he is such a rabid liberal. Public assistance has been his paycheck, all along.

    By the way Mr t, the quote about the CSA you highlighted above was mine, not Mr E’s. I do not have a graduate degree, but I had a 3.5 average in my studies to achieve a 4 year BS degree. I am also naturally curious. I have researched the real causes and circumstances of the War Between The States. My relatives fought in it, on the South’s side, so it is personal to me. The northern history books over-simplify, mis-inform, repeat an old progaganda line, and flat out lie about the truth of that war. One source of reason is “The Real Lincoln”, a well researched book written by a tenured professor of history at the University of Maryland. You can go the Barnes & Noble, get a coffee, and read it for free.

    Mr E, I do hope you are resting comfortably, with your rommy Big E, under your bridge tonight. Keep cool, and be safe!

  141. Eli Cohen

    Travelah, please stop the ad-hominickinikkkeee attacks. They are very unbecoming of you. By the way, I don’t have a degree, but I’m endowed with a very large wee-wee.

  142. entopticon

    travelah and WPM…. You are some seriously twisted pieces of you know what. Poke fun at me for being a terminal student, fair enough, but to repeatedly attack someone over the fact that they have a terminal illness is beyond unconscionable.

    The both of you have a hell of a lot of nerve to call yourselves Christians, let alone moral Southerners.

    At some point, all of the lying is going to catch up with the both of you. I have never taken out a penny of student loans in my life.

    About the only special privilege I ever received was a handicap placard because there are times when my nervous system starts attacking itself when I overexert myself. On bad days it doesn’t take much.

    You both better hope there is nothing to karma, because if there is you may be the ones who have to worry that your kids won’t get to grow up knowing their dad next.

    Matthew 7:
    “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgement you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.”

    I wouldn’t wish what I have on anybody. I guess you better hope that you were wrong about the whole Christian thing.

  143. travelah

    entop, I’m sorry to read of your condition. Perhaps you should engage in a little introspection to rid some of the rage and angst you have welled up in you.

  144. William P Miller

    Elephantitus? Must be quite a sight.

    Mr e, I did not mean to make fun of you if you have a terminal illness. God bless you.

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