Freedom Road: Is Barack Obama the Anti-Christ?

"The Selma of the North": Civil Rights Insurgency in Milwaukee

Between 1958 and 1970, a distinctive movement for racial justice emerged from unique circumstances in Milwaukee. A series of local leaders inspired growing numbers of people to participate in campaigns against employment and housing discrimination, segregated public schools, the membership of public officials in discriminatory organizations, welfare cuts, and police brutality.

The Milwaukee movement culminated in the dramatic—and sometimes violent—1967 open housing campaign. A white Catholic priest, James Groppi, led the NAACP Youth Council and Commandos in a militant struggle that lasted for 200 consecutive nights and provoked the ire of thousands of white residents. After working-class mobs attacked demonstrators, some called Milwaukee “the Selma of the North.” Others believed the housing campaign represented the last stand for a nonviolent, interracial, church-based movement.

Patrick Jones tells a powerful and dramatic story that is important for its insights into civil rights history: the debate over nonviolence and armed self-defense, the meaning of Black Power, the relationship between local and national movements, and the dynamic between southern and northern activism. Jones offers a valuable contribution to movement history in the urban North that also adds a vital piece to the national story.

Buy it here!

Spread the word...

Blurbs:

Think you know the full story of the civil rights era? Patrick Jones's masterful study of the movement in Milwaukee will make you think again. Meticulously researched and elegantly written, The Selma of the North provides a devastating rebuttal of many of the conventional narratives of the civil rights movement. Here a vibrant nonviolent movement in the de-industrializing Midwest grows into a Black Power movement led by urban youth and a white Catholic priest who use confrontational direct action to lay bare the fissures of racial inequality in the 'liberal' North.
--Jeanne Theoharis, Brooklyn College, editor of Freedom North and Groundwork

A well-researched, well-written, and important history. Based on a rich array of sources, this book enhances our understanding of civil rights activism in the postwar urban North and establishes a useful foundation for the comparison of similar developments elsewhere in the country.
--Joe William Trotter, Jr., Carnegie Mellon University, author of Black Milwaukee

This book fills a serious gap in the literature of the civil rights revolution, joining studies on other cities in laying the groundwork on race and civil rights in the postwar urban North. Jones tells a good story, capturing events that might otherwise be lost to history.
--Arnold R. Hirsch, University of New Orleans, author of Making the Second Ghetto

The Selma of the North is an insightful and invigorating addition to the growing literature on black freedom struggles outside of the South. Jones's important and informative account writes Milwaukee back into the narrative of the civil rights-Black Power era and in the process expands our understanding of postwar America.
--Peniel E. Joseph, Brandeis University, author of Waiting Till the Midnight Hour

The Selma of the North is a riveting new story of the civil rights movement in America, a tale on par with Selma, Birmingham, and Montgomery in its power and importance. Jones's magisterial research and magnetic prose illuminate the untold story of the battle for the urban north in the 1960s, a battle that shows how race has always been the Achilles heel of white progressives. This story transcends easy dichotomies of black and white, North and South, radical and reformist. How did a group called 'the Commandos' define nonviolence? How did a white Catholic priest become a 'Black Power' leader? If this is not a saga for the age of Obama, I don't know what is.
--Timothy B. Tyson, Duke University, author of Radio Free Dixie and Blood Done Sign My Name

Friday, August 08, 2008

Is Barack Obama the Anti-Christ?

Apparently, the McCain campaign is trying to capitalize on apocalyptic paranoia among fundamentalist christians by subtley casting Barack Obama as the anti-christ. I guess, like God, the politics of fear have no limits. I have re-posted below a blog originally published by "Grant from the Matthew 25 Network" at DailyKos that has the details:

Time Magazine Calls Out McCain Ad - "Worse than Willie Horton"

Three days ago I [Grant from the Matthew 25 Network] posted a diary breaking down McCain’s "The One" ad (I posted the ad at the bottom of this diary) – pointing out the multitude of similarities to the end-times Left Behind novels. To many, not coming from an evangelical background or context, this probably came across as a conspiracy theory. However, today Amy Sullivan of Time Magazine confirmed our worst fears.

The John McCain Campaign has reached a new low in presidential politics. The McCain campaign is working to feed on people's fears and internet rumors that Sen. Obama just might be the Anti-Christ. We have seen the Republicans swift-boat, conjure up affairs, and enact false investigations. But, we have never seen anything this low.

Amy writes in Time:

"It's not easy to make the infamous Willie Horton ad from the 1988 presidential campaign seem benign. But suggesting that Barack Obama is the Antichrist might just do it."

It could have been coincidence. To be honest few of us thought the McCain Campaign was in-touch enough with Christian voters to pull something this despicable. But Amy got to the source, which sets aside any suggestion that this may be a coincidence:

"The ad was the creation of Fred Davis, one of McCain's top media gurus, as well as a close friend of former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed and the nephew of conservative Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe. It first caught the attention of Democrats familiar with the Left Behind series, a fictionalized account of the end time that debuted in the 1990s and has sold nearly 70 million books worldwide. "The language in there is so similar to the language in the Left Behind books," says Tony Campolo, a leading progressive evangelical speaker and author."

Amy further writes, echoing our fears, that :

"The visual images in the ad, which Davis says has been viewed even more than the McCain's "Celeb" ad linking Obama to the likes of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, also seem to evoke the cover art of several Left Behind books. But they're not the cartoonish images of clouds parting and shining light upon Obama that might be expected in an ad spoofing him as a messiah. Instead, the screen displays a sinister orange light surrounded by darkness and later the faint image of a staircase leading up to heaven...

A Google search for "Obama" and "Antichrist" turns up more than 700,000 hits, including at least one blog dedicated solely to the topic. A more obscure search for "Obama" and "Nicolae Carpathia" yields a surprising 200,000 references....

The speculation reached a fever pitch after Obama's European trip and the Berlin speech in which he called for global unity. Conservative Christian author Hal Lindsey declared in an essay on World Net Daily, "Obama is correct in saying that the world is ready for someone like him-a messiah-like figure, charismatic and glib...The Bible calls that leader the Antichrist. And it seems apparent that the world is now ready to make his acquaintance." The conservative website RedState.com now sells mugs and t-shirts that sport a large "O" with horns and the words "The Anti-Christ" underneath."

Too many, most, "The One" ad is a laughing matter. I have heard several comments such as "don’t evangelicals want the Anti-Christ to return." That just isn’t how it works. That statement could be true for a small sector of this population. However, many of the most fundamental of the premillinialists also feel it is their theological duty to thwart the ‘Anti-Christ.’ As evangelical leader Tony Campolo told Amy Sullivan, "Those books have created a subliminal language and I think judgments will be made unconsciously about Barack Obama," he says. "It scares the daylights out of me."

The McCain Campaign seemingly has no positive approach and outreach to Christian Voters. So they have chosen the most despicable tactic they could cook up. To use people’s faith to scare them.

We are doing everything we can here at the Matthew 25 Network to call out the McCain Campaign. Our petition renouncing this ad has several thousand signatures. But we need yours. And, we need your help in making the petition go viral. Sign here and please tell your friends: www.matthew25.org/TheOnePetition.htm

Next weekend is the Saddleback Church Faith Forum - and John McCain should have to answer for using people’s faith to demonize his opponent before the forum. Please sign the petition to call upon McCain to pull down this ad and renounce the tactic. Tell John McCain that we won’t stand for these fear-mongering tactics.

And please consider support the Matthew 25 Network with a donation on Act Blue so that we can continue our work. We are only able to continue because of grassroots donations from folks like you.

Thanks for the recs, tips, signers, and donations!

Grant,
Matthew 25 Network

___________________

So, what do you think about them apples? This would all be incredibly hilarious if there weren't so many lunatics out their running around believing this "end of time" stuff...

UPDATE: Here is a news story on this issue...

Freedom Road

My Book:

"The Selma of the North": Civil Rights Insurgency in Milwaukee

Blurbs:

The Archive:

Visitors? (since 12/10/07)

Friday, August 08, 2008

Is Barack Obama the Anti-Christ?

No comments:

Post a Comment