After lots of reading I have a question about how Obama supporters can explain the relationship that Obama has with the Saul Linsky school of community organizing. I have done enough reading about this so I don't need to hear from the McCain/ Palin folks, only those that support Obama.

I'm asking aboutthe whole Alinsky thought process--- including redistributing wealth, the end justifies the means, the rules for radicals, etc.

Do you think Obama believes exactly as Alinski did... and is somehow going to put all of his ideas into action if and when he becomes president Jerry?

OR... could it be that Obama borrowed some of the more positive aspects of Alinski's philosophy... like organizing the poor in order to change their lot in life?

When I read all of these right-wing attempts to cast Obama as some sort of covert communist radical through his associations... I always have to wonder... WHAT exactly is it that they think Obama will be able to do if he becomes president?

Do you think he'll just declare himself dictator of a new communist regime and assume absolute power?

Do you think he'll declare Sharia Law and appoint himself supreme Ayatollah?

Do you think he'll hand over the reigns to the United Nations and end our sovereignty as a nation?

What?

What is the TRUE fear that conservatives have of Obama?

I see the right-wing talking points plastered everywhere... but I NEVER see exactly what they think the end game is going to be?

Maybe you know?

I know KK... I was just curious to hear one of our right-wing bretheren offer a "cogent" explanation of their fear.

JG, to argue that when you believe one part of someone's philosophy, that translates into belief of all of someone's philosophy is lazy thinking. I regularly listen to KVI and KTTH. I do it precisely because most of what they say I disagree with, however, every once in a while there is something there that I agree with. To me, that is what is important - it is easy to keep yourself insulated and only expose yourself to things that you are predisposed to agree with. To learn, you must stretch your mind, which means that you will expose yourself to lots of ideas and decide which ideas you like and which you don't.

You mean like hang out at a gay bar if you're strait...just in case something to good to pass up comes along ?

That's a remarkably.... odd.... observation. I'm really curious who you think he should be seeking advice and counsel from that he's not already.

Where were they thrown under the bus? I haven't seen any examples of him thinking them an embarrassment.

His mother is deceased, so I guess that's why she's not around the campaign. But, again, that's just my guess.

Lay down with dogs, rise up with flees. Know my friends, know me. Birds of a feather flock together.
Check out the dogs McCain runs with. Most of his campaing advisors were or are lobbiests. He had to dump at least for the time being Grahm due to his direct connection to the mess our economy is currently in. Threw Carley F. out when she told said he and Palin couln't run a company. Couldn't pick his soul mate, Liberman as V.P.
I must say one thing nice about him, he is not for the bail out in its current form. We should all be very concerned about the current proposal.

I don't feel like my questioned was answered. The way I feel about the redistributing of wealth is that it should be like the 1930's in the depression when things like the CCC was developed and the government wrote checks to people but they had to work for it. I don't agree with the whole entitlement deal where I work my ass off and some of my taxes go to checks so some people can stay home.

Well Jerry you should just quit your job and have those check sent to you instead. Aren't you about ready to retire anyway?

Jerry, how do you feel about corporate entitlements?

How do you feel about workin' your ass off just so the CEO's of the major financial institutions don't lose their 50 MILLION dollar golden parachutes?

Re-distribution of wealth is just a right-wing talking point designed to keep the hate-filled masses stirred up and distracted from what's really going on. You don't wanna be a member of that group... do ya?

The REAL re-distribution of wealth has been happening since Reagan took office. Only this time it's take from the middle-class and give to the mega-rich. Where's your outrage about that?

I believe Obama said he heard his grandmother make racial remarks that bothered him, not that she was a racist. Unless, of course, you can post irrefutable evidence that he did indeed call her a racist? I believe in one speech he called her a "typical white person" while refering to how her generation was raised, but that's hardly calling her a racist or throwing her under the bus.

And of his mother, are you implying that he was greatly disrespectful of her?

If mere questionable associations, although not quantifiably adverse, are truly such a disqualifier in your presidential selection process, then Ron Paul should be very pleased to know he's got your vote. I don't see how you could vote any other way with good conscience.

Speaking of apparent "lack of knowledge" there Hank 'ol bean... that is NOT Obama's plan.

He's not gonna hand out any checks to anybody... the money will be used to pay down the EXHORBITANT national debt that is crippling our economy... causing our grandchildren and great-grandchildren to have to foot the bill.

This of course, ALL coming to us courtesy of the ABJECT FAILURE that is the conservative supply-side, "trickle-down", "Voo Doo" economic policies foisted upon us by Reagan and hammered home by the neo-cons in the Bush administration.

Wealth re-distribution by liberals is nothing but right-wing Kool-Aid... pure and simple!

Hey, did you also know that a substantial portion of those making OVER $250,000 a year don't pay any Federal Income tax either?

You really think that 4Salt. I believe that Obama said that those under $250,000 would pay less in taxes and those below a certain $ level would receive a check for cash from Uncle Sam.

Show me the quote Jerry. and I'll believe ya.

This is straight from the website

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/

Provide Middle Class Americans Tax Relief
Obama and Biden will cut income taxes by $1,000 for working families to offset the payroll tax they pay.

Provide a Tax Cut for Working Families: Obama and Biden will restore fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers the tax relief they need. Obama and Biden will create a new "Making Work Pay" tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family. The "Making Work Pay" tax credit will completely eliminate income taxes for 10 million Americans.
Eliminate Income Taxes for Seniors Making Less than $50,000: Barack Obama will eliminate all income taxation of seniors making less than $50,000 per year. This proposal will eliminate income taxes for 7 million seniors and provide these seniors with an average savings of $1,400 each year. Under the Obama-Biden plan, 27 million American seniors will also not need to file an income tax return.
Simplify Tax Filings for Middle Class Americans: Obama and Biden will dramatically simplify tax filings so that millions of Americans will be able to do their taxes in less than five minutes. Obama and Biden will ensure that the IRS uses the information it already gets from banks and employers to give taxpayers the option of pre-filled tax forms to verify, sign and return. Experts estimate that the Obama-Biden proposal will save Americans up to 200 million total hours of work and aggravation and up to $2 billion in tax preparer fees.

I believe both parties are equally worthless, They are controlled by he extreme elements of both. The lefty socialists and the Right wing Elitists. Go fishing

Here is an interesting article that might give you some perspective on the ecomonic crisis.......


"As most of you news savvy college kids know, the stock market and economy has been down as of the past couple months. The culprit of this sharp down-turn is investor fears about investing in banks. The sub-prime mortgage crisis, a seemingly complex issue, has led to this. Before you glance over to The Litter Box on the next page because I’ve bored you to death, let me just take a second to explain this odd economic phenomenon.
In 1977, congress passed and President Jimmy Carter signed into law the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). This law required banks to offer credit to everyone in their market instead of only offering credit to wealthier individuals, which was a common practice called redlining. In 1995, President Clinton signed into law an amendment to the CRA which created subprime mortgages. These subprime mortgages meant that people who wouldn’t traditionally qualify for the mortgage to buy the house could now purchase it at a much higher interest rate.
Throughout the past decade, this has put millions of people in homes that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to live in. President Bush would often gloriously tout that home-ownership is higher than it has ever been in U.S. history. But politicians experiencing glory like this would come at a dramatic cost to our nation.
What exactly are the dramatic costs? In 2007, there were 1.3 million houses that were subjected to foreclosure, a startling number that was up 79 percent from the year before. Additionally, in the first quarter of 2008, 21 percent of subprime borrowers were delinquent in their payments. These horrific numbers are definitely enough to worry an average investor, especially considering that subprime mortgages are worth a total of 1.3 trillion dollars (about 9.5 percent of the total U.S. GDP). Due to the foreclosures, banks and financial institutions around the world have lost about 150 billion dollars.
Who is to blame for this? If you ask a typical Democrat, they will tell you it was the evil banks who tricked customers into taking out ridiculous mortgages that they couldn’t afford. If you ask a typical Republican who is to blame, they will tell you that it would be the individuals who made the conscious choice to take out a mortgage that they knew they couldn’t afford and when their home gets foreclosed, they expect a government bail out. Which side is right? I think they are both right, and also both slightly misguided.
First, let’s examine why the banks would be willing to do this. A subprime loan carries an extraordinarily high interest rate and is given to people with horrible credit, which means they like to default on their loans a lot. There is a ton for the banks to lose. Conversely, there’s also a lot for the banks to gain. If the individuals they do loan these high interest loans to actually pay off, then the banks turn a huge profit, much larger than they would have made loaning to a lower risk borrower.
But it’s a gamble. Why would banks feel so comfortable gambling 1.3 trillion dollars? The answer to this is way back in the 1980s and early 90s U.S. Savings and Loan Crisis. During this time, more than 1,000 savings and loan institutions went belly-up. This was caused by financial institutions making high-risk loans to borrowers that likely couldn’t repay them. In the end, there was a very high rate of default on the loans, and financial institutions lost $160.1 billion. In addition, there were also a high profile political scandal where a financial institution called Lincoln Savings paid five Senators $300,000 to intervene with federal investigators on behalf of the Lincoln Savings CEO named Charles Keating. This scandal, known most commonly as the Keating Five, is one you will hear a lot about in the upcoming election as one of the bribed Senators is the presumptive Republican nominee for President, John McCain.
I apologize for digressing into my fears of a McCain Presidency. What do you think the U.S. government did after over a thousand financial institutions were bankrupt from their own incompetence? Of course, the government, really the taxpayers, bailed out the Savings and Loan industries by giving them 124.6 billion dollars. Many of the institutions that went bankrupt in the early 90s from this crisis are the same ones that are losing millions right now.
Back to the original question, why would banks offer subprime mortgages? The answer seems obvious to me that either the borrowers will pay up at the very high interest rate, or if they don’t and the banks start to lose money then the government will be quick to bail them out just like before.
Are the individuals who took out the subprime mortgages responsible? Definitely. Are the banks who gave out loans knowing they would likely never be paid back responsible? Of course they are. But the main culprit of this crisis is the federal government which created laws, like CRA, mandating that banks offer more loans to people that probably will default in little time. Then the government stepped forward to create subprime loans and told the banks that they had to offer the loans even though a large amount of borrowers won’t be able to pay for it.
What’s the solution to this problem? Since the government is most to blame, they should pay the most, right? Unfortunately, when the government pays it’s really you and me, and our families and all other good citizens in this great nation that didn’t do a darn thing wrong, paying. It’s not fair to penalize those who played by the rules to benefit those who didn’t. I think we need to stop this dangerous expectation of government bail-outs for companies and people that take advantage of the system. Therefore, I think the government should do absolutely nothing to alleviate this crisis. Remember it was government intervention in the first place that screwed up the lending industry to begin with.
In time, the financial industry will rebound as it always does, and those who had their homes foreclosed on them might even learn some personal responsibility. The free market always corrects itself, while the government consistently fails when it tries to correct anything. Maybe if the government had let the free market operate as it was intended to, then we wouldn’t have endured these financial crisises over the past twenty years.
"