My First Democrat
(Image courtesy of Zombietime) Sounds like the job description for "community organizer."
There is the first Democratic candidate I supported for President, and then there is the first one I voted for and they are two different guys. I wasn't old enough to vote in 1968, when I supported a Democratic candidate for the first time. This narrative will be about the first Democrat and tomorrow I will address the second one.
I was eight years old in the year JFK beat Nixon. My parents let me watch part of a debate and I liked Kennedy because he looked younger. Nope, wasn't too politically savvy back then... About as savvy as a lot of Obama supporters now, who are voting for him because of his appearance, unfortunately.
When I was in third grade my dad gave me my first novel written for adults (no, not X-rated!), The Wreck of the Mary Deare by Hammond Innes. I couldn't put it down and became an avid reader. In fourth grade the father of one of my best friends gave me a book by Ayn Rand to read and I read everything I could find written by her. I remember reading The City Boy by Herman Wouk and being moved by the emotions and drives and motives of the main character. I also remember following the War in Vietnam on the news, in the papers and even in our Weekly Readers. *
In 1964 I went door-to-door handing out flyers for Barry Goldwater and asking adults to vote for him. I realize now they probably thought my parents had put me up to it. In actuality I was sure Goldwater would win the War in Vietnam before I even entered high school but Lyndon Johnson would surely screw it up. Boy, did he ever!
In 1968 I was a big supporter of Bobby Kennedy, campaigning for him in our mock school primary and passing out literature door-to-door, this time as a Sophomore. People believed I meant it this time around, I am sure! He was the man for the job in my mind.
Understand that Joe Kennedy, Sr. was a crook. He made lots of money during Prohibition as a bootlegger and therefore necessarily had gang ties of various kinds. He was an anti-Semite and a fascist and certainly a hater of communism and a believer in the coming end of democracy. His radical beliefs cost him a position in the Roosevelt administration but didn't end his ambitions. He planned on being a kingmaker and that his oldest son, Joe Jr., would be President. Joe was sadly taken in battle during WWII. John then became the one his father would push towards power.
"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." John F Kennedy wasn't around long enough to accomplish what he wanted to do. Strong on national defense and service to the nation and also mankind, he is a fascinating character. Of course, his continual adulteries are a sign that all was not what it seemed to be within JFK. Nevertheless, it is a terrible tragedy that he was assassinated. There are three significant reasons why:
1) He was a natural leader. His father and political cronies had propelled him into office on the strength of better makeup on national TV and the Daley Machine getting the dead vote out in big numbers in Chicago. He was surrounded by a host of Eastern elitist advisors and cabinet members. He was saddled with a Vice President needed to bring in votes from Dixiecrats and the Southwest. But he truly only trusted his brother Bobby and Bobby was no elitist. I think John Fitzgerald Kennedy had a chance to become a great President and that chance was taken away from us.
2) He was replaced by a buffoon of the grossest kind, a back-room politics guy who was not particularly intelligent nor wise. Lyndon Baines Johnson knew how to persuade people to make tit-for-tat deals and he knew how to play all the political games. But he may have been the dumbest and most inappropriate President ever! He managed to finagle a Silver Star for a 13 minute plane ride during WWII while otherwise avoiding any action at all. He was famous for making his hounds howl by lifting them up by the ears. He launched a Great Society program that wound up making government-supported serfs out of the inner-city poor and spent government money like a drunken sailor.
3) JFK had told his associates to plan to get uninvolved in Vietnam. President Eisenhower had sent advisors over in support of the French and JFK had upped the ante in terms of men and materials but saw that Indochina had been a pawn in struggles with China and neighboring states for centuries and didn't believe his alliances with the French extended far enough to drag the country into another war so soon after the end of the Korean War. He believed that the Democratic Party's angst over "losing China" was misplaced and that there were other and bigger fish to fry. But JFK's top advisors were often able to play LBJ like a fiddle. Therefore LBJ fiddled around with Vietnam and turned it into a meat grinder. Read The Best and Brightest by David Halberstam sometime from the perspective of 2008.
I believed that Robert Kennedy was strong enough mentally, intellectually and emotionally to handle the job of President. I was not in favor of Nelson Rockefeller, was disgusted with George Wallace as a racist, figured Ronald Reagan could never win because he was a Hollywood actor and just disliked Richard Nixon as someone who just didn't ring true to me. I thought of him as a used-car salesman.
Bobby Kennedy had an uphill fight to beat Hubert Humphrey, because the Daley Machine and mainline Democratic bosses wanted HHH to win. But Kennedy had a surge in the primaries and his victory in California could well have carried him to a win at the convention over the liberal Gene McCarthy and Daley choice Humphrey. Kennedy confided that he had assurances from Daley that the Machine would support him over Humphrey if he came into town with the momentum in a convention split between Humphrey and McCarthy factions.
Then Sirhan Sirhan shot Robert Kennedy and all hopes I had for the 1968 race were to die with him. I didn't believe in any of the other candidates.
~~~~~~~
I don't label Barack Obama as a Muslim just because his middle name is Hussein. He did sign a document supporting Sharia Law for his cousin in Africa...and he did attend Muslim schools for four years. But he was a kid when he went to those schools, he had to go where his parents sent him. As for the document? I will save that for later. But I don't think he is Islamic. I think he is opportunistic and radical but not Muslim.
I don't label Obama as a socialist, he did it to himself. He joined the Socialist New Party when he first ran for public office. He filled out a position paper as a new lawmaker taking radical leftist positions. He attend a church based on Marxist principles mixed with racial politics for twenty years. He labeled himself.
He numbered William Ayers and Rashid Khalidi and Frank Marshall Davis as friends and mentors, so I don't have to call him out as a radical. He has shown himself to be a radical. Why shouldn't he sign on to his cousin enacting Sharia Law? We all know the rulers in such states live as they please anyway. It is merely the people who suffer.
He went back on his promise to take and be limited to Federal Matching campaign funds. He lied about his position on the Born Alive law. He lied about his level of association with Ayers. He lied about his involvement with ACORN and their illegal activities. He is a liar, I don't have to make anything up.
Barack Obama has his website rigged to deliberately take illegal contributions and, despite proof of this, refuses to fix the problem. A proper investigation into this already begun has already proven that he has taken illegal foreign donations and fake donations. He got a shady business deal on giant suburban mansion in association with slumlord crook Tony Rezko and made sure Rezko was benefitted in return. He is a man of questionable character.
But what truly angered me and should anger you is when I found out that William Ayers and his wife Bernadette Dorn, both terrorists, had written a book called Prairie Fire and that they dedicated the book, in part, to Sirhan Sirhan!
Excerpt: "Socialism is the total opposite of capitalism/imperialism. It is the rejection of empire and white supremacy. Socialism is the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the eradication of the social system based on profit. Socialism means control of the productive forces for the good of the whole community instead of the few who live on hilltops and in mansions. Socialism means priorities based on human need instead of corporate greed. Socialism creates the conditions for a decent and creative quality of life for all."
Zombietime says, "Page 40 of the manuscript is typical: It outlines the Weather Underground's strategies for overthrowing the United States. Among the many strategies are: eliminating the feeling of patriotism among the general public, destroying the government from within, and starting a mass insurrection among the lower classes."
I was eight years old in the year JFK beat Nixon. My parents let me watch part of a debate and I liked Kennedy because he looked younger. Nope, wasn't too politically savvy back then... About as savvy as a lot of Obama supporters now, who are voting for him because of his appearance, unfortunately.
When I was in third grade my dad gave me my first novel written for adults (no, not X-rated!), The Wreck of the Mary Deare by Hammond Innes. I couldn't put it down and became an avid reader. In fourth grade the father of one of my best friends gave me a book by Ayn Rand to read and I read everything I could find written by her. I remember reading The City Boy by Herman Wouk and being moved by the emotions and drives and motives of the main character. I also remember following the War in Vietnam on the news, in the papers and even in our Weekly Readers. *
In 1964 I went door-to-door handing out flyers for Barry Goldwater and asking adults to vote for him. I realize now they probably thought my parents had put me up to it. In actuality I was sure Goldwater would win the War in Vietnam before I even entered high school but Lyndon Johnson would surely screw it up. Boy, did he ever!
In 1968 I was a big supporter of Bobby Kennedy, campaigning for him in our mock school primary and passing out literature door-to-door, this time as a Sophomore. People believed I meant it this time around, I am sure! He was the man for the job in my mind.
Understand that Joe Kennedy, Sr. was a crook. He made lots of money during Prohibition as a bootlegger and therefore necessarily had gang ties of various kinds. He was an anti-Semite and a fascist and certainly a hater of communism and a believer in the coming end of democracy. His radical beliefs cost him a position in the Roosevelt administration but didn't end his ambitions. He planned on being a kingmaker and that his oldest son, Joe Jr., would be President. Joe was sadly taken in battle during WWII. John then became the one his father would push towards power.
"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." John F Kennedy wasn't around long enough to accomplish what he wanted to do. Strong on national defense and service to the nation and also mankind, he is a fascinating character. Of course, his continual adulteries are a sign that all was not what it seemed to be within JFK. Nevertheless, it is a terrible tragedy that he was assassinated. There are three significant reasons why:
1) He was a natural leader. His father and political cronies had propelled him into office on the strength of better makeup on national TV and the Daley Machine getting the dead vote out in big numbers in Chicago. He was surrounded by a host of Eastern elitist advisors and cabinet members. He was saddled with a Vice President needed to bring in votes from Dixiecrats and the Southwest. But he truly only trusted his brother Bobby and Bobby was no elitist. I think John Fitzgerald Kennedy had a chance to become a great President and that chance was taken away from us.
2) He was replaced by a buffoon of the grossest kind, a back-room politics guy who was not particularly intelligent nor wise. Lyndon Baines Johnson knew how to persuade people to make tit-for-tat deals and he knew how to play all the political games. But he may have been the dumbest and most inappropriate President ever! He managed to finagle a Silver Star for a 13 minute plane ride during WWII while otherwise avoiding any action at all. He was famous for making his hounds howl by lifting them up by the ears. He launched a Great Society program that wound up making government-supported serfs out of the inner-city poor and spent government money like a drunken sailor.
3) JFK had told his associates to plan to get uninvolved in Vietnam. President Eisenhower had sent advisors over in support of the French and JFK had upped the ante in terms of men and materials but saw that Indochina had been a pawn in struggles with China and neighboring states for centuries and didn't believe his alliances with the French extended far enough to drag the country into another war so soon after the end of the Korean War. He believed that the Democratic Party's angst over "losing China" was misplaced and that there were other and bigger fish to fry. But JFK's top advisors were often able to play LBJ like a fiddle. Therefore LBJ fiddled around with Vietnam and turned it into a meat grinder. Read The Best and Brightest by David Halberstam sometime from the perspective of 2008.
I believed that Robert Kennedy was strong enough mentally, intellectually and emotionally to handle the job of President. I was not in favor of Nelson Rockefeller, was disgusted with George Wallace as a racist, figured Ronald Reagan could never win because he was a Hollywood actor and just disliked Richard Nixon as someone who just didn't ring true to me. I thought of him as a used-car salesman.
Bobby Kennedy had an uphill fight to beat Hubert Humphrey, because the Daley Machine and mainline Democratic bosses wanted HHH to win. But Kennedy had a surge in the primaries and his victory in California could well have carried him to a win at the convention over the liberal Gene McCarthy and Daley choice Humphrey. Kennedy confided that he had assurances from Daley that the Machine would support him over Humphrey if he came into town with the momentum in a convention split between Humphrey and McCarthy factions.
Then Sirhan Sirhan shot Robert Kennedy and all hopes I had for the 1968 race were to die with him. I didn't believe in any of the other candidates.
~~~~~~~
I don't label Barack Obama as a Muslim just because his middle name is Hussein. He did sign a document supporting Sharia Law for his cousin in Africa...and he did attend Muslim schools for four years. But he was a kid when he went to those schools, he had to go where his parents sent him. As for the document? I will save that for later. But I don't think he is Islamic. I think he is opportunistic and radical but not Muslim.
I don't label Obama as a socialist, he did it to himself. He joined the Socialist New Party when he first ran for public office. He filled out a position paper as a new lawmaker taking radical leftist positions. He attend a church based on Marxist principles mixed with racial politics for twenty years. He labeled himself.
He numbered William Ayers and Rashid Khalidi and Frank Marshall Davis as friends and mentors, so I don't have to call him out as a radical. He has shown himself to be a radical. Why shouldn't he sign on to his cousin enacting Sharia Law? We all know the rulers in such states live as they please anyway. It is merely the people who suffer.
He went back on his promise to take and be limited to Federal Matching campaign funds. He lied about his position on the Born Alive law. He lied about his level of association with Ayers. He lied about his involvement with ACORN and their illegal activities. He is a liar, I don't have to make anything up.
Barack Obama has his website rigged to deliberately take illegal contributions and, despite proof of this, refuses to fix the problem. A proper investigation into this already begun has already proven that he has taken illegal foreign donations and fake donations. He got a shady business deal on giant suburban mansion in association with slumlord crook Tony Rezko and made sure Rezko was benefitted in return. He is a man of questionable character.
But what truly angered me and should anger you is when I found out that William Ayers and his wife Bernadette Dorn, both terrorists, had written a book called Prairie Fire and that they dedicated the book, in part, to Sirhan Sirhan!
Excerpt: "Socialism is the total opposite of capitalism/imperialism. It is the rejection of empire and white supremacy. Socialism is the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the eradication of the social system based on profit. Socialism means control of the productive forces for the good of the whole community instead of the few who live on hilltops and in mansions. Socialism means priorities based on human need instead of corporate greed. Socialism creates the conditions for a decent and creative quality of life for all."
Zombietime says, "Page 40 of the manuscript is typical: It outlines the Weather Underground's strategies for overthrowing the United States. Among the many strategies are: eliminating the feeling of patriotism among the general public, destroying the government from within, and starting a mass insurrection among the lower classes."
(I guess that is why Obama dislikes those of us who are still "clinging to our guns and religion?")
"And why is this relevant? Because if he believed it in 1974, and still believes it in 2008, then he almost certainly continued to believe it in 1995-2006, the period during which Barack Obama had his associations with Ayers. There is no evidence whatsoever that Ayers went through some "right-wing phase" (which would have been totally out of character) nor had any diminution of his political fervor. As far as anyone can tell, and according to Ayers himself, he has had a consistent and unchanged philosophy from the 1960s up until the present."
Dedicated to Sirhan Sirhan, killer of Robert Kennedy. The first Democrat I supported for President was killed by someone admired by a colleague and confidant and mentor of the 2008 Democratic candidate!!! Something has gone terribly wrong with the Democratic Party in 2008. Robert Kennedy might find himself running in the Republican primaries if he had been born forty years later. I don't think he would recognize what is passing for a Democrat these days.
LET ME TELL YOU ALL SOMETHING IMPORTANT! Whereas Barack Obama wants to fundamentally change this country and believes that the Constitution is flawed (he has said those things), the American people will not agree. Many in his own party will not agree. When people begin to understand what he wants to do in terms of redistribution of other people's incomes and his plan to tear down the Constitution by appointing judges who wish to alter it by means of their decrees, some members of his own party will oppose him.
If we are fortunate, he will not be elected and we, as a country, will not face this grave danger to the very foundation of America. We will not be propelled into a deep depression and we will not be besieged by terrorist attacks on our outposts and on our very soil. John McCain can win. Tuesday is not here yet!
But if the worst happens, and Barack Obama is elected, I will still love my country. I will still fight to be heard. I will still seek to rally opposition to the terrible plans he is making to change the United States of America into the Socialist Republic of America. I believe that conservatives and moderates and many Democrats will join me in opposing his ideas.
People do the work and the government should do what it can to give us a chance to do it and otherwise stay the heck away. Put out the fires, lock up the bad guys, fight wars, defend the shores, pass the laws that are necessary and quit spending so much! That is what we need from government. Marxist dogma may sound good to the elitist ear, but in practice it winds up dividing us into poor people, poorer people, the political elite and organized crime. Ever hear of a country called Russia?
If the worst happens, it is even more important for every blog and every radio talk show host and every thinking American to keep an eye on Washington than ever before. Ideological and class warfare is about to begin. Me? I am and will remain on the side of an America that is the land of the free and the home of the brave, where a man can worship God if he wishes and where a man gets to keep the majority of what he earns from his ingenuity and toil. Where a man can own his own shotgun, put a welcome home sign on his garage, watch football on Sunday afternoon and know that he won't be jailed for having an opinion.