Posted on 10/26/2008 6:49:41 PM PDT by TornadoAlley3
There was a great article in the New York Times yesterday about Barack Obama’s time as a faculty member at the University of Chicago Law School. The timing was uncanny for me, as I had recently pulled some CD’s out of our archive room and been listening to some appearances that Obama made as a guest on Odyssey, the talk show I used to produce here at Chicago Public Radio. We had Obama, then a State Senator and Senior Lecturer at the Law School, on the program 3 times between 1998 and 2002. When he joined us, he was more than willing to set aside his political persona and put on his academic hat. He participated in discussions on the evolution of the right to vote, the politics of electoral redistricting, and the uneasy relationship between slavery and the constitution in early America.
Here’s an excerpt from the call-in segment for the Slavery and the Constitution show that aired in September of 2001. The other voices you’ll hear are the host, Gretchen Helfrich, and UIC historian Richard John.
So what’s flawed Hussein? The birth requirement to serve as president?
Interesting that they were just released now. I wonder why?
I listened to it earlier today and it seems Barack Obama wants to spread the wealth.
Lead us out of this political darkness we call America.
Thank goodness no one man has the power to change it.
bookmark for later
How can he be permitted to take the oath of office?
This will be our President? the President of the United States?
This is a nightmare. Is this America?
Not yet..I'm sure that's one of the 'flaws' seen by BHO.
Isn’t it great when a Chicago street thug tells us that our U.S. Constitution is a “flawed document.” The “messiah” is a genius I tell ya!
Here’s the transcript from 2001. Also in a FR post below.
MODERATOR: Good morning and welcome to Odyssey on WBEZ Chicago 91.5 FM and we’re joined by Barack Obama who is Illinois State Senator from the 13th district and senior lecturer in the law school at the University of Chicago.
OBAMA: If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples. So that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it I’d be okay.
But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent as radical as people tried to characterize the Warren court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it’s been interpreted, and the Warren court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can’t do to you, it says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn’t shifted. One of the I think tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributed change and in some ways we still suffer from that.
MODERATOR: Let’s talk with Karen. Good morning, Karen, you’re on Chicago Public Radio.
KAREN: Hi. The gentleman made the point that the Warren court wasn’t terribly radical with economic changes. My question is, is it too late for that kind of reparative work economically and is that that the appropriate place for reparative economic work to take place – the court – or would it be legislation at this point?
OBAMA: Maybe I’m showing my bias here as a legislator as well as a law professor, but I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. The institution just isn’t structured that way.
You just look at very rare examples during the desegregation era the court was willing to for example order changes that cost money to a local school district. The court was very uncomfortable with it. It was very hard to manage, it was hard to figure out. You start getting into all sorts of separation of powers issues in terms of the court monitoring or engaging in a process that essentially is administrative and takes a lot of time.
The court’s just not very good at it and politically it’s very hard to legitimize opinions from the court in that regard. So I think that although you can craft theoretical justifications for it legally. Any three of us sitting here could come up with a rational for bringing about economic change through the courts.
He’s NOT alone.
The constitution may be flawed but its a whole lot better than what we have now.
The only “flaw” there might be in the Constitution is that the Founding Fathers never thought a menace like him might have a crack at getting elected President.
Obama is a threat to America - plain and simple.
As opposed to what BO, the Communist Manifesto?
We know that .. .. .. but does he?
I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts
Wow. He's a complete Marxist. In his OWN words.
The bulb burns evilly
Flawed human being.
This is NOT the same audio, not about redistribution, this audio is about slavery and the constitution, courts etc.
To hell with the other one.
Check the 8 minute mark of this one.
He says that the Constitution ‘represents the fundamental flaw of this country that continues to this very day’.
"The American Constitution is, so far as I can see, the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man."
the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.
Barrak, I’m sure will venture where supreme court justices
fear to tread, once he has replaced some of the existing
members...accidents do happen.
Commie, no doubt about it.
Das Kapital - now there’s a flawed document. But you’d never get Obama’s boosters like Ayers to admit it.
This one doesn’t do anything for me. He was essentially talking about the original Constitution allowing slavery, which he says created problems that last to this day. Typical liberal pablum, yes, but nothing on the order of threatening to confiscate the hard-earned wealth of productive American citizens and then redistributing it to those who hadn’t earned it. Which, incidentally, is classic Marxism (”From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” — Marx said it.)
There are Supreme Court Judges over 70 .... he's already told us how he will make his picks - and it has nothing to do with interpreting or upholding the Constitution.
No one man has the power? = With that "one man" in the WH and both houses controlled by the Socialists = all the power in the world - literally
WE all damn well better vote straight ticket, no matter what we think of our pubbie reps. We may think our state dem rep is okay = but remember, when push comes to shove, they ALL vote as a block!
We let this nightmare happen and we consign, not just ourselves, but our kids, our grandkids and their kids to Socialism = and whitey is going to be on the bottom of the barrel. You can take that to the bank.
To me, saying that the Constitution itself represents a fundamental flaw in the country is far worse, but yes, the other does play more into the current campaign narrative and shows Zero to be the Marxist that he is.
Voted best comment of the day!
“The constitution may be flawed but its a whole lot better than what we have now.”
How true...but the founding fathers probably could easily picture a man of Obama’s stature winning the presidency if they knew that God has been virtually removed from our society. The “Separation” issue was to keep the government out of religion..not necessarily keeping religious beliefs out of government. We’ve moved from separation of church and state...towards separation of church and society. When you remove God from society what do you get? You get global warming as the most important issue because that is the left’s religion. You get media who simply does not believe in God and believes the end justifies the mean....you get liberals working hand and hand together in Congress, the courts and the White House...and you paint those who still do believe in God as ultra-fringe right extremists....
The founding fathers never thought democracy could work without a strong moral foundation...we’ve lost that foundation and if the founding fathers could have seen that they’d wouldn’t be surprised that Obama is so close to being elected president.
But it does require ratification by two-thirds of the state legislatures.
I'd be more afraid of judicial appointments.
Wow!
And we are the only ones that will ever hear this.
I find myself saying this a lot lately, can you imagine what would happen if an audio file of Sarah Palin,from any point in her life, saying the exact same thing surfaced?
Obama, we don’t care what you think.
-—but nothing on the order of threatening to confiscate the hard-earned wealth of productive American citizens and then redistributing it to those who hadn’t earned it—
How very odd that you use the exact word that Obama uses in denying that he is advocating REDISTRIBUTION. Have you had a serious head injury on the left side of your head?
He said: put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributed change
He said: but I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts.
The Founding Fathers operated on the assumption that the right of private property was one of the basic foundations of liberty--Obama is 180 degrees off, in the pure socialist tradition (redistribution of wealth). After all, "property is theft."
The Constitution has always been a flawed document (as has every document created by man) and was just words on paper. The real magic was in the people who believed those words and abided by them. Obama will either be a tyrant or a discarded wanna be. It depends on the number of people who still believe those words and are willing to abide by them. Our destiny has always depended on that.
I have not heard the audio yet, but let’s give it a shot. For some time, I have been telling people that Obama and his lefties believe that the Constitution was written by rich white guys who owned slaves and no longer applies in modern society. It is a living, breathing document. The judges he appoints are going to tell us what it means, which is simply what they want it to mean.
Actually, constitutional amendments have to be ratified by 3/4 of the states (it’s in Congress that a 2/3 vote in required from each house).
I see that this has been edited into a summary video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iivL4c_3pck
If Sarah was out saying this stuff, the Left might actually like her.
I can see Obama using his own lack of an original birth certificate as a test case.
I'm totally going to believe you - cuz I can't remember the last time I had to know that (and I obviously didn't memorize it very well).
But what if we want to ‘send the Republicans a message’ by voting for an unheard of, unknown third party candidate who doesn’t have a snowballs chance in hell of winning. I would rather this country turn marxist communist with obama and a democrat supermajority in Congress led by Pelosi and Reid than to suck it up and cast a vote to prevent that. Doing anything else would go against my precious, precious principles which are more important than trivial matters like the irreversible turn towards fascism an obama/dem victory would bring to this country. No, I will vote third party (or possibly write-in my vote) to prove that there are those of us who love this country so much that we are willing to allow its destruction at the hands of an avowed marxist.
That’s exactly what I’m trying to drive home to the doubters. This is a dangerous game being played.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2116051/posts?page=23#23
“If Sarah was out saying this stuff, the Left might actually like her.”
Only if she effectually stammered while pontificating...
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