Posted on 04/14/2008 1:26:06 AM PDT by MartinaMisc
I haven’t read much Karl Marx since the early 1980s, when I taught political philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. Still, it didn’t take me long this weekend to find my copy of “The Marx-Engels Reader,” edited by Robert C. Tucker — a book that was assigned in thousands of college courses in the 1970s and 80s, and that now must lie, unopened and un-remarked upon, on an awful lot of rec-room bookshelves.
My occasion for spending a little time once again with the old Communist was Barack Obama’s now-famous comment at an April 6 San Francisco fund-raiser. Obama was explaining his trouble winning over small-town, working-class voters: “It’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
This sent me to Marx’s famous statement about religion in the introduction to his “Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right”:
“Religious suffering is at the same time an expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of a soulless condition. It is the opium of the people.”
Or, more succinctly, and in the original German in which Marx somehow always sounds better: “Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
You hit that nail right on its head!
Its bad enough as it is, and he doesn’t even mention the fact that he was speaking at a private fund raising function for the seriously rich. At least his making the right connection, not just concentrating on “bitter”.
I understand its almost unique for Obama to be chided by the New York Times. I hope its the first of many well deserved smackdowns.
“I understand its almost unique for Obama to be chided by the New York Times. I hope its the first of many well deserved smackdowns.”
This is not the NY Times, it’s Bill Krystol, recently hired by the NY Times, and a conservative. He’s their token conservative columnist now. We’ll see how long he lasts writing columns like this.
Krystol = Kristol (oops) above
It’s about time for some enterprising reporter to ask Obama, if he is such a sincere and devoted Christian now, whether he has ever been baptized into a Christian church. His kids have been, but what about him? I hear he has never been baptized. All Christians at some point are baptized into their religion. Especially converts. What about Obama? Hmmmmm?
BINGO! What has Senator Barack Hussein Obama done that he should look down his nose at US?! I’m nobody, but I have 10 times more military and foreign policy experience than Obama and Hillary Clinton, COMBINED! So he graduated from Harvard Law?! Well, whoop-de-freaking-doo! Hillary went to Yale Law and she’s never done anything, either!
Good question. And why persist with his Muslim name?
This guy is beginning to come across as pathetic. He never experienced the Black American experience and neither did any of his relatives. His mother was white, his father from Africa who came to the US on a scholarship and eventually got his doctorate at Harvard. And yet Obama for political expediency chose to associated with the Black American experienee in one of its most extreme forms, that of the church of the Rev. Jermiah Wright.
As in Islam, they are not able to make a distinction between the kingdom of Ceasar and the Kingdom of God. It is for that reason that baptism, whether by water or by the Holy Spirit, does not carry the same meaning as with traditional Christianity.
And why persist with his Muslim name?
Hussein is an Arabic name, not indicative of any particular religion necessarily. One of the most committed Catholics I know is named Mohammed. What else is Obama supposed to call himself than the name given to him by his parents, particularly as it was also his father's name?
He never experienced the Black American experience.
What does this mean? Please enlighten this black woman on what exactly is the Black American experience and how you feel Obama didn't share it. And the fascination with wanting to know if and when he was baptized is just about the most tired, asinine thing I've read today.
It will help me to learn your definition.
Obama later added: "I am a devout Christian ... I started my work working with churches in the shadow of steel plants that had closed on the south side of Chicago ..."
Obama said that to him, "religion is a bulwark, a foundation when other things aren't going well. That's true in my own life, through trials and tribulations. ..."
"...Nobody in a presidential campaign on the Democratic side in recent memory has done more to reach out to the church and talk about, what are our obligations religiously, in terms of doing good works, and how does that inform our politics?"
I think it is a reasonable question to ask someone who considers himself a devout Christian and says so in a national forum.
Hussein was the grandson of Mohammed. Having worked in the Middle East and having many Arab friends both Christian and Muslim, I never met a Christian Arab named Hussein (except as a last name) So I think you are wrong on that point. And on your committed Catholic friend named Mohammed, I will just have to take your word for it. The most committed Catholics I know are not named Mohammed.
Most Christians when they convert to Islam are encouraged to take Muslim names and the few Muslims that I have known that have converted to Christianity (the Catholic variety) have taken Christian names at baptism and confirmation.
The Black American experience was to have ancestors who were born in slavery and lived through 100 years of segregation. That cannot be said of Barack Hussein Obama.
“And the fascination with wanting to know if and when he was baptized is just about the most tired, asinine thing I’ve read today.”
Really? Mine was your response.
I’m about as opposed to Marxism as anyone else, but I think that Marx has gotten a bum rap about saying “Religion is the opium of the masses, the heart of a heartless world.” I don’t think Marx was criticizing religion or putting religious people down. Opium was the most powerful drug available in his time, one of the few things that worked reliably against severe pain. Our modern pain killers are based on it. When we hear “opium” we may think of addiction and wasted lives, but in Marx’s time I think the associations were more positive. Marx meant to praise religion by comparing it to opium. It comforts pains that nothing else can touch.
It wasn’t pointing out the fact that people find comfort and solace in their faith that got Obama into trouble, but the sneering and superior way in which he said it.
I have communicated with Cathleen Falsani, religion columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times; the Chicago Tribune's Manya Brachear; and Chicago-based journalist, broadcaster and critic Andy Martin and none can find any record of a baptism.
Obama’s “conversion” occurred when he answered one of Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright's altar calls by walking down the aisle of Trinity Church to make a formal commitment of his faith.
That's it. That's how Obama became a Christian. He walked down the aisle and pledged acceptance of the “Black Value System.”
There. Fixed it.
Allam didn't have to take a Christian name, but I think it is a reasonable line of inquiry when it comes to the future President of the United States.
Far from praising religion Marx was expressing complete disdain. Opiate as in pacifier, like for a baby. Something to keep them occupied and in check. Exactly what Obama was so eloquently saying.
Another thing that gets me - what devout Christians would say people “cling to their religion” out of frustration? Seems more like something an atheist or agnostic would say.
. . .and thanks to Kristol for calling Marx; Obama's other mentor and inspiration. . .to attention.
No question that Obama is inprecisely 'Marxist'; and no question that his mask has slipped more than once.
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