April 3, 2008

Please feel free to copy, paste, and circulate as widely as possible.
by Bill Levinson

Barack Obama’s campaign has been one of expediency as opposed to principles, values, or ethics. Obama accepts and even solicits endorsements from racists, Catholic-hating bigots, anti-Semites, 9/11 conspiracy theorists, and terrorist sympathizers unless and until a scandal forces him into damage control mode. Then, and only then, will he attempt to distance himself from loathsome bigots and hate mongers who promote the vilest imaginable ideologies. The blogs at my.barackobama.com, Obama’s official campaign site over which he exercises complete editorial control, is entirely consistent with the following behavior:

(1) Obama refused to “reject” the support of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan until Tim Russet, who was finally joined in his efforts by Hillary Clinton, cornered him during a nationally televised debate.

(2) Obama distanced himself from the hate speech of his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, only after it became a public scandal that is widening every day. He has refused to resign from a church whose official bulletins include a guest column from a Hamas terrorist, a blood libel that accuses Israel of developing an “ethnic bomb” to kill Negroes and Arabs, and “state” of Israel, as in “so-called state of Israel,” from Wright himself.

(3) Obama appeared with and endorsed Al Sharpton and his National Action Network, whose record of inciting hatred of white people and especially Jews is well known.

(4) Obama solicited and accepted the endorsement of MoveOn.org, whose official publications cite the Electronic Intifada, insult and defame senior officers of our Armed Forces, and promote hatred of Catholics (a derogatory photo-manipulation of Pope Benedict waving a gavel in front of the U.S. Supreme Court). MoveOn.org also welcomed anti-Semitic, anti-Evangelical, and anti-Catholic hate speech at its now disgraced Action Forum, along with 9/11 conspiracy theories that blamed almost everyone but Al Qaida for the atrocities of 9/11.

We will now show that the content of Web logs that are under Obama’s editorial control are entirely consistent with his willful association with racists, anti-Semites, Catholic-hating bigots, 9/11 conspiracists, and entities that deny the right of Israel to exist.

Before we proceed, however, it is important to underscore the following:

(1) my.barackobama.com is not an open social networking site like MySpace or Facebook. It is part of the official campaign site of Barack Obama, it is under his editorial control, and its purpose is to aid his election.

(2) Most of the bloggers cited below have been on the site for a long time, and their impressive point scores (a measurement of their involvement in Obama’s campaign) shows that they are not fly by night operators, agents provacateur, or Clintonites/Republicans who dropped in to slime Obama’s site with outragous hate speech.

(3) It has been argued that Obama’s moderators cannot monitor thousands of postings for hate speech. First, each page at my.barackobama.com has a link to report objectionable material. Either these links have not been used, or Obama’s moderators do not find the material objectionable. Neither of these explanations is complimentary to Barack Obama.

Second, we had no trouble finding the hate speech, and we are not even being paid to look for it.

Now for the blogs:

A. Tony Wicher’s so-called Blog for Peace. Mr. Wicher’s point score puts him in the top decile of my.barackobama.com members.

(1) “A different relationhip with Israel: key to Middle East peace” calls Israel “apartheid” and says that terrorism is justified. “The current treatment of the Palestinians is worse than South African apartheid ever was - it combines the worst features of apartheid and military occupation. The purpose of it is simply to drive the Palestinians out. …The treatment of the Palestinians by Israelis is the number one cause and justification for terrorism. As long as it goes on the terrorists can justly claim moral equivalence. As long as the United States continues with its current unqualified support of Israel and Israeli apartheid, it makes itself the object of terrorism as well.”

(2) “Obama’s Jewish Problem” calls Obama a “spiritual progressive” (this from Michael Lerner and the Network of Spiritual Progressives).

(3) “A Middle East Peace Initiative for President Obama” says, “The current U.S./Israel alliance is a marriage made in hell. …Israel is constituted as a “Jewish state”, which means that that it puts what it considers to be the safety and security and rights of Jews above human rights. Israel therefore should not be considered a democracy. It is in fact an apartheid state, similar to South Africa, and should be treated as such by the United States, until it changes its policies to come into conformity with universal principles of human rights and international law.” It goes on to call for the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state.

(4) “Report from CAMERA’s “Israel Defamers” conference” cites Muzzlewatch and A Jewish Voice for Peace

(5) “Worse than Apartheid.” “The position of Arab Israeli citizens is not as bad as that of blacks under South African apartheid; but still they are discriminated against in various ways. However, the requirement for a Jewish supermajority which is the core of Israeli government policy creates a situation that is WORSE than apartheid for the non-citizens living in the West Bank and Gaza.”

(6) “Israelis fighting Israeli Apartheid.” The title speaks for itself, but it adds, “And Israel has been an apartheid state: Like South Africa, it’s a democracy ruled by law for one group of people, and a military-colonial regime for another.”

(7) “Break the grip of the Israel Lobby. U.S. stop supporting Zionism.”

(8) “New book: “Overcoming Zionism” silenced by Israel lobby.“ “The following commentary is from jewsagainstzionism.com, a web site of the “True Torah Jews” who oppose Zionism.”

(9) “Cindy Sheehan’s Yom Kippur Talk at Rabbi Michael Lerner’s Beyt Tikkun Synagogue in S.F.” The title says it all, and here are a couple of choice excerpts on Sheehan’s view of atonement: “We must apologize to the world for our creeping corporate military imperialism and for our mistake of historic and horrific proportions in Iraq and Afghanistan and we must make atonement to those people in the form of reparations and any other kind of material, diplomatic or political help they need. All torture camps must be closed and reparations should be made to the innocent and fair trials and due process should be given to others.”

(10) “Speech by Zbigniew Brzezinski, now Senator Obama’s top foreign policy advisor.” “I hate to say this but I will say it. I think what the Israelis are doing today for example in Lebanon is in effect, in effect–maybe not in intent–the killing of hostages. The killing of hostages. Because when you kill 300 people, 400 people, who have nothing to do with the provocations Hezbollah staged, but you do it in effect deliberately by being indifferent to the scale of collateral damage, you’re killing hostages in the hope of intimidating those that you want to intimidate. ”

(11) “The Israel Lobby - Bad for the U.S., Bad for Israel, Bad for the Jews (by Rabbi Michael Lerner).” The title again is self-explanatory.

(12) “Israel Need Not Remain a Pariah,”

(13) “Barack declares independence from AIPAC, expresses sympathy for Palestinians.” “I hope Barack realizes that many Americans are concerned with what they see as undue influence by Israel over U.S. foreign policy, and believe our military alliance with Israel is partly responsible for getting us into the Iraq war. AIPAC notwithstanding, there may be more votes this year in opposing Israeli apartheid and supporting Palestinian human rights.”

(14) “U.N. Special Report: Situation of Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.” “The occupation of the Palestinian Territory is responsible for most human rights violations. This occupation is implemented in an unnecessarily harsh fashion by the Israeli authorities.”

(15) “Strategy for achieving the One Democratic State objective for Israel/Palestine.” “At the same time he should announce opposition to Israeli apartheid, and that Israel should be treated similarly to South Africa, with some kind of economic boycott, until it agrees to end apartheid and comply with international law. I don’t see how the Israelis could hold out if this were done.”

B. “Free the Palestinian People” (the name speaks for itself) touts Walt’s and Mearsheimer’s “The Israel Lobby” “Persecuted Palestinian” has 7772 points, and he is in 196th place. This places him in the top two percent for participation at my.barackobama.com.

C. Ruben promotes 9/11 conspiracy theories and worse.
[Update 4/3/08; all these links were valid yesterday but we can no longer access them.]
(1) “Ward Connerly is an Uncle Tom”. “And the roadkill is our children and grandchildren as Ward Connerly seeks more fame and fortune by pretending he’s “better” than the rest of us lowly Minorities who need “special privileges.” Let’s face it, if Ward Connerly wasn’t Black, he wouldn’t be getting the special treatment he’s getting in conservative White circles. They will exploit him to the max for their own selfish gains as he is exploiting them.”

(2) “CIA + Mossad + MI5 = AlQueada” [Al Qaida]. The greatest false-flag operations conducting in the history on man !!!! In case you weren’t paying attention…

(3) “Demolishing the 9/11 coverup.” “Who demolished the three World Trade Center buildings on 9/11? Let’s see: two planes smashed into two buildings and three buildings came down…hmmm.” [Google cached page]

(4) “Just the lies, Ma’am!” “The three World Trade Center buildings were demolished by professionals, not by a motley crew of 19 Arabs under the direction of one Osama bin Laden who was dying if not already dead in the Middle East at the time (9/11/01).”

(5) “19 on 911 01 heck of a story.” “Tracking the 19 Hijackers. What are they up to now? At least 9 of them survived 9/11.” [And we saw Elvis Presley in a UFO...]

(6) “Immigrant Rights” “Some immigrants may break the law to be here, but they do it to meet the life-sustaining needs of their loved ones the only way left to them as a matter of necessity. …That these desperate people would cross imaginary borderlines to meet the life-sustaining needs of their loved ones is no mystery. …The U.S. is more than happy to steal the ancestral lands and freedoms of Second and Third World countries, and to exploit their peoples and steal their natural resources, as has been done throughout Latino America for centuries. To suggest the U.S. now owes nothing to these oppressed people after stealing almost everything worth stealing from them is not only racist but fascist.” [Right; the borders of the United States are "imaginary." We savvy.]

D. Dr. Levant, whose 2403 points put him/her in my.barackobama.com’s top decile, accuses the United States and Israel of waging war on civilians. Dr. Levant writes this, and a lot more that should not be read on a full stomach.

…escalating military attacks that Israel turned into an open war on civilians. This war has targeted women and children, and all those who live under Israeli occupation in the West Bank , and are also denied the right to freedom of movement, health, and education. We stand in solidarity with Iraqi women whose daughters, sisters, brothers, or sons have been abused, tortured, and raped in U.S. prisons such as Abu Ghraib. Women in Iraq continue to live under a U.S. occupation that has devastated families and homes…

E. Anna Hussein, an established blogger at my.barackobama.com whose 4298 points put her in the top 5 percent of participants, offers this blood libel of Israel. “The above image is of a little girl holding a photo of the late Rachel Corrie. She was a peace and social justice activist that was purposefully run over and brutally killed by an Israeli Defense Force Caterpillar bulldozer when she was in Palestine trying to prevent a house from being bulldozed. ”

F. “Pesky Athiest,” whose 1599 points put him in the top 20 percent of my.barackobama.com participants, promotes the Wheels of Justice tour.

Wheels of Justice will roll into town this coming week. The educational tour in a bio-diesel bus always includes speakers who can talk about their grass-roots solidarity work against the occupations in Iraq and in Palestine. …Bus organizer for the Utah segment of their travels is Henry Norr. Henry was a technology reporter and regular columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle in 2003; he was fired after getting arrested in protests against the U.S. invasion. The Chronicle was already unhappy with him for his public speaking on his International Solidarity Movement trip to Palestine.

To recap:

(1) This site is under Barack Obama’s editorial control.

(2) These bloggers are well established regulars at the site, as shown by their point counts. (The New Black Panther Party, with a little under 396 points, was in 14009th place so we can define a minimum percentile for individuals like Tony Wicher and Anna Hussein.) They are emphatically not fly by night operators, shadowy Republican agents provacateurs, or Clintonite smearmeisters who posted the above material to discredit Obama.

(3) Each page has a link for reporting its content to the administrators. These links were either not used or, if they were, the reports were not acted upon because Obama finds this kind of support acceptable–just as he chose to join and stay with a church whose hate-spewing pastor called upon God to damn America, while consorting openly with hate mongers like Al Sharpton and MoveOn.org.