CHICAGO (AP) – In his first major public address since a cancer crisis, Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan said Sunday that presidential candidate Barack Obama is the “hope of the entire world” that the U.S. will change for the better.The 74-year-old Farrakhan, addressing an estimated crowd of 20,000 people at the annual Saviours’ Day celebration, never outrightly endorsed Obama but spent most of the nearly two-hour speech praising the Illinois senator.
“This young man is the hope of the entire world that America will change and be made better,” he said. “This young man is capturing audiences of black and brown and red and yellow. If you look at Barack Obama’s audiences and look at the effect of his words, those people are being transformed.”Farrakhan compared Obama to the religion’s founder, Fard Muhammad, who also had a white mother and black father.
“A black man with a white mother became a savior to us,” he told the crowd of mostly followers. “A black man with a white mother could turn out to be one who can lift America from her fall.”
……Said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton: “Sen. Obama has been clear in his objections to Minister Farrakhan’s past pronouncements and has not solicited the minister’s support.”
This is the second endorsement picked up by Obama in the past few days that involve some pretty nasty characters.
Sandinista thug Daniel Ortega sent his good wishes here:
Link: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/02/14/america/LA-POL-Nicaragua-Ortega-Obama.php
Well, you have to ask yourself what is it that someone like Farrakhan, a militant muslim with a violent rhetoric and past, finds so appealing about Barack Obama? If you have the type of value system that attracts despots like Ortega and Farrakhan to begin with, there’s something wrong with that picture.
Farrakhan rebuilt the Nation of Islam, which promotes black empowerment and nationalism, in the late 1970s after W.D. Mohammed, the son of longtime leader Elijah Mohammed, moved his followers toward mainstream Islam.
That movement toward ‘mainstream’ Islam caused a rift between W.D. (Warith Deen) Mohammad and Farrakhan that lasted for over 20 years. Farrakhan split from W.D.’s American Muslim Mission in 1978. They publically ‘kissed and made up’ in 2000. Farrakhan has been accused of having a part in the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X. The charges have never been proven, but there’s a strong possibility they’re true.
Farrakhan has drawn attention for calling Judaism a “gutter religion” and suggesting crack cocaine might have been a CIA plot to enslave blacks.
He also said Hilter was a ‘great man’ and has, like his Imam counterparts, spewed a lot of violent racist statements:
“It is an act of mercy to white people that we end your world. . . . We must end your world and bring in a new world.” On another occasion, he told his followers, “We are at war and we never stop fighting for justice. You must have force. . . . don’t drop your gun and don’t forget to squeeze.”
Link: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8V13IMO1&show_article=1
More background here: Link: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1344288/posts
Who’s next with an endorsement? Castro? Chavez? Putin? Mugabe? Kim Jong Il? Ahmadinejad?