This is really amazing stuff!
The following is montage of some of the statements Barack Obama made in a newly released 2001 interview to Chicago Public Radio WBEZ.
Some of the more disturbing statements made by, then, Illinois State Senator, Barack Obama:
"You know, if you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and it's litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to invest 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 would be okay. But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.
And, to that extent, as radical as I think people try 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 Warren Court interpreted it 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.
And, one of the, I think, the 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 redistributive change. And in some ways we still suffer from that."
Then, there was this statement that shows exactly what Senator Obama would potentially be "optimistic" about, as well as his lamenting about what the system, in its current state, is just not "structured" to allow for:
"You know, 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."
Listen to excerpts from the interview in the following clip:
More: Right Wing News [6] - Michelle Malkin [7] - Ace of Spades [8] - PoliPundit [9] - Hot Air [10]
