Since some in the Jewish community are now singing the praises of Barack Obama, a political unknown with not much of a voting record, I began my own search for Barack Obama.  How is it that a formally un-known young man with only two years of Senate experience rose from local community organizing to defeat the powerful Clinton political machine for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States?  What I found is a troublesome history that should lead Americans of sound minds to question his candidacy and the direction America would undertake under his leadership.
     As a young man in Chicago, he became a community organizer.  Now on its face that sounds like a noble cause, but community organizing in Chicago began with Saul Alinsky, a Marxist grassroot organizer who died in 1972.  Many of the 60's radicals became his followers, including Hillary Clinton.  Alinsky spent his time organizing rent strikes and advised his followers that the real target is the middle class.  He believed that was where the power lied and he advised “our rebels have contemptuously rejected the values and the way of life of the middle class.  They have stigmatized it as materialistic, decadent, bourgeois, degenerate, imperialistic, war-mongering, brutalized and corrupt.  They are right; but we must begin from where we are if we are to build power for change, and the power and the people are in the middle class majority.”  Thus, beginning in the early 1970's, Alinsky’s followers found the Democratic party to be the perfect vehicle in their quest to destroy the American system.  Leftist reactionaries began to take over and ultimately control the Democratic party.
     In Chicago, the Cook County Democratic Organization commonly referred to as the “Chicago machine” is the primary political force that determines who the players will be.  It is an old network structure of “ward bosses and precint captains who maintain discipline, as well as patronage and graft to reward supporters”{1}, and it is this machine that propelled Obama from an unknown to prominence.  In recent years this machine has had its share of investigations, indictments and criminal convictions for hiring fraud and graft.  Jobs for political work still is a significant component of the machine, and the exchange of lucrative contracts for political contributions continues.  Just this week, Tony Rezko, a major fundraiser in Chicago for Obama was found guilty of scheming to get bribes from businesses seeking state contracts and for money laundering.  Not only was Rezko, Obama’s main benefactor, but in 2005 Obama entered into a real estate deal with him.  For a candidate who prides himself on his judgement, much leaves to be desired.
     If that association is not troublesome enough, enter William Ayers.  He is a former Weather Underground terrorist who participated in the 1969 riots which led to thousands of dollars in damages to downtown Chicago as well as injuries to several policemen.  Ayers and fellow terrorist Bernadine Dohrn disappeared in 1970 after a bomb designed to kill army officers in New Jersey accidently destroyed a Greenwich Village townhouse.  In 1980 they turned themselves into authorities, but were never prosecuted for the 25 bombings including the Capitol and Pentagon buildings because of improper FBI surveillance.
     Not only is this former terrorist not an outcast, but he is now a respected university professor and well known figure in liberal Chicago.  In a 2001 New York Times interview he showed no remorse when asked about those years.  Quite the contrary he added “I don’t think I did enough.”  Thus, it is noteworthy to mention that it was at Bill Ayers house that Obama’s state senate candidacy was launched in 1995, and he continues to serve on boards with him.  Obama has defended his relationship with Ayers as “friendly”, but how many of us would be friendly with an unrepentant terrorist?  So much for judgement!
     About 20 years ago Obama joined United Trinity Church of Christ, a church that is defined by its Black liberation theology.  This theology found its roots in 1966 and is based on the theology of James Cone who believed that Jesus was black and the belief that Christianity is a matter of liberation from their white oppressors in the here and now.  While not agreeing with Malcolm X, Cone indicated that Malcolm X was “not far from wrong” in reference to this Malcolm X quote “Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the Black community.  If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him.  The task of black theology is to kill gods who do not belong to the black community.....Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy.”{2}
     Theologian scholar Dr. Robert Morley states “that black theology turns religion into sociology, and Jesus into a black Marxist rebel.”  It promotes the black man as a helpless victim of forces and people beyond his control and thus calls for political liberation instead of spiritual salvation.  Other theologians believe that “black theology has incorporated Marxist thought into the black church by forming a framework predicated on a system of oppressor class versus a victim much like Marxism.”{3}
     Furthermore, Stanley Kurtz of the National Review criticized black liberation theology as a “scarcely concealed, Marxist-inspired indictment of American capitalism.”  The black intellectual goal, says Cone “is to aid in the destruction of America as he knows it.”  Asked in an interview which church most embodied his message, Cone replied “I would point to that church (Trinity) first.” {4} That Barack Obama sat in that church for 20 years....a church whose core beliefs were racist and anti-American is very disturbing for a man who now seeks to be our next president.  Where was the judgement he prides himself on?
     For many Jews, Obama’s latest appointment of ex-representative David Bonior to represent the Obama campaign at the recent Democratic National Committee meeting was a major disappointment.  After all, Bonior has a long history of strong opposition to Israel.  Jonathan Tobin a columnist for Israel Insider called Bonior “the bigest supporter of the anti-Israel Arab lobby in Congress.”  This on the heels of Obama begging for Jewish votes in south Florida and a few days prior to Obama’s address at the AIPAC conference in Washington D.C.  Not surprisingly, Hamas and the Arab American community have embraced Obama and are rooting for his victory.   What is surprising is Obama’s support within the Jewish community.
     When one looks at his history, a disturbing pattern emerges.....a history of questionable associations with anti-American radicals, a corrupt political machine and racist theologians of the likes of Wright and Father Pfleger.  It appears that based solely on his superb oratory skills filled with a multitude of platitudes, many Americans are willing to trust and welcome the “change” Obama promises.  As a conservative, I want to preserve what we have.  I do not want the “change” Obama’s presidency would render for America. 
     My family has experienced the horrors of Nazi Germany’s concentration camps, and briefly lived under Communist enslavement in pre-WWII Lithuania.  It was a noble America and its mighty military that freed my family from Nazism and Communism.  It was and is America’s free market economy that has given rise to the largest middle class in the history of the world.  I don’t want a secular Marxist state from which others flee created here in my beloved home. 
     Socialized medicine, not quality health care, larger government bureaucracies with its red tape, more taxes taken out of our pockets, more government restrictions on businesses, political correction run amok, identity politics, and greater entitlements paid for by bought politicians are not the ideals which have contributed to America’s greatness.  We need only to look at American Veterans hospitals and our failing government run schools to see the significance and impact of more government. On the contrary, it was the emphasis on the individual and not group identity that largely contributed to our success.  We asked not what our country could do for us, but what we could do for our country.  That question helped to define our nation and how sad to see how far we have strayed. 
     We are now at a critical junction in history.  There are those from without who seek our destruction, and there are those from within who seek the destruction of America as we know it.  Those on the left who actively seek to change this nation to a secular socialist state have found their candidate in Obama.  Their primary value is equality.....not liberty.  There are those Democrats who are ideologues, and they cling to their party affiliation as a badge of honor, and as if it were a religion.  Sadly to say for many secularists it has replaced their religion.  For them no amount of light shed on Obama’s candidacy will sway them, but I am hoping that for the many independents whose priority is not party affiliation, but the welfare of our state, I ask you to keep in mind that “change” is not necessarily synonymous with progress.  Change can be regressive.  We need only to look at the annuls of history to see the promises change has wrought. 

 

Shari Grischkan Goodman

NOTES:

 

1.  A Black Theology of Liberation By James H. Cone 1990, Page 27

2.  The Marxist root of Black Liberation Theology (www.christianpost.com/articles 20080404/31801)

3.  {www.mcclatchyde.com/227/story/31079, HtmlObama's church pushes controversial doctrines By Margaret Talev McClatchy  Newspaper March 30, 2008

4.  Http:llen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago-Democratic-Machine