Obama Lies Again--This Time to NAACP

Earlier tonight, Backtrack Obama gave a speech to the 99th annual convention of the NAACP. He bashed African-Americans one more time for old time's sake and then immediately got busy lying. He stated during one portion of the speech:

And that’s why I moved to Chicago after college. As some of you know, I turned down more lucrative jobs because I was inspired by the Civil Rights Movement and I wanted to do my part in the ongoing battle for opportunity in this country. So I went to work for a group of churches to help turn around neighborhoods that were devastated when the local steel plants closed. And I reached out to community leaders – black, brown, and white – and together, we gave job training to the jobless, set up after-school programs to help keep kids off the streets, and block by block, we helped turn those neighborhoods around.

Last week, the N.Y. Times published an article about Obama's early years in Chicago, which I talked about here, during that "community organizing" stint and they spoke with the man who hired Obama for the job. This is what he had to say:

It is clear that the benefit of those years to Mr. Obama dwarfs what he accomplished. Mr. Kellman said that Mr. Obama had built the organization’s following among needy residents and black ministers, but “on issues, we made very little progress, nothing that would change poverty on the South Side of Chicago.”

When he ran for the Senate in 2004, Mr. Obama told members of the community organization that had employed him that “when I left to go to law school, I couldn’t tell exactly whether I had gotten more out of this than the people I was working with.”

Building a following and actually helping "turn those neighborhoods around" are two totally different things. In fact, as I talked about last week, Obama's time in Chicago during that "community organizing" stint was rife with mistakes and foul-ups. So many, he left the job with his tail between his legs after one particulary embarrassing screw up, as reported in that Times article:

Later that night, Mr. Obama called Johnnie Owens, whom he would hire as a community organizer. Never had Mr. Obama sounded so downcast or frustrated, Mr. Owens said.

“Barack basically talked about how tough it was to generate real results through organizing and that it was embarrassing to him to have the residents out of control,” he recounted.

“He wondered if he had done a good enough job preparing them for the meeting,” Mr. Owens said. “He sounded angry at himself. He was questioning the whole methodology.”

Mr. Obama had risen to executive director of the Developing Communities group, but the demanding hours, small victories and low pay took a toll on him, and he decided to leave.

“ ‘We are not making large-scale change, and I want to be involved in doing that,’ ” Mr. Kellman said Mr. Obama had told him.

He is such a pathological liar. Either that, or he thinks that African-Americans are so stupid, they won't bother to verify anything he says. He continues on in his speech to the NAACP. More lies:

So I’ve been working my entire adult life to help build an America where social justice is being served and economic justice is being served; an America where we all have an equal chance to make it if we try. That’s the America I believe in. That’s the America you’ve been fighting for over the past 99 years. And that’s the America we have to keep marching towards today.

Sounds like he stole a page out of a Hillary Clinton speech because he damn sure isn't talking about himself. Especially not in light of this Boston Globe article from a few weeks ago. He rambled on during the speech about demanding more from Washington, even after telling the Conference of Mayors just weeks ago not to expect any additional financial support from him. In another N.Y. Times article, Obama Urges Mayors to Focus on Urban Growth, but Not to Expect Increased Federal Aid, the article states:

Drawing on his years as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, said that while he intended to be a supportive partner if he won the White House, the mayors should not count on significant additional help from Washington. Change, he said, comes from the bottom up, not the top down.

Mr. Obama also said the federal government’s ability to help cities would be limited in part by a long-term budget deficit left by the Bush administration, which he called “the most fiscally irresponsible administration in modern times.”

He speaks out of both sides of his mouth so fluidly it's scary and it would be African-Americans who suffer the brunt of his neglect if the country lost its mind and elected him president. In that same article:

Senator Barack Obama told the nation’s mayors on Saturday that current urban policy was obsolete and needed to be replaced by a model that focused on rational metropolitan growth rather than chiefly on inner-city crime and poverty.

Do not continue to let yourselves be fooled by this man. He only wants your votes. He cares nothing for your issues. I'm sure you are fuming as you read this right now, but the truth is like a beam of light. It will always find a way to eek through the tiniest cracks and there are a number of cracks in Obama's game. No matter how tight he may think it is. --SUGAR

Comments

[josgirl]

Do Obama and the black leaders, writers and supporters of his stereotyping of black American life realize that his "doctrine of personal responsibility" has long been a cornerstone of right-wing conservatism?
Two articles I found examine this question, one from 05 is from a progressive site and entitled "The Responsibilty Ruse":
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2005/07/12/the_responsibility_ruse.php
and the other is a reaction to Onbyme's Father's Day speech from a right-wing site:
http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2008/06/16/obama-nails-it-on-fathers-day/
Why is he co-opting right wing philosophy and why are black people allowing him to do it?

[ea]

josgirl,

I would modify the "personal responsibility" take. I think the wingers have taken "blame the victim" and re-packaged it into "personal responsibility" to negate any other type of contributing or mitigating factor in what one might call personal success. It is one way to completely erase whatever "ism" one chooses.

Personal responsibility really is a universal concept and an imperative for any functioning society. What differs in societies is which responsibilities are personal and which are those of the family, state, or other entity.

[josgirl]

ea, your take on personal responsibility is pretty much what is argued in the article about the personal responsibility ruse.
Yes, it is and always has been a code phrase behind which people hide their bigoted agenda.
That's why I take issue with Obiteme's fanatical co-opting of such a disingenuous doctrine and his acolytes illogical defense of it.

[sonya]

josgirl, black people allow him to speak to them any kind of way because a lot of them accept his premise that they don't deserve any better. It's all about the self-hatred, which I blogged about this morning in my post, "Obama Exploits Black Self-Hatred."

He wont' stop doing it until somebody black people stop him.

[Uppity Woman]

Sugar, you should have heard his speech today on the middle east and Iraq. He gave John McCain and Hillary Clinton's speech all in one. Hardly even similar to what we have on video of him saying he is going to disarm us. What a duplicitous panderer this guy is. The swift boats must be fighting over which "Which one is the Real Barack Obama" video to produce first. First we were out of there in 11 months, no he is increasing brigades and the military. This is dizzying.

By the way I love your new digs.

[SUGAR]

josgirl, you make SUCH a valid point about the tie-in with conservative talking points about "personal responsibility". I mentioned a week or so ago that they don't have a problem with him going on his "moral tour" through Black America because that's what they believe as well. Jesse Jackson knows this and as Pastor Manning said, he was trying to let other Black folks know it. I believe that slowly people will start to wake up and indeed it will be the seniors who make the difference.

Sonya, he will not stop doing until finally some black "leader" or group decides to start speaking out against him. Our cries over the world wide web are slowly being heard, but it is work that has to be constant in order for it to really make a difference. That's why, no matter how angry I get and no matter how tired of this I get on some days, I know that I have to keep doing my small part.

Uppity, he is absolutely hijacking their speeches! I mean, what in the hell!? I think that the day after the convention ends, the RNC and the swiftboaters are going to split him in two. Gracias on the digs. :)

[pamOBSP]

Girl, I wish you could come to Chicago a spend two days with the sisters that worked with him as a community organizer. Do they have stories and they are all HRC supporters.It's all BS. We are having a big party on the 29th for Illinois for Hillary, you're invited.

[untilthelastdogdies]

Sugar, just watched this Cynthia McKinney
video

http://democratsforrealchange.info/

Tree Shakers indeed, the woman has a point, hell, she's got a lot of points!

Not the least of which is this statement from her acceptance speech:

Don't expect me to keep a count of the major party flip flops from now to November. I'm sure there will be many. But, in the end, that's not the important issue to understand. What is more fundamental to understand is this: the other political parties find themselves in this flip-flop predicament because they have to appear to share our values while they serve someone else's.

Damn! I might have to vote for her!

[missE]

block by block, we helped turn those neighborhoods around.

Sugar, I unloaded a string of cuss words after reading your post. Obama is shameless.

You should have No Quarter put this up so everyone will read it. Nothing pisses me off more than the reality of Obama's district and his neglect of it.

[GRL]

Another great post. Sugar!
I learn an awful lot at your site..

[CB]

Forced to "suspend" by Pelosi and the DNC, but you can't keep that woman down:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/obama_leads_bush_by_twenty_but_clinton_does_better_against_mccain

"McCain fares better against Obama than he does against two other prominent Democrats. New York Senator Hillary Clinton leads McCain by eight points, 50% to 42%. Former Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2000, leads McCain 50% to 43%.
These numbers help explain why Election 2008 is competitive even though events so heavily favor the Democrats -- because the Republicans are on course to nominate their strongest possible general election candidate but the Democrats are not. Perhaps even more importantly, the data suggests that voters don’t see a potential McCain Administration as the third term of President Bush."

[Deke]

I am so tired of this fool. He denies the existance of institutional racism with this personal responsibility bs, he's already showed that he has contempt for poor people of all races--so where does that leave us? Why the hell is he running? Either you see government as a potential instrument of change and you want to do something--or you sit in the back room with the pols and count your money and laugh up your sleeve. Great, we'll all work it out ourselves one bucket of Popeye's at a time, we'll pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, if Oprah can do it we all can, I guess we don't need you to take advantage of us and use us as political footballs in the meantime.

That is really what pisses me off the most. Many of his followers away from the internet crazies are good people, sincere, hungry for change, and he exploits their problems and their hopes and laughs at them. The degree of cynicism here is ugly.

[kat in your hat]

This is a good article. Was it on No Quarter? Can you please submit it to their email? The only thing that would have to change is the "when" at the very beginning. I just think everybody should see it.

Also, I am amazed about how Obama always says that he turned down lucrative legal jobs, etc. Obama worked at a law firm. Michelle worked at a law firm and she was on the board of corporate entities. They keep trying to sell this totally down to Earth idea, and it's just not the case.

Furthermore, what about Obama's Chicago district as state senator, and his bag man buddy Rezko letting all those poor people (maybe mainly black people) live in horrible conditions, without heat--in one of (or the) coldest winters in Chicago history. Wind chills were negative 30. These people lived like that for at least 5 weeks! Years ago, I lived without heat for one week in winter and it was seriously agonizing and depressing by the 5th day. You know, you walk around in bitter bone chilling wind outside and then you get home and there is no relief. And no hot showers to help! I don't know how they got through it. It's something that actually really pisses me off. I think Obama ignored them simply to keep Rezko as his main political backer. Those people were in the news suffering, in Obama's district, and the only way they got their heat back was by filing a lawsuit! Horrendous! If some slumlord treated my mother like that, I would go after him with my bare hands.

Ok, sorry, didn't mean to rant.

PUMA!

[GRL]

Two new stories…..

More Bilge from Obama–Another Empty Fundraising Letter (Which I Reflect Upon with Help from Charlie Chan)
http://preview.tinyurl.com/63jvmy

Breaking: Tory Leader David Cameron “Hearts” Obama, Talks about “Progessive Goals” Achieved by “Conservative Means”
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5uouh8

The latter one is rather scary!! The ultimate fusion of the parties??

Both are the current leads at http://insightanalytical.wordpress.com

[Northwest rain]

Barky/Barry/snObama is such a lying phony. And I don't catch the half of his lies.

Barky is a user -- and a taker. He's playing a lot of people for fools and suckers -- and people will wake up, eventually. Preachers can promise that rewards for "good works" (giving $$ to the preachers) will be rewarded in heaven. Barky is making promises or letting people project their wish list onto the hollow shell called Obama.

All of this from a privileged kid who grew up in Hawaii, went to an exclusive private high school. No big deal to be of color in Hawaii -- in fact he was in the MAJORITY.

But then Obama discovered the race card -- and he thinks he won the lottery.

Obama is a snob -- he always has been a snob. He didn't attend the public schools in Hawaii -- so he really has no concept of what being poor really means.

I agree with the other posters -- this essay needs to be posted on NQ.

Someone needs to interview the people who worked with Obama during his community organizing days -- now that's a story that hasn't been told yet -- and one I'd love to read.

PUMA