Should Barack Obama's patriotism be questioned?

Was Paul Robeson a patriot?

"It is unthinkable that American Negroes will go to war on behalf of those who have oppressed us for generations... against a country [the Soviet Union] which in one generation has raised our people to the full dignity of mankind."

In March of 1950, NBC cancelled Robeson's scheduled appearance on former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt's television program, Today with Mrs. Roosevelt. A spokesman for NBC declared that Robeson would never appear on NBC. Press releases of the Civil Rights Congress objected that "censorship of Mr. Robeson's appearance on TV is a crude attempt to silence the outstanding spokesman for the Negro people in their fight for civil and human rights" and that our "basic democratic rights are under attack under the smoke-screen of anti-Communism." Protesters picketed NBC offices and protests arrived from numerous public figures, organizations and others

But you had better read it all. It is not disputable that Mr. Robeson was a fierce and correct fighter for civil rights and equal opportunity, but there is more to this. It is one thing to dislike the LACK of equal opportunity, and fight to change it, it is another to hate that system which permitted such a thing (and it's extinguishment) to that degree which necessitates fundamental change. Or is it?

Robeson is an extreme example, but the principle is the same

If someone's dissatisfaction with the system is so profound that his or her vision of a better place conflicts dramatically and fundamentally with the improvements the majority have in mind, is that a lack of patriotism?

From The Audacity of Hope, and Dreams from My Father:

Candidate Obama proudly tells audiences that his white grandparents U.S. society is a "racial caste system" where "color and money" determine where you end up in life. He tells us of white children's stoning black children, Jim Crow, and heatless Harlem housing projects. He describes "Japanese families interned behind barbed wire; young Russian Jews cutting patterns in Lower East Side sweatshops; dust-bowl farmers loading up their trucks with the remains of shattered lives."were raised in the American heartland. But in Dreams he describes this heartland as the "landlocked center of the country, a place where decency and endurance and the pioneer spirit were joined at the hip with conformity and suspicion and the potential for unblinking cruelty."

Candidate Obama fondly tells audiences that one of his earliest memories is of sitting on his grandfather's shoulders proudly watching the Apollo astronauts return to Hawaii after their splashdown in the Pacific. But in Dreams, even this event is an occasion for outrage, as Obama asks: "How could America send men into space and still keep its black citizens in bondage?

If Obama sees himself as a 'spy behind enemy lines' working for a modern american corporation, what is his self view as a presidential nominee? Is that why he is so non specific in his speeches about the changes he wants to bring?

If his heart swells with pride at the sight of the flag with that belief set, then WHY?

Fear mongering?

Sorry but this is a presidential election, and we all get to ask.

What is the difference between Thurgood Marshall and Paul Robeson?

Just asking....what is it that holds us back on this day when McCain shockingly takes the lead?