Catholic Money: To Community Organizing

The revelations detailed out of a report and discussed in this blog, which appears to be a Catholic site with at least one Jesuit contributing an article or two, is very surprising to say the least.

Its being made public may not do much damage to the campaign of Obama, but as stated in the blog if anything this particular revelation has opened the eyes of the public, especially the unknowing Catholics who unwaveringly contribute with open hearts and minds to their parishes thinking their little “widow’s mite” will in some good way help the poor.

The sunlight shed on this subject of community organizing in Chicago has brought to light the ugly underpinnings of what started or was intended as a laudable and commendable project which the Church openly supported, all with the noblest of Christian virtue.

Innocuous or not, Obama's years as a community organizer were supported, in part, by Catholic money dispersed by the USCCB.

Barak Obama - was lead organizer in Chicago for the Developing Communities Project, it received a $40,000 Catholic Campaign for Human Development grant in 1985 and a $33,000 grant in 1986.

While he was in Chicago Obama was trained by the top Alinskyian organizers. One mentor was the ex-Jesuit, Greg Galuzzo, lead organizer for Gamaliel. The Developing Communities Project operated under the Gamaliel Foundation, a network of Alinskyian organizations that receive 4-5% of all Catholic Campaign for Human Development grants each year.

The Developing Communities Project, which hired Obama as lead organizer, was an offshoot of Jerry Kellman's Calumet Community Religious Conference. Kellman, another of Obama's mentors, was himself trained by Alinsky. The network of community organizations Alinsky founded, the Industrial Areas Foundation, receives about 16% of all Catholic Campaign for Human Development grants annually.

ACORN itself, very closely identified with Obama, recieves Catholic Campaign funding:

After Obama went to Harvard Law School, he returned to Chicago and taught Alinskyian organizing to ACORN staff. Although ACORN has a different structure than other Alinskyian networks, its tactical philosophy and world view are formed by men who were trained by Alinsky, in a sort of diabolical apostolic succession. Obama ran ACORN's 1992 voter-registration drive, Project Vote, and in return received ACORN's endorsement for Illinois senator. ACORN annually receives about 5% of Catholic Campaign for Human Development grants.

The report ends ominously:

After 40 years of funding the bad guys, it's time to stop.

......in a sort of diabolical apostolic succession

Now What?

The last VP debate showed us that the people can listen and are listening. Almost 70million of us tuned in, primarily to listen to a woman who spoke and used words to flesh out ideas, in the self-same manner that we hear said in conversations among ourselves and among neighbors. No nuanced embellishments or uncommon words to express common sense ideas. And in a voice and intonation revealing authenticity and genuineness, not designed to impress and overwhelm. And to top it all, quite unapologetic about her humble but noble origins.

So what to do with that precious opportunity? People are lending their ear. This is crunch time with barely a month left before we all go to the polls.

What about starting with freeing the facts and bringing them directly to the people, not filtered, nuanced, or intended to impress and overwhelm.

Let’s start learning the facts that appear to be disregarded by the electorate and partisans who derive their info filtered by an irreversibly biased media who has undeniably taken a side and party operatives who will not allow unvarnished facts to get in their way so long as they get what they want out of this election.

So here is an article from respected economist and political commentarist, Thomas Sowell, Do Facts Matter.

Right now, the polls indicate that a whole lot of the people are being fooled a whole lot of the time.

The current financial bailout crisis has propelled Barack Obama back into a substantial lead over John McCain-- which is astonishing in view of which man and which party has had the most to do with bringing on this crisis.

Read and reread this short article for a general understanding where a good part of the blame should lie for this cascading economic crisis we are all laboring under.

Do not be too impressed by the beautfiul language and witty sayings of men. My standard is not one of words, but of action. - adapted from Imitation of Christ, Thomas a' Kempis.

Sarah Palin: In Her Own Words

Will the real Sarah Palin show up on the debate tomorrow?



Another video is available here.

Profile Of A Debate Moderator

Michelle Malkin does a riveting profile of the moderator for tomorrow's vice-presidential debate.

And from the looks of it, it does not appear to be fair to get somebody who may have a conflict of interest, based on her previous commentaries, and even on the book that she has written.

Read Michelle's entire write-up and judge for yourselves.

In the meantime, here is the YouTube video on Ms. Gwen Ifill's remarks after the Palin acceptance speech at the RNC:



And as Instapundit openly wonders:

On the other hand, if, say, John Stossel or Bill O'Reilly were the moderator, I suspect that we'd be getting a lot of squawking from the same journalistic "watchdog" types who think there's no problem with Gwen Ifill.

Two Hanging Loose Observations

It is easily noticed that those people who are extremely emotional about the people they love and adore, are just as extremely harsh and brutal in criticism about the people they detest or disagree with. Thus, when speaking about their children, spouses, relatives, and friends, no superlative is spared to flesh out the platitudes directed to them, painting them like they are supra-humans devoid of flaws and shortcomings. But in the same vein when directing their attention to those they do not like or disagree with, no venom vile enough is spared or left on the ground, like these beings are sub-humans, devoid of any traces of goodness in their entire beings.

Now, isn’t this quite incongruent? That super love or charity could co-exist in the same person as the detestable qualities of extreme hate and maybe even self-gnawing envy. How could two diametrically opposed extremes exist in one person?

In current day milieu, one can point to and make the apt comparison to the protest being held nightly in front of the house of the parents of Casey Anthony in Florida. Casey is the mom being interrogated for the loss of her little child. We are witnesses to these angry residents nightly staking places close to the parents’ house shouting obscenities, obviously showing grave concerns and sympathies for a child that continues to be missing all these weeks. Again, you have human beings expressing the commendable virtues of sympathy and compassion for a child not even theirs as possibly lost, but in the process of doing that acting horribly and detestably in their heated interaction with the parents of the accused. In a real way, nullifying whatever good will that may have been initially engendered by their expressed sympathies and concern for that little child.

Can’t figure this one out.

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If Sarah Palin had been a lot less than she actually looks, would the negative press or negative criticism had been less than harsh and more tolerant?

Suppose Gov. Sarah had instead been after giving birth to 5 children possessed of distended curves and more rotund, and maybe perpetually covered up by those thick winter clothes that have formed our archetypal perception of an Eskimo, would she have been observed and assessed with more compassion?

This is truly one question I wish could have some honest answers.